What is there about an impending storm that makes me want to cook? I just found Pintrest and I was up before dawn looking for recipes that are adaptable to storm cooking. I was particularly interested in crock pot cooking. That may seem silly, You do, after all, need electricity to use a crock pot. But I have found that a cast iron dutch oven can double as a crock pot, no problem. I am making a dutch oven chicken this afternoon. My plan, as I fear we may lose power before we eat, is to get the dutch oven hot, sear the chicken on both sides, reduce the heat to low on my gas stove, cover the chicken with a mixture of Italian dressing and brown sugar and let it simmer. If the power does go out, my stove still works and the chicken will continue to cook. I will serve this with brown rice and kale. I found a recipe for baked apples on Pintrest that calls for cooking in a crock pot. I’ll adapt those to a cast iron skillet version with the apples chopped rather than whole.
Sometimes we get bogged down with recipes. I suppose there are some fussy things that require exact measurements and cooking techniques but most plain cooking is flexible. My mother rarely followed a recipe (bad example-my mother was a dreadful cook)-let’s say my mother-in-law rarely followed a recipe and her food was always delicious. Now is the time to experiment. Everybody needs their own cookbook with their own recipes adapted for available ingredients and cooking options. As the climate becomes more unstable we may all face periods of no electricity or disruptions in food supplies. You need to know how to cook with the food you have stored or preserved. I’ll bet there are families out there right now looking at #10 cans of dehydrated corn and wondering what the heck to do with it. I went through Pintrest looking for recipes I can adapt for use with stored food. Alright. I also found recipes for some decadent drinks and fancy desserts but for the most part I was looking for plain food. Isn’t today the perfect day to spend with your favorite cookbooks or recipe sites and a notebook?
I did want to put a plug in for Sharon Astyk’s new book, Making Home. She sent me a copy a few days ago and it’s a gem. I don’t say this lightly. There are a lot of books out there on adapting to an energy constrained fututure and this is about the best. It’s is quintessential Sharon, elegant and literate, down-home and wise. You won’t get advice on choosing solar panels but you will find a direction for making your house home in good times and bad. I plan to order copies for each of my children and donating one to our Sustainability Library.
October 29, 2012 at 10:12 am
I guess because I cook from scratch all the time I can read a recipe and decide if I can use food I have in any form, make substitutions for food I have and/or use a different source of heat to cook. I know I can use our propane grill like a stove top and an oven (and did over our extremely hot FL summer). I know I can use our butane emergency 2-burner to cook any thing that would be done on the stove top. And like you, I can use my dutch oven like a crock pot. We’ve even adapted the straw box cooker to use with blankets.
Stay safe and enjoy your family meals during this trying time.
October 29, 2012 at 10:41 am
I’m trying to learn to cook. I’ve taken some classes to learn techniques, but I want to know about what I can do with items I grow in the garden. I’ve gotten to the point where I agree completely with your statement that we need to learn to cook without a recipe (even bigger jump if you don’t know how to cook!). I just finished an easy read from the library, Kathleen Flinn’s “The Kitchen Counter Cooking School” and she takes several women through the basics of cooking. Each woman is an example of a woman today and the common excuses for not cooking and how Flinn’s classes overcome them. Great ideas for things that go together and she’s just enjoyable to read. I also have the Flavor Bible, but I’ve been too intimidated to really go through it. Just got How to Cook without a Book as well.
Love Pinterest. There are several things on there for survival and a couple sites I follow online for cooking with Food Storage – Food Storage Made Easy and Everyday Food Storage. I would love for someone to babystep me through using some #10 cans. These guys give recipes and I’ve seen where I can buy the smaller cans, but I’m so cheap I hate to spend the money. We bought the a few packets (Maxwell?) where you add water and although they were edible, it’s not something we’d choose to make other than when we had to. I’ve bought dried Milk, and I’ll buy the dried eggs soon, but I need a push I guess. Or someone to say “Buy these 2 or 6 #10 cans and you can make x, y, z to start. I know cooking is a personal thing, but I hate to buy these items and never use them, or get in a position where i had to and didn’t have a clue. If it comes to money I want the clue first, then the cans.
My usual M.O. is to dive into books until I feel somewhat confident, then actually try it. Even better if I find a class or video on something as I’m a visual learner. Being in Sandy’s path is pushing me to do more, as did the Derecho, so we’ll see. I think I need to just get over being cheap and set aside a portion in my mind to try different #10 products, maybe assemble some recipes that look interesting to start and go from there. Hmmmm….
For now, I think we’re prepared (thank you for your book!) for a few days without power, a lot of rain (we don’t usually flood), and high winds (the derecho did a lot of tree damage here, but thankfully all the trees fell well away from persons and property). So may Sandy not be too bad for anyone!
Stay safe, warm and dry! Can’t wait to see Sharon’s book!
October 29, 2012 at 12:18 pm
First off stay SAFE during this storm, thoughts are with you and all on the east coast!!! I too tend to nest with upcoming storms, nothing like good home cooking sitting on the stove to make me feel like I am doing good for our family. We always do some cook ahead soups, stew, and baking for winter storms, having it cooked ahead of time makes it easy to put a good meal on the table with doing nothing more than warming it all up. I found a great site a few years back for cooking from food storage, Crystal has great how to videos as well as learning the art of food storage. Here is the link http://everydayfoodstorage.net/ While most of my pantry things are from the garden her recipe’s can be used for just about any form of food storage.
October 29, 2012 at 1:05 pm
I love to read cook books for fun!!! Winds are picking up here in Lexington, MA, Kathy…stay safe!
October 29, 2012 at 10:23 pm
It seems strange that we are actually not in the path of the storm and are experiencing dry weather. I remember the 1991 Haloween Blizzard and certainly heard from my parents generation about the Armistice Day Blizzard of 1940 where many lost their lives, After all, MN is the reputed home of bad weather! In any case, we continue to prep for what ever stands in our paths .
We hope for the best for everyone on the east coast this week.
October 31, 2012 at 1:51 pm
We did great and didn’t even lose power. In-laws in NJ are w/o power, and in CT with power. Hope everyone is safe? Any word from Kathy?
October 31, 2012 at 2:21 pm
All is well here and the one family friend we were worried has finally checked in.
November 2, 2012 at 1:01 am
I checked comments just to see how you are- glad you are well.
November 2, 2012 at 8:29 pm
Amen. I’ve been checking back, but didn’t think to check the comments until tonight. I too am glad all is well.
November 3, 2012 at 2:29 pm
Maxine – most freeze-dried and dehydrated stuff can be re-hydrated and used as usual. I find a lot of it does not re-hydrate evenly, however, so you need to make some adjustments for that. I have used FD fruit like blueberries in muffins, and to flavor porridge – those are uses where the longer exposure to liquid will help with re-hydration. I have used the vegetables in soups with good success. Overall, some things are tastier and more useful than others – I like dehydrated carrots and onions, FD celery, green beans, and blueberries. I did not like the dehydrated spinach at all. Also, we dehydrate some stuff of our own – mushrooms, mangoes, apples, tomatoes, etc, and those work fine if stored properly. Number 10 cans are not always a good investment, as they tend to get some moisture in no matter what you do, so they have a limited shelf life after opening. We found we could not use up blueberries fast enough to be worth buying large cans. Dehydrated stuff is less problematic that way.
November 3, 2012 at 11:35 pm
If you want to preserve fresh basil longer, keep the stems in water and store it at room temperature. This will considerably extend the usability time of the herb, preserving the taste and saving you money in the long run. You can do this with other fresh herbs as well.
November 4, 2012 at 3:49 am
You should use nonstick cooking spray when cooking a meal or snack. The nonstick cooking spray keeps food from sticking to a pan without adding unneeded fats and calories. There are some sprays that are flavored, so that you can get the same flavor as if you had used butter.
November 6, 2012 at 11:51 am
Hi there, You’ve done an incredible job. I’ll certainly digg it and personally
recommend to my friends. I am confident they’ll be benefited from this site.
November 7, 2012 at 6:05 pm
I like the spray because you can evenly coat a pan without using as much oil as if you pour it from a bottle. But it is oil and does have calories. They get away with saying it doesn’t, because the “serving size” is something ridiculous like 1/4th of a second spritz.