Preparedness

 

What is preparedness?

For most of us, the world took an odd turn in the year 2020. One day we’re going about our day-to-day lives and the next we’re behind closed doors wearing a surgical mask. Was anyone prepared for that change? 

Most of us probably were not prepared, or at least not as prepared as we wished we were. I remember my first trip to the local grocery after the state I live in went on lockdown. The empty shelves were sobering proof we had more than a medical crisis. The stories told to me by my grandparents of living through the Great Depression echoed in my memory. 

I got real serious real fast about preparedness. As the pandemic drags on, as the political climate becomes unstable, as the economy declines, it's more and more obvious just how our daily lives are at risk. 

This series is simply to share what I've done and what I will continue to do to maintain a level of food and resource security. It won't be enough to survive a total collapse, but I believe I can lessen the day-to-day impact of what is coming over the next few years. 

To read more about my journey, please click to go to What is Preparedness?

And no. It's not clickbait. This blog is not monetized. 

The topics in the series are:

What is Preparedness?

Why concern yourself over being prepared?

Take an inventory

Preparedness is not Doomsday prepping

How much does an adequate pantry hold?

Home food preservation - is it safe?

More about jars and lids

Yes, you can afford to build a pantry

The get home go bag

Do I need a dehydrator or even a freeze dryer? 

I hope that sharing my journey to being better prepared will help you in yours.

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor (The Hideaway)

Love, love, love lemons!

The spousal unit does not share my love of lemons. I can get away with adding a bit of lemon to different dishes, but there is a dearth of lovely lemon goodies in the freezer.  

No lemon cookies, no lemon cake, no lemon muffins, no lemon curd for scones, no lemon lush for dessert. It's a sad thing. 

But there is hope! I bought a cheap bag of lemons and ran them through the freeze dryer! 

It was a simple exercise. I sliced the lemons on the mandolin, saving the odd end peels for zest. The run took about seventeen hours, and I put the lemons in two quart jars and vacuumed sealed them, one with an oxygen absorber for longer storage, and one without for more immediate use. The odd peels are vacuumed sealed in a pint jar at the moment. Come the weekend, and daylight, I'll run them the chopper to make zest and put that in an even smaller jar to use. 

This coming summer, I'll have lemon slices to add to water along with a slice of ginger and a spring of mint for a very refreshing summer treat. Planning ahead and having those things you frequently use on hand in the panty is the whole point behind all my "prepping." What I didn't know is that it would end up being such fun!

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor (The Hideaway)

Sweet potato processing - Bourbon Sweet Potato Pie

Growing up, sweet potatoes were reserved for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. I'm so glad we're now able to enjoy them throughout the entire year! I like them baked, mashed, and yes, "candied." I generally purchase enough cans from the grocery to last for a year. Around here, you won't have much luck finding them on the shelves other than at the holidays. 

This year I noticed a local grocery was selling sweet potatoes for $.67 a pound. I purchased twenty pounds, or enough for seven quarts and ten pints. I processed the quarts this morning and plan to do the pints tomorrow. 

A few days ago, the governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, laid out a grim picture of where the State is headed in the fight against Covid-19. I'll be working from home again for at least the next three weeks, an eventuality I saw coming and prepared for. 

That's what the return to home canning is all about - preparing for the unknown. The term "prepper" has some social condescension attached to it, but there is a difference between a "prepper" and a "doomsday prepper." Being prepared to weather a pandemic is prepping in the purest form. We prepare. We plan. And we don't have as many things to worry about, like, will I be able to have Bourbon Sweet Potato Pie as part of our Thanksgiving feast?  Yes, I will. 

Home canning sweet potatoes is a bit of work. Peeling a sweet potato is annoying. They like to hold on to their skins. A good trick is to parboil them first, and then peel. As for canning instructions, get the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving AND read the guide to your particular canner so you do it correctly. However, I will share my Bourbon Sweet Potato Pie recipe, which is based on an old recipe by The Frugal Gourmet. 

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Bourbon Sweet Potato Pie

Preheat oven to 425F.

Prepare a single pie crust. 

2 cups mashed sweet potato

1/2 stick butter

1/2 cup sugar

2 large eggs

3/4 cup half and half

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup bourbon

optional: a pinch of ground ginger

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and the half & half, and mix. Add everything else and mix really well, then pour into prepared pie crust. 

Bake for 15 minutes, then turn oven down to 350F and bake until set, about 40 minutes (you know your oven so adjust time accordingly). It's done when a knife comes out clean. 

Serve hot or cold but don't forget the whipped cream!

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So that's it. Bourbon Sweet Potato Pie. It's not just for those of us below the Mason-Dixon Line to enjoy, and it's not just for Thanksgiving. Not any longer! 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

Apple Butter

The spouse requested apple butter, so I decided the best course of action was to make some. I have a copy of the Ball Book of Canning which contains a wealth of canning recipes that include two types of apple butter. I went with the traditional style. 

Making apple butter isn't difficult, and having a Kitchen Aid spiralizer really helps. That tool will peel and core an apple with the flip of a switch. It also spiralizes the apple and one quick cut down the center and you have apple slices. This will come in handy later today when I process the remainder of my apples in slices for pies and cobblers. 

I had a lot to do yesterday, so I cooked the apple butter in my large crockpot. That worked well, but I followed the recipe and therefore had too much water in the mix. I ended up with the crockpot on low overnight and processed the jars before dawn this morning. It took that long for the excess water to evaporate. But a longer cooking time did allow the apples to caramelize to a dark, rich color. 

As much as I'm enjoying stocking my pantry with homemade goods, it's a lot of work. I have a new appreciation of how hard my foremothers worked every year. I can go to a grocery store that, even in the year 2020, has food items on the shelf. I'm just not sure how long that will last so we're doing what we can to have food stores on hand. 

For my grandmother, who raised her children during the Great Depression of the 1930s, going to the store wasn't much of an option. She had to purchase flour and sugar, but fruits and veggies came from her own land. So did chicken, eggs, pork, dairy, and venison. Some years the cow would deliver a bull (steer) and they had beef. She canned all her meats in those days, or my grandfather smoked it. It was only ninety years ago but it was a different world.

So I'll think of her later today as I slice apples with a modern kitchen appliance. She did it all by hand with a paring knife. I live on a foundation she built with hard work and love. It's very humbling. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor