Tag: Prepper

Pantry Staples: Nearly Instant Cream of Soup Dry Mix
Prepping · Recipes

Pantry Staples: Nearly Instant Cream of Soup Dry Mix

Sarah

Canned cream of “X” soups are handy, for sure, but they are a questionable blend of ingredients, and they are going up in price monthly. Where we live, a can is $2 now for what used to go on sale for .50 cents a can just a year back. Now, if you had a dry base mix to which you could add whatever you wanted, think how fun that could be for lazy dinners, especially with the holidays coming up in the next two months.

You know exactly what is going into it, and the flavor you want.

This is a can of a certain company with the red label. Their basic ingredient list is on a can of Cream of Mushroom Soup.

Ingredients: Water, Mushrooms, Vegetable Oil (Corn, Canola, And/Or Soybean), Modified Cornstarch, Wheat Flour, Salt, Cream, Whey, Soy Protein Concentrate, Monosodium Glutamate, Yeast Extract, Dried Garlic, Natural Flavoring

The mix below? No added oil (and especially, no cheap oils). No wheat flour, no soy protein. If you are careful what brand broth powder you buy, the mix is gluten-free, as we made it. (Each brand will be different, of course. The no sodium added we use isn’t the greatest for ingredients, but it avoids heavy added salt.)

A batch made, with freeze-dried crumbled mushrooms added in. I used this in a beef stroganoff recipe, and it was so good.

Cream of Soup Dry Mix

Ingredients:

Directions:

Add ingredients into a small mixing bowl, whisk gently to mix. Transfer to a quart mason jar using a funnel. Put on lid and ring, shake until powders are fully mixed. Let settle before opening.

To make a batch of soup (to equal a can of condensed soup used in a recipe with milk added), add ½ cup dry mix to a small saucepan, whisk in 2 cups water till smooth.

Place over a medium burner and whisk constantly to prevent lumps or scorching until bubbling and thickened.

Salt to taste.

Make a batch ahead, and chill the soup to use in the next 24 hours to save time.

It makes a shy quart of dry mix, with 4 to 5 batches, depending on how packed your measuring cup is when making batches.

Options:

You can convert this recipe to many flavors by adding freeze-dried ingredients. In particular, the crumbled and powdery bits at the bottom of freeze-dried cans is perfect for this – no waste! Crumble the freeze-dried meat(s) and vegetables into small pieces, and add up to a half cup of dried ingredients to each batch of prepared soup you make. Soak the dry ingredients in half the water to produce for 10 minutes, then add in as you start cooking the soup.

You can also combine flavors. Mushrooms and Chicken together are great or add in more herbs. Maybe some Parmesan cheese as well.

~Sarah

Pantry Staples: Low Sodium Dry Onion Soup Mix
Prepping · Recipes

Pantry Staples: Low Sodium Dry Onion Soup Mix

Sarah

This dry mix is equivalent to a commercial envelope of dry onion soup mix that makes 4 cups of soup, and it’s also low sodium, something that you won’t find in the stores! It’s handy to have in your pantry, no expensive last minute runs to the store.

Low Sodium Dry Onion Soup Mix

Ingredients:
  • 3 Tbsp diced dried onion
  • 4 tsp low sodium bouillon (beef or vegetable)
  • 1 tsp onion powder (not onion salt)
  • 1⁄4 tsp celery seed
  • 1⁄4 tsp ground black pepper
Instructions:

Mix all ingredients and store in a small mason jar (a 4-ounce jar works well).

Add to rice and other starch dishes to give flavor without added MSG or heavy sodium.

Depending on your taste for salt, you may want to add ¼ to ½ tsp salt to the mix. We used broth powder without sodium added.

Notes:
You can make it vegan by using a vegan-friendly vegetable bouillon powder.
~Sarah
Pantry Staples: Dehydrated Pesto Mix
Prepping · Recipes

Pantry Staples: Dehydrated Pesto Mix

Sarah
Dry mixes for pesto are not cheap, if you can even find them in the local grocery store’s dry mix aisle (or the top shelf in the pasta aisle, which is often bare at our stores). It’s also not as fresh as when you make it yourself! And no thickeners, no gums, no starches added. You know what is in the mix. And should you grow and dry your own basil, so much the better. Even as October slips by, if you have basil still alive, go cut some off (or all of it!) and put it in a large clean brown paper bag and let air dry.
Dehydrated Pesto
Ingredients:
  • 3 Tbsp dried basil, crumbled
  • 3 Tbsp shelf stable parmesan cheese (green can)
  • 1 Tbsp dried garlic, powder or diced (not garlic salt)
  • 2 Tbsp olive oil
Instructions:

Pack the dry ingredients in a 4-ounce mason jar (a jelly jar size) and seal tightly. For long-term storage, you can leave the Parmesan cheese out till you go to make the sauce.

Depending on your use for the pesto sauce mix, add the oil and up to ¼ cup water (hot or cool) slowly, mixing till blended. Use less water for a thicker spread, if using on bread/tortillas. For a pasta sauce, use the full amount.

Let sit for a couple minutes to blend the flavors. Add salt to taste, for us the cheese adds enough.

Covers half a pound pasta.

~Sarah
Pantry Staples: Powdered Egg Replacer
DIY · Homesteading · Prepping · Recipes

Pantry Staples: Powdered Egg Replacer

Sarah

For a number of years we baked without eggs, as our youngest was allergic to chicken eggs. It’s not an uncommon allergy in children, but fortunately is one of the few food allergies that can go away as a child ages. He was fortunate, and it did go away. But for about 6 or so years, I always had a box of Ener-G in our pantry. It’s not cheap though, and can be hard to locate outside of shopping online. Making it from scratch is an easy DIY project, and it lasts a long time in the pantry. Be it you have an allergy to eggs, are trying to avoid eggs, or that you run out and still want to make a batch of cupcakes, it’s a great pantry staple.

Now then, it does have limitations of course. It is designed for baking, as an ingredient (it has leavening in it, to help push up the baked item, and binds it well). You won’t be able to use it in recipes that need egg whites whipped. But what it does is produce lighter in texture quick breads, cupcakes, cakes and such in where other egg substitutions make the same item heavier – and wetter. Such as using yogurt, applesauce, flax seed/chia seed “egg” slurry and such. The 2 starches used can be swapped for allergies and preferences.

Powdered Egg Replacer

Ingredients:

Directions:

Add all ingredients to a large bowl, whisk lightly to mix. Transfer to a 2 quart size mason jar or large storage container using a funnel. Seal tightly and shake to blend.

Shake before using for best results.

Store in a cool/dry area.

To Prepare:

1 whole large chicken egg: 1½ teaspoon dry mix + 2 Tablespoon water. Whisk with a fork till mixed.

1 large chicken egg white or yolk: 1½ teaspoon dry mix + 1 Tablespoon water. Whisk with a fork till mixed.

Mix with water, and add the egg replacement to your recipe right before baking. Do not wait, as the leavening action occurs once you add the water.

~Sarah

Growing Food In An Off Year Of Weather
Gardening · Homesteading

Growing Food In An Off Year Of Weather

Sarah

To say the growing season of 2022 was trying…is putting it lightly. As I have talked about since mid winter in early 2022, this winter/spring and into mid summer was cold and wet (see a post I did end of April “The Cool Spring“).

Trees didn’t bloom at all for some. The bees came out weeks late and missed some flows on other trees. Seeds didn’t want to sprout. I keep pushing and went into growing season fingers crossed. Finally in July the sun started showing up and it warmed up into summer. And we have had a garden, and grown food – but not at normal levels. For example, we have taken in about 1/3 of the tomato crop as we normally do. Shelling beans are at the level we will only have seeds for next year, not any for eating. But we do have food, to eat, and to put up for the winter.

And well, I was able to grow tomatoes still. And even some big ones.

It taught me more lessons, maybe ones I needed to hear. That every year will be different, and if it isn’t working, stop, and try another way. Immediately.

One thing was our greenhouses were FULL until end of June, into early July. No planting tomato and pepper plants on Mother’s Day Weekend in May this year. I kept holding back. The plants were huge, but I had no choice in it if I wanted the plants to survive.

When I did take the items out, I wrapped the fencing on each bed with 6 mil thick plastic sheeting (find it in the painting section). This blocked the wind, and kept the soil warmer.

It made a huge difference and is why I feel most of the tomato plants survived and thrive.

We had to wrap one of the coops as well, for there was a mama and her 3 babies in it. They often spend the first weeks downstairs, and the wind howled through, chilling them. Oh the irony – all 3 turned out to be roosters. Gotta love the chances on that.

We used zip ties to connect. Due to the many windstorms out of season I had to replace them periodically.

Another bed wrapped.

So remember the 5 Gallon Bucket method I decided to do for my peppers?

Poblano Peppers, actual big ones.

Red bell peppers. Thick walled and proper size.

In early July I moved the 5 gallon buckets outside and let them reside in one of the main beds, in a line, next to the tomatoes in the ground. They got protected from the wind coming up from the water, and got well watered all summer.

Thick walled, full sized green peppers. The wrapping of the beds made all the difference.

The onions thrived in the no-wind-more-heat way as well.

Overall, it’s been OK. But some areas we were truly hit hard in. No pears, no plums, only one apple tree bloomed on time. The apples, which I removed half of, won’t be good enough to eat (the chickens are happy). The peach tree thrived oddly, and I got a handful of cherries. Oddly the fig trees have done well this year. But swiss chard bolted constantly, as did the lettuce and spinach (not normal here). Carrots and beets grew at half the rate of normal. Peas came ready 4 weeks late, but were ample and delicious. The kohlrabi grew to massive size, the broccoli did well, but the cauliflower bolted and the green cabbage went to seed (and looked like it was sprouting snakes out of the top). It was just so random in what did well, and what did not.

September is around the corner and while it will be warm here for a couple more weeks, summer ends in 3.5 weeks and fall will slip in. A third La Nina winter has been promised (not normal). It leads to promises of a long, cold, and wet fall and winter. Fall crops may be well trying, but I will see that the garlic gets in the ground (that crop grew this year, but was ugly as could be when harvested. Still, it will be fine to seed with this fall.).

~Sarah