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Week 46- Preparations for What Ails You (or not)

2/29/2020

The new kid on the block is a novel coronavirus disease, now called COVID-19 (COronaVIrus Disease, found in 2019)

Last I heard, 11 people here in Utah were being tested for the disease, and one verified case had been sent to IHC in Murray.

Some people have freaked out a little bit. Costco shelves up and down the Wasatch Front were stripped of bottled water and toilet paper, in event of people needing to quarantine at home.

My sister and her family live in South Korea-
the temple has been shut down, the military base where her husband works now has restricted access, schools were canceled two weeks ago, with no end in sight, daycare facilities are closed, and all church gatherings/meetings are cancelled.

What can we do here to prepare?

The same as our Church leaders have told us since 2007: the circumstances have changed, but the principles remain. Have water on hand, enough to cover essentials for two weeks. Have a 3-month supply of foods we're used to eating, other basic necessities, and some money on hand and in the bank. And then work on getting a long-term food supply.
If you don't have all that, then at least have some. If you don't have any, then begin now.

I shared some tips with a reporter from KSL News; they’re found at about 1:40 into the video. The part filmed at my house begins at 1:13.

Don’t panic. Nobody makes good decisions when they’re panicked.
Look through what you already have at home- inventory the food you have in your freezer, pantry, or anywhere else.
Make a plan and get the things you need- what will your family actually eat?
Be smart about this. Store what you eat, and eat what you store.

Having food and other basics stored is not just a good plan for COVID-19, but for any number of other emergencies or events we eventually encounter- job loss, health problems, unexpected bills, and more. Meanwhile, wash your hands, cover your mouth when you cough, get plenty of sunshine and fresh air, avoid large gatherings, and stay home if you’re sick. There are more tips atthe CDC website.

To finish today's post, here’s a list from the EPA of registered products that kill COVID-19. https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2020-03/documents/sars-cov-2-list_03-03-2020.pdf

“Self-reliance is a product of our work and under-girds all other welfare practices. It is an essential element in our spiritual as well as our temporal well-being. Regarding this principle, President Marion G. Romney has said: “Let us work for what we need. Let us be self-reliant and independent. Salvation can be obtained on no other principle. Salvation is an individual matter, and we must work out our own salvation in temporal as well as in spiritual things.”
(In Welfare Services Meeting Report, 2 Oct. 1976, p. 13.), quoted in “In the Lord’s Own Way” Elder Russell M. Nelson, Ensign, May 1986

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Week 45- Beans, and Aunt Gen

2/22/2020

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To help with building your year's supply (this is Week 19 of 26), see this chart.

This week I’ve been thinking a lot about old-time things. My aunt Gen (short for Genevieve) died on Tuesday. She’s my great-aunt, and her last remaining sibling on earth is my grandma. They and their brothers were born in the Mormon colonies in Mexico. All of them lived well past 90 years old. Gen was born in 1918, the year of the great Flu Pandemic, just after her family returned to Mexico after being evacuated during the Mexican Revolution. She was one tough and smart cookie, and one of the kindest people I know. She grew up without electricity, running water, or indoor plumbing. She was a young mother in the last years of the Great Depression. She cooked over fire and charcoal; her first home as a bride had a brick stove with a hole on top in which to put charcoal. She got herself a 5-gallon metal bucket, turned it on its side, cut a door, set a rack inside it, and placed it over that hole. That was her oven. “I couldn’t bake very large of loaves,” she said, “but it worked.” The first car her family owned was purchased when she was in her mid-30s.

When I was younger, she lived about halfway between my family’s house in Utah and my grandparents’ home in El Paso. We’d often stop and spend the night with Aunt Gen. Even in the 80s and 90s, she had no TV in the house, which made for lots of times sitting and telling stories or playing games. And she always—always!—made us lemon sugar cookies. (Maybe I’ll post that recipe soon. Twenty years ago or so I tried to duplicate it several times-- and failed—until I called her one day and learned the secret.)

She moved next door to her son in Utah about 30 years ago and had been there ever since, gardening and canning with his wife and children, teaching the kids to crochet, bake apple pies, and shuck corn. When she was in her 80s, they found her one day on the roof, leaning over the edge with a big straw hat on. She was cleaning out the rain gutter with a running hose and a screwdriver to loosen the packed leaves. She was sick her last little while—though even in her last ten years she didn’t take a single prescription medication. She had a homemade cure for everything-- and they worked! ("For a bee sting, soak a tomato leaf in rubbing alcohol, then put it on the sting.")

What a lot of things she saw and did in her 101 years! And her older brother, Uncle Elvin, made it even longer. He was 103.

I sometimes wonder if and when we'll need those same skills and ingenuity that her generation had.

One food she was very familiar with was beans. They were a cheap, filling, healthy source of protein, B vitamins, iron, calcium, and magnesium. She and I both learned from her mom (my great-grandma Lillie) how to make the most delicious caramel for dipping apples, spreading on cakes, or digging into with a spoon. It didn’t have beans in it but was served at many bean meals. This is why:

She’d take a can of sweetened condensed milk, remove the label, wash the can, and set it in the bottom of a big pot. A stockpot type one, taller than the can was. Then she’d pour in some dry beans, carefully picked through to remove any little rocks or dirt clods, measure in some salt, and add enough water to cover the top of the can. Then the beans would be simmered for three or four hours until they softened through. (We didn’t ever let the pot boil dry, or the can could possibly have exploded.) When the beans were done, the caramel was done. We had to be patient while the can cooled down enough to open without spurting hot caramel on us. And the wait was worth it.

Do you wonder what the differences are between all the different kinds of beans? They’re all from the same sort of plant, and can be interchanged pretty freely. There are different sizes, colors, textures, and flavors. For that information, see the first two pages of the USU publication, Dry Beans and Peas. It also tells you how to cook them, whether you prefer the quick-cook method, the overnight soak method, or using a pressure cooker, slow cooker, stove top, or microwave.

If you’d like more old-time recipes, there are lots. Let's look at two that Aunt Gen would likely have been familiar with while raising her children.

“99 Ways to Share the Meat” is a brochure created in 1943 to help Americans cook under the new meat food rationing.

It includes advice on what to put with beans to flavor them. For we modern folks who might not know, ‘salt pork’ is bacon that is cut thick like steak, rather than sliced. Bacon is a great substitute. Same flavor, same cut, different shape.

85. For plain cooked beans, soak, simmer slowly in a covered pan. Flavor with something salt[y], sour, fresh, crisp, bright, or spicy.

86. Bake beans long and slowly. Good seasonings are molasses, mustard, salt pork, onion.

87. For better bean soup, add finely chopped peanuts… tomatoes… carrots… or a few slices of frankfurter or bits of cooked ham or sausage.

88. Hearty bean sandwich fillings. Combine baked beans with onion, pickle, relish, or catsup… Moisten with salad dressings… Combine chopped peanuts and baked beans.

97. Press cooked [beans] through a coarse sieve or grind in a food grinder [food processor] for pulp to make soup, croquettes, loaves, souffles.

98. Use cold [bean] pulp as filling for sandwiches. Mix with chopped onion and enough salad dressing [we’re talking mayo or Miracle Whip type stuff here] or milk to make it easy to spread.

There was a WWII-era, government-sponsored recipe book called “Dried Beans and Peas in WarTime Meals”. I haven't managed to find anything but references to it, but did find its replacement from 1952, a 28-page booklet called Dry Beans, Peas, Lentils …modern cookery. The photo to the left is the index to those recipes.

The pamphlet begins by telling us, “Dry beans and their close cousins, the dry peas and lentils, are food bargains, budget-wise and nutritionwise. When buying, you can figure that a pound of one of these dry foods will provide 7 to 9 servings.” And then it tells about nutrition and getting the best protein value from them, which ones need soaked ahead of time, how much water to use when cooking them, and shortcuts for soaking and boiling them. Of course, recipes follow. (It also tells you how to can bean puree; disregard that, as it doesn’t fit within current USDA safety guidelines.)

What bean recipes do you love?

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Week 44- A Perspective on Modern Conveniences

2/15/2020

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To help with building your year's supply (this is Week 18 of 26), see this chart.

What do you take for granted?

A middle-aged woman was working in the kitchen with her grandmother to prepare a wonderful family dinner. The grandmother thoughtfully asked, “Tell me, if you could have only one of these modern conveniences we have here in my kitchen, which one would it be?” Her granddaughter took her time in answering, evaluating all the pros and cons as she moved around the kitchen. She noted the stove, the dishwasher, blender, etc., thinking what it would be like without them. Pleased with her careful analysis, finally she replied, “I think I would have to choose the fridge. What about you?”
The grandmother chuckled. “I would choose running water every time.”

That story came to mind as I was reading through a recipe book published in 1909 by Baker's Chocolate. The instructions included a wooden pail, crushed ice, and a wet piece of carpet. The recipe was written nearly two decades before the first widely-used refrigerator was invented. Way before electric or gas stovetops. And before many people had pipes that brought water to their house and took the used stuff away. My mom is still in her 60s, but grew up with an outhouse and hauling water from the creek.
Modern conveniences-- they're more recent than we tend to think.

Take a look at the recipe below. It should help you start thinking about how you'd cook--clean--bake-- if those modern conveniences weren't available for a while. A good preparedness adage is 'If it's important to you, have two or three ways in mind to be able to do it.' That goes for heat, light, refrigeration, having clean water, and more.

CHOCOLATE MOUSSE

Put a three-quart mould in a wooden pail, first lining the bottom with fine ice and a thin layer of coarse salt. Pack the space between the mould and the pail solidly with fine ice and coarse salt, using two quarts of salt and ice enough to fill the space.

Whip one quart of cream, and drain it in a sieve. Whip again all the cream that drains through.

Put in a small pan one ounce of Walter Baker & Co.'s Premium No. 1 Chocolate, three tablespoons of sugar and one of boiling water, and stir over a hot fire until smooth and glossy. Add three tablespoonfuls of cream.

Sprinkle a cupful of powdered sugar over the whipped cream. Pour the chocolate in a thin stream into the cream, and stir gently until well mixed. Wipe out the chilled mould, and turn the cream into it.

Cover, and then place a little ice lightly on top. Wet a piece of carpet in water, and cover the top of the pail. Set away for three or four ours; then take the mould from the ice, dip it in cold water, wipe, and then turn the mousse out on a flat dish.
_______

The whole book is found here: https://d.lib.msu.edu/fa/14/pages

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Week 43 - Fats and Oils in Your Food Storage

2/10/2020

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To help with building your year's supply (this is Week 17 of 26), see this chart.

A long time ago, in an article on the importance of storing fats and cooking oils, I read about how having oil lets you turn ‘nearly nothing’ into satisfying, filling foods. Squash blossoms are one example. They’re nearly nothing, calorie-wise. But mix up a little thin pancake batter, dip the blossoms, and fry them—and then they’re really something! Squash plants produce male flowers and female flowers; you pick and cook with the male flowers, leaving the female flowers to grow into squash. Because the male flowers can’t. (If anyone knows where that earlier article was, I'd love to know!)

Here’s a recipe for .cheese-stuffed fried squash blossoms How about stuffing them with your own cheese, made from your sour milk or powdered milk?

What do you need to know about storing fats and oils? Here’s the Cliff Notes version--

Any kind of fat or oil can be stored, but some last longer than others.

Use what you store

Store oil or fat as cool and dark as you can. It makes a big difference.

Nothing is so sure as change—and the science of what we know about fats has caused some major shifts.

Here’s the longer version-- I’ve modified what is in the “Bee Prepared Pantry Cookbook”, available as a free pdf.

Contents
WHY STORE FAT?.
FATS? OIL? WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?.
STORING FATS AND OIL.
STORAGE LIFE.
TYPES OF FATS.
USING FATS AND OILS.

WHY STORE FAT?
We need fat! Fat is essential in every diet. Fats and oils play an important role in our perception of taste and texture and their absence would make many foods more difficult to prepare and consume. A small amount of dietary fat is necessary for our bodies to properly absorb fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, E, and K. Coconut oil, cooking oils, butter, ghee, peanut butter, mayonnaise, and shortening are suggested for storage. (“Shortening” is really a term that means a fat that is solid at room temperature, so it includes lots more than the stuff that comes in a big paper can.)

FATS? OIL? WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?
All oils are fats, but not all fats are oils. They are very similar to each other in their chemical makeup, but what makes one an oil and another a fat is the percentage of hydrogen saturation in the fatty acids of which they are composed. The fats and oils which are available to us for culinary purposes are actually mixtures of differing fatty acids—saturated fats are solid at room temperature (70 F) and the unsaturated fats we call oils are liquid at room temperature. For dietary and nutrition purposes, fats are generally classified as saturated, monosaturated, and polyunsaturated. This is just a further identifying of the amount of saturation of the particular composition of fatty acids in the fats.

STORING FATS AND OIL
Exposure to oxygen, light, and heat are the greatest factors to rancidity. Transparent glass and plastic containers should be stored in the dark, such as in a box. They should be stored at as cool a temperature as possible and rotated as quickly as is practical.

Oxygen is eight times more soluble in fats than in water and it is the oxidation resulting from this exposure that is the main cause of rancidity. Generally, the more polyunsaturated a fat is, the faster it will go rancid. This may not at first be readily apparent because vegetable oils have to become several times more rancid than animal fats before our noses can detect it.

STORAGE LIFE
Unopened cooking oils have a shelf life of about a year or two before becoming rancid, so you need to be using what you store! Eating rancid fats—in addition to having off-flavors—can lead to vitamin and protein deficiency, since the rancid fats destroy them. Vitamins A, D, E, and B7 are among those at risk. Oils don’t magically go rancid after hitting their ‘best by’ date; it’s a process. My personal experience is that oils stored below 70°F, in the dark, take at least twice as long to go rancid as those stored in brighter conditions above 70°F.

Once opened, some oils should be refrigerated. (See here for an explanation.) If the oil turns cloudy or solid, it is still perfectly usable and will return to its normal liquid, clear state after has warmed to room temperature. Left at room temperatures, opened bottles of cooking oils can begin to become rancid in anywhere from a week to a couple of months, though it may take several more months to reach such a point of rancidity that it can be smelled.

Olive oil also oxidizes as it sits; after a year or two, even your extra virgin olive oil would no longer pass the EVOO tests.

The culinary fats with the longest shelf life as they come from the store are coconut oil, cans of shortening, and sealed jars of ghee. Butter is sometimes canned too. (Red Feather sells butter in sealed metal cans, with a long shelf life.) See here for what you need to know about canning butter at home. Solid shortening now is usually composed of partially hydrogenated vegetable oils and/or naturally saturated palm oil, but there are some that also contain animal fats.

TYPES OF FATS
For a list of some of the healthiest fats, see here.

Monounsaturated fat remains liquid at room temperature but may begin to solidify if refrigerated.

Polyunsaturated fat is liquid at room temperature and when refrigerated.

Omega-3 fatty acids are polyunsaturated fats found mostly in seafood as well as flaxseeds, flax oil, and walnuts. Eating Omega-3 fatty acids appear to decrease inflammation in the body. The latest research indicates we do best eating a 1:1 ratio of Omega-6 and Omega-3 fats.

Saturated fat is usually solid at room temperature.

Trans fat is the result of adding hydrogen to vegetable oil. This makes it solid and gives it a longer shelf life but causes inflammation. Look for the words “partially hydrogenated” or “fully hydrogenated” on the ingredient list to detect trans fats.

USING FATS AND OILS
The conventional wisdom used to say that to increase good fats and decrease bad fats, use canola oil when baking. It appears now that’s wrong. Coconut oil is the healthier fat – and new evidence points to nutrition benefits of using butter; both work wonderfully in baking. The more processing it takes to make an oil or fat, the more it tends to promote inflammation.

Use olive oil, coconut oil, or ghee instead of butter when sautéing; they have a higher smoke point.

Use olive oil rather than vegetable oil in salad dressing. You can use olive oil or avocado oil in making homemade mayonnaise, and there are even recipes for making it with coconut oil. (Homemade mayo is worlds above store-bought!)

Store what you use, and use what you store.

If oil has gone rancid, it can still be useful in your storage—it can be used for light and heat.

What other questions do you have about storing and using fats and oils?

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Week 42—Cottage Cheese or Queso Fresco, and WWII rationing

2/2/2020

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To help with building your year's supply (this is Week 16 of 26), see this chart.

Last week I found myself browsing through World War II recipes. It was a good reminder of which foods become more difficult to come by during hard times. Several foods were rationed during WWII, including meat, cheese, coffee, sugar, and some canned foods. How well prepared would you be for similar shortages?

“Loaf foods” were common, and things like Walnut Roast were suddenly eaten more often. Eggless cakes with less sugar became a thing. I even have a recipe for “New Deal Fudge”, which, though it was from a decade earlier in the Depression, fit the bill nicely.

During that time, apparently cottage cheese also became more popular. It was easy to make (I remember my grandma making it on the counter overnight), and since it’s high in protein, it was often used as a meat substitute in meals. People got creative with it, too. (cottage cheese salad, anyone?)

You can make your own cottage cheese using powdered milk Or use sour milk, ¼ c. vinegar per quart of sour milk.

Homemade Cottage Cheese

2 cups water
¾ cup non-instant dry milk powder
3 Tbsp. white vinegar
¼- ½ tsp. salt

Blend water and dry milk together and heat in a saucepan until it starts to steam, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. (Heating this in a microwave is an option, too- heat until it foams and rises to the top of the bowl.)

DRIP vinegar around the edge of the pan (or bowl) and gently stir; milk will immediately start to curdle, separating into curds and whey. Let rest 1 minute.

Pour into a colander. (the whey can be set aside as liquid for making bread.) Rinse the curds with HOT water. Rinse again with cold water to firm the curds; break apart into as small of curds as you want. This rinse should take about a minute under cold running water. The goal is to be sure all of the sour whey is rinsed away. Sprinkle the curds with salt.

Makes about 1 ½ cups of curds. To make it creamy, like storebought, stir 1-4 Tbsp of sour cream or yogurt.

To make Queso Fresco, use four times the amount of powdered milk, triple the amount of vinegar and double the amount of water. (4 cups water, a little over ½ cup vinegar, 3 cups dry milk powder). Make it the same way, except drain it for a couple hours, then press the cheese firmly into a container to shape it. Use fresh within about a week, or freeze it.