Tag: Cooking

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New Firebox on Kickstarter

One of my favorite prepper toys over the last couple of years has been my Firebox. A small folding stove made here in Utah by a local businessman. It’s been a wonderfully useful little folding stove, although sadly one of my scouts just lost the two pegs (hey guys, do you sell those individually?).

Now even better news. While small and somewhat light, it hasn’t fit the “ultralight” category that can be really nice. But now there is a new product coming out. Check it, and jump over to kickstarter and pre-order this thing.

Right now my decision is just what level I want to kick it at. If you look they have upgraded packages that include carriers, stable fuel, combos with the 5″ classic version and more. Don’t miss this discounted chance to get an excellent stove.

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Searching for the Cure (Bacon)

My brother passed along a video today that fits right in here on the blog. As many people know, I have a long love of cured foods.  Bacon, of course, ranks at the top of my list.  Bacon, and country hams were an important staple for survival to people in the Appalachians for hundreds of years before refrigeration was introduced.  While I don’t have a setup for curing my own bacon (yet), this video sure encourages me to get that setup sooner than later.  This 10 minute documentary is about a man who run’s a business curing bacon and ham the old fashioned way.

As I told a friend, the subjects Appalachian accent is like a Barry White with the sequences of frying bacon and country ham.

Once you’ve watched, you’ll probably want to go buy bacon or ham from their site and then once you’ve tasted the difference, try to cure bacon on your own.

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Powerless Cooking Event

Join us for an evening of free information on different options for cooking when the power goes out.  Representatives from great companies such as Sun Oven, Volcano Grills, Humless, and InstaFire will be combining with Jodi and Julie from Food Storage Made Easy to help you learn about these products as well as several free or inexpensive tools you can make yourself.  Come and enjoy free handouts, event discounts, giveaways and more!

Cost: FREE! Bring a friend!

Date:  Thursday May 10, 2012

Time:  7-9 pm (7-8 will be instructional, 8-9 will be Q&A at individual booths)

Location: 

American Preparatory Academy
12892 S. Pony Express Rd. (Just off of I15 and Bangeter)
Draper, Utah 84020

Click here for more details and to RSVP

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New Products Announced at Shelf Reliance Convention

As a consultant for Shelf Reliance, I had the opportunity to attend their annual convention in Salt Lake this past weekend. It was exciting, educational, and exhausting (especially with my 10 month old in tow). There were quite a few new product announcements that I’d like to let you know about, so before they even get the new products launched on the site, I’m letting you in on them right here.

NEW THRIVE PRODUCTS:



Continue reading “New Products Announced at Shelf Reliance Convention”

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Wok Like A Prepper With A Volcano or a Rocket

In my mind, I can hear the sound of an 80’s song, but I am not an egyptian. No, but I do like a Wok.  Most commonly associated with Chinese cooking, the wok actually has variants found from India to Japan.  Billions of people have relied on this simple pan as their main cooking pot for good reasons. The wok represents one of the most efficient means to utilize a fires heat and cook in a variety of ways. This is why we thought it to be a good test at our recent stove party.

In short, a woks shape allows it to provide the best surface area to connect with your heat source, and concentrate it for efficient cooking.  Depending on what food you use, you could boil, saute, stir fry, and more. So for our test, I grabbed some of the cheapest stew meat, and frozen veggies to test a stir fry.  This cooking method is good in a preparedness sense in that it allows you to take smaller pieces of whatever proteins and vegetables you can get your hands on, and quickly cook them with some flavor for a group.  This can be really important in an extended emergency when food fatigue has set in, or if you just are trying to get the most out fo your food budget today.

Continue reading “Wok Like A Prepper With A Volcano or a Rocket”

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Group Stove Test: First Thoughts

UtahPreppers stove test
UtahPreppers stove test
Several of the stoves getting setup

Last weekend several of the UtahPreppers got together with some friends to begin doing some hands on tests to start preparing for winter. Recently several of us have acquired new stoves and we wanted to give a conduct some tests to compare how well they worked. For our first meet up we wanted to test a few stoves and other devices with the group. While we learned a lot we realized that we’ve got some more comprehensive tests to run through before we can highlight each of them adequately. But before we move along with the individual tests, we wanted to thank some of the people that helped make this first stove test so much fun and informative. Continue reading “Group Stove Test: First Thoughts”

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Curing meat

Cured Meats (from livestrong.com)

Curing meat is an age old process.  It has been used to preserve, intensify flavors, and make unpalatable cuts of meat acceptable for consumption. Most of us don’t worry about the preservation aspect so much anymore, but if you’ve ever made a marinade then you’ve dabbled in curing (perhaps with out even knowing it).  In this post I’m going to go over some of the ingredients needed to cure meat and introduce a couple of salt mixtures that can be very useful in curing your meats.  I’ll also go over some things that could be kept in your food storage.
Continue reading “Curing meat”

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How to Make an Emergency Stove from Common Materials

The next installment in our Heat and Light series is Making a simple Emergency Stove from Household Materials.  This stove is capable of boiling water in less than 10 minutes and is very easy to use and re-use.  The materials required to make it can commonly be found in the home and should be stored in your preps.  Required are: Paraffin Wax, cardboard and a couple tin cans. Continue reading “How to Make an Emergency Stove from Common Materials”

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Taking Stock

One of my secret, very un-prepper-like joys is getting the call from my wife on the way home, stating that I need to pick something up.

Making some stock
Making some stock

Who knows the reason, but usually that means I’m going to stop by Costco to pick up one of their roasted chickens.  Then again, we tend to pick up one of these pretty often.  Getting a whole chicken works out well, giving us several meals already largely prepared.

But whether you are like us, and just addicted to that rotisserie chicken, or you like to cook your own.  There lies the question of what do you do with the *rest* of the chicken that you don’t eat?

Continue reading “Taking Stock”

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Review: Volcano Stove II

Last week I had the opportunity to get in on a group buy for the Volcano II stove. (Sorry, I would have shared the details but I found out about it very last minute and barely made it in myself!) I had heard good things about this stove, and after a brief review of its features and online ratings, I decided to acquire one.

The main reason I wanted to add this to my supplies is its versatility—Volcano stoves can use charcoal, wood, or propane (with the adapter). I found this setup very desirable, since while my fuel may be diversified, this single stove can handle almost everything I throw at it. It’s made to accommodate dutch ovens, or you can lay down the included grill on top and use a normal pan, pot, or cook your things directly on it. And cleanup is as simple as turning the stove over and dumping the remnants out (unless you’re using propane, of course).

Another great feature of the Volcano is its unique heat chamber that channels the heat upwards towards your food, instead of wasting fuel by expelling heat out the sides and bottom. This also means that the area surrounding the stove is cooler than conventional stoves, allowing you to cook with the stove on a variety of surfaces that you normally might not use for putting your stove on.

Below are the pictures of my grand unveiling when I opened and first used the stove.

Continue reading “Review: Volcano Stove II”

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Wood burning stoves as a prep.

Here in Utah it is very common to have a basement, often fully finished.  My house is no exception.  Our basement is around 2,000 square feet with only two finished rooms, both bedrooms.  The previous owner of our home had ducting installed to heat the downstairs, but to do so would require another furnace which they apparently decided to set up in the closet of one of the two bedrooms.

In the interest of preparedness and to avoid losing a closet (and therefore a bedroom per building code) I started looking into the option of installing a wood burning stove in the basement.
Continue reading “Wood burning stoves as a prep.”