2015 Emergency Preparedness

I hope by now you all have your food storage.  If you are like me it is hard to know just how to use what you store.  I hope to be of help by posting my recipes, recipes I find, and recipes you share as the main focus for next years emergency preparedness.

December Emergency Preparedness - Are you and your pets prepared for winter?

Are you prepared for winter?  Are your pets prepared for emergency evacuation?  Are your vehicles winterized and prepared for an emergency breakdown with you in it?

Your 72 hour kit should be up to date with winter clothes and three days of food and water.  Make sure your batteries, medications, documents and anything else you need is current.

Your pets should have three days supply of necessary items ready to go also.  Do you have someone to take care of your pets if you can't get home for several days?

Is your car equipped to take care of you if you break down, get lost, or have to wait out a storm?  You can make an emergency car heaters, entertainment kits, first aid kits, and car food kits to keep yourself prepared.

 Emergency Car Heater  Click Here

November Emergency Preparedness - Winter Preparedness

Are you ready for winter?  Do you have what you need to get you through a day or more without power and water?
Stock up on whatever you need to keep you comfortable in your home with no power, heat, cooking conveniences, and water.

Are you prepared for a winter car emergency?  Can you sit at the side of the road for hours in a snow storm?
Stock up on whatever you need to keep you comfortable and safe if you have to stay in your car for a long period of time.

October Emergency Preparedness - Update your 72 Hour Kit and First Aid Kit

Update your 72 Hour Kit

This month is a good time to update your 72 Hour Kit.

Repack with winter clothes instead of summer clothes.

Check for expired food and water and update as needed.

Replace medications that have expired.  Add 3 days of new medications and eliminate those no longer needed.

Review your copies of legal documents and make new copies of those that have changed.  View the Legal Document Suggestions page at the top of the blog for paperwork you may want to have copies of.

Update your First Aid Kit

Replace any missing and expired items.

Add new items that apply to any new situation such as new family member(s), new medications, allergy changes, etc.

September Emergency Preparedness - Grow a Winter Garden and Eat for Free.

Growing a Winter Garden

Vegetables that work for most winter gardens include beets, carrots, parsnips, rutabagas, onions, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cabbages, cauliflower, leeks, turnips, kohlrabi, collard greens, many lettuces, mustard greens, spinach, Swiss chard, chives and radishes.

Plant garlic now and don’t cover it.  The garlic will be ready in the summer.

It is not possible to grow summer crops like tomatoes, cucumbers or zucchini in the winter—unless you want to invest in a heated greenhouse with special lights and other climate controls.

Start your winter now.  The Reno/Sparks area has an average first frost of September 10.

You need to be able to cover your crops.  The birds will eat your seedlings, so keep a close watch on your garden or keep it covered at all times.

Raised beds covered with old windows are the easiest.  Milk jugs, large soda bottles, or any clear/semi-clear plastic will work.  As the plants grow the containers to cover the plants will need to get larger also.

Hoop houses work great also.  They can easily be built with PVC pipe rounded over the garden and the ends secured to the ground and covered with clear plastic.  Put pieces or rebar into the ground and place the pipe ends on the rebar.  Any clear plastic will work for a season or two, but special UV resistant plastic is available.  Check your local plant nursery.

Cut the bottom off of the milk or soda bottles.  Save the lids to close the top of the container to keep the plant warmer and remove the top when the weather is very warm.

Mulch will help keep the plants warm. Snow is a great for keeping plants warm also.

Remember to water as needed.  Don’t over water.  If you have raised beds that are covered you will need to water more, since no snow or rain can get inside.

Watch for bugs in your plants.  They will love the warmth from the plant covering also.

Save the snow and rain that runs off of the roof for watering your garden.

August Emergency Preparedness - Dehydrating

If you planted a garden this summer, you may be wondering what to do with all of the produce.  If your fruit trees are producing a lot too, you may be wondering what to do with all of the fruit.

Here are some dehydrating ideas:

The following items (from my experience) can be placed on the dehydrator racks at 120 - 130 degrees and dried until crisp.

Crookneck slices

Zucchini slices

Cabbage strips

Spinach leaves

All herb leaves

Bell pepper slices

Tomato slices

Onion slices

The following items need to be blanched (cooked in boiling water), then but into ice cold water to stop the cooking process before drying

Carrot slices, peeled – blanch 3 to 5 minutes

Corn on the cob – blanch 3 to 5 minutes cut kernels off of the cob before drying.

Hash browns – boil potatoes whole and cool overnight in the refrigerator. The next morning peel, shred, and dehydrate.

Potato slices – peel and slice. Place in cold lemon water to keep them from turning brown before dehydrating.

The following items (from my experience) can be placed on the dehydrator racks at 120 - 130 degrees and dried until pliable, but dry.  Place in cold lemon water before drying to keep them from turning brown.

Apple slices

Peach slices

Pear slices

The following do not need to go into lemon water first:

Cherries, pitted

Grapes

Make fruit leather (fruit roll-ups)

Puree desired fruit.  I like to add applesauce to make the fruit go farther.  It seems to me that it helps the apricots not turn as dark and the berry fruits not so seedy.  I use about 1/4 to 1/3 part applesauce.  Test your mixture to see how it tastes.  Add a liquid sweetener if needed.  Granulated sweeteners make the fruit leather crispy.  Dry until pliable.  Lay the fruit leather on a sheet of plastic wrap before rolling, so it doesn’t stick to itself and become a tube of fruit leather.  If it becomes crisp, crumble the fruit crisp and add to cereal.

For more details and pictures go to my garden preserving blog - http://reapitkeepit.blogspot.com/

Baking Bread in a Crock Pot

I have baked white bread in a crock pot twice.  It has fallen both times.  My whole wheat bread didn't fall, but I have no picture of that, so I will make that again and take pictures to post.

Here is the white bread process from 6-26-14.

I mixed the dough in my Kitchen Aid mixer.

Bread needs to be baked in an oval crock pot.  Put canning rings or jar lids in the bottom to keep the bread pan off the bottom of the crock pot.

Put the dough in a greased bread pan.  You do not have to let it rise and punch it down first.  This went from the mixer to the bread pan.

Here it is in the crock pot.  Make sure it is centered.  If one edge of the pan is closer to the crock pot edge that spot will cook faster.

Next I put the lid on the crock pot and turned it on high.

Here it is 1 hour and 5 minutes later.

I turned the flash off of the camera and that helps with the picture.  This is 1 hour and 3 minutes after the last picture and the bread has fallen some.

Another hour and 20 minutes later and it looks done.

Here it is 3 hours and 25 minutes after it went into the cold crock pot.  I didn't plan on leaving it cooking that long.

I sprayed the pan with olive oil instead of Pam like I usually do and this is what the pan looked like when I finally got the bread out.

Here is the bread with the messed up bottom.
It tastes good, but the bottom crust breaks off when slicing it and it is a little on the dry side.


New white bread making try 7-2-14

I mixed the bread dough in my Kitchen Aid mixer again and put it into the bread pan right away.

This time I decide to put it in a white bread pan in hopes that it would be easier to see in the crock pot. I also spray the bread pan with Pam this time.

I also turned the crock pot on high when I started mixing the bread, so that it would be warm and maybe the bread wouldn't fall this time. It is centered and sitting on the canning rings also.

It is rising fast this time.  This is 20 minutes after I put it in the crock pot.

After just 10 more minutes is has raised a lot more.

Another 25 minutes later and it has fallen some.

1 hour and 30 minutes after the last picture and it looks almost done.

 Here it is after 2 hours and 45 minutes from the time it went into the crock pot.  It fell even more.

This side is a little darker than the other side.

Here is the other side.  We haven't cut into it yet, but I will let you know tomorrow how it holds up.
This loaf came out of the crock pot 40 minutes sooner than the previous loaf.

Peanut Butter Cookies Baked in a Solar Pizza Box Oven

Today we made cookies in our solar oven.

I set the pizza box on an old stove we have in the back yard, because I was too lazy to bend over and I wanted to see if the heat from the metal would make a difference.

Here is the first batch of cookies ready to cook.

Into the oven they go.  The oven thermometer  (in the upper right corner) says 78 degrees.

Here they are after 40 minutes of cooking.  I think they are done. The temperature when I took them out was 158 degrees.

Turn the box so that the reflector (lid) is facing directly into the sun.  The shadow will follow the same angle as the box.  Rotate the box as needed.  I rotated it with every new batch of cookies.

This is the second batch of cookies cooking.  In the bottom right corner you can sort of see the oven thermometer.  The temperature stayed at 158 degrees.  The second batch cooked 50 minutes and the third batch cooked 60 minutes.  The third batch was the best and could have cooked even longer.

The 12 on the left are the third batch.  The 8 in the center are the second batch and the 4 on the right are the first batch.

The kids ate them even though they were not cooked enough.

The chocolate chip cookies I baked last year were in the box on the cement. The thermometer reached a temperature of 230 degrees, so on the cement the oven goes next time.

Just for Kids

This month is a simplify life by keeping kids entertained with inexpensive homemade entertainment and more.

Keeping Kids Entertained in the Summer

Keeping children entertained at a low cost is not always easy.  Here are some inexpensive and free ideas.

Make Oobleck.  We did this today for the first time and the kids played with it for about one hour.

Oobleck is a solid when you tap or hit it, but a liquid when to gently touch it.

Oobleck Recipe

1 cup cornstarch

1 1/2 - 2 cups water

Food coloring if desired.

We started with 1 1/2 cups of water and ended up using 1 3/4 cups.  Put cornstarch into a large bowl and stir in the water.  I will get hard to stir.  Stirring it is equal to hitting it so it becomes a solid.  So just scoop up what you can and place it on top and it will turn liquid a melt into the other liquid.

Let the kids punch and scoop with their hands all they want.  It is easy to clean up a big glob that falls on the table.  Quickly grab it and it will become a solid.  Hold your fingers above the bowl and it will run off.  
The oobleck started to dry and crack after a couple of hours of no use.  I put the lid on the container and this morning (almost 24 hours after making) I slowly added water (about 1/2 cup) until it was back to the original consistency. 

Homemade Bubbles

6 cups distilled water (it works better than tap water)

3/4 cup Dawn dish soap

1 Tablespoon glycerin (this can be found below the bandages)

Stir all ingredients together.

Do you have an empty liquid laundry soap or fabric softener bottle with a push button spout?  Clean it out and pour the bubble mixture into it and the kids can refill their own bubble containers.

Bubble Wands

Make bubble wands from pipe cleaners by making a loop on one end. Dip the loop into the bubble mixture.

Cut the bottom off of a water bottle.  Dip the cut end into the bubble mixture and blow into the top of the bottle.

Squirt a little dish soap into the center of a damp washcloth and tie (string or elastic band) it onto the cut off end of the water bottle and then dip the washcloth into the bubble mixture for super bubbles. Blow into the top of the bottle.

Use a slotted spoon or spatula to dip in the bubbles.  You can blow through the slits or wave the handle.

handle.

Science Experiment (I don’t know if this has a real name)

Baking soda

White vinegar

Food coloring

Eye droppers for young kids and medicine syringes works for older kids.

Non metal tray.  The more surface area; the more fun.

Pour vinegar into small plastic cups and color as desired.  I buy Easter egg dye after Easter and use that for coloring too.  You don’t have to use the entire dye tablet.  Break a piece off and use a little at a time.

Pour a thin layer (about 1/4 inch deep) of baking soda into a tray.

Fill the droppers and syringes with vinegar and squeeze it onto the baking soda. It will keep foaming until the baking soda is saturated with vinegar.

When the kids are finished pour the mixture down the disposal to make it smell better or pour the mixture on the weeds to kill them.

Playdough

1 cup flour

1 cup water

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1/2 cup salt

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Food coloring.  I like the paste type for cake decorating best.

Mix everything except the food coloring in to a pan and cook over medium heat. Stir continuously until thickened and holding together.  Put the food coloring into the center of the dough and knead until distributed throughout.  The kids love to do this and watch the color change.

The food coloring can be added as it is thickening.

Don’t cook on high heat.  I think that is why mine has leached out the salt as it is played with.  The salt didn’t get a chance to dissolve completely, because of being in a hurry to get it cooked.

If it started to crumble after a few days it was overcooked.

Chocolate Playdough

Same as above with these exceptions.

Use 3/4 cup of flour and 1/4 cup of cocoa powder

Leave out food coloring.

This is such a hit that I always double this recipe.

Check out your Local Library

You can find more than just books.

Borrow movies.

Check out video games.  These go fast, so you may want to put it on hold (waiting list).  I wanted a game for our WII, but didn’t want to pay the price, so I put it on hold from the library and was excited when it was finally available for me to check out.  I soon found out that I hated it.

Books on CD.  This is my favorite.  I put them on my computer and then onto my MP3 player.

Electronic books are available to download to your MP3 player, IPod, Nook, Kindle, and more.  These are done from the library website.

I just found out that the first Friday of the month is free Museum day at Virginia City, but NOT July 4 thru August 1. Normally this is May through October.

Check the different attractions in your area for free and discounted days. 

Don’t forget camping.  I don’t like to camp without flushing toilets and showers. Those places are not cheap to find this time of year, so we have already camped in the backyard.  We stay out all day and cook outside and sleep in a tent.  It is too much work for one night, so we camp at least two nights. We have a few things in an ice chest outside, but go in house to get the majority of what we need.  Lazy camping, but the kids love it.

For more ideas go to my Just for Kids Pinterest page by clicking here.