Dehydrated Chicken Stock for Food Storage/Space Saver

Hey Y'all!! Okay, so I had this freezer bag FULL of chicken stock from when I boiled my chicken for my dehydrated chicken. So, that takes up SO much room in my freezer so I thought I'd give it a whirl and try to dehydrate it.

What I did was I took that stock and put it in a pot on the stove and let it reduce down to about 2tbs worth.
its really thick fyi and it makes your house smell like chicken.

I strained out all the extra chunks that were left over and laid out parchment paper onto a dehydrator tray.

My dehydrator doesn't have a temp gauge on it, so I just popped it in and let it do it's magic!

It turned out Wonderful, super concentrated, I am going to grind it into a powder and store it. I will be doing this with lots of my stock, be it beef or chicken!! Yum!!

Sourdough Starter and Bread Recipe.

Hey Y'all!!! Day after Christmas so I went out braved the stores early this morning!! Guess what.. I SCORED!!!
Went to Wal-mart and snagged another shelf to add into my pantry (my stock is just growing like a weed) YAY! 
Then I hit up Value Village and scooped up a few mason jars and this!

 A Black and Decker Vacuum Sealer!! My mason jars and food guard.. grand total of 10 dollars. Can you say a steal of deal? I'd say!! Okay, onto the point of the blog. Have you ever had homemade sourdough bread? No? Is it easy you ask? YES of course it is!! Low maintenance, and super easy! Here ya go bloggers!! 



Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 packet (2 1/4 teaspoons) of active-dry yeast
2 cups warm water (105 to 115 degrees F.)
You leave this lightly covered with a kitchen towel for 6 days.
Feed it every other day 1 cup flour and 1 cup warm water. (take a note pad and leave it by your starter listing days 1 - 6 day 1 being the day you put this bad boy together)
After day six transfer to a plastic container with a lid and put it in your fridge when ready to use.

Now when you use this starter, you must re feed it. So for my bread recipe I use 1 1/2 cups of my starter. So when I take it out. I add back 1 1/2 cups flour and 1 1/2 cups water and let it sit for overnight and put it back into my plastic and to the fridge again. I know it's soooooo hard!! LOL

Okay, for 1 loaf of my yummy sourdough.

2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sourdough starter
3/4 teaspoon salt

Put it in your mixer and let it mix till it no longer sticks to the sides of your bowl.

In a lightly oiled bowl cover and let rise 1 1/2 hours
after that take it back out and knead out all air pockets and form into your desired shape (I shape mine into a rectangle to fit into my loaf pan) but you can do a bread bowl or anything.

lay on a floured surface and cover lightly with a kitchen towel and let rest 1 more hour.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and bake for 1 hour

Your bread with have a dark crust and if you knock on the bottom should sound hollow. 

Enjoy y'all!!! 

Food Storage Beef Stew

One more for tonight and then I think I will be done for the evening! Trying to do some catch up since it's been a while since I've posted!

Okay, so in my last post I told you that I went hog wild with my dehydrator. I took a 5lb bag of mixed veggies and it reduced down to 1 quart size jar. Can you belive that!? Here!

The mixed veggies are on the right!! 5lbs into that!! Amazing. stored correctly they will last for years. But, today I am gonna show you how to make some delicious beef stew all from food storage!!

1. So I took about a cup and 1/2 of my dehydrated beef roast. 
2. 1 cup of my mixed veggies (corn, green beans, peas, and carrots is in it)
3. 6 beef bullion cubes (you can use store bought or homemade. I will be trying some homemade chicken bullion very soon to show y'all!)
4. 6-8 cups of water 
5. 1 1/4 cup of rice
6. 1 Tbs of garlic powder or dried minced garlic
7. salt and pepper to taste (I add extra pepper cause I love the bite pepper gives it)
8. 1/4 cup dehydrated chopped onion
9. 1/2 cup dried diced potatoes 

Throw it all into your stock pot and let it simmer on low-med so it can re-hydrate for about and hour or so and you have a delicious thick beef stew. You can do this fresh or from food storage. With it being from food storage I didn't have to prep anything, I had everything ready pre-cooked and ready to go!

Yum right?! Top it off I made a fresh loaf of Sourdough bread from my starter. Which I will be posting tomorrow. This meal has lots of flavor, just because it's food storage doesn't mean you have to lack in flavor or quality!!! Enjoy y'all!! Take out what you don't like, and add what you do!!

Dehydrated Ground Turkey

Hey y'all!!! Okay so here is a food storage helper for ya today!!

I've taken a dive into the dehydrating world and let me tell you, I'm HOOKED!
My dehydrator has given me many treats that me and kids both love. I swear my children every time I go to the kitchen and they see those giant aluminum things sitting on the counters my oldest shakes her head and just turns the other way like "momma's gone Coo Coo" hahaha But.. that is besides the point.

Today I'm gonna show you my recipe to dehydrate Ground Turkey.

So I took 1lb of Ground Turkey and about a 1/2 cup of my homemade breadcrumbs and mashed that all together.

I then cooked it till it was cooked all the way through and then laid it out on thick paper towels to absorb all the extra moisture.. I changed out my paper towels and let it sit in the fridge overnight.

Next morning I came in and divided my turkey in between 2 of my trays and let it dry for 2 hours at 145 after that I dropped the temp down to 125 for 6 more hours.

The finished product was GORGEOUS. I still have no idea exactly how long dehydrated meat will last. I have been told that if stored properly and in a cool dry place OUT of direct sunlight that it will last for at least a year. I only made a pound of this so I'm obviously going to be using it before then but I do intend on experimenting to see how long this will last us after proper storage.

Thanks for droppin by y'all!!!

Homemade Dulce De Leche

Merry Christmas y'all!! Ok, so I know it's been a while since my last post.. but tis the season!!

We sure have been busy around here prepping and getting ready for the Holiday season.

But I have a wonderful recipe today for y'all. From the lady who does 365 days of baking. YUM!

Homemade Dulce De Leche, this makes a wonderful syrup, or addition to your coffee or topping for your favorite dessert!

Homemade Dulce De Leche (original source)

• So, you take 2 cans of sweetened condensed milk and 3 clean pint size mason jars.
• Take and fill your mason jars with the sweetened condensed milk and fill your 3 jars as even as possible. Put the lids and rings on the mason jars.
• Place them in your crock pot and fill with water to just below the lids.
• Set your crock pot to low and let work for 10 hours.

I let mine sit over night and it was like MAGIC!

The milk caramelizes so gorgeously and it is DELICIOUS!! Yum Yum!!! Enjoy y'all!!

Baked Sweet and Sour Chicken

Hey Ya'll!! Hope ya'lls Thanksgiving was amazing!! Mine was busy busy busy!!! After watching the Texans game we took the kids on an hour 1/2 drive down to the families place for good grub and a few too many drinks haha!!! 

I hope those of you who did the black friday shopping all came back in one piece. I know I don't go, I worked at Wally World for years and I just refuse to go out into the madness! 

Today I've got a great recipe for you, better then take out in my opinion!!! I usually have to make a double batch of this cause the kids and their dad just go to town on it!

Ingredients-
1 lb chicken cut into 1 inch cubes (I use tenders cause its easier to cut into cubes)
1/2 oil
1 cup cornstarch (more if needed)
2 eggs 
1/4 cup milk
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 vinegar
3 tbs soy sauce
5 tbs ketchup

Heat oven to 350

Take your sugar vinegar soy sauce and ketchup and mix together in a bowl and set to the side.

Heat your oil in your frying pan.

In a seperate bowl mix your eggs and milk, put your cornstarch in a seperate shallow dish.

Dip your chicken first into the egg wash then coat in the cornstarch and straight to the frying pan.

When they are good and browned transfer them to a shallow baking dish.

When all your chicken is done give your sweet and sour sauce another stir and pour the whole bowl evenly over your chicken and bake in the oven for 20-30 min.

Serve with rice, and as a side dish I always make peas and mayo.

Ok, ok.. I know it sounds weird. Ok, here ya go TRY it. 

One can of peas, one large spoon full of mayo and a tsp of salt and tsp of pepper. 

It's sweet, its yummy and its my kids favorite side dish.

Enjoy ya'll

Healthy PB cookies

Well the weather sure is frightful here in the great northwest!!! Got a few power outages... But not in this house, yet.. :-/
So my kids love peanut butter, what kid doesn't? None that I know. So here is a healthy quick recipe for peanut butter cookies.
Ingredients:
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup honey
1tsp baking soda
1 egg
Mix it all up and drop onto your baking pan. Small drops, cause they spread big.
Make at 350 for about 10 minutes.
Let the cookies sit on your pan got another 10 minutes, they will continue to harden, they are delicate so be careful.
Enjoy your healthy snack, I didn't get a picture of the final product cause the kids devoured them before I could!!

Chicken n' Broccoli

Hey ya'll!!! Busy busy thursday it's been. I'm actually just sittin down to watch a few episodes of my favorite show, Supernatural... Oh my wow.. isn't Dean just dreamy?

Oh... yea sorry... so after the long day we had here the last thing I wanted to was slave over a hot stove. My mother sure did teach me right.. being an island girl she sure knew some tips and tricks of her own, now this recipe can be modified for crock pot cooking as well.

Chicken or Beef n Broccoli

Ingredients:

1lb chicken or beef (if using crock pot you do not need to pre cook chicken or beef)

1tbs sesame oil

1 1/2 cup soy sauce

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tbs fresh minced garlic

1 tbs cornstarch

1/2 bag frozen broccoli

Directions:

Take your chicken or beef and dice into 1/2 inch chunks.
Cook that up with your garlic.
Once your chicken or beef is cooked through add in remaining ingredients and bring to a boil.
Cover and simmer over low heat for about 20 min. ( I usually wait and start my rice pot at this point)

Serve over a warm bed of rice. No need to add extra salt or pepper. As my kids would say ... its so ono mom!

Enjoy ya'll!!

Homemade Laundry Soap!!!

WOW!!! What a LONG weekend. Sorry ya'll the laptop has been down the last couple days, but watch out, I'm back in action. 

So first of all, veterans day weekend was an absolute BLAST!!! Started out the weekend by doing one of my favorite things, you got it, line dancing at the local country bar!! That's me there in the middle with the white lace shirt on. :)

 Followed by a day out in the woods with my older brother!!! Beers, Mud, and woods? Can I get a hell ya???

 My most favorite past time!!! Gettin a little mud on them tires!!! Doin it country style!!

 

Well, that was my weekend!!! 

Today I have some homemade laundry soap on the menu.. Love love love this recipe, I will never buy store bought soap EVER again!!! Took me literally under 30 minutes to make. No kidding. Plus it smells amazing, I don't have to use fabric softener unless I'm doing my towels that is. :)

Ok, here we go.. 

Ingredients:

2 bars fels naptha or zote bar laundry soap grated.

1 box borax

 

1 box WASHING soda not to be confused with BAKING soda. 

Oxi Clean I use the smallest tub of it. 

Scent Booster such as downy unstoppables or gain fireworks. (entire bottle of it.)

I mix all of my ingredients in double bagged trash bags then transfer to my container.

Grate your soap and pour ALL the named above items into your trash bags, give it a toss or 10 and transfer into your preffered container. 

The oxi clean comes with a scoop. I reuse the scoop and use it to put my soap into the DRUM of my HE washer, DO NOT put in the soap tray, but into the yes DRUM. 

 

It really really is cost effective, a child ran off with my receipt so I'm going to be making another batch in a few weeks and will post my savings and exact measurements on the boxes of ingredients and some more pictures to come.

Please, if you have questions or comments, please feel free. Love getting feedback!!

Till next time, later ya'll!!!

 

The Sweet Smells of Home!

Afternoon ya'll!!! Ok so here is my do it yourself natural home fragrances!! Get rid of those expensive plug in air fresheners, talk about a waste of money!! Plus, what's in those things that make them smell so good? Ooooh, I dont know either, but I don't know if I really want to chance my children or myself breathing it in!! This recipe takes less then ten minutes to throw together, and its once again all natural!

Today I will be featuring my favorite! Orange Cinnamon or Apple Cinnamon.
 

I will be giving you the recipe I use for my mini crockpot that I use to heat this. 

2 Oranges, I quarter my oranges (if using apples I do the same.)

4 sticks of cinnamon

4-5 whole cloves

a dash of allspice

a dash of nutmeg


I toss all my ingredients into my mini crockpot

Cover your ingredients in water.

Place it in your crockpot and turn it on low. LID OFF! Your water will eventually evaporate yes.  Just keep an eye on it so it doesn't burn, I've left mine on low literally all day and never had a problem with it burning. 

Run it for a few hours, and if you like you can tranfer to a jar and save your scents for later use. Use up to 4-5 times. Store your leftover scent in a sealed jar in your fridge for up to 2 weeks. 

Its smart, its easy, its all natural!! 
 
 

 

"Out of the Box Mac and Cheese"

Howdy ya'll!!! The weekend is upon us. I've got a few posts for ya'll today. First up is My "Out of the box Mac and Cheese" 

I have three little ones under the ages seven and under. When they are hungry, they are HUNGRY!! So, I ask, what child doesn't like Mac and Cheese?? Exactly!! It is comfort food for the young soul.  Boxed mac and cheese has so many extra preservatives in so, this is where my freeze dried foods come in handy. Yes FREEZE dried, no additives so extra preservatives. Wholesome, natural, and HEALTHY foods. 

Ingredients - 

3 cups cooked macaroni (today I used Ziti though)

1/2 a cup of the cheese powder blend

1/4 cup of the butter powder 

1/2 cup of lowfat milk (which I made out of the milk powder)


Directions-

Boil your noodles and drain well.

mix all above ingedients together until creamy. 

serve and enjoy. (I added a little extra salt and pepper to my own, but the kids at is as is and came back for more!!)

This recipe took me 15 minutes.. including the time to boil the noodles. 11 minutes to al dente and its done in no time at all. The best part is, you KNOW exactly what you are feeding your kids and yourself.

I bought my freeze dried foods over at walmart, they have a decent variety of emergency/everyday/food storage cans there! Reasonable price as well!!! 

Until next time ya'll, keep on preppin!!
 
 

BLT...Junk Salad

Evening Ya'll!!! 


So, I LOVE LOVE LOVE BLTs... But, there is just never quite enough meat (says my kids dad) so I decided to put a twist on it!! I found a similar recipe on Pinterest. This is my personal take on it. 

This recipe fed my three kids, their father and myself with leftovers for tomorrow. I must add that all three of the littles came back for seconds!!! Winner in my book!!

BLT Junk Pasta Salad.

Ingredients-

Romaine Lettuce, however much you desire, I used to hearts of romaine.

One box of pasta of your choice. Tonight I used Tortelle 

Half a package of bacon, fried crispy and chopped into bacon bits

1/2 lb ground turkey browned
 
one can olive slices

4 Roma tomatoes chopped.. I tossed them in the pan that I cooked the bacon and turkey in for a minute to add some extra flavor to them.

tablespoon minced garlic (for seasoning your turkey)

1 1/2 cup mayo 

tablespoon mustard

salt and pepper to taste

First I cut my romaine hearts and gave them a good wash!

Next I cooked my bacon then my turkey. I cooked all the turkey in this tube but reserved half for a meal later this week! After my meat was done I got rid of most of the juices and popped my tomatoes in, just to give it a little flavor.

All the while my pasta has been cooking to al dente!!

 

 Turkey, Tomatoes, Olives, Bacon, Mayo, a Bit o' Mustard and Pasta at the bottom.

Time to toss it up

The final product!!!

 

 Yea, its sideways I know :)

Throw some of that yummy lettuce in your bowl.

Add the junk pasta on top and ENJOY!

 

 

 

The wonderful thing about this is you can do so many things with this salad, you can add any or everything you want. Pickles? Sure, Carrots? Sure! Cheese?! Dang, that's what I forgot!! 

 

Have a wonderful evening everybody. I will be back tomorrow with more!!! 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 

 

 

Homemade Mini Corndogs!

Afternoon Readers!!!!

  Whew what an intense week it has been already. With that dang election over and done with my prepping and frugal living has been jump started!! I'm more determined then I have ever been to prepare for a real economic downfall! 

  Well, on a better note I have an amazing, easy, and kid friendly recipe that I am going to share with you today!

Mini Corndogs, how much do we spend on a box of regular corndogs? I want to say please correct me if I'm wrong, but they usually come in a box of 10 at walmart in the frozen section and you pay no less then 10 bucks for them. Hmm, well what if you could make twice as many for about the same price and you don't have all those nasty preservatives in them? Yes please!!

So here is the Recipe for just one meal. This would also be something that you could make a bunch of and pop into the freezer for quick easy meals, for those busy days juggling laundry, housework and everything else. 

Recipe for a single meal-

1  box jiffy corn muffin mix 
 ( one egg and 1/3 cup of milk) - ingredients to make the corn muffin mix
2-3 hotdogs of your choice. 

Directions-

Mix corn muffin mix as directed on the back of box. 
(preheat oven to 400 degrees)
Fill muffin tins with muffin mix
Cut hot dogs into slices and place into muffin mix
Bake in oven for 15-20 min
  Let cool and serve

I served mine with my "Out of the Box Mac and Cheese" and grapes :) Kids are happy, mom is happy!! Now how simple is that??

** BLOG UPDATE**
This second time around I tried putting the hot dog slices in the muffin tins first then adding the cornbread mix and let it sit for a couple minutes to let the mix sink to the bottom of the tin. Turned out wonderful!!!  

Prepping the right way!!

Hello readers!!!
   First of all I would like to introduce myself. My name is Nicole, I'm a sweet southern girl who happens to be living in the great northwest! I am a stay home mother of three beautiful babies, 4 days out of the week I also watch a little boy who is just tons of fun and is my son's bestest friend in the whole wide world.
   This blog will take you through my steps to become a successful prepper, to be prepared for the worst when it hits. To become a more frugal human being in my way of life and to teach my children the value of the little things in life. 
 With our economy sinking more and more every single day, my goal is to go back to a more simple style of life, a HEALTHIER style of life.
  Let me ask all you readers a question? If we had a crisis and there was no more water, no more power, if you were trapped in your home for weeks, what would you do? Exactly, most of you don't know. It isn't to be taken lightly, a crisis could happen at any point, and no I am not talking about the zombie apocalypse either.

  Within this blog I will add DIY projects, prepping projects, recipes healthy and some that I just love!! All ins and outs and odds and ends!!

Please!! Join me in my journey to prepardness and SELF reliance!!!! You are also more then welcome to follow me over at Pinterest http://pinterest.com/sassypants1005/