Container plants that survived the winter

I do all my planting in containers and last Fall I brought my thyme and parsley indoors to sit in my kitchen window in hopes it would make it till Spring when I could replant it outdoors.. 

Winter in my area is usually a lot of gloomy days with little to no sunshine but these two plants hung in there and are now enjoying warm sunny weather.. soon I'll be replanting them into larger containers..

I also dug up some of my chive's and put them in a smaller pot to sit in the window along with some onions I'd had in a glass of water..

I didn't do much clipping off these plants, they seemed best to leave them alone.

I knew from experience that chives would survive the cold winter which they have done and are now growing nicely

What really surprised me was finding my sage coming back to life

Now before any of you start telling me these plants always come back up in the Spring, let me remind you, they spent the winter in pots that got rained, sleeted and snowed on and most of the time the dirt in the pots froze solid.

That is what's so amazing

Food Storage Record Keeping Made Easy

I don't consider myself a Prepper..   

stocking up on food is and always has been a way of life for me.  

I grew up on a farm and we stored enough food to make it to the next growing season.  Moving to Urban living is no different to me, I still grow a garden and the things I can't grow I buy in quantities when on sale.

I do keep spare water because I've seen the times when a water main broke and we needed stored water to drink.

I've also saw times when ice storms has knocked out the power for weeks at a time and the store shelves were bare.

With out our food storage we'd been a bit hungry.

so if that makes me a Prepper, then so be it.

The reason I'm showing you a glimpse of my storage is to bring to mind how hard it is to keep track of what you do have.

Do you really think you can remember all that you have stashed away and the expiration dates without a record?

I can't

Not without a record of some kind

And that's what this blog is all about, I want to show you what and how I keep up with everything.

If you are using Google Chrome then you probably know all about how you can keep up with everything from browser to browser to different computers.. bookmarks follow you on all your signed in computers.

Did you know Google also has a Drive you can use to store pictures and documents?  Yup and it also follows you on all your devices.

But the neatest part is Drive also has a spread sheet

BINGO

That's what you can use for your storage records.. make changes anytime you add or remove and item and no matter which computer you're on you can access it and even print off hard copies.

Now you ready for the next BINGO?

If you own a Kindle Fire you can also access those pictures and records.. some people say you can't but you can.

Go to Amazon app store and download their ES3 app.

Sorry the center of the app didn't show up but you can read what's under it and see the shape.. it's a light blue with ES3 written inside.

Using that app you can download Google Drive and all your records.

There's my records on my Kindle Fire

You can add or remove on it too, just like on your computer.

Same as on my computer

Neat huh?

If you're like me, when I come across a good deal at the store, say on syrup, I like to know how many I have stored in the basement.

I don't want more then we can use before it expires so I print off a hard copy of my list and keep it in my wallet.

I guess you could take your tablet to the store but that's not something I care to do when a printed copy works just as well.

I'm so in love with this that I'm planning on making up lists for my two freezers.. and who knows, I might even start a list of my upstairs pantry.

JALAPENO SALT AND PEPPER

My family is addicted to jalapeno salt and pepper

It's delicious on just about everything.. the first time I made some I added salt to keep it from clumping but adding extra salt to some foods wasn't a healthy idea so I now make some with black pepper too and this is working out great..

Use the jalapeno salt when cooking and the jalapeno pepper on already salted foods.

The other day I found some nice looking jalapenos at a local Mexican store for 99 cents a pound and I bought 11 pounds of them.

Cut into long slices and dried in my Excalibur dehydrator over night at 135 degrees

I use my herb/coffee grinder and after I fill each salt shaker half full I top one off with salt and the other with black pepper then I dump each one back in the grinder for a quick pulse to make sure their blended.

A word of warning 

be sure you wear a face mask when doing this because the fine powder will get breathed into your nose.. when you take the lid off the grinder it looks like a green cloud floating up and around you.

 if you don't own a mask then wrap a wet rag around your face.

Healthy Granola Snack Mix

Every since I tasted the Girl Scouts Cranberry Orange snack mix I've been wanting to try making it myself.  This is my first try, not perfect but wildly delicious on its own.  It does have cranberry juice in it but I didn't have any dried cranberries so I used dried cherries.  Maybe it would have tasted more like the real thing if I'd had those tartly delicious cranberries.. I'll give that a try the next time.  And because of not having those berries I kind of went over board and added a lot of things I'm sure they don't have in their mix..  I not only used sliced almonds, I added pecan's and walnuts too along with dried apple chunks.

I figured if I couldn't make the real McCoy then I'd make up a bowl of goodness of my own.

And it is good

Here's my recipe if you'd like to make some

Heat oven to 350

Spray a cookie sheet with nonstick cooking spray

In a large bowl add

2 cups of old fashioned oats

1/2 cup sliced almonds

1/2 cup pecan pieces

1/2 cup walnuts

1/2 cup dried cherries

1/2 cup diced dried apples

1 teaspoon orange zest

1/4 teaspoon salt

Mix all together and sit aside

In a small sauce pan add:

1/3 cup maple syrup (I'm sure dark Karo would work as well)

1/2 cup cranberry juice

2/3 cup brown sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Bring to boil over medium heat stirring constantly

Pour over the oat mixture and mix thoroughly.  

Spread out on the cookie sheet and bake for 20 minutes.. stir and bake an additional 15 minutes or until brown.

I wanted to make sure it was dry and crispy so I then spread it out on dehydrator sheets and dried it for 2 hours at 145

How to Make Tomato Powder With Can tomatoes and Tomato Paste

Tomato powder

Fairly cheap and not hard to make

First I tried drying cans of tomato paste but the leather was hard to grind and wanted to clump, just not enough moisture in it, so this time around I used two cans of tomatoes with one can of paste and it worked great, just the consistency needed.

Toss it in a blender and blend until smooth

Dry at 125 degrees for approximately 10 to 14 hours or until completely dry to touch.

Two cans of whole or diced tomatoes and one can of paste filled 3 dehydrator trays.

I also found that I could use two cans of tomato sauce in place of the can tomatoes with the same result.

They dried nice and thin. I removed them from the leather trays and flipped them over onto the net trays and dried them for another hour to make sure all moisture was removed.

Two cans of dried ground tomatoes and one can of paste made 7 1/2 tablespoons of powder.

All 9 trays didn't even make a pint

but it's packed with concentrated flavor

Eating From My Food Storage.. Slow Cooker White Chicken Chili

All season long while dehydrating every vegetable and herb I could get my hands on, I had one goal in mind.

Being able to make meals in a jar that on a busy day could be dumped in my Crock Pot to cook.

Also if the power goes off I can cook this on the stove and not have to dig through my fridge or freezer.

(we cook with gas)

Chicken chili was top on my list and after much experimenting (on my poor family)  this is the best recipe I've came up.

Other then the chicken it's all dehydrated foods.

I keep cooked chicken in my freezer and I also have can chicken.  I see no point in wasting my money on freeze dried chicken when can will work as well.

white Chicken Chili

3 cups pre-soaked Great Northern or white navy beans drained

   (dehydrating some quick cook beans are next on my list)

2 rounded tablespoons dehydrated onion flakes or slices

2 tablespoons dehydrated chopped red bell pepper

2 tablespoons dehydrated chopped green bell pepper

1 tablespoon diced dehydrated jalapeno pepper

2 teaspoons garlic powder or diced chunk garlic

1 tablespoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon dried oregano

4 chicken bullion cubes

4 cups water

8 ounces cooked chicken 

Combine all ingredients in slow cooker, cover and cook on low 8 hours or high for 4 hours.

Nothing feels better after being gone all day then the welcoming smell of dinner waiting to be dished up.

My family gave me a thumbs up on this one

Excalibur Food Dehydrator versus American Harvest Nesco

I was asked to do a comparison between the Nesco and Excalibur food dehydrators

and

I'm totally blown away

Celery dried in 14 hours in the Excalibur

My Nesco

14 hours later only the edges are dry and I even rotated the trays before going to bed.

Two months ago I bought an American Harvester Nesco due to the price, it gets the job done but at a much slower rate.

From now on any dehydrators in my future will be an Excalibur