EmeraldCat

Thank you all! The meat in these recipes is not jerky; it’s stuff like chili macaroni with home-dehyrated ground beef or Turkey, or chicken rice with home-dehydrated chicken. I wasn’t sure about the safety of dehydrated meat because I have canned meat, and you have to be SO careful with the canning process — it made me wonder if bacteria could grow on the meat while dehydrating it. The thermometer graphic was helpful. It seems that if you dehydrate meat at about 145 degrees, it would be safe? For now I’ll stick to the meatless recipes, but since y’all said it’s safe to dehydrate lean meat, I may get the courage to branch out!

Hello, everyone! My husband and I are starting to get back into camping and backpacking, and I have been researching and preparing dehydrated meals for their ease while we're out in the woods. Some of the meals call for dehydrating meats at home -- including ground beef or turkey, chicken, and even things like shrimp. Is this safe? I have only dehydrated fruit and vegetables up until now, including a tasty vegan chili macaroni. I don't dehydrate rice at home because I'm scared of that bacteria that grows in rice -- I just use packaged Instant Rice. Dehydrating meat at home seems a little fishy to me, but if it's okay I'll make some of the meals that call for it. Thank you so much for any wisdom you are willing to share! :)

Thank you all for your ideas and suggestions! I did soak the beans overnight, then for most of the next day, changing the water once. They still would not cook. I even tried pressure cooking them -- it took almost three hours at high pressure to get them to a state resembling soft enough to eat, but they were still grainy in a very unpleasant way and extremely bitter. They were also a weird dark color. I threw them away, which was sad because they were supposed to be for Thanksgiving dinner. They were simply inedible. I've tried using baking soda with them and that doesn't work either. I feel really bad because I have 75 pounds of these beans! Maybe I'll try the flour idea. I do have a great grinder that I have ground beans in before. I'm wondering if they'll give that strange bitter taste to whatever I put them in, though...it would be worth a try. Mother, when you ground them, what did you add the flour to? Did it change the texture of whatever you were baking?

I have beans that have been in buckets since 2020. I guess I’m bad at prepping because I didn’t put them in Mylar or anything — they’ve just been in the buckets. I’ve been trying to cook them up to rotate through them, and I had wanted to can up one of the buckets, but they are HARD! I soak them, I boil them, I put them in the Instant Pot — nothing cooks these beans. And they’re bitter. So…do I have to toss them? When I replace them, is there anything I can do to make them last longer? I’m trying to figure out what could have caused this, and the only thing I can think of is that when we moved cross country, those beans were sitting in a VERY hot moving truck trailer for about three weeks total. Could the heat have toughened the beans?

Jeepers, have you tried Phenergan? It often works like a charm for people who can’t tolerate Zofran or who don’t get much effect from it. It will make you very sleepy, but I the last time I had stomach flu it was the only think that knocked back my nausea. I’d be very interested to know more about getting medications from overseas — if that’s something we can discuss!

Hello everyone, and thank you for your prayers! I appreciate them SO much. The procedure itself went okay and as far as I can tell, everything looked good. The doctor wants me to have surgery for my gallbladder, and my anti-anesthesia self is saying NOPE to that right now. I get really sick with anesthesia. I was really upset because I was assured that they would give me an anti-emetic before the colonoscopy. The doctor literally argued with me for several minutes about it, then pushed the sedative while I was trying to talk to him and knocked me out. He had said he’d give me Zofran (reluctantly), but I don’t think he did because I was VERY nauseous the whole way home and almost threw up in my husband’s car. Being emetophobic, that isn’t very fun. It discourages and angers me when doctors literally refuse to listen to us about our bodies. We live in them and we know them best! I had some unexpected issues from the prep and procedure so I took last week easy. Now my house is a mess and we have no bread! Today is a gray, cold, rainy day, so it’s a perfect day to get caught up on housework. Vacuuming, mopping, cleaning the kitchen, maybe doing laundry…I’m still trying to figure out if it’s okay to do laundry on septic while it’s raining…we usually only do two loads a day to avoid overfilling the tank, so maybe one load today? I’m also going to grind some wheat and bake some homemade bread. I made sourdough biscuits last night for supper and they are long gone! On a happy note, DH and I went to a church for the first time yesterday and we both really liked it! Everyone seemed very friendly and there are a lot of Bible studies and connection groups. Tonight they are having a Christmas jazz concert. My husband is flying out of town for work today, but I may go by myself. We’ll see! I’ll shut up now! I hope that you all have an AMAZING day!

Y’all, I’m getting a colonoscopy and upper gi thing (forget what that one’s called) today. In the facility now and waiting…and waiting… I’m very nervous as I hate any sort of anesthesia. I’d appreciate any prayers I can get! I hate medical stuff so much.

This morning I decided to spend some time picking up and bagging the leaves and pine needles we’d raked up into piles. “Some time” turned into an entire day— from 10:30 to 5! I took a few short breaks, and my kids came out to help their Mama, and we got a LOT done. We burned some and bagged a ton. But now I’m very sore and very stiff!!! I guess I’m not as young as I used to be. It still feels good to have accomplished what we did!

I learned the value of turkey bones from my Dad. Every Thanksgiving and Christmas, he put the bones in a bag and over the next couple of days, he would make the most remarkable turkey-rice soup. It was a wonderful tradition. I've made it too, but it never tastes like my Papa's. Now that he's passed on, I know I'll never have his soup again. It hurts my heart. Sometimes it's the little things that make you realize all the ways in which you can miss a person you love.

Mt. Rider, I'm so sorry you fell like that! Ow ow ow ow! Hitting any of your facial bones is bad, but there is such a thin layer of skin over your occipital bones. No protection at all. I hope it feels better quickly. Today I went shopping and I have to leave in a minute to pick up my daughter from work. I have to get some stuff organized around the house. I have a little plastic shoebox of seeds going...got them organized into categories, bagged each stack in zippered sandwich bags, and put them in the box. I have to work out some sort of seed goal list. Right now I'm concentrating on vegetable seeds, but I also realize that I need knowledge. For example, I have never grown a tomato plant from seed before; I have always purchased the little baby plants from the nursery. I need to learn about my new region's planting zones, too. We are going to build garden beds and get them filled with soil and fertilized; I want to be ready to GO GO GO when spring gets here! I'm hoping to get enough of a harvest to have my canner and dehydrator busy. I hope you all are having a great day. Anybody getting their plan of attack ready for Thanksgiving?

I’ve never been to one, but I’m sure your event is going to be wonderful! What a fun thing for the ladies to do.

Y’all, I have been in a MAJOR nesting mood! I’ve barely been on my phone or computer other than doing my daughter’s lesson plan for next week. I’ve spent the last few days planning a shopping list that will get us closer to our 6-month goal on our food, re-organizing my major pantry, and moving stuff around the house. I also got in a cooking mood last night and made sourdough biscuits, homemade tortillas, chicken taco meat, and rice and beans. Half the biscuits were in my family’s bellies before dinner (LOL, there went my goal of biscuits and gravy for breakfast this morning!). I don’t know what put me in this nesting mode — the cold weather, maybe? The prepping videos I’ve been listening to on YouTube? All I know is my brain is going “Be ready, be ready, keep going…” I’m listening to it!

We have a rather off Thanksgiving tradition that we will continue this year. Neither of my kids is fond of Turkey, and one just wouldn’t eat it when he was younger. So we decided a while back, “Why cook a Turkey if half of us don’t like it?” Our Thanksgiving tradition is to have either Mexican or Italian for a big feast. I usually make Mexican food, as it’s our family’s favorite. I make enchiladas, fresh salsa, homemade refried beans, Mexican rice, and whatever else I feel like throwing together. Then, I’ll have a nice dessert. This year we’re having my in-laws over for the first time (we just moved closer to them), so they’ll get to see how we do things! I love hearing about everyone’s holiday traditions. The holidays are so fun.

Quick question! I know that you cannot re-use the lids after processing them for canning. I recently froze several jars of broth and am now using them. Is it safe to use a mason jar lid after it’s been in the freezer? I plan on canning up some pinto beans soon and I don’t want to use the temporarily frozen lids if it would not be safe to do so. Thanks!

I hope it's okay for me to share a link here! When I was teaching, I cooked once a month and made multiple freezer meals. All I had to do was take one out the night before I wanted to use it and put it in the fridge to defrost. The next day either I or one of my kids could just pop it into the oven (or, if it was a slow cooker meal, I'd pop it in the cooker before leaving for work). It made life much, much easier. I got most of my freezer meal recipes from https://largefamilytable.com. The woman who runs the site is named Jamerrill Stewart, and she has a YouTube channel too (under her name). Her recipes were very good and froze well. Since I don't have NINE kids, I always halved her recipes, which usually gave me two pans or bags of whatever I was using. Each pan/bag would easily feed my family of four, which includes two very hungry teenagers.