- Author: Lauria Watts
Are you prepared for and emergency? Do you have a 3 day supply of emergency food and water on hand? Do you have supplies for a week? Two Weeks?
Utah State University (USU) recommends one gallon of water per person, per day, for drinking and hygiene. If you live in a hot arid area like we do, you should store more water per person, per day. And don't forget food and water for your household pets and/or livestock!
The home canner has a wonderful resource at her/his fingertips: home canning experience and skills. A home canner can preserve food at home by pressure and boiling-water bath canning and dehydration to store in an emergency. If home preserved in glass jars these supplies would be specifically stored in a place to minimize jar breakage and maximize access during the emergency. You can keep three day food/water kits in your home or car trunks, to be rotated in and out of service at regular intervals.
A home canner can also preserve water. Water, as it comes from a municipal supply, is good to store in food-safe gallon jugs (page 1), according to USU; just fill from the tap and screw on the lids. To increase safety for longer term storage, water may be heat treated in sealed jars as instructed in "Water: Storage and Emergency Use", page 2, from the USU. Sounds like a good use for all those quart jars so often see in thrift shops.
The above is just a little information contained on the USU site "Food Storage". Please take a look and download their booklet "A Guide To Food Storage For Emergencies" for more information; just click on the picture of the booklet.
- Author: Lauria Watts
This spring my husband wanted to plant some stuff. I suggested a few radishes for sister and a couple of other things for us. All was good; we purchased seeds. Come planting he insisted we plant a FULL package of radish seeds—all at once. Do I like radishes? No. Does he like radishes? No. Can my sister use all of them? No--maybe a bunch a week, tops. Result? Way too many radishes at one time. Soooooo. . .
Here's something just for fun: Sculpture for the Night Of The Radishes; La Noche de Rábanos.
And remember to raise radishes responsibly!
- Author: Lauria Watts
Have you ever been asked why a jam or jelly needs to be processed to store on the shelf? Has someone said, "Well, I always invert my jars. What's wrong with tha?" or "My Grandma use to just pour the jelly into jars and slap lids on 'em and that's what I do! Why not?" Were you able to give them good reasons why they need to process their jams or jellies?
This post direct from our recommended resource: the NCHFP (aka the National Center for Home Food Preservation, hosted by the University of Georgia), is a nice explanation on why it is recommended to process jams and jellies.
Also nice to note is that food safety, while a big reason, is not the only reason to process. So take a gander and let me know what you think!
Why do you recommend processing jams and jellies?
