Teaberry

I can't even use "low-sugar" canning recipes. Has anyone heard whether fruit can be safely canned using either stevia or erthyritol? If not, then I am thinking just dehydrating fruit is the best route.

Sorry, I was in a hurry reading your post and now have looked at the neat links you shared. Thanks. It sounds like in those that the solidified fat is removed.

Do you skim the solidifed fat off the top before using? I just noticed in the link I shared that they say to do that, yet I've read other places saying to leave it. Also, do you just drink your broth as is? Or use it in a soup recipe? Mine is beef broth.

For centuries women took the meat their husbands brought in, cooked it and then put all the bones in a pot to simmer 24/7. Those with woodstoves just left the pot going all the time as they heated their homes. They did not skim the fat off the top, but left it because it adds nutritious elements to the bone broth. Has anyone here made their own bone broth before? Do you have any good soup recipes you've used with your broth? I'm looking for good recipes and ideas. In the past I've always refrigerated broths and then skimmed the fat off the top, but I'm leaving it in now. It's an acquired taste though, so hard for me to get used to. Bone Broth Benefits http://bodyecology.com/articles/bone-broth#.UJ0xKnZM488

A warm thanks to each one of you! It never occurred to me to make the kraut in smaller batches, but that's a very good idea. By the time everyone weighed in I had already used my food processor to shred about 20 pounds worth so I'll see how it goes. I know you're supposed to keep an eye on the kraut every day and skim off any scum on the top. Can anyone here tell me what the scum is supposed to look like? I'm asking because I'm seeing clusters of bubbles in spots and the overall brine looks cloudy, but I'm not sure I'm seeing anything scummy yet. I hope I don't see this!

I want to make homemade sauerkraut because it's a good probiotic full of vitamin C. I'm ready to go with a recipe and large jar, but I'll be shredding 20 pounds of cabbage per the Ball Canning Book instructions. First of all, has anyone here made their own homemade sauerkraut before and if so, what is the best tool to use for shredding it finely and evenly without using electricity? If you use a mandolin, please suggest a good one for me because when I search online I find the less expensive ones have poor reviews, whereas the high cost ones ($400) have rave reviews. I can't afford to pay that much. Thanks for your help.

Great idea for a cookbook. How's it coming along? Does anyone know of a good cookbook that does not use store bought canned goods, but only uses dehydrated foods, garden vegetables and fruits, meat from hunted animals, and dried beans, grains and herbs?

Cowgirl, what a rough experience. I'm sorry you went through that. I can imagine! I'm finding that no matter hard many books I read on gardening, it is through hard-won experience that I learn the most. We gardeners are all in this together! Deerslayer, your succession gardening plan is great! I hope you don't mind if I pepper you with questions. Are you rotating plant families amongst your 16 boxes? What size are your boxes? If you're rotating and have a plan, I'd love to see how you're organizing it. Would sixteen boxes provide enough food to provide enough for canning, I wonder? Farmgirl, I know from experience that you are so right. Our first garden attempt was row gardening. We amended our soil and it was really hard to get much to work out okay. When we put in the square foot boxes, we actually purchased a 50/50 mix of topsoil and compost from a landscape place a few miles out in the country. The plants took off like jackrabbits! My flowers got as tall as 3.5 feet! Your idea to use blocks is a good one because that material won't degrade over time the same way that wood will. How high are all of you making the sides of your boxes? I know someone who made hers at least 16" high and she doesn't have to stoop over as much when she gardens. I wish I could do that. No mon, no fun.

We are not sure if square foot gardening will yield enough produce to feed our family if our country enters a depression, but we're hoping that it will. It saves space and since we don't have a lot, we've got to make it work somehow. The trick is in the planning. You want to be able to rotate your food families, so that a single box doesn't become a haven for insect pests or other messies. You don't want to mix lots of vegetable families inside one box or it makes rotating hard. Also, and this is important - be careful with summer vegetables to plant veggies of similar height together. Otherwise, you'll have shading problems come up as the taller plants grow. Be careful to plant shorter types of flowers. We have super rich soil in our boxes and my flowers shot up like Paul Bunyans! One more thing: If you live in the South, don't do everything the way Mel Bartholomew says to in his book. He says you can plant tomatoes a foot apart. Maybe if you live up north you can, but down here our plants grow tall fast and our growing season is longer. Our tomatoes got wilt. I'm in the process of trying to plan my boxes so that I can rotate vegetable families. I think it will take a lot of boxes if we're going to have enough for canning. That's a ton of wood that we can't afford, so we may just outline a 4 foot by 8 foot patch of ground and lay string across to make grids. The best thing about square foot gardening is that weeding is no big deal. I like the organized look of everything. It fools me into thinking I'm organized.

Fun ideas! Thieves are a problem, but I'm more worried about myself hiding something and later forgetting about it and accidentally vacuuming it up or throwing it in the wash.

Thanks for that link, Cookiejar! This is a real eye-opener especially for DGIs. Lots of people are used to everything being fake on tv. Freebird hit it here: Quote: Whereas most of us are just speculating what a SHTF scenario will be like, this guy is actually living in one, albeit one limited to a financial meltdown. I believe that our social breakdowns will be MUCH more severe.

Thanks for those tips, Alan. Per your advice, I'll label the cans with the bought date. I am cutting cardboard pieces to sandwich between cans with different bought dates, so I can see the separation at a glance. My cupboard is small so I can't see everything real well. The cardboard should help. That'll do!

Thanks for this thread, Cat. How do you simplify your kitchen pantry?

Wow! This is fantastic! Thanks!

I was thinking recently of how many people think homeschooling is a sacrifice for the mother and of course it is in some ways. Some even think it's a burden. But I've come to believe there are wonderful benefits for me personally as a result of homeschooling. I'd love hearing some of the blessings others here have observed in their own lives too. I'll list some I've noted and when I use "HS" it stands for homeschooling: 1. HS moms get to see many of their kid's "firsts" in reading, spelling, math and so forth. 2. HS moms get to learn things they did not learn back when they were in public school. 3. Evenings are less stressed since the kids get their school work done earlier in the day. 4. HS moms are spiritually challenged in a positive way since their kids see their example all day long. 5. HS moms feel a great sense of fulfillment knowing their kids are learning the things they want them to learn more hours of the day.