Forgotten Lessons of Yesterday V3

©Forgotten Lessons of Yesterday
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DISCLAIMER .............................................................................................. 7
INTRODUCTION TO BASIC COOKING ........................................................ 8
Basic Skills You Need for Making Food........................................................................... 8
How to Preserve Food .................................................................................................. 9
How to Dehydrate Fruits and Veggies ....................................................................... 16
How to Grind Grains ...................................................................................................17
How to Measure without a Scale ................................................................................ 18
How to Slaughter Animals.......................................................................................... 22
What to Beware when Making Food for Long Term Storage ........................................ 23
The “Must Have” List for the Cook’s Kitchen ................................................................ 24
Part 1 – FLOUR, BREADS & PASTA ........................................................... 30
Grinding Grains for Making Flour at Home.................................................................. 30
Equipment Needed for Grinding Grains .................................................................... 31
What Kinds of Grains Work Best? ............................................................................. 31
Grinding Your Own Grains......................................................................................... 33
Helpful Tips ................................................................................................................ 35
The Flour ........................................................................................................................ 35
The Difference between Meal and Flour .................................................................... 35
Storing Your Flour ...................................................................................................... 36
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7 Easy Homemade Breads for A Healthy Life ............................................................... 37
1. Basic White Bread ................................................................................................... 38
2. Low Glycemic Index Banana Bread ....................................................................... 39
3. Light Fluffy Cheddar Bacon Biscuits ...................................................................... 40
4. Cinnamon Flax Muffin ........................................................................................... 41
5. Rosemary Herb French Bread ................................................................................ 41
6. Wonderful Wheat-Free Wheat Bread .................................................................... 43
7. Coffee Can Bread .................................................................................................. 434
How to Make and Preserve Pasta .................................................................................. 45
What You Need for Making Pasta .............................................................................. 46
How You Make It ........................................................................................................ 47
Useful Tips .................................................................................................................. 48
Part 2 – MILK &DAIRY ............................................................................. 50
5 Ways to Preserve Milk ................................................................................................ 50
1. Salting...................................................................................................................... 51
2. Dehydrating ............................................................................................................ 51
3. Freezing .................................................................................................................. 51
4. Canning ................................................................................................................... 52
5. Condensing ............................................................................................................. 53
How to Make Cheese at Home ....................................................................................... 55
Rennet ......................................................................................................................... 56
Cheese Salt .................................................................................................................. 57
Calcium Chloride ........................................................................................................ 57
Cheese Culture ............................................................................................................ 57
Water .......................................................................................................................... 59
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Milk ............................................................................................................................. 59
4 Types of Cheese to Make at Home .......................................................................... 60
Preserving Your Cheese .............................................................................................. 66
How to Make and Can Butter ........................................................................................ 67
Start with Good Cream ............................................................................................... 68
Ripening ...................................................................................................................... 69
Shearing ...................................................................................................................... 69
Straining and Cleaning the Butter ............................................................................. 70
Canning Your Butter................................................................................................... 70
3 Types of Yogurts to Make at Home..............................................................................71
Traditional Yogurt ...................................................................................................... 72
Almond Milk Yogurt ................................................................................................... 74
Coconut Milk Yogurt .................................................................................................. 75
Part 3 – SWEETENERS, FATS & SEASONINGS ......................................... 76
How to Make Sugar at Home ......................................................................................... 76
How to Make Beet Sugar ............................................................................................ 77
How to Make Maple Sugar at Home .......................................................................... 78
How to Make Maple Syrup at Home ............................................................................. 79
What You Need for Maple Syrup? ..............................................................................80
Let’s Make the Maple Syrup! ...................................................................................... 83
How to Make Vegetable Oil ........................................................................................... 85
Getting Started with Vegetable Oil ............................................................................. 86
Making Oil .................................................................................................................. 87
How to Grow Your Herbs .............................................................................................. 88
Growing and Harvesting Garlic.................................................................................. 89
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Growing and Harvesting Ginger ................................................................................ 89
Growing and Harvesting Cumin ................................................................................ 91
Drying Your Cayenne and Chili Peppers .................................................................... 91
Easy Recipes for Homemade Seasonings ...................................................................... 91
Spice Recipes .............................................................................................................. 94
How to Make Vinegar at Home ..................................................................................... 96
Tips for Making Vinegar ............................................................................................. 96
What You’ll Need to Make Vinegar ............................................................................ 97
Making Hard Cider from Apple Scraps ...................................................................... 98
Making Hard Cider from Apple Juice ........................................................................ 98
Making Apple Cider Vinegar at Home from Cider .................................................... 99
Storage ...................................................................................................................... 100
Part 4 – ALCOHOLIC DRINKS ................................................................. 101
How to Make Beer from Scratch...................................................................................101
What You Need for Making Beer ............................................................................. 102
Brew It Up ................................................................................................................. 103
Fermenting ............................................................................................................... 104
Bottling or Casking Your Beer .................................................................................. 105
How to Make Wine at Home ....................................................................................... 106
The Two Critical Components of Winemaking ........................................................ 107
Making Wine.............................................................................................................. 111
How to Make Alcohol at Home ..................................................................................... 115
How Many Benefits of Alcohol Can You Count? ....................................................... 115
The Basic Steps of Making Alcohol ........................................................................... 117
Part 5 – MEATS & ANIMAL FAT .............................................................. 120
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From Herd and Fowl to Plate ....................................................................................... 121
How to Slaughter and Clean a Chicken ..................................................................... 121
How to Slaughter a Cow ............................................................................................127
The Preparations .......................................................................................................127
Killing the Cow ......................................................................................................... 128
Gutting the Cow ........................................................................................................ 129
Skinning the Cow ...................................................................................................... 130
How to Slaughter Pigs ............................................................................................... 131
How to Field Dress an Animal ................................................................................. 132
How to Clean and Cook Fish Off-grid ...................................................................... 135
How to Use Animal Fats for Food ................................................................................137
Rendering the Fat ..................................................................................................... 138
5 Best Uses of Animal Fats ....................................................................................... 139
How to Preserve Meat .................................................................................................. 142
How to Cure Meat ..................................................................................................... 142
How to Brine Meat ................................................................................................... 144
How to Smoke Meat ................................................................................................. 145
How to Make Jerky ................................................................................................... 145
How to Can Meat ...................................................................................................... 150
TOP RECIPES YOU SHOULDN’T MISS .....................................................154
5 Classic American Recipes We All Love ..................................................................... 154
Apple Pie ....................................................................................................................155
Pot Roast ................................................................................................................... 158
Meatloaf (or amazing meatballs!) ............................................................................ 159
Fried Chicken ............................................................................................................ 159
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Buttery, Flakey Biscuits ............................................................................................ 160
Top 9 Civil War Recipes ................................................................................................ 161
Battlefield Cornbread ............................................................................................... 164
Indian Sagamite........................................................................................................ 164
Coffee Substitute....................................................................................................... 164
Plain Irish Stew (Feeds 50) ...................................................................................... 164
Hard Tack ................................................................................................................. 165
Johnnycakes ............................................................................................................. 165
Confederate Biscuits ................................................................................................. 165
Fried Catfish ............................................................................................................. 166
Turnip Greens ........................................................................................................... 166
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THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN “FORGOTTEN LESSONS OF YESTERDAY” IS MEANT
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INTRODUCTION TO BASIC
COOKING
Basic Skills You Need for Making Food
It’s really easy to prepare food right now; you just pull it out of the fridge or the freezer
and toss the food in the microwave or skillet. You have electricity for keeping your food
cold, gas or electricity for cooking it, a car to get you to the store and a store to drive to if
you need to buy more food. No real skills necessary.
But what if all of that went away?
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There are some skills that you need to learn now for making food for self-sufficiency.
Your methods of preservation and cooking, and even preparing daily meals will change
drastically and if you’re caught unaware, you’re going to be in a world of hurt quickly.
How to Preserve Food

This is probably one of the easiest skills to
learn though it’s time consuming and requires
specialized equipment.
It’s also the most common way to preserve

your vegetables for long-term storage. Properly
canned food will last for years – there are
records of food that’s been eaten 15 years after
it was preserved, and likely there have been
even longer periods.
The reason that canning preserves your food is

because, during the process, bacteria are killed
and most of the air is released out of the jar.
The jar seals because air shrinks as it cools,

causing the rubber around the seal to create a vacuum in the jar. Thus, air and bacteria
can’t get into the jars and spoil the food. How long you have to boil the jars in order to
kill the bacteria depends upon the type of food you’re canning.
The basic concept of canning is two-fold. Heat, along with salt or vinegar are typically
used as a bacterial preservative, then the canning process seals the “sterile” food into the
jar so that bacteria and air can’t reach the food to instigate the spoiling process.
Of course, you’re not going to add salt or vinegar to your jellies or fruits, but they’re
typically used for vegetable and meat preservation.
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Though you’ll can inside on a stove today, you can also do it over an open flame if
needed but it will take a TON of firewood so it’s better to can it now and have it in your
stockpile if you’re planning to bug in. There are a few methods that you may choose
depending upon the type of food that you are canning.
Water Bath Canning
Water bath canning is great for canning fruits, high-acid vegetables such as tomatoes, or
for vegetables that are canned in a high-acid juice or sauce. We’ll get into the reason
behind this when we talk about pressure canning in a minute. This manner of canning is
relatively easy to do and only requires a few pieces of equipment that you likely have on
hand including:
• A pot large enough to hold your jars and tall enough that you can fill it with
enough water to cover your jars to the neck.
• A rack that sits on the inside bottom of the pot to keep your jars from coming into
direct contact with the bottom of the pot.
• Canning jars
• Canning rings
• Canning lids with seals
• Tongs (preferably canning tongs) to remove the jars from the pot
• A spatula small enough to slide down the inside of the jar to release air pockets
You can buy a pot specifically designed for water bath canning. It comes with the rack
for the bottom and the size is already adapted to hold a certain number of jars. If you
don’t have one, though, you can use a stock pot or pressure cooker pot.
Pressure Canning
This procedure requires a pressure cooker and is required for canning low-acid
vegetables and meats. Since most veggies are low-acid, this is the method that you
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should use in order to avoid botulism. The botulinum toxin that causes botulism thrives
in low-acid, low-air environments such as in canned, low-acid veggies.
Botulism affects your central nervous system and can easily kill you, especially if you’re
young, old, or have a weak immune system. Even if you’re healthy as a horse, botulism
will still make you extremely sick and the damage to your central nervous system can be
permanent.
Some signs that your canned food contains botulinum toxin are bubbles in the jar, food
or juice oozing out of the jar, a big release of air and possible spewing of juice or veggies
when you open the jar, or a slimy white or cloudy discoloration in the jar. If your canned
goods show any of these signs, throw them away. It’s not worth the risk.
The only equipment that you’ll need to pressure can that’s different from water bath
canning is a pressure cooker. You don’t have to can vegetables separately, so get
creative. You can actually can entire meals, such as vegetable or beef stew.
Dry Canning
This method is often used for vegetables that you’ve dehydrated in order to significantly
extend shelf life. There are a couple of different methods of dry canning, but the most
reliable is probably to use oxygen absorbers. Dry canning only works for dried foods,
including vegetables, flour, sugar, and dried meats, pastas, and dry mixes such as cake
mixes.
Pickling
Pickling food is another way that you can preserve vegetables for long-term storage.
Many people confuse pickling and fermenting but there’s definitely a difference that
we’ll discuss in the next section. Pickling your vegetables simply consists of soaking
them in brine, typically made of vinegar, until they’re preserved.
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You’ve probably eaten pickled cucumbers, cauliflower, banana peppers, jalapenos, beets,
beans, or even carrots. Just about any vegetable can be pickled, though not all taste so
great when preserved this way.
There are old styles of pickling that don’t call for canning, but to ensure that all bacteria
are killed, modern pickling involves cooking the pickled vegetables, usually using water
bath canning in order to make them practically non-perishable as long as they’re pickled
and canned properly.
Fermenting
Do you love sauerkraut and yogurt? How about vinegar (which, by the way you
can make at home)? They’re all made by a process called fermentation. Fermentation is
a chemical process that occurs naturally. Since we’re talking about veggies, it occurs
when salt is added to a vegetable.
Many people add water and a starter to hasten the process, but most vegetables will
ferment on their own with just salt. This is because the bacteria needed to start the
fermentation process are on the skin of all organic vegetables.
Note that I said “organic”. It’s important that you use organic vegetables when
fermenting because they don’t have chemicals such as pesticides on them, and the
natural bacteria haven’t been washed away.
Fermented foods are packed with enzymes, probiotics, and lactic acid. They don’t lose
vital nutrients such as vitamin C during the process; in fact, some nutrients are
enhanced by the fermentation process. The nutrients in fermented food are also more
bioavailable than in the raw product.
Though canned foods retain many of their nutrients, the heat kills the enzymes and
probiotics that are so good for you.
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Some Tips for Canning
Choose fruits and vegetables that are at the peak of ripeness. You don’t want any
bruising or bad spots, either.
For meats and low-acid fruits and vegetables, you MUST use a pressure canner to avoid
the risk of botulism. This is a wicked bacterium that affects your central nervous system.
If your canned food has any bubbles in it when you look at the jar or when you open it,
or if the contents blow out of the jar when you open it, DO NOT EAT IT unless you want
to put yourself in a world of hurt.
Make sure that all of your equipment is thoroughly clean and free of damage. No chips,
cracks or bends. Otherwise, your food won’t seal properly and you’re just wasting it.
Canning Jellies and Jams
There are two primary concerns when you’re canning jellies and jams: getting them to
seal, and getting them to thicken. The sealing part is an easy fix, though if you’re a first-
time canner, you want to be extra careful so that you don’t ruin all of your hard work
just to find that you didn’t get a good seal.
Getting Canned Jams and Jellies to Seal
The first key is to use good quality jars that have no chips or cracks on the rim, or on any
other part of the jar for that matter. You can check this off by visually inspecting the jars.
The second reason that your jars may not seal is because you didn’t get all of the juice off
of the rims of the jars before you put the seals on. This is a bit harder to fix, but you just
need to be thorough.
Use a clean damp towel to wipe each rim well. I usually do this twice, with two different
towels, to make sure that I get them clean, then I follow up with a dry towel. My mom,
whose been canning for upwards of 50 years now, calls it overkill, but after one time of
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re-canning an entire batch of jam so that it wouldn’t go bad, I’d rather take the extra
steps.
Finally, to make sure that you get a good seal, heat your seals in warm water, if you’re
using the standard kind. This makes the seal a bit gummy so that it adheres and seals to
the jar better. Make sure that the water that you heat them in is clean.
How to Make Jams and Jellies Thicken Properly
There are two components to thickening: sugar thickens it and pectin gels it. Getting
your jams and jellies just right is easy as long as you use the right amounts of sugar and
pectin and you pay attention.
• Pectin is a natural fiber found in fruits and vegetables that give the cell walls
structure. Some fruits, such as blueberries, cranberries, and apples have enough
pectin in them that you don’t need to add extra. Low-pectin fruits such as
strawberries and pears either need to be canned with high-pectin fruit or have
pectin added to them so that they gel.
• Use the spoon method to tell when your jams and jellies are done. While you’re
cooking your jellies, do the spoon test. If your sauce runs off of your spoon easily,
it’s not done. If it drips slowly off and forms a drip off of the bottom of the spoon
that drips off slowly, it’s either done, or super close to being done.
• Use the freezer method. This isn’t one of my favorite methods because if your
jelly is done, you’ve overcooked it by the time the test is done, but here’s how to
do it. When you put your fruit on to cook, put a couple of saucers in the freezer.
When you think that it’s almost done, pull the plate from the freezer and put a blop of
jelly on the plate. Stick it back in the freezer for a couple of minutes and if it’s jelly
consistency, it’s done. Cut the heat on your jelly while you’re waiting.
• Use a candy thermometer. This is my preferred method because it keeps me from

overcooking my jams. Sugar is able to bind with pectin, both naturally present
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and added, at 220 degrees F. Use this in conjunction with the spoon method and
you’re much more likely to end up with a good consistency.
• Don’t freak out if your jelly isn’t firm as soon as it comes out of the canner. It can
take a few days for it to set properly.
• Don’t go the other direction and cook it too much either, remember, sugar is the
main ingredient in candy and the last thing you want is strawberry candy instead
of strawberry jam!
Canning Whole Sweet Foods
There are a couple of different ways to can fresh fruit. You can hot pack them, or raw
pack them. Which method you choose depends largely on the type of fruit and what you
want to use it for. Usually, it’s just a matter of personal preference.
Raw packing is easier, but your fruit may turn brown because there’s a greater chance of
air. Just peel them, remove the seed, and slice them (or halve them), then stuff them in
the jar and add sugar water. Some people sprinkle sugar over them as they layer them in
the jars, then just add hot water. It’s a matter of what you prefer to do.
Hot packing is more work but may end up with a fresher tasting, prettier product.
Cooking the foods for a few minutes releases the air from the fibers of the fruit, shrinks
the fruit, and helps with the seal.
Tip: Stone fruits are much easier to peel if you blanch them first. That just means
dipping them in boiling water for a few seconds. Peaches, apricots, nectarines and
plums that are blanched will slip right out of their skins, saving you time and waste.
If you want to make apple pie filling, you’ll want to hot pack them because you want to
cook the apples so that the syrup thickens and the spices soak in. This means that you
cook the apple pie mixture, then put it in the jars hot. Here are some tips to help you
successfully can whole fruits:
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• If you’re packing the fruit in syrup, make sure that it’s a light or medium syrup
because when canned in heavy syrups, the fruit will float to the top. This will also
happen if the jars aren’t packed tightly enough.
• Another problem that you may encounter when raw packing is trapped air. We all
know that air is not a good thing when canning. As a matter of fact, it contributes
to several different situations in canned foods that can kill you. To help avoid
this, slide a spatula or spoon down the insides of the jars to release any air
pockets.
• As your fruit processes, the syrup is going to expand, so you need to leave a half-
inch or so of headspace to allow for that.
• On the other hand, your syrup may cook down so that there’s not enough in the
jar to cover the fruit. To combat this, make sure that you get as much air as
possible out of the jar before sealing, and keep the jars covered with water while
processing.
How to Dehydrate Fruits and Veggies

Dehydrating food has been used as a preservation method for eons. The concept is
simple; remove the moisture from the food to inhibit the growth of microorganisms that
cause spoilage. They can’t grow as rapidly without water but dehydrated food still spoils.
It just spoils slower.
Still, dehydrated foods are lightweight

and will last plenty long enough to get
you through a couple of weeks without
food.
Some people combine the canning and

dehydrating processes. Once they
dehydrate the meat, vegetables or fruit,
they then can them.
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If you think about it, this is a really good idea because you can unseal the dehydrated
food, stash it in your pack and run with it. You’ve preserved the dehydrated food so that
it can later be used as a light, nutritious food later.
We have food dehydrators but you can simply hang the food over a fire for several hours
or even use the sun if you live in a hot enough location.
If you’re just drying herbs, you only need to hang them from a rope or string and let
them dry. The same thing goes for peppers and other vegetables.
How to Grind Grains

The time may come when we go
back to trading agricultural
products, or maybe you just have
enough property to grow your own
grains. In any case, you’ll need to
know how to grind your own
grains.
You can get small hand-cranked

mills or, if you only need a very
small amount of something you can
use a mortar and pestle.
Because home-milled flour still contains the natural oils in the seeds or nuts that you’ve
used, you need to use the flour up quickly because it will go rancid. It’s best to just grind
what you need for a few days or a week and leave the rest in seed or nut form.
Keep reading, you will find out more about processing the grains in Part 1 – FLOUR,
BREADS & PASTA.
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How to Measure without a Scale

How are you going to measure food if you don’t have measuring cups or spoons? Easy –
use your hand! These measurements are, of course, rough but they’re much better than
nothing. 1 cup is about the size of your fist. Your loosely cupped hand holds between 1
and 2 ounces of dried goods.
Your cupped palm holds about 1/4 cup. A dime-sized pile of salt in the well of your
cupped hand is about 1/4 teaspoon, a nickel-sized mound is about 1/2 teaspoon and a
quarter-sized pile is about 1 teaspoon.
Liquids can be a bit trickier; it’s best at this point to use percentages versus
measurements until you can adapt your new life to a new measuring device. Of course,
you can always use something that you know the measurement of such as a gallon jug, a
16oz glass or a 20oz water bottle.
The thing to remember when guessing at measurements is that it’s always possible to
add more; it’s not usually so easy to remove something once it’s added.
On long term, we probably would go back to the old ways of measuring. There are still
old fashioned grain and livestock scales and more could be built, but not everybody will
have access to one. So, what would those people do? We’ve studied some alternate ways
to measure your food and goods without a scale.
Way back in Babylonian and Egyptian times when it was necessary to measure the
capacity or volume of a container, seeds were used but that seems a bit time consuming
for what we’re looking for.
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Bushels
This is no doubt a measurement that

will come back into regular use. It
used to just be that a bushel was a
bushel basket full of whatever you
were buying and that may be fine.
At first it was items that didn’t vary in

size much such as grain, ale and wine,
but then it began to be used for other
agricultural items such as corn, potatoes, apples, etc.
Though bushels were historically measured differently depending upon location, we did
find one that’s simple and would be easy to use if needed. The US customary unit was
based on dry capacity and defined a bushel as four pecks or 8 gallons.
Since corn, apples, potatoes and other fruits and veggies vary in size, a modern bushel is
measured in weight, but if we need to go back to older methods of measuring for trade, a
bushel basket full worked for centuries.
Make Your Own Scale
You’ve surely seen the scales of justice with

the fulcrum on top of a pole and the two
little plates dangling from either end of the
fulcrum.
This would be simple to build on either a

small scale to measure such things as the
ingredients for baking, or on a large scale to
measure bags of grain, etc.
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You need something that you already know the weight of. For smaller items, one ounce
equals 5 quarters, 28 paperclips or 1 CD. A liquid ounce equals 1/8 of a cup. To weigh
larger items, a gallon of water weighs eight pounds. A good way to remember water
weight is the old saying, “a pint’s a pound the world around”.
Of course, there will still be quart and pint jars around as well as 5-gallon buckets, at
least for a while. In the worst-case, apocalyptic situation, new ways to measure items for
sale or barter will undoubtedly arise.
Weighing and Measuring a Cow
Today, livestock are weighed using a livestock scale or the meat is weighed after it’s off
the cow. The problem here is that not very many people actually own a livestock scale
and we wouldn’t necessarily have a scale to measure the meat.
There is a tape that you can use to measure around the cow and it will tell you
approximately how much your cow weighs. This would be a handy tool to put in your
barn in your medicine kit.
If you don’t have one, there’s another way. For this to be most accurate, it’s best to take
the measures when the cow has been without water for 12 hours. Unfortunately, you’re
going to need a copy of a chart. This should be in your medicine kit, too if it’s how you’re
planning to measure your animals.
Measure the circumference, known as the heart girth, of the cow immediately behind his
front legs. Next, measure the length of the cow by starting at the front of chest right in
front of the muscle at the top of his forearm and ending at the base of his tail.
Now break out your calculator and square the heart girth measurement. In other words,
if your cow measures 36 inches around, multiply 36×36. Next, take this number (in this
case, 1,296), and multiply it by the length, then divide that number by 300. That’s your
cow’s approximate weight.
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Be aware though that this isn’t super accurate because different breeds carry more
weight than others. Dairy cows, for instance, tend to carry less muscle and fat than beef
cattle.
Weighing and Measuring a Pig
Just as with measuring a cow, you’re going to need a fabric tape measure or a string that
you can measure using a steel tape measure. Place the string around the pig just behind
its front legs and measure his circumference to get the heart girth measurement. Next,
measure the pig down his spine from the between his ears to the base of his tail.
To calculate the pig’s weight, square the heart girth measurement. Multiply that number
by the pig’s length, then divide that by 400. That will give you a pretty close estimate of
your pig’s weight.
Eyeballing
Yup, you can measure things just by practicing. For instance, when women needed
to measure salt but didn’t have a measuring spoon, she’d use her palm.
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If you cup your palm and pour

enough salt into the pit of your palm
until it’s about an inch across, that’s
about a teaspoon.
A pinch of salt between your thumb,

forefinger and second finger is about
1/8 of a teaspoon. Two of those are a
¼ teaspoon. A mound in your palm
the size of a quarter is a 1/2 teaspoon, and we already discussed a teaspoon. Oh, and the
depression in the bottom of a soda or beer can? That holds exactly 1 tablespoon. Cool,
huh?
Try it out for yourself. Practice with pinches all the way up to a tablespoon. If nothing
else, it will save you some time when you’re cooking!
How to Slaughter Animals

If you have never hunted or killed an animal for food, then you may have a very hard
time with this aspect of growing farm animals and chickens.
Actually, think about it before you decide to start a farm, take the time to study
slaughter methods and see how you feel about each of them. If what you find seems
inhumane, keep looking until you find something you can deal with that will not lead to
contaminated flesh or serious injury to yourself or others.
When it comes right down to slaughtering and butchering any animal, it’s not something
you can learn and master easily from studying a book, article or video. Find a farmer
that will supervise your first kill and the butchering process. This learning and
apprentice period is essential for helping you to determine whether you can slaughter
and butcher animals on a regular basis, as well as help you learn the safest way to carry
out these tasks.
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Quite frankly, if you cannot slaughter animals respectfully and use all the parts
responsibly, you are better served by looking to other means of meeting your food
needs.
Here are a few important points to consider about mastering animal slaughter:
• There is a huge difference between reading or watching videos and dealing with
an animal that will fight to the death for its life.
• When you take the life of an animal, don’t waste any part of the body. It’s a
matter of respect for the animal’s life as much as it is common sense.
• If you make a mistake or get wrong information about slaughter methods, you
can get injured or killed.
• If you don’t have the right equipment, you may contaminate the meat or cause
other problems.
• Inability to treat cuts and scrapes that may be contaminated with blood and flesh
can open you to all kinds of disease, as can improper handling of the carcass.
Read more about animal slaughtering techniques in Part 5 – MEATS & ANIMAL FAT.
What to Beware when Making Food for Long

Term Storage
• Don’t take short cuts, and use only clean water. Foodborne illness is not
something that you want to deal with when you may not have access to
medications or hospitals.
• Clean your area thoroughly, especially if you’re cooking off-grid. Use bleach,
especially when cleaning up after using meat.
• Always wash your hands before you begin cooking and between handling raw
meat and any other food product.
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• Use the reusable canning lids. That way, you’ll be able to continue canning food
even if you don’t have access to a store to buy more lids.
Cooking and preserving food could much more complicated if you don’t have access to
electric, gas, stores and modern conveniences. Your main priority is going to be
sanitation because you don’t want to make yourself or your family sick. After that, many
of the processes are going to be the same; you’re just going to need to use different
methods.
The “Must Have” List for the Cook’s Kitchen
So you’ve grown your garden and raised your chickens or cattle. Your herbs are ready to
dry as are your beans and peppers. The question now is what are you going to do with it
all? You have a ton of work ahead of you and having the proper tools is imperative.
If you want to build your stockpile and preserve all of the food that you’ve worked so
hard on, you’re going to need some basic items for prepping your food at home.
One of the best ways to preserve food long-term is to can it. If you’re planning to can
low-acid foods such as meat, dairy and most vegetables except for tomatoes, you need to
do one of two things.
You need to either pickle these foods with vinegar or some other high-acid product or
use a pressure canner to kill the botulinum bacteria in the food. Here is a list of items
that you’ll need to can all of your foods:
Pressure canner – we recommend buying one of these because you can use it for both
pressure canning and water-bath canning. It’s just a matter of using the lid or not.
Jar lifter – You absolutely must have these if you’re going to can your foods safely.
You’ll use them to remove the jars from the hot water.
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Jars – These come in a variety of sizes

including half-pint, pint, quart and gallon.
Using gallon jars is rare though. Typically half-
pint jars are used for jams, jellies, butter and
preserves while pints and quarts are used for
canning meats, fruits and vegetables. You can
find these at most super stores or farm supply
stores and they don’t cost very much.
Yard sales are another great place to find jars.

Just make sure that if you buy them used, they
have no chips or cracks.
Lids – Until recently, the only option that was

available in canning lids was the single-use lids
that had the rubber seal. Now there are a few different brands of reusable lids that can
be used over and over again. If you’re used to canning with standard disposable lids, you
need to know that the reusable ones aren’t used in quite the same way. Just follow the
instructions. The reusable ones are the ones that we recommend because they are much
more effective in terms of expenses.
Rings – These are what you use to seal down the lids. They’re fairly durable and can be
used multiple times as long as they maintain their physical integrity. In other words,
make sure that your rings aren’t bent or rusted. You can find these in the same places
that you buy your jars.
Kitchen Tongs – You’ll use these for taking the lids out of the hot water and for
various other tasks.
Plastic or Stainless Steel Funnel – This needs to be a big-mouth funnel that will
allow foods to pass through the opening into your jars. Funnels help keep the rims of
your jars clean so that they’ll seal properly. You still need to wipe them but at least you
won’t have food running down the sides of your jars. Don’t use aluminum.
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Stainless Steel Ladle – You’ll use this to ladle your sauces and juices into the jars.
Make sure that it has a long enough handle that you won’t get burned by the steam, but
a short enough handle that you can manage it easily. Don’t use plastic or aluminum.
Magnetic Lid Lifter – This makes your life much easier and keeps from dropping the
lid and risking contamination.
Scraper or other Bubble Remover – I’ve always actually used the handle to a
plastic spoon or spatula for this but now you can buy a little scraper to run down the
sides of your jars to remove bubbles after you have your food and liquid in the jars. This
is important so that you lessen the risk of leaving excess air in the jar that will keep it
from sealing.
Food Mill or Strainer – You may use your blender or food processor to puree your
foods now but if you don’t have any electricity, this will come in handy to make your
applesauce or strain your tomatoes. There are many other uses for it, too. Making fruit
butters and straining impurities out of sauces are just a couple of them.
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Kitchen towels – There are about a kazillion uses for kitchen towels when you’re
canning. You’ll put some under the jars to keep the counters dry. You’ll put them over
the hot jars to keep them from cooling to rapidly. You’ll need kitchen towels to clean off
the rims of your jars and to wipe up the water that you drip when you’re moving jars.
You’ll also probably need a couple to wipe the sweat from your brow as you work over
the heat. Use ones that are lint-free so that you don’t get lint on the rims of your jars that
will prevent a proper seal.
Ok, that’s about all of the equipment, other than a heat source, that you’ll need for
canning your food.
Dehydrating your food with power is a piece of cake but there are still some pieces of
equipment that you’ll find useful.
A Dehydrator – This is logical, but the type that you

choose makes a big difference in drying time. They
come in different wattages so which one you use
depends upon how quickly you want your food to dry.
A lower wattage one will obviously dry more slowly.
How many racks you use will also play a role in how
long it takes for the process to be complete.
Fruit Tray – This is just a piece of thin plastic that

goes right on the rack of the dehydrator. You use it to
make fruit leather that are sort of like fruit roll-ups.
You can also use it to make jerky if you prefer to make
a paste of your meat instead of slicing it thinly.
Sharp Knife – In order to slice your meat thinly

enough to make jerky, you’re going to need an extremely sharp kitchen knife. Go for one
with a blade at least 6 inches long so that you can cut through the roasts easily in one
slice.
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Baking Sheet – If you’re not going to use a dehydrator, you can always dehydrate your
food in the oven by placing it in a single layer on a baking sheet and leaving it in the
oven at extremely low heat for several hours.
Food Mill – Ahhh…here’s another reason to have a food mill. You’ll need it to make
your fruit leather if you don’t want to (or can’t) use your blender or food processor
Vacuum Sealer – Though dehydration does slow the spoiling process, it doesn’t stop it
completely. By vacuum sealing your dehydrated food, you’ll extend the shelf life of it
considerably. You can also store it in baggies or plastic containers if you’re going to eat it
quickly or you may can it for long-term storage.
These are just items that are necessary for preserving foods. If you just want to stock
your kitchen with items that you’ll need on a daily basis, here’s a good starter list:
• Several different sizes of iron skillets

• Dutch oven
• Stainless steel spatula
• Stainless steel ladle
• Several wooden spoons
• Stainless steel slotted spoon
• Kitchen shears
• A knife set that contains a paring
knife, a butcher knife, a chef’s
knife and steak knives
• A boning knife
• Several different sizes of stainless
steel pots, including 2 quart, 4
quart, 6 quart and 12 quart.
• 4-sided grater
• Flour sifter
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• Measuring spoons and cups for dry goods

• 2-cup glass measuring cup for liquids
• A well-rounded variety of spices
• Salt
• Pepper
• Apple cider and white vinegar
• A variety of oils, including olive oil and coconut oil
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Part 1 – FLOUR, BREADS &

PASTA
Grinding Grains for Making Flour at Home
There are many reasons why you may want to grind your own grains at home. Making
your own flour is a rewarding experience, and your product will still have all of the
nutrients and flavor that commercial milling takes away.
If you may only have access to grains, nuts and seeds and will need to know how to
make your own flour from what you have.
Milling at home is also a great way to blend unique flours so that you can make baked
goods with distinctive flavor, nutritional, and texture profiles.
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It’s also amazingly simple and requires very little time.
Equipment Needed for Grinding Grains

Many grains are easily ground just by using a food processor or even a good blender.
Others require heavier equipment such as a flour mill.
Other tools that can be used include the old-school mortar and pestle, spice mills,
manual or electric coffee grinders and small electric grinders made specifically for home
milling.
What Kinds of Grains Work Best?

Traditional flours are made predominantly from wheat, barley, and rye. Corn is also up
there on the list, especially for people who enjoy cornbread or corn tortillas.
You don’t have to limit yourself to making flour from just grains. You can make it from
nuts, seeds, beans, rice, and roots as well.
These lend beautiful flavors and distinctive

textures to your finished flour and may also be a
viable alternative to those who don’t want the
gluten that’s in wheat, rye, and barley.
You do need to know that if you’re not using

wheat, barley, or rye in your flours, they will
behave differently because they lack gluten, the
protein that gives those types of flours elasticity
and also helps them bind and rise.
Note that to make regular wheat, spelt or kamut

flour into bread flour, all you have to do is add 1
tbsp of wheat gluten, aka gluten flour, to each
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cup of wheat flour that you use. Since you can’t make this at home, you’d have to buy it.
Of course, these grains already contain gluten so as long as you don’t mind a bit of a
heavier loaf, you really don’t need the extra gluten.
Adding gluten isn’t an option if you’re going gluten-free. In that case, you need xanthan
gum in many cases to make the flour rise and stick together properly. Here is a list of
just a few of the products that you can use to make flour at home:
• Wheat
• Barley (though it’s bitter – you don’t want to use it alone)
• Rye
• Spelt (Not glute-free)
• Corn (you can use popcorn kernels. Think cornbread, corn cakes or crunchy taco
shells!)
• Oats
• Buckwheat
• Millet
• Quinoa
• Nuts such as almonds, hazelnuts, cashews,
pecans, macadamias, and walnuts
• Seeds such as sunflowers, hemp, pumpkin,
amaranth and flax
• Potatoes (yes, potatoes)
• Tapioca
• Coconut
• Soybean
• Almonds
• Arrowroot (ground to a starch and used
similarly to corn starch)
• Brown, Sweet (sticky) and White Rice
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• Kamut (not gluten-free)

• Most Beans
This is by no means an inclusive list but it’s a starting point. How you grind them
depends upon how hard they are. With the exception of some beans, the products above
all grind well in a coffee grinder or food processor.
You can order all of these online or through specialty food stores. The nuts and seeds
can be purchased at the grocery store though you will most likely find a much better deal
by buying them online or at a specialty food store (check Asian markets), too.
If you have access to a co-op, you’re in luck because you can save a ton of money by
buying from them. Unground seeds keep for much longer than flour, so only grind what
you need.
Grinding Your Own Grains

You can pick up a manual coffee grinder at yard sales, flea markets and even the store
for very little money. Make sure to grab an heir and a spare, too. If one breaks, you’re
going to need a backup.
Depending upon where you live, you may have access to some sort of nut, seed, or grain
even if you don’t stockpile any. If you live near soybean fields or have a walnut or pecan
tree, you’re golden. You can, of course, always grow corn, sunflowers, and pumpkins,
too.
Until then, you may wish to use your food processor or mill since you have electric
because it’s much easier.
If you’ve purchased grains, corn or seeds for grinding, you can mill them just as they are.
If you’d like, you can always toast the seeds and nuts to add a bit more flavor. Now, let’s
get started.
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• Make sure that your product is clean and

dry. Often there are bugs, rocks, or other
debris in there and you don’t want to grind
those up into your flour. As a matter of
fact, though the bugs may add more
protein (kidding!), the rocks will be pretty
hard on your grinder, so pick through
carefully.
• Fill your grinder or food processor up no
more than 2/3 of the way. Half is better so
that the product can reach the blades and
be ground equally.
• Grind until you have smooth, fluffy flour.
• Open your grinder and pick out the larger
chunks. You can grind a bit more or just
pick them out and grind them alone, which
is probably the better option. Toss them in with the next turn, if you’re doing
more, or just do them alone. No need to waste them.
• Repeat the process until you’ve made all of the flour that you need.
• Sift the flour (you don’t have to but we like to for some recipes and for some
products because it gets out the rest of any little chunks. A chunk of nut is ok, but
we’re not big fans of having half of a garbanzo bean in our brownies!
• Store your flour in an airtight container in a cool, dry place, preferably the freezer
or fridge. Because it’s fresh and isn’t packed full of bleach and preservatives, your
“live” flour won’t last as long as the “dead” store-bought ones.
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Helpful Tips
• If your grinder sounds like it’s bogging down, check for nuts, seeds, or grains that
are stuck under the blades. If it’s clear and still sounds like that, you may have too
much in there. Pour some out and grind two batches.
• Always be sure that your equipment is clean because these flours will go rancid
quickly. If there is still flour stuck in there from the last time, you’re adding gross
flour and other nasties into your fresh batch.
• Don’t over-grind your nuts. Otherwise, you’ll have nut butter instead of flour.
Pulse them until they’re flour but be careful. Though almond butter is delicious,
it’s not nearly as good for dredging pork chops in as almond flour is!
The Flour
The Difference between Meal and Flour

You have undoubtedly heard of cornmeal and
possibly even almond meal, but what’s the
difference between a meal and flour?
Meals are ground more coarsely. They’re great for

several different uses because they add a heartier
flavor and more texture to your goods. They’re bad,
though, if you’re shooting for something nice and
light to make a cake with.
To make meal, just don’t grind your product as

long. When it starts to get a crumbly texture,
you’re done. Compare it mentally to cornmeal. You
want to keep that grainy feel.
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This is really good when you’re making a hearty

loaf of country bread but if you’re shooting for hot
rolls, grind longer.
Grinding your own grains is a wonderful idea

because you’re getting a ton of nutrition from your
flour. Commercial white flour has practically no
nutrients other than carbohydrates, and there’s
not really any fiber in there to help slow down the
digestion.
Though white bread is better than starving to

death, freshly ground flours offer nutrition and
fiber that will help you be hearty and full
regardless of your circumstances. And they taste
great, too!
Storing Your Flour

Because seeds and grains store much better whole, we recommend that you only grind
what you’re going to use in a couple of weeks. After that, your flour may go rancid or at
the very least, the flavor will change.
There’s a problem that we haven’t really touched on yet, and it’s of the pest variety.
Grains are notorious for having bugs. They may even come with them, or with larvae.
Have you ever noticed that there are bugs in your flour even though you had it stored in
an airtight container? That would be because it came with the larvae, which hatched
over time and with warm temperatures.
To combat bugs, you have to clean (by sifting through and visually inspecting) your
grain, seeds or beans as well as possible and store them somewhere cool and dry; ideally
the freezer. If you freeze your grains for a few days, purportedly you’ll kill any larvae and
won’t have a bug problem. Store your flour in the same manner.
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Canning is also a great idea if you have room to store the jars. The process is similar to
canning vegetables.
Finally, you can vacuum pack both your grains and your flour. The little nasties can’t live
without oxygen and neither can bacteria that will cause spoilage. Just make sure that
you seal it well and leave no air inside.
Now that you know how to make and store your own flour, start experimenting. If you’re
using gluten-free flours, play around with them. It’s good to mix lighter flour and
starches that add air and lightness with heavier flours such as nut flours that add
protein, elasticity and texture.
Have fun and enjoy your healthy, delicious breads and baked goods!
7 Easy Homemade Breads for A Healthy Life
Bread is a staple in most diets and

can be a real lifesaver, literally, when
it comes to surviving. Unfortunately,
modern store-bought bread has very
little nutrition.
However, you can make many kinds

of bread at home that are nutritious
and good for you even if you have
such conditions as diabetes, gluten
intolerance, allergies or other issues
that may otherwise be affected by bread consumption.
If you have diabetes, you obviously need to watch your carbohydrate consumption to
keep your blood sugar under control. There are many bread recipes that use nut flours
or whole grains that contain the fiber you need to counteract the carbohydrates.
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These recipes will help you enjoy bread without spiking your blood sugar. If you have a
gluten intolerance or celiac disease, you can’t have wheat, rye, barley or triticale because
of the protein, gluten, found in the bread.
Up until recently, the only gluten-free bread options were either gross or prohibitively
expensive. Most of these recipes are gluten-free and guaranteed to taste better than
store-bought bread.
Nut allergies are also a concern for many people. Unlike some other allergies, a nut
allergy is often extremely dangerous; people die from exposure. We included nut-free
recipes in here, too!
1. Basic White Bread

This recipe is good for diabetics and is nut-free.
• 4 t bread machine yeast

• 1/2 t sugar
• 1 1/4 cups water (90-100 F)
• 3 T olive oil
• 3/4 t baking powder
• 1 t salt
• 1 T sugar substitute
• 1 cup vital wheat gluten flour
• 1/4 cup oat flour
• 3/4 cup almond flour
• 1/4 cup flax seed
• 1/4 cup wheat bran
Directions:
1. Put the water, oil and sugar in your bread maker.
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2. In a separate bowl, mix all the dry ingredients with the exception of the yeast and
baking powder.
3. Mix well.
4. Take out approximately 1/4 cup.
5. Pour the rest of dry ingredients into the pan.
6. Mix the reserved 1/4 cup of dry ingredients with the yeast and baking powder.
7. Pour into the bread machine pan.
8. Use the three hour bake cycle.
9. After 55 minutes, gently lift the dough out and remove the paddle and place the
dough back into the machine so that you don’t have a huge hole in your finished
loaf.
2. Low Glycemic Index Banana Bread

This recipe is courtesy of the Weight Watcher
website and is good for diabetics and people with
nut allergies.
• 3 very ripe bananas

• 1 cup sugar substitute
• 1/2 cup natural applesauce
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 1/2 t baking soda
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a mixer, mash bananas, add sugar substitute and mix.
3. Mix in rest of ingredients.
4. Pour ingredients into a greased bread pan.
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5. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

6. Remove from pan and cool on a wire rack.
*If using a dark coated pan, bake at 325 degrees and bake a little longer.
3. Light Fluffy Cheddar Bacon Biscuits

These biscuits are easy to make and are diabetic-friendly, gluten-free and nut-free. Oh
yeah, and delicious!
• 1/4 cup butter, melted and slightly

cooled.
• 1/3 cup sifted coconut flour
• 4 eggs
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
• 1/2 cup diced bacon, optional
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Grease a cookie sheet.
3. Mix eggs, butter, salt, and garlic
powder.
4. Add flour and baking powder and mix
until there are no lumps.
5. Fold in cheese and bacon.
6. Drop batter by the heaping tablespoon onto greased cookie sheet.
7. Bake for 15 minutes, or until lightly browned.
8. Let cool for 5-10 minutes before removing and serving. Cool completely before
storing.
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4. Cinnamon Flax Muffin

This recipe is a bit unique because it’s only for a single muffin. You can make it in the
microwave or in the oven, or even in a cup over a fire if you use a lid.
It’s diabetic-friendly, gluten-free and nut-free.
• 1 large egg
• 1 T honey
• 1 1/2 t cinnamon
• 2 t plain fat-free yogurt
• 1/2 t baking powder
• 3 T ground flax seeds
Directions:
1. Spray a microwave safe coffee cup or

bowl with cooking spray.
2. Mix the egg and honey until well
combined, add the yogurt and blend well.
3. Mix in the ground flaxseed, cinnamon and baking powder until well combined.
4. Pour in coffee cup so that it’s no more than half full and microwave on high for 1
1/2 minutes.
5. Serve hot.
5. Rosemary Herb French Bread

This recipe is good for diabetics and is gluten-free, nut-free, soy-free and dairy-free.
• 3/4 cup sorghum flour

• 1/4 cup millet flour
• 1/2 cup tapioca flour
• 1/2 T xanthan gum
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• 3/4 t salt
• 1 t egg replacer, dry. Skip this if you’re
using real eggs.
• 1 T sugar
• 3/4 cup lukewarm water
• 1 T rapid-rise yeast
• 1 T olive oil
• 2 t egg replacer whisked with 6 tbsp.
warm water or 3 eggs, if eggs aren’t an
issue
• 1/2 t vinegar
• 1 T olive oil
• 1/2 T crushed rosemary
• 1/2 T kosher salt
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375F.

2. Grease sides of French bread pan or regular loaf pan and sprinkle with cornmeal.
3. Combine dry ingredients in a medium mixing bowl of a standing mixer and
combine.
4. Put sugar and lukewarm water in a small bowl and add yeast and allow it to
activate.
5. Add the yeast water to the medium mixing bowl.
6. Add first amount of olive oil, egg replacer “Eggs” or regular eggs and vinegar and
mix on medium for 3 minutes.
7. Carefully scoop out your dough and make a bread-shaped loaf. Baste with
remaining oil or melted butter and make a few decorative slices in the top if you
want. Sprinkle with rosemary and salt.
8. Let rise for 20-30 minutes or until about doubled in size.
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9. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until bread is browned and sounds slightly hollow
when you tap it.
10. Allow to cool for several minutes then remove from pan.
6. Wonderful Wheat-Free Wheat Bread

This bread has a pleasant, nutty flavor and works well as a sandwich bread. It’s also
great with just butter. It’s diabetic friendly, gluten-free, dairy-free and nut-free.
• 2 cups almond flour

• 2 T coconut flour
• 1/4 cup flax meal
• 1/4 t sea salt
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 5 eggs
• 1 T coconut oil
• 1 T honey
• 1 T apple cider vinegar
Directions:
1. Place almond flour, coconut flour, flax, salt and baking soda in a food processor
and pulse to combine.
2. Pulse in eggs, oil, honey and vinegar until well-combined.
3. Transfer batter to a greased 7 1/2″ x 3 1/2” loaf pan. Don’t worry if the texture is
looser than “regular” dough. That’s the way that it’s supposed to be.
4. Bake at 350° for 30 minutes.
5. Allow to cool in the pan for 2 hours.
6. Serve and enjoy!
We hope that these breads make you happy as well as healthy!
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7. Coffee Can Bread

Usually, when someone thinks of bread in a can, they imagine the weirdly spherical,
molasses flavored, and oddly textured store-bought stuff. Making bread in a can at home
however yields a very different result: fresh, delicious bread that’s both environmentally
and economically friendly.
• 1/2 cup of warm water

•
• 1 T rapid-rise yeast
• 3 T sugar
• 4 1/2 cups sifted unbleached flour
• 2 T olive oil
• 1 t salt
• + 2 greased, 1-pound coffee cans with lids
Directions:
1. Mix water, yeast and one tablespoon of sugar. Then leave the mixture to stand
until bubbly for about fifteen minutes.
2. Mix all other ingredients in a separate bowl, then add the yeast mixture, and
knead for roughly ten minutes.
3. Fill the two greased coffee cans with dough and place the greased plastic lids on
the cans.
4. Leave bread to rise until the lids pop off.
5. Bake uncovered for 45 minutes at 350° and serve while the bread is warm and
fresh.
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How to Make and Preserve Pasta
There’s nothing more delicious and

versatile that pasta. You can use it to make
lasagna, spaghetti, macaroni and cheese or
simple yet delicious rustic dishes made only
from the ingredients in your garden.
The only problem with using pasta for long

term storage is that the boxes are so bulky
that it’s difficult to store much of it
One of my fondest memories is sitting in

the kitchen with one of the best cooks that
I’ve ever known and learning all of his
techniques.
Making pasta was one of his greatest skills

and he said that he loved it because it
required very few ingredients, the dough
was easy to make, and he could make it in
any shape that he needed to. He also made all of his pasta without using a machine!
Though having a pasta maker will most certainly make your life easier once you learn
how to use it, it was a frustration for me because I kept tearing the pasta.
After attempting it a few times, I gave up and went back to the way that I was taught in
the beginning. If you want to use a pasta machine, feel free, but even your machine may
break so we’re going to talk about doing it all by hand!
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What You Need for Making Pasta

You won’t need many ingredients: flour, eggs and (optionally) salt. I like to add it
because it adds flavor already.
Let’s talk about these ingredients for a minute.
• All-purpose flour is just fine for a basic pasta mix. If you want to add texture and
a bit of hardiness to your pasta, you can add some semolina flour to the mix.
• If you want silkier pasta for a more refined noodle, add some cake flour, or 00
flour.
• Some people like to add oil, but it’s not essential to making basic. (I can already
hear the gasps of some of the best Italian cooks I know – please don’t stop
feeding me because I’m trying to keep things simple here!).
Once you get the hang of making your own pasta, you can experiment with adding herbs
and other ingredients such as pureed spinach to make the fancy stuff, but let’s get the
hang of the easy pasta first.
We’ll start with a small batch, three servings, so that you can work easily with the dough
and have plenty of space to dry it even if you live in a small place. Here’s the recipe:
• 1 cup flour
• 1 extra large egg, beaten
Here’s the thing – making any kind of bread-like dough using a recipe is tricky and
imprecise. There are just too many factors that can affect the texture of the dough. It
could be humid, your eggs could be large or small or whatever.
My point is that you need to focus less on precise amounts and more on the texture of
your dough.
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By the time you’re done, you want a dough that is moist but just dry enough that it
doesn’t stick to your hands or your rolling pin. If you need to add a bit more flour to get
that, do so. If you need more moisture, add a teaspoon of water at a time or some beaten
egg or an extra yolk.
How You Make It

I like to use the “well” method of combining the ingredients though using a bowl works,
too.
1. Pour your flour onto a dry, clean surface such as your counter.
2. Start in the center of the flour and make an indentation big enough to hold your
eggs, with the sides higher than the center.
3. Add your beaten egg and salt. (you don’t necessarily have to beat the egg first, but
I find that it’s easier and quicker to do so)
4. Use a fork to start folding the flour into the egg and combining them.
5. Once you have them sufficiently combined that you can use your hands without
making a sticky mess, start kneading with your hands.
6. Scrape the flour off the surface as you go to incorporate it into the ball. If the
dough is sticky, add a bit more flour; if it’s so dry that it won’t hold together, add
more liquid.
7. Knead by pushing with the heel of your hand, then folding it over, rotating about
45 degrees and starting the process again.
8. You’ll need to put some effort into kneading because under-kneading the dough
won’t activate the gluten and give you that springy snap that will make your
dough hold together and have a great texture once it’s cooked. About 10 minutes
of kneading will do.
9. You should now have a smooth, elastic ball of dough that’s moist but not wet, and
that holds together in a nice ball without being so dry that it crumbles.
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10. Wrap it in plastic and allow it to rest for at least an hour, but no more than a few
hours. This allows the gluten bonds to form and the moisture to absorb
throughout the ball. In other words, it allows your dough to mature.
11. Smile – you’re through the boring part
and now you get to play with your food!
12. Lightly flour your surface and roll your
dough, starting in the center and rolling it
first backward, then forward and to the
sides. Try to keep the dough in a roughly
rectangular shape at least 6 inches on the
one side.
13. Lightly dust the top of your dough with
flour then, starting at the short side,
GENTLY fold your dough over in 2-inch
intervals until it’s rolled up.
14. Slice into 1/4-1/2 inch strips, keeping
them as even as possible. Separate the
strips.
15. You now have two choices – you can cook your pasta to see if you like the taste
before you make more (which I recommend) or you can hang from a string or a
coat hanger in a single layer and allow to dry until all the moisture is completely
gone and it breaks like store-bought pasta.
16. Seal in an airtight container until you’re ready to use it. It’ll keep almost
indefinitely.
Useful Tips
If you find that the dough is too snappy and is difficult to roll out, add a tablespoon or so
of olive oil to your next recipe. It will help it to keep from rolling back in on itself but will
also make the dough a bit more difficult to work with when kneading.
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Egg yolks add a nice structure; as a matter of fact, when doubling this recipe,
experiment with adding 2 yolks for each whole egg to see how different the dough
becomes.
Using just egg whites yields a watery dough that makes a mushy pasta. Don’t skip the
yolk in the interest of “healthy” pasta.
I used the old-school drying method because is the most affordable one. If you want to
hurry the process along, you can lay the strips of pasta on a baking sheet and dry slowly
at 150 degrees for a few hours.
Pasta is a great food because it’s so versatile and can be made with simple ingredients
that you’ll likely have at hand, at least if you have your chickens on your homestead.
Since you can use it in so many ways, food fatigue won’t be an issue and you don’t need
any special equipment to make it. It really is a fabulous food to have in your recipe
arsenal.
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Part 2 – MILK &DAIRY

You definitely want to include milk in your emergency storage. Maybe you have a milk
cow or goat that produces more milk than you can use before it goes bad. Since cows and
goats both have drying out periods so you’ll want to preserve milk for then, too.
But what can you do to make it last? Let’s talk about several methods of either
preserving milk as-is or converting into other products that store for longer periods of
time.
5 Ways to Preserve Milk
Milk is packed with calcium and protein and is also a necessary ingredient in many
recipes, and it’s something that you’ll want to have on hand on a regular basis. However,
milk doesn’t keep long, especially if you don’t have any means to refrigerate it.
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Before you start any preservation methods at all, pasteurize your milk. I know that many
people prefer to drink their milk straight from the cow but the idea behind preservation
is to keep bacteria from turning the milk bad.
If you filter and pasteurize it, you’ll be starting with “clean” milk that will be more likely
to keep longer. This is, of course, up to you but I advise it.
1. Salting
Salting is important to the preservation of anything and that includes your milk
products.
Though you probably don’t want to salt your milk before you can it, you definitely want
to salt your butter, cottage cheese and other products.
This will not only help them last longer but will also give you access to a food in your
emergency food supply that has that necessary mineral (and flavor enhancer) in it.
2. Dehydrating
If you’ve dehydrated other foods, it may have occurred to you that you could do the
same with milk. As bad as I hate to burst your bubble, it’s not so easy to do if you want
to preserve the flavor and nutritional value. You also need to have special equipment
such as an atomizer that won’t come cheap. You will also need a ton of milk just to yield
a pint of dehydrated milk. Skip this idea and just buy powdered milk.
3. Freezing
Yes, it’s entirely possible to freeze milk but I recommend not doing so for a couple of
reasons. First, in case of a major blackout you probably won’t have the electricity to keep
the freezer running so your milk will go bad within a couple of days, especially if it’s hot
outside.
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Second, frozen milk is fine to use but it often gets a grainy texture to it. It separates out
but that can be dealt with just by shaking it up. Still, the texture thing is an issue and is
the main reason that I don’t recommend freezing it for everyday use.
4. Canning
Many people don’t realize that milk can be
canned, too. Just as with all canning
procedures, it’s imperative that you make
sure that your jars and seals are super clean.
Warm your seals if necessary in order to get
the best seal possible.
To can milk, start with extremely clean milk.

Clean the udder, the buckets and all the
equipment in addition to the jars. As I
already stated, I recommend pasteurizing,
too.
At the very least, strain it well using a milk

sieve or several layers of clean, lint-free cloth
such as cheese cloth. Pour the milk into a
clean bowl and cover it so that nothing gets
into it while you’re prepping the jars.
Wash your jars in hot, soapy water and rinse them well. Keep them submerged in hot
water until you’re ready to use each them.
Fill each jar with milk, leaving a half-inch at the top for headroom. Clean the rims of the
jars thoroughly and put the sterilized hot rims and rings on them. Put them in your
pressure canner and fill with the recommended amount of water. Place the canner over
the hottest part of the stove, on about medium.
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Bring the pressure to 10 and cook quarts for 25 minutes or pints for 20 minutes. Make
sure the pressure stays at 10 or else you’ll need to start the time over.
The reason that I gave you directions for using a pressure canner is because milk is a
low-acid food and is therefore susceptible to botulism found in the soil. Pressure
canning brings the milk up to a safe temperature and holds it at that temperature long
enough to kill any bacteria.
Canned milk will keep up to 2 years and is great for cooking and even drinking though
the color will change. It will have a slight caramel color and may taste a bit sweeter or
just cooked. Canned milk is great for any recipe that requires milk; however, you can’t
make cheese, yogurt or rennet desserts from it because the milk won’t clabber.
5. Condensing
One of the problems of storing canned whole milk is space. Even though you can buy
canned milk at the store, there’s no guaranteeing what goes into that milk. Also, there’s
no need to waste all of that fresh milk that you’re getting from your cows or goats on a
daily basis. That’s where condensing your own milk comes in.
Evaporated milk is simply whole milk that has had about 60% of the water removed
from it and you can do it at home as long as you pay attention. Here’s an easy way to do
it.
Start with 4 ½ cups of milk. Feel free to double or triple this if you’d like, then do the
math for the process. It’ll work just fine.
1. Pour two cups of the milk into a heavy-bottomed pan.

2. Stick a wooden spoon into the milk, holding it straight up and mark where the
milk level is.
3. Pour the rest of the milk into the pan.
4. Bring the milk to a simmer, stirring every couple of minutes to make sure that it
doesn’t singe.
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5. Remove the skin that forms as the milk reduces.

6. Use the spatula to measure your progress. When the level of the milk reaches the
mark you made, the milk has reduced 60 percent and is done.
7. Allow to cool then follow the canning procedures described above for canning
whole milk.
Evaporated milk can be reconstituted by adding equal amounts of water to it or it can be

used as-is in recipes such as puddings or to give coffee, tea or cocoa a rich flavor. It
keeps about as long as regular canned milk does and takes up half the space.
Sweetened Condensed Milk
OK, I’m going to admit to a weakness here;

this stuff is so delicious to me that I can quite
literally eat it right off the spoon. However,
it’s starting to get a bit pricey in the store and,
once again, you don’t know for sure exactly
what’s in it.
An advantage of having sweetened condensed

milk in your stockpile is that it provides a
means of sweetening your foods without
storing extra sugar that ants and other
rodents are so attracted to. It’s also a source
of fat when you may need it and you get the
calcium boost from the milk and butter.
Finally, sweetened condensed milk is great for

making a number of desserts and can be reconstituted to replace the milk and sugar in a
recipe in a pinch. Oh yeah, and it’s a piece of cake to make because there’s a bit of wiggle
room in the ingredients.
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To make sweetened condensed milk at home, you’ll need 1 1/2 cups whole milk, 1/2 –
2/3 cup sugar depending upon how sweet and thick you want it, 3 tablespoons of butter
(no substitutions here!) and 1 teaspoon vanilla, which is optional. Again, feel free to
double or triple the recipe if you’d like. An interesting take here is that if you’d rather
use honey than sugar, you can! Just substitute in equal amounts.
1. Add 1 cup of the milk to a heavy-bottomed pan.

2. Using a wooden spoon, mark where the milk comes to in the pan.
3. Add the sugar or honey.
4. Bring to a slow simmer over low-medium heat, stirring frequently to prevent
burning.
5. When the liquid reduces to the level that you marked on the spoon, remove from
heat.
6. Add the butter (which, by the way, is optional if you want to keep it low-fat) and
the optional vanilla and whisk well until combined.
7. Allow to cool and then can to preserve as described above. Since you’ve already
simmered the milk for a considerable time, you can use a traditional canner or a
pressure canner.
These are about the only things that you can do to preserve milk if you want to keep it
milk. There are, however, a few other options.
How to Make Cheese at Home
Without a doubt, life is made tastier by cheese. We put it on everything from burgers to
macaroni and kids love it. We mix it in sauces to add flavor and texture and we eat it
plain as a snack. It’s a great source of calcium and protein and most kids will eat cheese
even when they won’t eat many other foods.
The history of cheese is a long one; some say cheese has been around for as long as
10,000 years! It started when somebody noticed that the milk that they stored in their
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vessel (a calf stomach) turned into a hard block. Some brave soul decided to taste it and
found out that it was delicious. Thus cheese was born.
Cheese recipes have often been passed down from generation to generation, along with
the cultures that are necessary to make the cheese. Some are extremely easy to make
and don’t require a culture but the tastier and more advanced cheeses do. The Basic
Ingredients
Before we get started, you need to understand some basic cheese-making ingredients.
Rennet
Rennet is derived from the stomach lining of
ruminate animals, namely the fourth stomach of
calves. It’s an enzyme that helps the baby animal
to digest its mother’s milk.
There are also vegetable rennets, microbial

rennets that are derived from mold and genetically
engineered rennets that are made by injecting cow
DNA into plants.
Rennet, or more specifically chymosin, the enzyme

in rennet, separates the curds from the whey
during the cheese-making process. Milk would
curd on its own but by the time that happens, the
milk is sour. Rennet allows you to make curds
quickly from sweet milk. Most European cheeses are made with rennet while most
cheeses made in the US are made using different products.
There are several cheeses, including Mozzarella, cottage cheese and cream cheese that
don’t require rennet. This is because you can substitute vinegar, lemon juice or citric
acid to create the curd. The difference between rennet and another acid is that rennet
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slowly curdles the cheese and vinegar or citric acid does it quickly. To get the flavor or
texture you need for aged cheeses, you need rennet.
Cheese Salt
You’ll often see recipes that call for cheese salt. Cheese salt is just flakey, non-iodized
salt. Salt is used in cheese for both flavor and preservation but don’t ever used iodized
salt because it damages the bacteria that you need to make the cheese.
If you don’t have cheese salt, you can use regular uniodized salt or kosher salt. It’s all a
matter of how quickly you want the salt to dissolve. Cheese salt is always best, though
because it’s flakey and dissolves quickly.
Calcium Chloride
If you’re using milk that’s been pasteurized and stored cold to make your cheese, you
need to use calcium chloride to make your curds firm. This is because calcium in store-
bought or pasteurized milk slowly becomes soluble and won’t form a firm curd on its
own.
Exceptions include cheeses that are stretched, such as mozzarella or provolone because
the stretch depends on the calcium leaving the curd.
Cheese Culture
Cheese cultures are good bacteria produced from milk that eat away the bad bacteria by
feeding on the lactose in the milk. This is necessary in order to encourage coagulation
and help develop the flavor of the cheese. You can buy starters from either local
specialty stores or online. There are two basic starters: mesophilic and thermophilic.
Mesophilic culture is used in low-temperature cheeses. This includes the majority of

cheeses including chevre, cheddar, cottage cheese, brie, sour cream, Colby blue cheese,
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feta and many others. Sometimes you can

sub vinegar or citric acid, such as when
you’re making cottage cheese. For aged,
harder cheeses, culture is required.
Thermogenic culture is used in recipes that

require higher heat and can be heated to
130 degrees F. It’s used to make yogurt and
Italian cheeses such as mozzarella,
parmesan and provolone. It’s also used to
make other softer cheeses such as Swiss and
Monterey Jack.
There are several varieties of both of these

cultures that you can purchase and come in
freeze-dried packets. You have to keep them
frozen until you use them.
You can make your own starters by saving part of the original starter but they only last a
few days in the fridge before the bacteria are no longer effective so you either have to
freeze them or use them. You can also make them from scratch. Just look at these two
recipes:
Meso Starter:
Start with:
• 2 cups fresh store bought cultured buttermilk.
Directions:
• Set the buttermilk in its container on kitchen counter with lid cracked to relieve
pressure and allow to reach 21 C/70 F room temperature to ripen and increase
the bacteria population density. After 6-8 hours the buttermilk should be much
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thicker like fresh yogurt and sourer than at start. If not thick enough, let sit for a
few more hours.
• Use as per cheese making recipes and pour remainder into a full sized very clean
ice cube tray and put into your freezer.
• Once frozen, remove the cubes and put into a clean sealed labeled container or
plastic freezer bag to reduce contamination and freezer burn.
• The resulting ice cubes are each ~30 ml/1 ounce of mesophilic starter. Add cubes
(thawed) to your recipe as required.
Thermo Starter:
1. 2 cups fresh live/active store bought unflavored yogurt.

2. Use yogurt as thermophilic starter culture as per recipe.
3. Pour excess into a full sized very clean ice cube tray and put into freezer.
4. Once frozen, remove the cubes and put into a clean sealed labeled container or
plastic freezer bag to reduce contamination and freezer burn.
5. The resulting ice cubes are each ~30 ml/1 ounce of thermophilic starter. Add
cubes (thawed) to your recipe as required.
Water
It’s best to use filtered water in your cheese because some local waters contain
ingredients that will prohibit the milk from turning to cheese.
Milk
They type of milk you use depends on the cheese but if you’re making starter, you need
to use organic milk because if the cow was given antibiotics, those could have passed
through into the milk and will prevent the good bacteria from forming that is the basis
of the starter. Since that’s what the starter is all about, your starter won’t form. Learn
more about raising animals for milk here and how to milk your cow or goat here.
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I’ve also found a recipe to make cheese from powdered milk, which I’ll share in a bit.
When choosing milk, go for non-homogenized, also called cream-top, if you can. It’s not
critical but produces better results, especially if you’re new to the process. Usually, you’ll
be better off using full fat milk unless the recipe calls for something different.
Regardless of what type of milk your recipe calls for, it can’t be ultra-pasteurized
because the high heat denatures the proteins and will thus prevent curd from forming.
4 Types of Cheese to Make at Home

Though it sounds like a daunting task, cheese making is a matter of simple chemistry.
Milk is about 85% water; the rest is mostly proteins, minerals, fat, vitamins and lactose
(milk sugar).
When you add an acid, the milk turns into curd, a jelly-type substance. When you heat
the acidified milk, the curd separates from the whey (the liquid). The curdling agent is
actually a bacterium that eats lactose, which turns it to lactic acid and makes it curdle.
Heating, pressing and aging the curd separates out more of the whey, which makes the
cheese sharper-tasting and harder. That’s why people with lactose intolerance often do
OK with harder cheeses; there isn’t as much lactose in it.
Cream Cheese
• 1 quart of cream (you can also use half and half)

• 1 package (1/8 teaspoon) mesophilic starter
• Salt to taste
• Instructions:
• Place cream in glass bowl.
• Cover it loosely and let it set at room temperature for 8-12 hours or until it’s
about the same consistency as yogurt. It may not be completely smooth but that’s
alright.
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• Pour into cheesecloth and allow the whey

(liquid) to drain for at least 12 hours. The
more liquid you lose, the firmer the cream
cheese will be.
• Scrape out of the cheesecloth and add salt.
This is when you’d also want to add herbs if
you’d like to get fancy!
• Refrigerate. It will get firmer as it chills.
Yield: you should get 1 ½ to 2 cups of cream cheese

for each quart of cream that you use. You can
double this recipe if you want. It makes a great gift!
Cottage Cheese
This recipe is super-simple and delicious!
Ingredients:
• 1 gallon skim milk

• 3/4 cup white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon salt or to taste
• 1/2 cup heavy cream or half and half
Directions:
• Place skim milk in large saucepan and heat slowly over medium heat to 120
degrees F.
• Remove from heat and slowly stir in the vinegar.
• Continue to stir for a minute or two as the curds separate from the whey.
• Cover with a towel and let the mixture sit for about 20 minutes.
• Pour into a colander lined with cheese cloth or a lint-free towel to drain off the
whey. It takes about 5 minutes.
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• Gather the edges of the towel and rinse the

curds under cold water for a couple of minutes until
they are completely cool. Squeeze and squish the
mixture as you do so.
• Squeeze as much moisture from the curds as
possible.
• Put the curds in a bowl and mix in the salt,
breaking up the curds into smaller cottage cheese-
sized chunks.
• If you want to eat it immediately, add the
cream or half and half. If not, refrigerate the curds
without the cream and add the cream immediately
before serving.
Mozzarella Cheese
This recipe calls for rennet but there are some recipes out there for making it without.
This one is delicious, though.
Ingredients:
• 1 gallon whole cow or goat milk

• 1 1/2 tsp powdered citric acid dissolved in 1/4 cup cool water
• 1/4 tsp liquid rennet diluted in 1/4 cup cool water
• 1 to 2 tsp cheese salt
Directions:
• Pour the milk into a stainless-steel pot, slowly heat on medium to 55 degrees F.
• Slowly and thoroughly stir in the citric acid solution.
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• Heat the milk to 88 degrees F on low-

medium heat until it’s the consistency of
yogurt.
• Gently stir in the rennet for about 30
seconds when it reaches 88 degrees F.
•
• Without stirring, let it heat to 100-105
degrees F slowly. This should take 5-8
minutes. The curds will begin to form and
pull away from the sides of the pot. The
curds will look like shiny chunks of thick
yogurt and the whey will be almost clear. If
it’s not, cook it for a few more minutes.
• Remove from heat and scoop the curds out
into a bowl with a slotted spoon. Don’t discard the whey.
• With your hands or a wooden spoon, gently press the cheese against the sides of
the bowl to press out as much whey as possible.
• Turn the heat back on under the whey and bring it to 175 degrees F.
• Shape the curds into small balls, between the size of a large egg and a tennis ball.
Dip each one into the whey using a large spoon or ladle for several seconds. Place
the balls together back into a dry bowl.
• Knead the cheese balls together like you do bread dough. It’s going to be really
hot so you want to use heavy gloves or a spoon to do this. This distributes the
heat throughout the cheese and is necessary because the cheese won’t stretch
until it’s too hot to touch.
• Repeat several times, adding the salt in after the second time until it’s smooth
and pliable, sort of like dough. When it’s stretchy like taffy, it’s done. If the curds
break up instead of getting stretchy, don’t panic. It’s just cooled too much and
needs to be re-heated. Do this by either microwaving for 30 seconds or pouring
hot water over them until they’re 135-145 degrees F again.
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• Roll the cheese into balls the size of tennis balls and it’s done! You can eat it
immediately or store in the fridge for up to a week.
Cheddar Cheese
We all love cheddar! This recipe is simple and delectable.
Ingredients:
• 2 gallons’ whole cow or goat milk

• ⅛ tsp calcium chloride diluted in ¼ cup water (optional)
• 1 packet direct-set mesophilic culture or ⅛ tsp bulk mesophilic culture
• Rennet, dissolved in ½ cup cool water (choose one):
• ½ tsp liquid animal rennet or
• ¼ tsp double-strength liquid rennet or ¼ tablet vegetable rennet
• 2 tbsp salt
Instructions:
• Pour the milk into a large stainless steel pot and heat to 85 degrees F, stirring
often. If you’re using the calcium chloride, stir it in as the milk is heating.
• When the milk reaches 85 degrees F, remove from heat and add the culture and
stir from the bottom to the top to ensure that it’s infused throughout the milk.
• Cover and allow to ferment for an hour.
• Add the diluted rennet, stirring in an up and down motion. This helps the rennet
work its way through the milk so that you get the highest yield of cheese.
• Let the cheese set for about an hour or until the curds start to separate from the
whey. The curd will be pulling away from the top of the pot and the whey will be
mostly clear and floating on top of the curd.
• Use a knife to cut the curd into small (1/4 inch) cubes and let it set for 5 more
minutes without stirring.
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• Over low heat, bring the curds to 100

degrees F, stirring frequently. The curds
will shrink as it heats.
• Once it’s reached 100 degrees F, continue
stirring over low heat for the next 30
minutes. It’s important that the
temperature stays at 100 degrees; if it gets
hotter, remove from heat for a few
minutes.
• After warming and stirring for 30 minutes,
remove from heat and allow the curds to
settle to the bottom. This will take 20
minutes or so.
• Pour the curds into a colander and allow to
drain for 15 minutes.
• Pour the curds back into the cheese pot and
cut into 5 or 6 wedges and cover.
• Fill your sink with water that’s 102 degrees F. Place the pot of curds into the
water.
• Keep the water at 102 degrees F and turn the chunks every 15 minutes or so for 2
hours. This step is important because it’s what makes your cheese cheddar and
gives it that unique flavor.
• After 2 hours, the chunks will be very firm and shiny. Remove them from the pot
and cut into ½ inch cubes.
• Place the curds back into the pot that is still sitting in the 102-degree F water and
leave them there for another 10 minutes.
• Stir gently with your fingers. Repeat this process twice more.
• Remove the pot from the water and stir the cheese gently, adding the salt.
• Line your cheese press with cheese cloth.
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• Wrap the cheese cloth around the cheese and press with 10 pounds of pressure
for 15 minutes.
• Remove the cheese from the press, unwrap it and flip it onto a fresh piece of
cheesecloth.
• Press at 40 pounds of pressure for 12 hours.
• Remove cheese from press, unwrap and flip the cheese.
• Rewrap in fresh cheese cloth and press at 50 pounds of pressure for another 24
hours.
• Remove from press and allow cheese to air-dry for 2-3 days until it’s smooth and
dry.
• If it’s too big of a chunk for you to eat before it goes bad once it’s finished, cut into
smaller chunks.
• Paint with wax and store it in a cool area between 55 and 60 degrees F.
• Allow it to age for at least 60 days. The longer it ages, the sharper it will be.
Now you know how to make some of your favorite cheeses. I started with easy ones to
give you confidence. Once you’re comfortable with these, move on to some fancier ones.
Preserving Your Cheese

Since I have no idea what kind of cheese you prefer, I’m going to tell you how to
preserve it instead. You coat it in wax. If you’re going to do this though, you need a
special cheese wax because paraffin wax will crack as it dries. That will allow bacteria to
get into your cheese, which defeats the purpose of waxing it at all.
Hint: Once you use a pan to melt cheese wax, you’re not going to be able to cook in it
again because the wax won’t come completely out.
1. Begin by melting the cheese wax over low-medium heat.

2. Cut your cheese into chunks that you’ll use within a few days.
3. Once the wax is melted, brush it over your cheese using a boar’s hair bristle
brush; this will often come with the wax.
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4. Be sure to coat the cheese all over; you don’t want to leave any spot bare because
bacteria will get in.
5. The wax will harden in about 30 minutes. Hang it in a mesh basket or some other
place where it won’t be exposed to water or heat then hang it in a cool, dry place.
Waxed cheese will last up to 25 years but remember that it will age and become sharper
so if you plan to store it for an extended period of time, start with a mild cheese.
How to Make and Can Butter
Butter: you use it to make baked

potatoes delicious. You smear it on your
biscuits and you make finger-licking
sauces with it. But what on Earth is
going to happen if you no longer have
access to a grocery store that provides
you with it, or the store is too far away
from home?
Nothing, if you’re a good homesteader, because you’re going to know how to make your
own. Today we’re going to teach you how to make butter at home. We’ll also touch on
something that most people don’t know about: canning butter. Keep reading!
It’s always good to know how things work. Butter is formed from the milk fats in the
milk. You use cream to make butter, and cream is made up of fat particles suspended in
water. When you agitate it by shaking it, it turns to an emulsion of water particles
suspended in fat.
Before you make butter, you have to let the cream ripen. You do that by letting it set at
room temperature for several hours until it begins to sour. At that point, the fat
crystallizes and a membrane forms around the fat molecules and further separates it
from the water.
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When you agitate it by shaking it or beating it with a churn (called shearing), the fat
globules merge and form balls of butter.
As you continue to shake it, the fat continues to separate from the water and proteins
left in the liquid and forms bigger blobs of butter, and eventually all the butter is one big
clump and the liquid left is buttermilk, which is great to cook with or even drink, though
it’s definitely an acquired taste!
Start with Good Cream

The best milk to use for making butter comes from cows that yield milk with a high
cream content. These are commonly referred to as milk cows (versus beef cattle).
Milk breeds include the Guernsey, Jersey, Holstein and Brown Swiss. Of course, all cows
make milk but beef cattle breeds offer a lower yield with much less cream.
A good milk cow will yield several gallons per day and the cream separates easily and
naturally without any special equipment. Though goats are popular animals for
prepping, their milk isn’t ideal for making butter because the cream doesn’t separate
easily without the use of an expensive separator.
It also has a different flavor than butter made from cow’s milk. After you milk the cow,
make sure to strain your milk to remove any impurities that may have fallen into the
milk bucket, then put it in a large jar in the fridge. The cream will separate out within
just a few hours.
Use a spoon or a measuring cup to skim the cream off the top of the milk. If you skim off
all the cream, you’ll be lift with skim milk. If you leave a bit, you’ll have the equivalent of
1% or 2% milk, just FYI.
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Ripening
To start the process of making butter at home, leave
the cream out at room temperature for about 12
hours until it just starts to smell sour.
Don’t let it set out too long or else it will ripen too
much and your butter will taste sour.
However, if you don’t let it ripen enough, it will be

hard to separate the fat from the milk.
Shearing
Once the cream has ripened, fill a jar 1/3 full of cream
and put the lid on tightly. You can use a churn if you have one or if you want to make a
large amount of butter, but the jar method is just as good, if not better. Don’t overfill the
jar because it won’t be able to hit the sides of the jar hard enough to make butter.
Begin shaking the jar vigorously so that the cream is banged, or concussed, against the
sides and top of the jar. This is what separates the fat molecules from the water and
makes them stick together. It’s hard to put a time frame on this process because it
depends upon how vigorously you shake, the temperature of the cream, and how well it
ripened.
Generally speaking, though, it takes anywhere from 15-30 minutes. First you’ll notice
that the cream is getting thicker, then you’ll see little blobs of butter forming. Keep
shaking until you have one big blob of butter. Once you have this blob, you can stop
shaking unless you want a really firm butter.
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Straining and Cleaning the Butter

The next step in the process of making butter is to strain it. Using a colander or other
straining device, separate the butter from the buttermilk. Leave the butter in the
colander and rinse it with cold water for a few seconds. You don’t want to use warm or
hot water because it will melt your butter.
As the cold-water chills and cleans the butter, it’ll turn into little crumbles instead of one
big glob. Now it’s time to get the water out of your butter. Place it in a bowl with enough
room to squish it against the sides. Tilt the bowl a bit so that the water can run out as
you work the butter against the sides to “wring” it out.
Once it’s firm and there’s no more water

coming out, it’s time to salt your butter. A
good rule of thumb is 1 teaspoon of salt per
pound of butter.
You don’t have to salt it but it does add to the

flavor. This is really a matter of personal taste
so go with what you like.
Pour the salt in and just start working it into

the butter with your fingers or a spoon. Don’t
over mix it but make sure that the butter is
combined. To keep your butter from going
rancid, refrigerate it.
Canning Your Butter

Canning butter is a great way to preserve this food for long term. Here’s the process in a
nutshell:
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1. Place clean pint jars in roaster and heat in a 250-degree oven. Just FYI, it takes a
little less than a pound of butter to make a pint.
2. While your jars are heating, put your butter in a saucepan or pot and bring it to a
simmer. Simmer for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly to keep it from burning.
Use this time to heat your lids, too.
3. Using a ladle, scoop the butter from the top to the bottom to fill your jars. Do it
this way because your butter may have separated a bit and scooping top to
bottom helps. Leave 3/4-inch headspace in your jar.
4. Carefully and thoroughly clean the tops of your jars. Remove the lids from the
boiling water and place on your jars. Screw on the rings.
5. Once some of the jars start to ping, indicating that they’re sealing, shake the
butter to recombine it because it will separate as it cools into a foamy top and
whitish fat on the bottom. Shake while it’s still warm and liquidy and repeat a
couple of times as it cools until it remains combined.
6. When the butter is nearly cool, put it in the fridge and shake a bit one final time
right before it solidifies.
7. Your butter should keep for at least 3 years as long as it stays sealed!
Now you know how to make butter at home, as well as how to can butter. This is another
great skill that homesteaders and homesteaders need to know because the more skills
you have, the better off you’ll be.
3 Types of Yogurts to Make at Home
Yogurt is a delicious, healthy snack, lunch or ingredient that, though typically made
from cow’s milk, can be made from many different types of “milks” including almond
milk and coconut milk. These require some extra ingredients but still offer many health
benefits. Today we’re going to tell you how to make yogurt at home regardless of the
milk that you want to use.
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The recipes and methods that we’re going to review don’t require a yogurt maker
because they all can be made off-grid. Also, it’s an unnecessary piece of equipment as
long as you’re willing to put in a bit of extra effort.
As with all things made at home, homemade yogurt is superior to store-bought yogurt
because you know what’s in it, it’s cheaper, it’s better for the environment and the biggie
– homemade yogurt tastes better so you’ll need to know how to make it yourself if you
want it!
Traditional Yogurt
You’re going to find about a million different recipes to make yogurt online but many of
them aren’t suited to the beginner yogurt maker. Some will turn out too tangy, some will
turn out runny and some won’t turn out at all. We’re trying to make this as simple as
possible so that your yogurt will turn out every time.
Yogurt, regardless of what type of “milk” you use, is packed with probiotics that help
with everything from digestive health to promoting healthy skin and hair. You can even
use yogurt in a face mask as part of your beauty routine as a softener. If you’re using
dairy milk, it also works as a mild exfoliant.
I’m going to use a cheat here – a bit of store-bought plain yogurt as the “starter” because
it’s much simpler. The only other way to start it is using chili stems to create the bacteria
in the milk. If you want to try this, place several chili pepper stems in the milk after
you’ve brought it to 160 degrees F and keep the milk warm until the concoction
thickens. Alternatively, there are freeze-dried yogurt cultures that you can order online.
I also use whole milk though I’ve heard it works with 2% or skim milk, too. Here’s what
you’ll need to make a half-gallon of yogurt. By the way, the amount of yogurt you end up
with is the same as the amount of milk that you start with.
We’re making a half-gallon here because it’s enough to make different flavors but isn’t
so much that it will spoil before you can use it. Feel free to double or halve the recipe.
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Ingredients:
• ½ gallon of milk (cow or goat)

• ¼ cup plain yogurt with live cultures
• 2 quart jars or 4 pint jars, rings, and tops,
sterilized
• 1 gallon stock pot with a heavy bottom
• 1 cooking or candy thermometer
• Heating pad or warm spot such as an
oven with a pilot light
Instructions:
• Heat your milk in the pot until it reaches

180 degrees F according to your
thermometer. Remove from heat.
• Let the milk cool until it’s 115 degrees F
and stir in the yogurt. Stir well to combine.
• Pour the mixture into the jars and put the lids on.
• Place in the warm spot such as your oven with the light on or wrap in the heating
pad on low setting.
• Leave it alone for 10-12 hours. The longer it sits, the tangier it will be.
• Chill the yogurt well, for at least 3-4 hours. Don’t worry if it’s still thin because it
will thicken as it cools.
• That’s it. You’ve just made yogurt. Now that you’ve made it, set aside ¼ cup for
your next batch!
Note:
1. If you’re using freeze-dried starter, the fermentation process will only take 4 hours or
so. Also, make sure that the milk that you use is of high quality. Organic, non-
pasteurized milk is my preference. Go organic, at least.
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2. This yogurt is going to be a bit thinner than store bought. If you want to thicken it a
bit, add ¼ cup dried milk per half gallon – stir it in when you add the yogurt culture.
3. You can freeze your yogurt in 1 cup containers.
4. You may have extra water (aka whey) in the yogurt. If so, line a sieve with cheesecloth
or a linen towel and pour your yogurt in so that the whey can drain before you put the
yogurt in your jars.
Alternate crock pot method: Bring the milk to 180 degrees in your crock pot on high,
then follow the directions above. To cool it, remove the crock from your pot and wrap it
in a towel, place it in the oven (with the oven off) and let it sit. I like to heat the oven for
a few minutes first, then turn it off before I put the yogurt in so that it’s nice and warm
in there.
Almond Milk Yogurt

You can’t make almond milk yogurt from boxed almond milk – you have to make the
milk yourself. You can do this with fresh almonds and a juicer or blender. This makes
about 2 quarts of almond yogurt. Don’t skip the
sugar – it’s the culture food!
Ingredients:
• 2 cups raw almonds

• 1 tsp. agar agar powder
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• ¼ arrowroot powder
• Water
• Freeze-dried yogurt starter
Instructions:
• Soak the almonds in water for 8-10 hours.
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• Put the almonds through the juicer or use a high-powered blender, adding
enough water to make 4 cups. Blend until it’s smooth then strain the chunks out.
• Add back to the blender and add enough water to bring it back up to the 4-cup
mark.
• Mix arrowroot with ½ cup of water.
• Put 3 cups of water into a 2-quart pot and add the agar agar. Bring it slowly to a
boil. Be careful because it will boil over.
• Simmer for 15 seconds and remove from heat.
• Add the milk and the arrowroot mixture and whisk well. Allow to cool to 105
degrees.
• Add the yogurt starter according to package directions to ¼ cup of the cooled
almond milk and whisk well to combine.
• Pour into jars and place in warm spot such as the preheated and turned off oven
and allow to ferment for 10 hours.
• Chill for 3-4 hours and the yogurt will set as it chills.
Coconut Milk Yogurt

This one is a piece of cake. Combine 1 can of full-fat coconut milk (not the sweetened
kind) at room temperature and 1 tablespoon of Inner Eco coconut water probiotic kefir
or probiotic capsule. Combine the milk and the probiotic well and pour into a jar. Put it
in the oven with the light on or wrap it in a heating pad for 10 hours or so.
Tip: If you want it thicker, put the coconut milk in the fridge so that the cream rises
to the top. Pour the cream out and leave the water in the bottom.
Now you know how to make a few different types of plain yogurt! If you want to flavor
them with fruit or other flavorings, do so either when you serve it or before you put it in
the jars.
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Part 3 – SWEETENERS, FATS

& SEASONINGS
How to Make Sugar at Home
Sugar is a great product to have in order to make treats that boost morale and lend a
sense of normalcy to life, which will be crucial to survive nowadays. The problem is that
storing large quantities of sugar is a challenge. It’s bulky, takes up a ton of space, and is
a bug magnet.
Even if you stockpile the sweetness, you will still eventually run out, but what if you
knew how to make your own? It’s really not that difficult and there are a couple of ways
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that you can do it. For that matter, as part of your homesteading way of life, you could
make your own just so that you know where it’s coming from.
Today we’re going to tell you how to make sugar at home. As a matter of fact, we’re
going to teach you about two types.
Unless you’re fortunate enough to live in a tropical climate and have a ton of expensive
equipment, you won’t be able to grow sugar cane, the crop that yields about 70% of table
sugar in the US. You can, however, grow sugar beets, which is used to produce the other
30% of the sugar that you buy. You can also make maple sugar from maple syrup.
How to Make Beet Sugar

Not surprisingly, beet sugar is made from sugar
beets.
These aren’t the same as the red or white bulbous

beets that you’ve eaten as a dinner side or with
pickled eggs; sugar beets actually look more like
a parsnip or daikon than they do their sister
beets. They’re elongated and have a similar
coloring to white potatoes and sugar beets grow
well in a variety of climates just like all beets do.
Sugar beets were originally grown to feed

livestock but aren’t really fit for human
consumption. Here’s one of our favorite things about sugar beets – after you make the
sugar, you can still use the leftover meat of the beet as a hot or cold mash for your
livestock. No waste!
Beet sugar is super-easy to make, too. No special equipment is required and it doesn’t
take a long time to do it.
1. Scrub your beets to get all dirt and debris off of them.
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2. Thinly slice, dice or shred the beets and place them in a pot.
3. Add just enough water to cover the beets.
4. Heat to a boil then simmer long enough for the beets to become tender and soft.
5. Remove from heat and strain the beet pulp out of the juice using cheesecloth.
6. Return the syrup to the pot.
7. Hold the cheesecloth full of pulp over the pot and squeeze as much water as
possible out.
8. Simmer until it becomes thick, honey-like syrup, stirring frequently, then remove
from heat.
9. Place in a storage container and allow to cool.
10. As it cools, the sugar will crystalize. Remove crystals and smash into a powder
with your fingers so that it looks like table sugar.
11. Store and use just like you would regular sugar.
Just FYI, you can expect to get about 17% of your original beet weight in sugar. To do the
math for you, you’ll need about 10 pounds of beets to yield 1.7 pounds of sugar.
How to Make Maple Sugar at Home

Maple sugar is deliciously reminiscent of the syrup that it’s made from; it has that
beautiful, sort of smoky maple flavor. Chances are that you’ve had maple sugar at least
once in your life. It’s frequently sold as candy in the shape of maple leaves.
Maple sugar is great for baking, eating, or just adding to your tea. Once you try it, you’ll
be hooked. You don’t need anything too specialized but you will need a candy
thermometer and a heavy-bottomed pan.
1. Start with about 3 gallons of pure, organic maple syrup.

2. Heat on medium high until the syrup reaches 290-300 degrees, which is between
soft crack and hard crack stages. If the syrup starts to overflow, just reduce heat a
bit then turn it back up after the foam settles.
3. Remove from heat and stir vigorously for about 5 minutes.
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4. Pour into a heat-resistant container; it’s going to be extremely hot!

5. Allow to cool completely.
6. Break into chunks and grate into a powder.
7. Store as you would standard sugar.
One quart of syrup will yield about 2 pounds of granulated sugar. If you live in an area
with maple trees, you can draw the sap directly from the trees and make your own
syrup. Making maple sugar is a great skill because it’s easy and requires very little
specialized equipment other than a tap for the tree.
Just FYI, darker maple syrups tend to yield a moister sugar than lighter-colored syrups
do. Since maple trees are tapped in the spring when the sap is running, you need a
tremendous amount of sap, about 40 gallons, just to make 1 gallon of good syrup. Just to
give you an idea, an average tree yields about 3-4 gallons per day and a little over 13
gallons per season, total.
Because you can tap the tree without seriously damaging it, maple syrup and maple
sugar are both wonderfully sustainable foods. It’s also delicious to eat even when things
are going wonderfully!
It’s easy to make both beet sugar and maple sugar at home and they both have their
uses. Maple sugar does taste differently so you may wish to use it when you’re looking
specifically for that flavor profile. Beet sugar tastes just like plain white sugar so you can
use it just as you would cane sugar.
How to Make Maple Syrup at Home
Maple syrup is delicious, mineral-rich and natural. It’s easy enough to make as long as
you live near maple or birch trees and it stores extremely well – for years if you store it
properly. It will also be an excellent barter item because not many people will have the
tools or the knowledge necessary to make it.
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Fresh maple syrup is a delicious delight to have around to use on pancakes, waffles or in
recipes. Today, you’re going to learn how to make maple syrup from start to finish.
The first step in making maple syrup is to draw the sap from the trees. This process is
pretty simple if you’re just doing it to make a few batches of syrup; if you want to go
industrial, the process can get complicated but only because it involves a long series of
pipes that run from each tap on each tree and run the sap downhill to a processing plant.
What You Need for Maple Syrup?

All living trees have sap but there are only certain ones that have sap that tastes good.
The tree needs to produce a sap that 2% sugar or higher. The most popular trees to
make maple syrup from are the sugar maple, the red maple, the black maple, the silver
maple and the box elder, in that order.
You can also tap Birch trees but the syrup tastes much different and you need more than
twice as much sap to make the same amount of syrup. It’s primarily fructose syrup,
versus the sucrose that a maple secretes and tastes similar to horehound or sorghum.
Sycamore, walnut and hickory trees make good syrup, too, though they’ll taste different.
Trees need to be at least 12 inches in diameter before you tap them. Fun fact: they’re
about 40 years old by the time they reach that size!
You don’t need any specialized equipment, really. You probably have almost everything
that you need lying around the house.
You’ll need a drill or an auger, some tape to mark the drill bit with, a piece of PVC that’s
½-inch in diameter (or whatever you want to use as the tap – you can buy actual taps, or
spiles, made for this, or you can make your own), a mallet or hammer, and a bucket or
other collection container.
Milk jugs or even 2-liter soda bottles work to collect the sap, though you’ll have to check
them a couple times a day because they’ll fill quickly if the sap is running well. 5-gallon
buckets with lids are better but then you’ll need tubing to run from the tap to the bucket.
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The upside is that you’ll only need to check it once a day. Don’t use copper for your spile
– it’s toxic to plants.
When Should You Tap the Tree?
The sap is created in the roots of the tree and runs up it to nourish the limbs and new
buds for spring. Having no sap in the winter is nature’s way of protecting the tree
because sap is mostly water and would freeze.
The sap usually starts running anywhere from mid-February to early March and lasts 4-
6 weeks, depending upon the weather. The temperatures need to rise above freezing
during the day and drop below freezing at night.
A good rule of thumb when extracting sap from a maple tree is to tap them when the
temperature is around 40 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and 20 degrees Fahrenheit
at night.
The flavor of the sap changes during this period. In the beginning, it will yield a light-
colored syrup with a mellow flavor. As the season progresses, the sap will produce syrup
that’s darker and richer. Eventually, it turns unpalatable and that’s why you want to
catch it early.
Does Tapping Hurt the Tree?
In case you’re worried about harming the tree, tapping, even if you use 3 taps, only takes
a maximum of 7-10 percent of the total sap that the tree makes, so you’re not hurting it.
The tap itself does create a wound but doesn’t permanently hurt the tree as long as you
remove the tap at the end of the season. It will heal and grow over. However, you
shouldn’t tap the tree in the same spot the next year. Drill another hole that’s not
vertical to the old one, and several inches away.
Some people only tap a tree every other year to give it a chance to recover but most
don’t, and the trees will remain healthy for years.
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How to Tap the Maple Tree
This process is actually pretty simple. Here it is:
1. Measure up your drill bit 2 1/2 inches and mark it with tape.
2. Pick a spot on the south or southeast side of the tree. That’s where the sun shines
most and warms the sap so that it runs best. Where you drill the hole depends on
what you’re using. Waist height is good but really anywhere works if you need to
go lower because of the bucket that you’re using.
3. Drill a hole at a slightly upward angle to help the sap run out of the tap, stopping
when you get to the tape. The drill bit should be slightly smaller than your spile
so that the spile fits snugly. If you buy a standard spile made for tapping trees, it
will probably require a 7/16 bit.
4. Clean the debris out of the hole.
5. Push your spile in then tap it the rest of the way in with your hammer or mallet.
6. Hang your bucket or run your hose that goes to the bucket. Sap should start to
ooze out almost immediately so be ready.
7. Collect your sap from your maple tree daily (or more often if you’re using smaller
containers). If you’re not cooking it down immediately, it needs to be stored
below 38 degrees Fahrenheit and used within 7 days or bacteria can grow in it
and it will spoil.
You may place more than one tap per tree if it’s big enough. Trees 18-24 inches in
diameter should have no more than 2 taps. Trees larger than 25 inches in diameter can
support up to 3.m. Once buds develop on the tree, the sap will develop an unpleasant
flavor, so your time is up!
On average, you’ll draw 3/4-3 gallons of sap per day, per tap. On average, each tap will
yield 10-20 gallons per year, but if it’s a good year and your tree is a good producer, it’s
possible to get as much as 40-80 gallons per tap per year!
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Don’t be disappointed if you only get a couple of cups one day, though. If the weather
doesn’t cooperate one night or one day, you can expect a brief lull in production.
Extracting sap from a maple tree is never an exact science.
Troubleshooting: If the sap is running, the drill bit will be damp or there will actually be
sap running from the hole. If you drill too early, the hole may begin to grow shut and
flow will be restricted or even blocked and you may have to drill a new hole.
Now you know how to extract sap from your maple tree and collect it. You’re now ready
to cook it down into maple syrup!
Let’s Make the Maple Syrup!

If you followed the directions, your sap is stored in food-grade containers – most likely 5
gallon buckets. It should be stored at 38 degrees F or colder. This probably won’t be a
problem because you’re collecting the sap in late winter/early spring and it will still be
cold. There may even still be snow on the ground. Sap should be used within seven days
of collection.
Just as a side-note, there are many cultures that believe that drinking raw maple sap has
a wide variety of health benefits. Though it’s been done for centuries, it’s now
recommended that you boil your sap before drinking it to kill any bacteria that may be
in it.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand: making maple syrup. You’re going to need 10 gallons
of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup. If you’re going to make more than just a very small
batch, it’s best to make the syrup outside. The reason behind this is that you’re going to
be cooking off about 9 gallons of water per 10 gallons of sap and it creates a LOT of
steam.
I came from the Appalachian mountains and we had a ton of maple trees; every spring
several different families would get together and make huge batches of maple syrup; we
even had a maple syrup festival a few towns over from where I grew up.
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The sap would be poured into big copper kettles that held gallons. The kettles were
suspended over a fire and long wooden paddles were used to stir it. This process is
basically the same one that you’ll be following, but on a much smaller scale (maybe!).
Start by digging a pit and lining it with bricks. Dig the pit 3-4 feet deep because you’re
going to use a lot of wood to do this and the ash will build up. Plus, you don’t want the
sap too close to the fire or it will burn because of the high levels of sugar in it.
Once you have your pit dug, place a metal grate over it to set your pot on. A large stock
pot or lobster pot works wonderfully. If you want to make more than one batch at a
time, just build a larger pit and have more pots.
Don’t fill the pots much more than half-way full because the sap will foam as it boils. If
your pot starts to overflow, rub a bit of butter or vegetable oil around the rim of your
pot. That will help. As the sap reduces, keep adding more sap but try to maintain the
boil.
You’ll reach a point where your sap turns a golden color but is still pretty liquidy. At this
point, transfer it to a smaller pot and you can finish the process up inside the house.
Because the syrup is still going to be foaming, follow the procedure from above and
don’t fill your pot more than half-way full to keep it from boiling over.
Keep boiling the syrup, stirring frequently to keep it from burning. When it reaches the
point where it sticks to a spoon when you stick it in, your syrup is done. If you want to
be a bit more technical, you can use a candy thermometer and stop boiling it when the
temperature of your syrup reaches 7 degrees F above the boiling point of water.
This may seem odd, but if you think about it, it’s logical. You want to boil MOST of the
water out, so as you boil it, the amount of water will decrease and the temperature
required for boiling will increase. There’s your science lesson for the day.
Since the boiling point of water is different at different elevations, look up what the
boiling point of your elevation is. As a starting point, water boils at sea level at 212
degrees F. Mount Everest is about 29,000 feet above sea level and the boiling point of
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water is 71 degrees F. As you can see, this is a pretty big deal if you’re being technical
about when your syrup is done.
Next, it’s time to filter your syrup. There’s a good chance that there may be debris from
the tapping and outdoor cooking processes and you don’t want to pour that over your
pancakes. Strain it through a food-grade filter.
If you only made a little bit, you can use a coffee filter and just squeeze it through. If you
made a large quantity, you can use a wool or orlon filter. If you don’t have either of
these, you can simply let the syrup sit in the refrigerator overnight and let the sediment
settle to the bottom, then pour off the clean syrup.
If you’re going to use the syrup right away, pour it into a container and put it in the
fridge. If you made a larger batch, can it.
How to Make Vegetable Oil
Knowing how to make your own vegetable oil is a great skill to have in case a
catastrophic event occurs. If you want to make soap, cooking oil, candles, or body oils
from scratch, retrieving the oil is step one.
This is actually a fun process if you like working with your hands and doesn’t require
much in the way of equipment so, if you’re ready, let’s make some oil!
Homemade oils are free of the bleach and other chemicals that are in commercial
products. They also taste better and are, in most cases, cheaper to make than to buy.
Nut and seed oils are expensive, but for as little as $15 or so, you can grow enough seeds
to keep you in oil for the rest of your life.
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Getting Started with Vegetable Oil

The first thing that you need to do is
decide what type of oil you’d like to use.
The entire world of nuts and seeds is at
your disposal but some are better than
others. It also depends upon what you
want to use it for.
If you want an oil that adds flavor to

your food or makes a great-smelling
body oil or soap, you may want to use nuts or seeds such as almond, pumpkin, hazelnut,
or coconut (yeah, I know – it’s not technically a nut).
If you’re shooting for an inexpensive, all-purpose oil that is easy to grow just about
anywhere, sunflower seeds are probably your best bet.
There are two different kinds of sunflower seeds – the ones you eat (confectionary) and
the ones used for bird seed (black oil). The black oil seeds produce twice the oil and
costs about $15 for a 40-pound bag. You get about a quart of oil from a 2-liter bottle of
seeds.
The most cost-efficient way to use the seeds that you buy is to plant them and grow an
entire crop instead of just using them directly for oil. Sunflowers are easy to grow; they
don’t require much space or water to thrive and if you save some seeds back, you’ll never
have to buy another bag.
Once the heads sag and the petals fall off at the end of the season, you’ll know that
they’re ready to harvest. Lop off the head and hang it up to dry. Then just rub the seeds
out with a piece of durable cloth. Easy.
If you’d rather use other nuts or seeds, here are some yields per quart of oil:
• Walnuts – 2.9 pounds
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• Hazelnuts – 3.6 pounds

• Peanuts – 4.6 pounds
• Pumpkin and sunflower – 5.3 pounds
Remember that though you may get a lesser yield from pumpkin and sunflower seeds,
they’re dirt cheap and a piece of cake to grow compared to nuts!
Making Oil
Oil presses used to be extremely expensive, but you can get small ones that will do just
fine for home production for about $125. If you buy used, you can get them even
cheaper and they’ll last forever.
You can even make your own. They’re simple pieces

of machinery that have a funnel for you to put the
seeds in, a crank that you use to push the seeds
through the extractor, a heating section that heats
the oil, an exit for the oil, and an exit for the pulp.
That’s it.
It’s important to clean your press well after you use

it though because oils go rancid quickly and you
don’t want to ruin a fresh batch.
The process is simple.
• Set up your machine.

• Fill the heating unit with the recommended
flammable and light.
• Allow it to heat – this takes about 10 minutes.
• Pour your seeds into the hopper.
• Crank your butt off – it takes about 20 minutes to make 14 ounces of oil. That’s
about a 2-liter bottle full of seeds.
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• Remove your container of fresh oil and cap tightly.

• Clean your machine.
• Your oil will be black, assuming you’re using black oil sunflower seeds. Once it
sets for a few days, the sediment will settle to the bottom.
• Siphon off the oil and discard the sediment.
• Store for up to 2 years in a tightly-sealed container in a cool, dry place.
Different oils have different shelf lives but for the most part, seed and nut oils are good
for at least a year, and often 2-3. If the oil is rancid, it will change colors and smell off.
The taste won’t be pleasant, either.
That’s all there is to making vegetable oil. You now have a high-quality product to cook
with or to use as a base for soap, candles, lamp or bio-fuel or body oils.
How to Grow Your Herbs
Most of these herbs can be started from seeds

and grown in planters or in your garden,
though planters are easier to tend.
Basil, marjoram, oregano, rosemary, thyme,

parsley, tarragon, sage, chives, dill and
cilantro all grow well just by burying the
seeds about ½ inch deep in a planter and
watering them regularly to keep the soil
moist.
All of these plants are ready to eat pretty much as soon as they start to grow leaves but
don’t get too anxious; wait until they’re fully grown to harvest or you’ll just lose the
opportunity to have a more plentiful harvest.
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I do recommend that you grow the herbs in separate containers because sometimes the
flavors will merge if you grow them together. When it’s time to harvest them, you can
either use them fresh or dry them by hanging them until they’re completely dry and then
sealing in an airtight container.
Growing and Harvesting Garlic

Garlic is planted via a bulb that has sprouted. You simply bury the bulb about 2 inches
down and watch it grow.
Though it’s a bit tricky to know when to harvest garlic, a good rule of thumb is to wait
until about half of the leaves have drooped and turned yellow. Gently push some of the
dirt away from the bulb and if it looks to be of good size and the paper wrapper is firm
and tight, it’s done. If it’s still small, cover it back up and check it again in a week or so.
Brush off the excess dirt and trim off the greens but if you want to store your garlic for
winter or just for a longer period of time, don’t wash the bulbs.
Growing and Harvesting Ginger

Most people don’t grow ginger and I suspect that’s because they think of it as an exotic
root and just don’t think that they can do it. That couldn’t be further from the truth. You
can grow ginger indoors or out, though it does like warm, humid climates best if you’re
growing it outdoors.
One of the best things about ginger is that it doesn’t require much tending. As a matter
of fact, if you grow it outside, you can pretty much plant it and forget it until it’s time to
harvest as long as you live in fairly humid and moist conditions. It loves filtered
sunlight, a sheltered spot and warm weather along with the humidity and rich soil.
Now it’s time to dispel the myth about the edible part of ginger being a root; it’s actually
a called a rhizome and is part of the plant stem that grows horizontally underneath the
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dirt. It holds the nutrients for the plant and is similar to a tuber (potato) but not exactly
the same thing. A rhizome has roots of its own.
You can start your ginger by buying some ginger root at the store, soaking it overnight
and planting it directly into the dirt. One of the reasons that you want to soak it is
because it may have been treated with growth retardant to keep it from growing buds.
When you’re buying ginger to plant, look for pieces that have little nobs that are similar
to the eyes of potatoes. Plant it in good, rich soil. Compost is perfect for it. It should be
soil that stays moist but drains well so that the ginger doesn’t become waterlogged.
If you want, you can cut the root into pieces that each have a few “eyes” or you can just
plant the whole thing. If you’re planting them outside, plant them about 6 inches apart.
If you’re growing them in a pot, you can put about 3 pieces in a 14 inch pot then wait for
it to grow.
At first you’ll only get a few leaves but as it grows, it will get fuller but ginger only grows
2 or 3 feet high. Plant in late winter/early spring or if you’re in the tropics, plant it at the
end of the dry season/beginning of the wet season.
Water ginger enough to keep the soil moist; mulch is great to use in the soil around it
because it keeps the soil moist and nourishes the ginger as it decomposes. When your
plants start to die back in the fall (this usually takes 8-10 months!), stop watering it for
about a week and then harvest your ginger!
If you really want to get a good crop going, resist harvesting at least a few of your plants
for a year or two. To regrow ginger, either save some of the rhizome for the following
planting season or just leave some in the ground. You can also just harvest some
rhizomes from around the edge of the plant and leave the rest.
If you live in a colder climate, you may do better to grow your ginger in raised beds, in a
greenhouse or inside.
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Growing turmeric is an extremely similar process though it may be harder to find the
rhizomes. Just look around and you may be able to find them at some specialty stores.
Turmeric likes sunny areas but afternoon sun is OK.
Growing and Harvesting Cumin

Cumin is another plant that many people don’t grow. You need to start it inside 4-8
weeks before the last frost because it has about a 120-day growth period from planting
to harvesting. Plant the seedlings about 6-8 inches apart. Though they prefer a loamy or
sandy loamy soil, they grow fairly well in any rich soil that is moist but well drained.
When the seed pods turn brown, it’s time to harvest them. Simply rub the pods to
remove the seeds. Use immediately or store in an airtight container before or after
grinding to a powder.
Drying Your Cayenne and Chili Peppers

Growing chili peppers is just like growing any other pepper but drying it is skill that you
may not have acquired yet.
It’s fairly easy to do; you can, of course, just dry them in your dehydrator or in the oven.
To dry peppers it the old-fashioned way, wash them well and allow them to dry
thoroughly. Run a string or twine or dental floss through the stems of the peppers,
leaving a bit of space in between each one, then hang them in a sunny spot and let them
dry until they’re leathery and shriveled. This will take a week or two.
Easy Recipes for Homemade Seasonings
We all love them – those delicious herbs and spices that takes food from bland to grand.
They are easy to make and there is an infinity of recipes available, so why not learn now
how to make your own?
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There are several different benefits to making your own seasonings. First, most of the
stuff that you buy in the store is likely old. There’s no telling how long it’s been sitting in
some warehouse, just to be transported to a store where it may sit for many more
months.
Second, if you’re growing your own herbs and making your own seasonings, you know
what’s in them. You know that you’re not seasoning your spaghetti sauce with pesticide
along with basil and oregano.
Finally, if stuff really does go south, you’ll be able to make seasonings for your family
and to use as barter for other things that you need. Making seasoning blends isn’t brain
surgery but can you name off the ingredients in seasoning salt off the top of your head
right now? Probably not, and neither can most people, but you’re about to learn.
Most seasonings consist of a few basic herbs and spices that taste differently when you
combine them in different ways and amounts. I recommend that you grow, at minimum,
the following herbs and spices:
• Basil
• Parsley
• Oregano
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• Cilantro (if you let the plant flower and develop seeds, the seeds are coriander)
• Mint
• Rosemary
• Thyme
• Chives
• Tarragon
• Sage
• Dill
• Marjoram
• Garlic
• Chili Peppers
• Ginger
• Turmeric
• Cumin
The reason that I recommend these is that if you have just these combinations, you can
make just about any seasoning blend that you could ever desire. Cinnamon is also
something that you should keep on hand. Since you probably can’t grow it, you’ll need to
buy it in dry goods and store it.
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There’s more than just flavor behind the logic in suggesting these particular herbs.
Almost all of them have healing or medicinal properties too.
Spice Recipes
OK, now that you know how to grow your herbs and spices, let’s get to the good part: the
recipes for spice blends. You can see most of them in the pictures above, and here are 3
other seasoning recipes that I’m sure you’ll love.
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As you can see, there are a few ingredients such as allspice, cardamom, cloves and
nutmeg that you simply can’t grow in the US so you need to stockpile these items so that
you have what you need.
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How to Make Vinegar at Home
Vinegar: the delicious, magical, germ-killing cleaning agent and wondrous elixir that
cures what ails you.
Since you’re a smart homesteader, you may have plenty stockpiled, but wouldn’t it be
much easier, and homesteader-friendly, if you could just make vinegar at home from
ingredients that you already have on hand? Well, you can. As a matter of fact, it pretty
much makes itself if you just combine a few basic ingredients and leave it alone.
You can make vinegar from just about anything that has sugar or starch in it. As a
matter of fact, you can make it straight from sugar, but it’s a bit more difficult. Today,
we’re going to discuss the details of making apple cider vinegar from start to finish. The
process transfers pretty easily to all other fruits that you may want to use.
Tips for Making Vinegar

There are only four important guidelines to successfully making vinegar and as long as
you follow the simple directions and abide by these rules, you’ll be using your own
vinegar in no time.
1. Make sure that your equipment is clean. You don’t want wayward bacteria
affecting the process.
2. Don’t use metal or plastic containers. They affect the process and the flavor and
can derail the whole project.
3. If you’re comfortable with the temperature, your vinegar probably is, too. If it’s
too hot, the good bacteria will die. If it’s too cold, the bacteria will go dormant.
Either way, you’re not going to get vinegar. 70-80 degrees Fahrenheit is about
perfect and you can go as low as 60.
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4. Store your future vinegar out of direct light to avoid killing necessary bacteria.
You can do this by storing in a dark place or by using a dark jar or crock to
ferment it in.
What You’ll Need to Make Vinegar

Just like with most homesteading projects, you don’t need any super-fancy equipment
to make vinegar at home.
For the sake of thoroughness, we’re going to talk about the entire vinegar-making
process from apple to vinegar, though there are a couple of shortcuts that you can take if
you have hard cider, starter, or vinegar on hand. We’ll start from scratch in doing
vinegar since it’s the most affordable way to do it, so this list is inclusive.
1. Fresh juice from unblemished apples that have been thoroughly cleaned before
pressing. Use sweet apples because it’s the sugar that causes the fermentation.
Fall apples such as Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Gala, Jonagold and Fuji
apples are all good ones. Taste them. If they’re fairly sweet, they’ll work. You can
also use store-bought juice as long as it has no additives and isn’t pasteurized.
You can also use apple scraps – cores and peels – as long as the apples are
organic.
2. An airlock cap. You can buy these at any winery or make them from a piece of
wine cork or corn cob. Drill a hole in the cork or cob and insert a snug-fitting
piece of tubing long enough to go from the juice out through the hole and into a
jar of water. A couple of feet should do.
You don’t need an airlock cap if you’re starting with hard cider or wine already because
the second fermentation stage NEEDS plenty of air. For that matter, you don’t need it
for the first phase but it speeds the process up considerably because carbon dioxide can
escape without letting in any air that will slow down this stage of the fermentation
process.
3. Glass or enameled earthenware jug(s)/bottle(s).
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4. Cheesecloth or an old T-shirt (for us homesteaders who like to repurpose things).

5. Rubber band or string to secure cheesecloth or T-shirt on top of jug during the
second fermentation.
6. Jars or bottles with lids for storing the finished vinegar.
Making Hard Cider from Apple Scraps

Let your scraps turn brown then fill your jars up with them and cover with water, filling
to the top. Put your airlock cap on. If you’re using the homemade version, run the hose
to a jar of water. Place in a dark place and allow to ferment for about 4-6 weeks.
A gray foam will form on the top of the cider; this is normal. It’s harmless. You’ll know
the juice has turned to cider when there’s no more air (bubbles) coming through the
tube. This means that all of the sugar has turned to alcohol. There will be a thick layer of
silt, called lees, in the bottom and the juice will smell like alcohol.
Strain the cider through cheesecloth, an old t-shirt or a coffee filter. Now you’re ready to
make vinegar.
*If you don’t use an airlock device, you may want to use a wider-mouthed jar or crock so
that the vinegar fermentation will go faster. Alternatively, you can watch for bubbles to
stop during the cider fermentation, then strain the cider from the fruit and fill the jugs
back up half way to finish the cider-to-vinegar fermentation so that you have more
surface area exposed to air.
Making Hard Cider from Apple Juice

The process is basically the same except that you use juice instead of peels and water.
Just fill your bottle or jug with juice and follow the same procedure as above.
Note: If you’re worried that your juice isn’t sweet enough, you can fix that by dissolving
a couple of teaspoons of sugar per gallon of juice/water into the mix.
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Speeding things up: Many people use a starter such as yeast or vinegar but this isn’t
really necessary because there are enough of the good bacteria in the air to cause
fermentation without the additions.
You can use them, though, if you want to speed things up a bit. If you’re using wine-
making yeast, use 1 cake per 5 gallons of juice. If you’re using vinegar, use a 1:4 vinegar
to juice ratio.
Note: You don’t have to use an airlock lid for this process but if you don’t, it will take
up to 6 months or so for the juice to turn to vinegar if you don’t have a starter. Still,
you can always wait for your first batch to be finished, then use the mother or some of
your vinegar to make speedier batches after that.
Making Apple Cider Vinegar at Home from Cider

Now that you have your cider, you’re ready to start the vinegar making process. This is
the easy part: just put your cider in jugs, cover the top with cheesecloth or a piece of old
t-shirt, and place it in a dark, warm place. It’ll do its own thing and turn to vinegar on its
own.
Since air is required for this process, you should only fill your jars to the widest part of
the vessel, allowing as much surface area to be exposed as possible. You can also stir it
daily, or regularly, to speed things up a bit.
You’ll notice that the thick, gray or white gelatinous foam will form on top again during
this process. This is called the “mother” and can either be discarded or used to speed up
the process of making vinegar at home the next time.
The speed of this process depends upon temperature, whether you’re using a starter,
and how much air the bacteria has access to, but expect this fermentation phase to take
3 weeks to 6 months. Just keep smelling it and once it smells vinegary, taste it and let it
ferment till it tastes strong enough to you.
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There’s a special kit called a titration kit that you can use to measure and adjust the
acidity of the vinegar, and there is of course the old-fashioned method, but that’s an
entirely different article! It’s important though that your vinegar be at least 5% acetic
acid if you’re going to use it for preserving foods.
Storage
If you want to keep your vinegar for more than a few months, you need to pasteurize it
and store it in clean, sealed containers. Do this by bringing it to 170 degrees for 10
minutes. This will also burn off any residual alcohol left in the vinegar. Store in sealed
bottles or canning jars and it’ll stay good practically indefinitely.
Note: In place of apples, you can use grapes, berries, or any other high-sugar food to
make vinegar. The process is basically the same. Ferment it to an alcohol state then
ferment the wine or cider to vinegar.
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Part 4 – ALCOHOLIC
DRINKS
How to Make Beer from Scratch
Have you ever been sipping a cold one and wondered to yourself, “Self, what would
happen if there suddenly were no more beer manufacturers?
Can I make this myself?” As a homesteader and a do-it-yourselfer, you most likely have,
and the answer is yes, but we’re going to have to qualify it. Yes, you can make your own
beer at home as long as you’ve stockpiled the equipment and the ingredients.
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Making beer isn’t like making wine; you can’t just toss some grape juice, yeast and sugar
in a bottle and wait it out.
What You Need for Making Beer

You really do need 3 specialized ingredients (hops, beer yeast, and fermented sugar) a
couple of common ingredients and some fairly specialized yet simple equipment.
You can also opt to start with a beer kit, which will provide you with everything that you
need to get started, but will only have enough supplies for your first batch or two. After
that, you’ll need to order ingredients but you’ll have your equipment.
We’re also going to tell you how to store your beer in casks instead of bottling it after we
go through the process of making it, too. You know, just in case you want to open the
first saloon, or if you just want really good beer.
For simplicity, because you probably won’t be growing your own wheat and making your
own malt, we’re going to use an extract. You can, of course, make it straight from wheat
but that would require, well, wheat.
Equipment
• 2 food-grade 5-gallon buckets with lids, or 1 bucket and 1 “carboy”, a 5-gallon

glass bottle
• Large pot or kettle that will hold at least 3 gallons of liquid with extra room to
spare
• 6 feet of plastic, food-grade tubing
• 1 airlock, aka fermentation lock, to keep bacteria out of your beer while letting
Co2 out.
• 1 long spoon – you’ll use this for stirring so make sure it’s long enough to stir
your pot.
• At least 55 bottles
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• At least 55 bottle caps (not twist-offs)

• 2 bottle cappers
• Bottling wand
• 1 large funnel
• Food thermometer
• A cool place to ferment – cooler, fridge, cold basement, cellar
Ingredients
These are the ingredients you’ll need:
• 5 gallons of filtered, purified water

• 6 pounds of DME (dry malt extract)
• 1 oz. hop pellets, your choice (this will
play a huge part in the taste of the beer)
• 14g (2 7oz packs) ale yeast
• 1 C warm water to activate the yeast in
• 3/4 C liquid corn syrup
Before you start the process of actually making

beer at home, you need to carefully sanitize all of your equipment. Any bacteria will
cause spoilage of your beer, or at the very least will affect the flavor.
As a good homesteader, you should have plenty of bleach stored back so make yourself a
bleach solution with 1T of bleach per gallon of water to sanitize stuff so that you kill all
the nasties.
Brew It Up
Now to the good part – making your beer at home!
1. Gather all of your ingredients and equipment.
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2. Place your hops pellets in cheesecloth or some type of clean cloth so that it just
steeps in the beer.
3. Pour 1.5 gallons of water into your kettle and bring it to a boil.
4. Remove from heat and add the malt, stirring so that it’s all dissolved. If it sinks to
the bottom, it’ll burn, and burned malt tastes like crap.
5. Bring it back to a boil for about 50 minutes. It’s going to bubble so be sure to
watch it carefully. If you need to beat back the foam to keep it from overflowing,
spray it with a bit of water in a spray bottle.
6. Add your hops. Now the mix will get REALLY foamy so watch it carefully and
spray if necessary; you can’t walk away at this point.
7. Boil for another 10-20 minutes, depending upon how “hoppy” you want your
beer.
8. While your wort (that’s what the mix is called) is boiling, dissolve your yeast in
the water. If it doesn’t activate (get bubbly), your yeast is no good. Try again with
fresh yeast or your beer won’t ferment correctly.
9. Next, you can either remove from heat and let it cool naturally or place the pot in
an ice bath to cool it quickly. If you use an ice bath, it will take about 20 minutes
to cool. Stir it a bit so that it cools faster.
Fermenting
1. Pour the remaining 3.5 gallons of water into your fermenting bucket or carboy
and use the funnel to add the wort.
2. Sprinkle in the yeast and then stir it or add the lid and shake it so that the yeast
dissolves.
3. Add the airlock and store in a cool place (60-75 degrees F) such as a dark room or
your basement or cellar, where no light will get to it. Some foam will likely escape
through the airlock so make sure that it’s not going to ruin anything that the
carboy or bucket is sitting on.
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4. The fermentation process should take about 2 weeks. If the temperature of the
room raises and the airlock stops bubbling, you need to move it to a cooler place
right then.
5. If all is well, the airlock will have a slow trickle of bubbles that will increase for a
few days, then decrease over the next few days.
6. It’s possible that the fermentation process will pop your airlock out. If that
happens, just sanitize it and put it back in.
Bottling or Casking Your Beer

Now it’s time to store your beer. Regardless of whether you’re using bottles or a
cask/keg, sanitize them well and let them air dry. Your bottles caps will come with
sanitizing instructions.
1. In a sanitized pot, bring the corn syrup and 1 cup of water to a boil and boil it for
10 minutes. Don’t use too much syrup because the beer will over-carbonate and
cause the bottles to explode.
2. Cool for 10 minutes and pour the sugar mixture into your bottling bucket. (or
your cask if you’re casking)
3. Set your full fermentation bucket on the counter and place the bottling bucket in
the floor beneath it.
4. Using your sanitized siphoning hose, begin to siphon the beer from the
fermentation bucket into the bottling bucket (or cask). Control how fast it flows
by pinching the siphon. You don’t want it to splash but rather to flow gently in.
5. After all the beer has siphoned into the bottling bucket, cover and allow it to set
for 30 minutes so that the sediment sinks.
6. Now move the bottling bucket gently to the counter and siphon the beer into your
bottles, leaving 3/4-inch headspace.
7. Cap each bottle securely.
8. Let the bottles age for at least 2 weeks, but up to 2 months, then enjoy!
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9. If you’ve placed your beer in a cask, store it somewhere cool, 55-65 degrees, with
the airlock still in place.
10. Sample after a few days and drink it when it’s ready, or bottle it if you were
casking for flavor. If you do use a cask, make sure that your siphon hose is a
couple of inches or so off the bottom so that you’re not siphoning the dead yeast
and sediment off the bottom.
Casked beers go bad more quickly than bottled beers, so keep that in mind. There’s a
whole art to choosing your casks, too!
After you get the hang of this basic recipe for making beer at home, you can experiment
with different hops and yeasts to alter the flavors. You can even add fruits or spices to
make your very own craft beers. Once you get the basics and understand the science, the
world is your brew-toy. Enjoy!
How to Make Wine at Home
When you think of wine you

probably think of grapes, and
rightly so.
Most commercial wine is made

with grapes and the flavors are
determined by the variety of grape,
the region in which they are grown,
and the spices and methods used to
ferment them into wine.
However, you can make wine from just about anything that will ferment.
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Fruits (apples, for example), vegetables

and even some flowers make wonderful
wine and you can use any of them to
make wine at home if you follow the basic
rules of wine making. Once you get the
hang of the fermentation process, you’ll
be golden.
Wine making isn’t exactly a piece of cake

for a beginner, but it isn’t brain surgery
either. In the end you’ll be ready to get started using whatever produce suits your fancy
and as you get used to the process, you’ll definitely want to get creative!
Tip: Homemade wine can taste hideous or it can taste better than anything that
you buy in the store. The difference between the two is how well you follow the
directions. There’s also a bit of luck involved too, especially in the beginning.
One huge benefit is that what you make at home is 100 percent natural, without the
additives and preservatives that are present in most store-bought wines. As business
people, wine producers have to push out as much product in as little time as possible –
time is money.
Unfortunately, really good wine takes time to make. That’s typically the difference
between a $5 bottle of wine and a $50 bottle of wine. When you make it yourself, you
can take the time to do it right without taking shortcuts such as pushing it through
asbestos filters to rush the process. (Yuck, right?)
The Two Critical Components of Winemaking

There are only two rules to making REALLY good wine.
1. Know all the steps to the process and keep your wine-making area and equipment
meticulously clean.
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2. Germs and bacteria can spoil a batch of wine in no time flat and all of your hard
work will have been for nothing.
Follow these rules and you’ll be making fabulous wine in no time!
The Yeast
Fermentation is actually just a chemical reaction between the water, sugar, juice and
fruit and the wine yeast that you add. This concoction is called the “must”.
We’ll get into the technicalities of how to ferment your wine properly in a minute, but
first I wanted to explain why you need to use wine yeast instead of baker’s yeast.
First, baker’s yeast has been developed over the centuries to add that deliciously yeasty
flavor to breads and baked goods while wine yeast has been developed to have no flavor
at all. It’s simply a functional component that aids in fermentation. You just want to
taste the wine, not the yeast!
Second, baker’s yeast is top-fermenting yeast which means that if you use it to make
wine, most of the fermentation will take place in the top few inches of the must. Wine
yeast is bottom fermenting so the process will occur from the bottom up through the
wine.
Finally, baker’s yeast can’t tolerate alcohol the way that wine yeast can. Sometimes the
first few points of alcohol will kill the baker’s yeast and ruin your batch but wine yeast
can survive in up to a 16 percent alcohol solution.
A note about sugar: it’s critical that you have enough sugar in your must to make it
ferment. Sugar is what the yeast feeds off of and if there’s not enough sugar, the yeast
can’t do its job and ferment the juice.
A note about acidity: Having the correct acidity in the must is important for two
reasons. First, it can slow the fermentation rate if it’s too high. Most importantly though,
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it affects the flavor. For tarter, dryer wines, you want to pH to be around 3.3. For dessert
wines, you want to keep the pH under 3.6. For anything in between, go around 3.4.
The three acids used if you need to increase the acidity (lower the pH) are citric, tartaric
and malic acids or you can just buy them all together in what’s called an acid blend.
The Equipment
Regardless of what type of wine you’ll be making, the same equipment will be necessary.
I know a woman who made wine in stone crocks in her cellar but the problem with that
is that quality was tough to guarantee.
Sometimes she’d get great wine, sometimes it would taste awful and sometimes she had
berry shine instead of berry wine. Of course, that was always a pleasantly delicious
result, unless you had to get out of your chair after drinking a pint glass of it!
My point is that if you want to make consistently good wine, you’re going to need to
proper equipment. This is what you’ll need to make one batch of wine.
• One 4-5-gallon food-grade plastic bucket with a lid. This will be your primary
fermentation bucket or vat.
• Three gallon-sized glass jugs. These will be your secondary fermentation
containers.
• Three airlocks, also known as fermentation locks. You can pick these up off of
Amazon, eBay or from a brewer’s supply store. You can also make your own, but
honestly the ones that you buy are so cheap (~$2) that there’s really no reason to
make one that may not work.
• A funnel that fits into the mouth of the jug.
• Rubber corks (called bungs) that fit into the jugs.
• Large nylon mesh straining bag. Some people use cheesecloth. You’re going to
put the fruit pulp in it.
• Approximately 6 feet of half-inch clear plastic tubing.
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• 5 wine bottles for each gallon of wine that

you make. For a standard batch, figure 5
gallons or 20 bottles.
• Pre-sanitized corks (number 9 sized)
• Litmus paper (pH strips) to test the acidity
of the wine.
• Hydrometer to measure the specific gravity
(or sugar level) of the must, to estimate the
potential alcohol content of the wine at the
time of yeast pitching and to monitor
fermentation.)
• A hand corker. This is going to cost about
$35 new. You could always pick up a used
on or rent one from a wine supply store. If
you’re going to be making wine frequently,
I’d suggest buying one.
• Lots of whatever produce you’re using to
make your wine.
• Granulated sugar, brown sugar or honey
• Filtered water
• Wine Yeast
You’ll find recipes for several different wines that call for spices or seasonings that
enhance the flavor of your wine and there are also commercial enzymes, tannins and
acids that help you control your production. Campden tablets help prevent oxidation so
they’re popular, too.
Really though, all you need is what we listed if you want to keep it simple. Your wine will
be delicious, though the addition of some spices is especially nice with some fruits, such
as apples or pears.
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Making Wine
There are 3 primary phases to making your wine. The first occurs in the primary vat, the
second occurs in the secondary vats and the third and final phase occurs in the bottle.
Oh, and there is another, most important step: drinking your wine!
Before we go any further, you need to know that sugar, in whatever form you choose, is
critical to the fermentation process.
Some fruits, such as grapes and blackberries, have quite a bit of sugar so you won’t need
to add much. Others, such as dandelions or apples, don’t have as much and you’ll need
to add more in order to get the alcohol content right.
Also, it’s best to keep the temperature of your wine relatively stable and slightly warm so
store it somewhere where it will stay between 69-79 degrees F.
If you want to get really fancy, you can buy warming bands for your primary vat but it’s
really not necessary.
Phase 1
Remember that the first step to each phase is to make everything, including the fruit,
clean! Wash the primary vat well and then wash the fruit, removing any bad spots,
stems or leaves. The best fruits to use are fully ripe because that’s when they produce the
most juice and flavor.
Though many wines, such as grape or apple wine, are made using straight juice with
very little water added, some fruits are just too strong-flavored to use straight up. A few
examples here are elderberries, blueberries and peaches.
If you’re using these strong-flavored fruits, you need less fruit and more water. Of
course, it’s your wine, so if you want to use mostly juice and have a heavy, fruity wine
then go for it. You can also add more water than is recommended if you’d prefer a
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lighter-bodied wine. Do your own thing, but here’s a guide to get you started that will
result in a medium to full-bodied wine for some more popular fruits.
• Apples – 50-55lbs or you can use pure unpasteurized organic apple juice
• Apricots – 18 lbs.
• Blackberries – 15-20 lbs.
• Blueberries – 13 lbs.
• Currents – 12 lbs.
• Dandelions – 4-5 quarts of petals, no leaves or stems. This is a special recipe that
requires other ingredients than just the flowers.
• Elderberries – 10 lbs.
• Gooseberries – 11 lbs.
• Grapes – 80 lbs. or you can just use unpasteurized organic grape juice
• Peaches – 15 lbs.
• Pears – 22 lbs.
• Persimmons – 15 lbs.
• Pineapple – 14 lbs.
• Plums – 16 lbs.
• Raspberries – 15 lbs.
• Strawberries – 16 lbs.
• Watermelon (insides, not the rind) – 18 lbs.
Now that you’ve got your equipment and your produce squeaky clean, it’s time to get
busy. This entire process won’t take you more than a couple of hours, depending on the
type of fruit you’re using.
• Pare your fruit if necessary, such as with apples, peaches or apricots.

• Crush the fruit into a fine mash. Don’t use a food processor because this makes it
too pulpy.
• Apples can be a bit tricky but just smoosh them as well as you can, or use a press
to get the juice.
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• Add your fruit pulp to the straining bag and place it and your juice in your
primary vat.
• Add water to nearly fill the bucket, leaving room in case you need to add sugar.
• Test the specific gravity of your must by drawing a sample out into a small jar.
For 12% alcohol, which is a good number for preservation purposes, you want it
to be SG 1.090. If it isn’t, add sugar. You can dissolve it in some purified water or
just add it straight in and stir until it dissolves. Measure the SG until you have it
right. If you get it too sweet, just add more juice or water.
• Test the acidity levels as we discussed above and, if necessary, add some acid.
• If you’re using Campden tablets, add them now, but let the must set for 24 hours
before you add the yeast or it will destroy the yeast.
• Add the wine yeast.
• Cover the primary vat with cloth or the lid, but don’t seal it. Just set the lid lightly
on top of it to keep critters out.
• Let it ferment for 7-10 days, stirring a couple of times per day. As it ferments,
froth will form on top and the sediment will settle on the bottom.
Phase 2
You’re getting closer! Now it’s time to move the almost-wine to the secondary jugs.
• As we already know, step 1 is to sanitize all of your equipment before you start!
• Remove the pulp bag and squeeze the extra juice out of it. Discard.
• Either strain the liquid to remove the sediment and froth or carefully siphon the
liquid into your secondary jugs, being careful to leave the sediment on the
bottom.
• If you strained it, use the funnel to pour the liquid into your secondary vats.
Either way, fill the jugs nearly to the top, leaving only an inch or less at the top to
reduce air in the wine that can cause spoilage.
• Put your airlocks on your jugs.
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• Store in a slightly warm, preferably dark place where the temperature isn’t going
to fluctuate much.
• Ferment for 4-6 weeks, then test with your hydrometer to make sure that it’s
fermented to SG 0.99-0.998. If it hasn’t reached that point, let it ferment for a bit
longer.
Phase 3
• Siphon the wine from the secondary jugs into

bottles leaving room for the cork and about ½
inch of air space. Make sure that you leave ALL
of the sediment behind, even if you lose a little
wine.
• If you’d like, taste your wine and if you’d like to
add more sugar or spices to it, now is the time
to do it, before you bottle it.
• Siphon off the wine into a large, CLEAN
container and add the sugar/spices to taste, then bottle it.
• You may want to use a stabilizer such as Potassium Sorbate if you add sugar to
prevent it from re-fermenting after you bottle it.
Hint: you may want to experiment with a small bit of the wine first so that if you
don’t like the result, you don’t ruin the whole batch.
• Insert corks and store the wine upright for three days, storing at about 55 degrees
F.
• Turn the bottle on its side and let it finish doing its thing.
In theory, you can drink it now, but it’s best to let it age for at least a month before
enjoying it. You can let them age up to a year if you’d like. Reds benefit more than
whites from aging.
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As with all things, the best way to learn and to get better is to be creative. Once you get
the process down, try blending your fruits, or even your finished wines. For example,
elderberry wine adds a lovely fruity flavor to other berry or grape wines. Spices are
fabulous to experiment with too. And while you are at it you can learn how to make your
own beer here and your own organic vinegar here.
Now that you know where to start, go have fun. We do recommend, however, that you
don’t get excited and drink your first batch all at once!
How to Make Alcohol at Home
Humans have been making, using, and

consuming alcohol since the dawn of
civilization.
It first began with the cereal grains used to

make beer by the cultures of Mesopotamia and
Egypt. Later, the cultures of the
Mediterranean–the city-states of Greece and the Roman Empire–adopted wine as an
integral part of social, political, and religious life.
The Age of Exploration starting in the 15th century gave birth to a new range of spirits
thanks to the improvement and growth of the distillation process. Drinks like rum,
whiskey, and brandy were used as currency to buy slaves in the colonies of the New
World. Eventually, these same spirits played a major role in the formation of the United
States.
How Many Benefits of Alcohol Can You Count?

In today’s times, alcohol is more than just a thirst quencher, religious symbol, or
bartering agent. We now use alcohol as a disinfecting antiseptic, chemical solvent, in
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products like antifreeze, and as fuel. With such versatility, alcohol is one of the most
important products for a homesteader.
Thus, learning how to make your own alcohol

can be an incredibly gratifying and potentially
life-saving way to spend your time
prepping. Doing so could yield an unlimited
supply to be used for personal consumption,
medical use, sterilization, fuel, and trade.
If using a homemade still you can also create

distilled water, another multipurpose
substance.
The components for making alcohol are actually quite simple. Alcohol is made when
yeast is added to a sugar-containing substance, which releases CO2 and starts the
fermentation process. In wine, yeast is added to a grape mixture to ferment the natural
sugars over time.
The process is slightly more complicated in beer, as grains don’t contain as much
natural sugar. Thus, the grain-growing process is halted midway to harness the sugar
enzymes and “malt” the grain before yeast is added.
Hard liquor requires the additional step of distillation, which serves to concentrate the
liquid AFTER the fermentation process of a “mash” of corn or fruit.
Though the process is labor intensive, making your own beer and wine is perfectly legal.
In fact, homebrewing has taken off as a hobby around the world in recent years.
You can purchase a kit with everything you need to get started or do it from scratch with
your own materials.
Unfortunately, distilling alcohol remains illegal for personal use and distribution (in the
United States) for reasons of safety, taxation, and regulation. However, distilled ethanol,
or grain alcohol, is the most versatile and useful form of alcohol for many purposes.
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Ethanol is a clean burning fuel that can power your vehicle and be used as fuel for
cooking or lighting. In fact, it was once mixed with turpentine as an alternative to whale
oil for 19th century street lamps. Accordingly, ethanol mixes well with kerosene to allow
for an extended supply.
If dehydrated properly, ethanol can also be added to unleaded gasoline to extend its life.
If you face a scenario where the supply of gasoline is exhausted, ethanol could also be
used to make your own E85.
The supplies and purification process are complicated, but this homemade fuel could be
created for less than what you’d expect to pay at the pump.
Another benefit of ethanol is its extended shelf life. If stored in an airtight container,
ethanol can retain its potency for years. If stored in your garden-variety lawnmower gas
can or other open-topped container, ethanol will become less stable as a source of fuel.
Additionally, alcohol makes great fuel for cooking. Homemade tin can alcohol stoves are
something every homesteader should know how to make and carry in their bug out bags
as a backup fuel source.
The Basic Steps of Making Alcohol

The basic process for making homemade ethanol alcohol is as follows:
Mash
Distilled ethanol alcohol starts with a mash. Corn is commonly used, as it is inexpensive
and readily available. However, pretty much any compost material could be used
granted it contains the right enzymes to react with yeast to break down the sugars.
These could be potatoes, carrots, sugar cane, or any other starchy produce.
You typically start with equal parts mash starch and sugar in a five-gallon bucket with
filtered water added until full. A few packets (recipes and amounts vary) of yeast is
added and stirred until (roughly) dissolved.
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Fermentation
The mixture in the bucket is then covered and left to sit for 2-3 days (or longer). The lid
should not be opened at any point during this time.
If you would like a one-way vent, you can drill a small hole in the bucket of the lid. Then
tape a surgical glove (or balloon) around the hole and poke a small pinhole in the tip of
one of the fingers. As the mash ferments you will see the fingers of the glove (or balloon)
partially inflate.
After 3 days, agitate the mixture by shaking the bucket without removing the lid. The
mash should be ready after 4-5 days when the sediment rests at the bottom of the bucket
and is no longer partially suspended. This is a sign the yeast has completed fermenting
the sugars into alcohol.
Distillation
The distillation process requires boiling your mash,

condensation of the liquid, and cooling and collecting
the vapor. Ideally, this will be done in some kind of
still.
Popular homemade versions are Reflux and

Fractionating stills, typically used to make neutral, or
tasteless, ethanol alcohol that can be used straight up
or flavored for consumption later.
The alcohol will begin to boil off at about 170 degrees

Fahrenheit. The outlet of your still should cool the
vapors down to about 70 or 80 degrees and turn the ethanol back into liquid.
As the alcohol levels of the mash are boiled off and reduced, the temperature of the pot
will begin to rise.
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Once your mixture reaches about 220 degrees it is finished producing ethanol and a new
batch of mash will need to be added.
While anyone can learn how to make homemade beer or wine, distillation is a bit more
difficult. Yet with so many uses both in times of peace and crisis, knowing how to make
homemade alcohol is a lifesaving skill no homesteader should be without.
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Part 5 – MEATS & ANIMAL

FAT
There’s no doubt that having fresh milk and eggs is a wonderful thing, and an awesome
reason for farming and keeping hens and cows right now. Good meat is currently
available cut and ready to toss on the grill or in the oven, so there’s not need to butcher
your own cow right now. Chicken meat is also available at the market, and you can buy
them on regular basis.
What about eating healthy? Unless you grow all your own food, you have no way of
knowing exactly what you’re putting into your body. Even then, up to 90 percent of all
ground water contains at least trace amounts of pesticides and herbicides due to run-off.
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As for the livestock for example, in United States, ractopamine is currently used as a
muscle enhancer in 45% of pigs, 30% of ration fed cattle and an unknown percentage of
turkeys. According to statistics, up to 20% of this drug remains in the meat you buy
from the supermarket.
And if a food crisis hits, you will have to turn that cow in the pasture into a steak by
yourself. You have to develop that skill, so the following section is exactly what you need
for this purpose!
From Herd and Fowl to Plate
How to Slaughter and Clean a Chicken

Whether you’re raising broiler birds specifically for meat production, or you’ve got a
flock of laying hens but some of the older ladies aren’t producing anymore, you need to
know how to slaughter and process your own birds for meat. The methods we’ll review
for slaughtering and processing your chickens for meat are also essentially the same as
those for ducks, geese, turkeys and other birds.
Before we jump directly into slaughter, though, think about preparing your chickens for
slaughter. While you aren’t required to do anything special, most people will allow their
chickens to sit for a day without food before slaughter.
A day without food allows the birds to process most of what they’ve eaten recently, so
their crop won’t be full and you’ll have less cleaning to do when it comes to dressing the
birds. It isn’t strictly necessary to take their food away for a day, and you can still
slaughter and dress birds that have eaten recently.
The other big tip for preparing your birds is to keep them calm before slaughter. Stress
causes the birds to produce adrenaline and other hormones that can affect the taste of
the meat, so you want to keep your birds calm and relaxed right up to the moment of
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slaughter. Finally, be sure that your tools are sterile and very sharp, it will make your job
a lot easier.
How to Behead the Chickens
Perhaps one of the oldest methods of

slaughtering your chickens, the tried and true
axe or hatchet plus chopping block for a
quick beheading is still the method of choice
for many people around the world.
To behead your chickens, simply seize them by

the legs and get them stretched across a good
solid log or chopping block. Many people will
stun the chicken with a blow to the head prior to beheading it, but in any case, be
prepared for a mess.
When you behead a chicken, the autonomic nervous system takes over. As the beheaded
body begins bleeding out, the bird’s system will receive an instant jolt of adrenaline (this
is why beheaded chickens will run around for several minutes until they’ve bled out.)
One of the chief drawbacks of beheading chickens like this is that the resulting
adrenaline surge causes their skin to become incredibly tight, which makes plucking the
birds a royal PITA.
Other methods of beheading include laying a chicken out on the ground and placing a
strong stick or broom handle over its neck, then reaching down and literally just
pulling the head off in a single sharp motion. Again, it’s kind of gruesome and
you can expect a mess and a harder time plucking, but it can be quite effective. This
broom stick method is also very close to a common method for slaughtering rabbits, as
well.
Alternatively, you can always wring the bird’s neck. Seize the bird by the neck and with a
sharp flip and twist of the wrist, snap the neck as cleanly as possible. Alternatively, you
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can seize the bird and whip it in a circle three or four times. Either way, wringing the
neck is often sufficient to cause the head to simply pop off. Once again, expect a bloody
mess to result.
On the cleaner side of things, though there’s always an element of mess involved, the
use of a killing cone is a very popular alternative that is widely used. As both a
humane and cleaner method of slaughter, a killing cone allows you to keep the bird
relatively calm and inhibits it from jerking or struggling even if it is startled. Killing
cones are sold online from retailers like Amazon.com, as well as in local farm supply and
feed stores, and basically consist of a specialized metal funnel for holding your bird with
its head poking out the bottom.
You can also make your own killing cones from a variety of materials, including scrap
metal sheeting, old traffic cones, and even a one gallon milk or water jug if your birds
are small. The important thing is that the cone be able to hold the bird with a hole in the
bottom for the bird’s head to poke through so that you can easily slaughter it.
Slaughtering is accomplished by slicing the bird’s carotid artery and/or its jugular. To do
this, a cut is made along the side of the bird’s throat, just below the ear. Some people
will make one cut, while others will cut the bird on both sides of the neck.
In either case, you know you’ve made the cut successfully when blood begins flowing; it
may even spurt from the wound at first. Use an exceptionally sharp knife to ensure you
can make a clean, humane cut the first time. Also, brush the feathers back out of your
way (or pluck them off, as some people do) to ensure the blade cuts cleanly and directly
through the skin.
To catch the blood, put a large bucket or other container beneath the killing cones. Many
people add dry grass clippings, hay or sawdust to the container they use for the blood,
since these are absorbent materials that make clean-up a lot easier. Once you’ve cut your
birds, they may struggle or move a bit, but within a few seconds they are unconscious so
any twitching or struggling of the body that may occur is simply due to the nervous
system.
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Either way, wear older clothes that you won’t mind making a mess of, because killing
chickens can get to be messy business. After slaughtering your birds, process them by
removing the feathers, gut them and prepare them to be cooked and/or stored for later
use.
Dressing Your Birds
Step One: Plucking

To dress your birds, you will begin by plucking the feathers, which is easier after a good,
thorough scalding of the birds, so you’ll need a large cooking pot or broiler that has
enough room to submerge the whole bird comfortably with a little room to spare. Fill
your scaling pot or broiler with water and heat it to approximately 135 – 140 degrees
Fahrenheit. If you’re slaughtering and dressing a large number of birds at once, you may
consider setting up a scalding pot that can be kept hot by a propane burner.
Once your water has reached the desired temperature, take your birds and submerge
them (headfirst) in the scalding water for approximately 30 – 45 seconds. In the water,
you can either let your birds sit for that 30 – 45 seconds, or you can grip them by the
feet to swirl and dip them, agitating them within the water. To test if your birds are
finished, simply pull a few feathers from the tail and/or wings. If the feathers pull away
easily, the bird is ready to be plucked, but if they are still sticking strongly give it a little
longer.
While scalding your birds, be sure not to overheat the water too much or leave the birds
in for too long, as both of these things can result in damage to the skin or meat. Water
temperatures that are too high will also cause the fat near the chicken’s bottom to
render, so when you cut it open it will pour out instead of being solid. Once scalded, you
can pluck the feathers by hand or use an automatic plucking tool.
Step Two: Gutting

Once you’ve plucked and cleaned your bird, you’re ready to begin gutting. To start,
remove the chicken’s head with a butcher’s knife or a sharp pair of shears if you haven’t
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already beheaded the bird. If you intend to save the neck for later use, then cut the head
off as close to the top as possible and leave the intact neck attached to the bird for now.
With the bird at this stage, you should also be able to see the crop. If the birds have been
eating recently, the crop will be full, so be careful not to cut into it until you are ready to
empty it, clean it and loosen it for removal.
Next you’ll move down to the tail of the bird. There is a scent gland located in the tail
that produces a strong, odorous oil and you don’t want to eat it, so use a clean circular
cut to remove the tail and the scent gland in it. When you remove this gland, be careful
not to cut too deeply, you don’t want to puncture any of the intestines. Salmonella
bacteria are located in the guts and intestines of the bird, not the blood or meat, so you
can avoid contaminating the meat by cutting carefully and not puncturing the intestines.
With the scent gland and tail removed, you will now begin gutting the bird. This is a
pretty easy process, and once you’ve had some practice it can actually go quite fast.
Take your sharpened knife (or a scalpel if you happen to have one) and begin cutting
just above the vent area, being careful to just cut beneath the skin first. The goal here is
to create an opening into the cavity of the body, so you can either cut an opening
carefully, or you can make a starter cut and then use your hands to pull the bird open.
Once you’ve created a large enough opening, it’s time to delve in with your hand. Some
people do this barehanded, others wear gloves, but you’ll need to reach in with your
hand in a flat position, the top of your fingers pressed upward against the breastbone of
the bird.
Your goal now is to carefully scrape the intestines loose from the top and sides of the
body cavity. Use a gentle, firm pressure to work your hand into the body cavity, and
when your fingers can’t go in any further carefully curve them downward to scoop out
the intestines.
Don’t wiggle your fingers around or squeeze too much at this stage, as you don’t want to
break the gall bladder while removing the guts.
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Once you’ve worked the guts loose and pulled

them out, set them aside and go back in for any
extra bits and pieces that may be clinging to the
walls of the cavity.
The crop should have pulled out smoothly with

the organs if you loosened it properly. Make
sure you’ve gotten the heart, liver and lungs
out, as these organ meats are highly nutritious.
Finally, remove the neck and feet at this point
to do with as you see fit.
The feet should be removed by breaking the leg at the joint above the foot. You can
either cut them off by cleaving through the bone, or you can use a knife to cut through
the skin and tendons around the joint, then simply snap the feet off by hand. Chicken
feet are great for use in making stock and soup, so don’t let them go to waste if you can
help it.
If your birds have eaten recently before slaughter, in addition to their crop being full you
may also have fecal material in the intestines. This can be emptied manually by applying
pressure to the area around the vent before any cuts are made, or you can squeeze the
intestines out after you’ve initially opened the bird up.
In either case, be careful not to get any fecal material on the bird or your work tools; if
you do get fecal material on your work station, wash it down with plenty of water and a
light bleach mix. Alternatively, if you work carefully you may be able to remove the
intestines without causing any expulsion of fecal material.
Step Three: Cleaning & Storing

After you’ve removed all the guts it’s time to take your birds to a sink or basin and rinse
them thoroughly with water. You can allow water to flow through the neck of the bird, or
even fill up and rinse out the body cavity from the opening you made below, but be sure
to rinse your bird very well and clean up any remaining bits that may be clinging inside.
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Once your bird is rinsed, you can either continue processing it immediately into food, or
you can cool it in an ice-filled cooler or in a Ziploc bag in the freezer. One gallon bags are
generally sufficient for a chicken, and you can even fold / stuff the legs up into the open
body cavity if you want to make the birds a little more compact and easy to store. Now
the only thing left for you to do is clean up yourself and your workspace.
With those basic directions in hand, you can now get started slaughtering and dressing
your very own birds. The process might take a little while at first, but once you’ve
slaughtered and dressed 1 – 2 dozen birds you’ll get a better feel for it and the process
will go much faster.
Also, if you are dressing older or retired laying hens who were still producing, don’t be
surprised if you find a yolk or two amongst the intestines when you’re gutting the bird.
How to Slaughter a Cow

We always had a firm policy on the farm for hunting and butchering; there were only
three reasons to kill an animal: to eat it, to put it out of its misery, or as a last resort to
protect life and limb. That’s it. Though butchering cows has never been one of my
favorite parts of farming, it’s necessary and natural.
The Preparations
The key is to do it humanely and properly so that the animal doesn’t suffer and the meat
doesn’t go bad and make the death a waste. Here’s what to do when you really have to
do it: butchering a cow.
Picking the Right Season
Now, there’s not always going to be this option, but ideally, you want to butcher when
it’s cold but close enough to spring that you’re not going to have a 2-month-long freeze.
This is because you’re going to hang the meat (more on this later) for at least a day or
two and you don’t want heat or bugs to become an issue.
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Preparing Your Tools
You’re going to need a loaded gun, rubber gloves and extremely sharp knives. A small
butcher knife will do for now. A hay hook will come in handy, too.
Picking a Spot
You need to bring the cow to an area that’s clean and drains well. You also want the area
to be accessible by backhoe or equipment that can at least lift the cow high enough for it
to be fairly vertical. Finally, you’ll have to get the carcass out of the area, so pick a spot
that meets all of those needs.
Killing the Cow

Bring the cow to the killing area. You want to kill it with one shot, humanely. To do that,
mentally draw a line from the base of each ear to the inside corner of the opposite eye.
Where the lines intersect is the kill spot.
Shoot the cow from a few feet away on that spot. If you’re not a competent shot or if
you’re not comfortable doing this, ask somebody who possesses both qualities to do it
for you. Now is no time for a shaky hand – you want to do the job with one shot.
Any gun from a .22 caliber and up will do. As

soon as the cow drops, pull its head up to
expose its throat. Slit its throat right behind its
jaw clear through the carotid artery.
At this point, the cow is brain dead but its heart

may still be beating a bit, which will help pump
all of the blood out of the body. This will make
for a much cleaner slaughter in the following
steps.
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A cow has A LOT of blood, so it will likely take a half hour or so for it to bleed out. There
may be some thrashing in the beginning, but as long as you shot it properly, it’s brain
dead and not suffering.
Gutting the Cow

This part is where things start to get a bit messy. We always “bunged” the cow – cut
around the anus and tie off the end of the intestine so that fecal matter doesn’t get into
the cavity and contaminate the meat. Now roll the cow over on its back and make an
incision from the sternum to the anus. Make this incision as shallow as possible; you
only want to cut through the thin stomach muscles, not into the guts.
Hopefully you have help; if so, have them hook the hay hook through the stomach hide
and muscles on the top side, if the cow has rolled onto its side, or on the far side away
from you. Have them pull the skin and muscle back so that you have access to the
innards. If you’re going to be using the heart, liver or other organs, now is the time to get
them.
You can start rolling them out from the front back now but you don’t have to get them
completely out because you’re going to be lifting the cow in a minute and gravity will
pull the rest of them out.
Next, make a slice between the bone and the tendon of each of the cow’s rear legs, right
above the joint that holds the hoof. Be careful not to slice through the tendon because
you’re going to need its strength to hang the cow. Slide a sturdy piece of wood or pipe
through the slits and attach the ends to a hoisting line, which you’ll attach to your come-
along.
Now of course if you don’t have equipment, this next step is going to be hard work
because you’re going to manually toss the line over a limb, or through the rings on a
tripod, and hoist the cow up so that it’s hanging. You can also use a manual come-along.
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If you have the equipment, you can attach the end of the line to your come-along and
pull the cow over an extremely sturdy tree limb (it’s going to be holding a cow!) or you
can use a large tripod made for this.
Be aware, because once the cow starts lifting, the rest of the innards are going to flop out
and if you’re in the line of fire, you’re going to need a shower! When you have the cow
hung, it’s time to start skinning it.
Skinning the Cow

If you’re going to be using the hide (of course you are!), you need to skin it carefully so
that you don’t puncture the hide.
Make cuts all the way around the rear legs just above (well, below, now) the hock. Make
a cut that goes through the hide but not into the meat down the inside of the leg to the
cut that you made for the anus. Cut off the tail at the base.
Using an EXTREMELY sharp skinning knife, start separating the hide from the meat,
starting at the cuts that you made on the rear legs. You’ll notice that the skin starts to
kind of peel off – use that space to continue skinning. Work your way around the cow so
that the hide is coming off evenly all the way around it.
When you get to the head and front legs, make a cut in the hide all the way around the
head and all the way around each front leg above the knee. Some people just make the
cut at the top of the leg but I like to get that extra little bit of hide if possible.
Cut up the inside of the front legs to the incision that you made when gutting the cow.
Next, complete the cut from the sternum to the cut that you just made around the neck.
Finish removing the skin.
Take the carcass to the barn or wherever you’re going to hang it. The easiest way to do
that is to quarter it!
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How to Slaughter Pigs

Aside from using the muscle for pork chops and bacon, pork can be made into jerky for
long term storage. You can also make salted hams and other forms of preserved
meat that will last months in cold storage.
Here are some other things you can use pigs for:
• Pig intestines can be used for making sausage or chitterlings

• Pig giblets and brains make good soups and stews
• Pig bones can be burnt to make bone char, which can be used as a bleaching
agent and remove heavy metals from water.
• Larger bones can be sharpened and shaped to make weapons.
• Smaller bones can be used for needles and other small tools.
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• Hair can be used for stuffing pillows or sewn into blankets for bedding.
• Pig hides are very resilient when properly stretched and tanned. They can be used
for shoes, clothing, and sewn together to make a shelter.
• Pigs feet, ears, and tongues can also be consumed, and are considered a delicacy
in some parts of the world.
• Pig droppings are ideal for making fertilizer for the garden, as are any parts that
you do not use for food or other purposes.
There is no question that many homesteading needs can be met by keeping pigs. On the
other hand, if you cannot slaughter these animals for meat and other needs, you will not
be able to use your resources effectively.
How to Field Dress an Animal

Hunting and fishing are the bread and butter for many homesteaders out there. Besides
being a very enjoyable activity for your spare time, hunting serves a purpose, i.e. putting
food on the table. Knowing how to hunt and how to dress small/big game might really
save your life at some point.
Now, dressing game is not the most pleasurable thing to do. But, you’ve gotta do what
you’ve gotta do. I like rabbits too, but when it comes to turning into food, better him
than me!
How to Keep the Instruments Clean
One of the most important things to remember, if you field dress animals/birds/fish, is
that there is a risk of contaminating the meat with food-borne pathogens. For example,
like any other kind of perishable meat, both raw and cooked game can be infested with
dangerous bacteria, such as salmonellae or pathogens like E-Coli.
Unlike supermarket food that is tested for pathogens and is fit for human consumption
(supposedly), game meat is another story; small/big game meat may contain parasites,
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the animal may be diseased, your guess is as good as mine where the animal has been
and what it’s been exposed to prior to landing at the end of your skinning knife.
I know you all heard about hamburger meat infestation and stuff like that, so you know
what food poisoning means. Therefore, you must be extra careful when handling the
meat, especially when you don’t have immediate access to medical services.
You must understand the dangers of gutting the animal incorrectly: there are blood-
borne diseases/parasites and dangers associated with wild food, like warbles (a common
parasite that is found in wild game) or Tularemia (rabbit fever). Also, the raw game
meat must be properly cooked as soon as possible at a high enough temperature to
destroy the potential harmful bacteria.
One of the crucial things when it comes to field dressing is to get a clean shot when
killing the animal. If the bullet strikes the animal where it’s not supposed to, the internal
organs may be mixed together; along with the hair, parasites may enter into the carcass.
Eviscerating
A well-placed shot into the neck or torso (heart) should do the trick and it will also bleed
the animal out. Now, when dressing game, you must follow a few basic steps:
• Always use clean water

• Be careful and don’t t let mud inside the carcass; the same goes for leaves, twigs
or other potential contaminants
• Keep the carcass open using a clean stick
• Always use a clean knife.
There are a few ways to field dress the game, but basically the first step is to eviscerate
the animal as quickly as possible after the shooting. In this way, you will prevent the loss
of body heat and also keep bacteria from multiplying on/inside the carcass. In order to
reduce the risk of infection, you should wear plastic gloves while gutting the animal. If
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you don’t have disposable gloves, you should wash thoroughly with water and soap
before and after the procedure.
In the beginning, you can spread the hind legs of the animal by propping a stick between
them in order to open up the carcass. The carcass itself should be hung from a tree or
fixed on its back, using logs or rocks to keep it steady.
If the animal is a male, you must first remove its genitals, but keep the scrotum for later
sex identification. In case you shot a female, you must remove the udder first. It is
recommended to make a small incision, in order to prevent insects or dirt from spoiling
the carcass during transportation.
In the next step, you must use a well sharpened and clean knife to perform an
evisceration cut, between the sternum all the way along, to a point near the
scrotum/mammary glands.
Lift the skin/muscle together while performing this cut, through the hide and the
membrane. Avoid piercing the entrails and the intestines, because these areas are most
likely to contain all sorts of bacteria associated with food borne diseases. Between cuts,
you should clean the knife frequently (using clean water or alcohol), to avoid the
contamination of the meat with bacteria.
In order to successfully remove the entrails, you must perform a circular cut around the
anus orifice to loosen it up so it will come out easily at the same time with the rest of the
intestines.
Now, you can pull the entrails out, beginning from the crotch area. At the same time,
you must cut the tissue that connects the innards to the spine. To pull the entrails free,
you must cut all the tissue that holds the guts inside the carcass and don’t be scared of
the blood; it will be plentiful, but that’s normal. The liver and the heart can be removed
separately and placed in plastic bags as soon as possible if you like to eat organ meat.
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After removing the entrails, clean the cavity thoroughly and drain the blood. All visible
feces, dirt, hairs or bloodshot areas must be removed. The inside of the cavity must be
wiped using paper towels or a clean cloth (you can rinse it with clean water also).
Once the field dressing is performed, remove the hide. If you plan to transport the
animal, you may leave the hide on, because it prevents the meat from being
contaminated during transportation. Also, leaving the hide on the carcass prevents the
meat from drying.
Skinning
If you’re hunting small game, like rabbit or squirrel you can skin it prior to gutting it;
things change radically when it comes to animals like deer or bigger. Still, if you’re
transporting it, it’s better to leave the skin on.
Regardless of the animal, the principles of skinning are the same: first you cut around
the head/neck of the animal to start skinning it. Slice through the hide but stop before
slicing through the meat. Next you must remove the hide by tearing /cutting off the
tissue that keeps it connected to the carcass.
Basically, you must peel back the skin/hide in both directions (along the evisceration
cut), using your fingers and your knife when necessary. You must be careful not to let
the hide to touch the carcass, as it may contaminate it. At the very least, it will get hair
on the tissue that’s extremely difficult to remove. In the end, remove the complete hide
of the game so that you can access the meat and begin the butchering process.
How to Clean and Cook Fish Off-grid

Shortly after catching a fish it is advisable to clean it since organs inside the fish decay
quickly and can cause the fish to spoil. There are two basic ways to clean fish. The first
way is filleting. The second way is to gut, remove the fins, and behead the fish.
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Filleting a Fish
1. First of all, be sure the fish is dead.

2. Lay the fish on its side.
3. With a sharp filleting knife (a long tapered bladed knife with a 12-inch blade), cut
just behind the gill down to the spine. From here cut along the spine to the tail
where the blade will exit the fish.
4. Flip the fish over and repeat step 3.
5. Thoroughly clean and wash the flesh.
Note: Save the fish head and spine to make fish soups or stews. If you do not want to eat
it, save these parts and the organs for fish or animal baits.
Cleaning a Fish
Once again, be sure the fish is dead and lay it on its side. With a sharp knife cut the fish
open from the anus to just behind the gills. Cut and scrape out all of the internal organs.
Cut off all of the fins and the tail. Cut off the head. Clean and wash the fish. Keep the fish
head for making soups or stews and the organs for bait.
Cooking a Fish
There are 4 ways to cook fish when living off the grid: planking, boiling, placing on hot
rocks, and wrapped in grasses or leaves and placed on embers.
• Planking – Means cooking a fish steak or a fillet on a flat surface close to a fire.
Find a flat board to put the fish on. Place fish on the board and secure the fish to
the board by using pointed green twigs pushed through the fish into holes cut or
drilled in the flat board. Place the plank next to fire with a thick stick to hold it
up. When the first side is done, turn over the fish, reattach the fish to the plank,
and cook until done.
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• Boiling – Is the cooking of fish in a pot in boiling water. Fill a cooking pot about
half full of water. Add fish to be cooked to the pot. Place the cooking pot over a
cooking fire on a rack to cook. Boil until fish is done, and you know that the fish is
done when it just starts to falls off the bones.
• Placing on Hot Rocks – Heat the rocks in a cooking fire. Be sure the rocks are dry
and safe to heat. Many rocks can emit poisonous gasses or explode when heated.
Once you determine rocks are safe to use with heating, keep them with you for
cooking other foods in the future, or for producing steam. When the stones are
hot enough, you will see heat waves coming off. Remove them from the fire and
place them side by side to make an area to place the fish for cooking. Place the
fish on the stones. Turn the fish over when the bottom side is done. Take the fish
off the stones when the fish is completely done.
• Wrapping in Grasses or Leaves to Cook on Embers – Wrap the fish to be cooked
in either fresh long grass or in fresh green leaves. Let a small cooking fire burn
down to embers. Place the fish packets on the embers to cook. When the bottom
side is done flip the cooking package over so the other side can cook. Remove
from the fire when fish is completely done.
Fishing is a way to restock or add to your food stockpile, but also a good way to spend
time in the nature. If you do not have fishing equipment with you it is easy to make and
use.
Practicing your fishing skills now can lead to enjoyable hobby as well as one that will
sustain you in times of need.
How to Use Animal Fats for Food
Different animals yield different fat with different textures, melting points and flavors,
and thus different uses. Also, some animals carry much more fat than others, so if you’re
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hunting during a time that you need a lot of fat, you may be able to target higher-fat
animals versus their slimmer counterparts.
Rendering the Fat

Before you use any fat, you need to render it. Rendering is simply the process of heating
the fat in order to separate the liquids from the solids so that you have a usable product
that isn’t going to go rancid as quickly as unrendered fat.
The rendering process is pretty easy: Make sure that ALL of the meat is removed from
the fat, then cut the fat into very small pieces and add it to a skillet or pot over low heat.
If you’re working with hard fats such as the fat found in large farm and game mammals,
it’s easiest to get the fat really cold and use your cheese grater.
You’ll save yourself a ton of time by doing

this because large chunks of fat can take
days to melt. Softer fats such as goat fat
and fowl game fat can just be cut into
small pieces with a knife.
Next, you can choose to dry render, semi-

wet render or wet render your fat. The
only difference is that dry rendering uses
no water, semi-wet rendering uses only an inch or so of water in the bottom of the pot,
and wet rendering uses about equal parts of water and fat.
Either way, you need to make sure that all of the water is removed by the end of the
rendering process or your fat will spoil faster.
You don’t want to actually COOK the fat; you just want to get it hot enough to melt.
Cooking it on higher heats may cause it to burn (which ruins it) and can make for
stronger-flavored fat. Let it melt down until most of the fat is melted and you no longer
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see little bubbles rising from the bottom – this is moisture evaporating and you want
ALL of the water out of it.
You’ll have some little chunks of fat and some cracklings left but when you hit this point,
you’re done. Remove it from the heat immediately, strain all of the chunks from the fat
and you’re finished!
5 Best Uses of Animal Fats

You can turn the fat into savory with a few additions or you can use it while cooking.
Here are a few recipes you can follow for the best use of the fat!
Making Schmaltz
Schmaltz is a Jewish delicacy that simply consists of adding onions to your chicken fat
during the rendering process. It’s used in a wide variety of dishes to add richness and
flavor.
Though I’ve never used it, it makes me curious to try a variety of herbs during the
rendering process to make flavored fats. Hmm. A project for next time, maybe!
Just a side note for rendering fat from fowl: toss the skin in along with the fat because
there’s a nice layer of fat in it that you just can’t trim off. The skin will just crisp up and
you can toss it or eat it if you’d like – it’s delicious. It’s not exactly healthy now, but fat is
a good source of calories.
Pastries
A solid fat makes for a crisp, flaky pastry but you want to be careful which type you use if
flavor matters. Some gamier fats such as bear may add a meaty or gamey flavor to your
crust which may be fine if you’re making a savory meat pie.
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Not so much if you’re making an apple pie.

Visceral fats from any animal, the deep fats
found around the organs, may best be
rendered separately because it typically has
very little flavor and is great for pastries.
Beef fat, pork fat and goat fat are also great
for sweet pastries.
Savory Recipes
If you’re using fat to add flavor and richness, stick with the fat that’s the closest to what
you’re cooking. If you’re making a beef stew, break out the tallow. If you’re making
chicken soup, toss in some schmaltz. That stuff is like crack in any dish that you want to
add poultry flavor to!
Pemmican
This is an old Native American food that is packed with fat, carbs and nutrients.
It’s made from three primary ingredients and is a long-term superfood because it’s easy
to transport, it keeps without refrigeration and you can quite literally live off of it if need
be.
Traditional pemmican has three primary components: fat, lean dried meat, and dried
fruit. That’s it. Add some flavor, nutrition, and texture by adding honey and nuts. Don’t
use pork or bear for this recipe due to high fat content of the meat. Use any other lean
meat, including beef, venison, caribou, or moose. Here’s how to make it.
• 2 cups dried crushed meat

• 2 cups dried crushed berries or dates
• 1 cup melted fat
• 1/2 cup crushed nuts
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• 1/4 cup honey
Trim all of the fat off the meat, then dry in a dehydrator until it cracks and breaks. If it
bends, there’s still too much moisture in it. Do the same thing with the berries. Render
the fat into a liquid form and crush your nuts. You can grind them if you want, or leave
them a bit chunky to add texture.
Crush the meat and berries into a fine powder. Using your blender or food processor for
now will work better but if you’re making it without power, just grind them with a
pestle. If the meat is a challenge, use the pestle or a hammer, or even your fingers to get
the meat as finely ground as you can. Add enough fat to the meat and berries (and the
nuts if you’re using them) to make it stick together; no more. Add enough honey that it’s
sweetened but not overly sticky.
Roll it out and cut it into bars, or do it as the Native Americans did and roll it into balls.
Store in a bag in a cool, dry place.
Deep Frying
When you’re choosing a fat to deep fry with, you

need to consider two things: taste and smoking
point. You don’t want to use fats that smoke at
lower temperatures.
Fats such as butter or bacon grease make them

poor choices for deep frying because they smoke
at low temperatures.
Duck fat is considered a delicacy for frying; you haven’t HAD fried potatoes until you’ve
had them fried in duck fat! Other more available fats such as lard, tallow, goat and
venison all make good frying grease.
Animal fat is typically going to have a lower smoke point than most vegetable oils, just
FYI.
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How to Preserve Meat
People can get overtly reliant on fridges to

store their food and this can be a problem.
If you don’t have access to a fridge anymore,

what will you do? How will you preserve your
meat for later use? People have been using
other methods to preserve their food for
centuries. This knowledge can come in real
useful.
You can start by taking a look in your

kitchen. Examine how much food you have
and think how much of it would spoil without
refrigeration. Meat would be the first one to
go once you lose electricity, but spoiling can
be prevented using old-fashioned techniques. Methods such as smoking and curing are
just two examples used for a long time, and are efficient when it comes to keeping meat
from spoiling.
First, you need to decide on a place where you will store your meat. Ideally, you will
want to do it in the coldest area available. Good examples are the attic, a storage shed, a
shelter etc. Use a thermometer to check the temperature in each place and decide on the
best one.
How to Cure Meat

Curing is a technique which basically involves preserving the meat in salt. This was one
of the most common ways of keeping meat fresh in the days before refrigeration. Some
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still use it today, but now it is more about enhancing the flavor of the meat, not about
preserving it.
Meat spoils because it is a good place for bacteria to thrive in. Bacteria need water, and
there is a lot of water content in the meat, especially the muscle fibers. This is solved by
introducing salt. It will expel a lot of the water from the meat, and creates an
environment where bacteria cannot develop and multiply.
Besides the meat, you will also need a

mixture of curing salt and brown sugar. For
example, half a pound of salt mixed with a
quarter cup of sugar should be enough for
ten to twelve pounds of meat.
The sugar is necessary to counterbalance all

of the salt, and will also give the meat a
distinct flavor. If you like, other sweet products can be used such as honey or maple
syrup. You can also add your favorite herbs and spices if you want, they will also give
your meat a unique aroma.
There is another ingredient which, ideally, should be included: sodium nitrite. It is

particularly effective at fighting off botulism – a very bad bacterium which you do not
want anywhere near your meat. At the same time, high levels of nitrite can also be toxic,
and you need to take special care with this step.
There are two safe ways for you to add sodium nitrite.
• Using green leafy vegetables such as celery, spinach and lettuce. They all
naturally contain sodium nitrite. You can add juice or extract and you will get the
sodium nitrite you need.
• Adding pink salt. Also known as Prague Powder #1, this salt already contains a
mixture of regular table salt and sodium nitrite in the appropriate composition.
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Once you have the necessary ingredients, start cutting the meat into slabs. Pork is
commonly used, but you can also use beef or fish. Take a slab and cover it heavily in the
salt mixture. Do this with the rest of the meat, then place it in jars or crocks for storage.
Make sure that the meat slabs are tightly packed together.
Take them to your storage destination of choice. Make sure that the temperature is
below 38 degrees Fahrenheit, but that it is well above freezing. 36 degrees Fahrenheit is
ideal.
After about a month of storage, take the meat out. Take each slab and wrap it in paper or
plastic. Either is fine as long as it is moisture-proof. This meat is now ready to be stored
and consumed whenever you need it.
How to Brine Meat

The process described above is referred to as dry curing, but there is also a method for
wet curing, also known as brining. This technique involves you keeping the meat
submerged in a salty solution. The steps are similar: the meat needs to be cut the same
way and placed in jars or crocks. Wash the meat and sterilize the jars before you do.
Now you need to make the salt water. Adding about a pound of salt and half a cup of
sugar to three quarts of water should do. Feel free to mix in other ingredients such as
herbs and spices. Repeat this process until you have enough water for all of the jars. Fill
each one up.
Make sure that the meat is completely submerged. If you are having problems, place a
weight on top. Take the meat to your storage area.
Unlike dry curing, the meat will need your attention on a weekly basis. Each week you
will have to take the meat out of the jars, stir the brine well and then place it back. After
four weeks of repeating this process, your meat is ready. If you find the brine to be
getting too thick, you will need to replace it with a fresh batch.
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How to Smoke Meat

Smoke has the same effect as salt of keeping away bacteria from your meat. It also gives
it a very tasty flavor which is why it is still used today.
If you know of a smokehouse near you, you can take it there, you will save time. If not,
you can do the process yourself, but you will need a smoker.
The good news is that they are

available in all kinds of shapes and
sizes, and use various fuels such as
propane or charcoal.
You can also modify grills or ovens to

work as smokers, but the use of a
regular smoker for this purpose is
recommended.
This method is similar to grilling the meat and will generate a lot of smoke, so it needs to
be done outdoors. However, grilling is a quick cooking process that uses high heat, while
smoking takes much longer and uses indirect heat at low temperatures. The
temperature should be anywhere between 150 and 225 degrees Fahrenheit.
This process is known as hard smoking and it is a way of cooking your meat in a way
that will not require refrigeration. The end product will look similar to jerky.
Cold smoking is also available, and uses much lower temperatures below 100 degrees
Fahrenheit. This method is only used for flavoring the meat rather than cooking it.
How to Make Jerky

Jerky can be made from just about any type of lean meat that you can think of. It’s a
great food because it’s lightweight, nutritious and energy-dense. It’s also easy to make;
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the Native Americans and many other civilizations were making it long before food
dehydrators and commercial packaging were in existence.
I make this all the time, or at least I did when I still had kids in the house. The only
problem that I ever had was that even if I made 3 or 4 pounds of it (which is a LOT of
jerky) there still wouldn’t be any left by the time I got home from work every day.
I got pretty good at taking out my own stash before I even let the herd of teenaged boys
in the house know that it was done!
Back to the topic though. There are basically two ways to flavor your jerky. You can use a
wet marinade or a dry rub. If you’re using a marinade, you need to let the meat soak in it
for at least 24 hours if you want it to absorb enough flavor.
A good recipe for teriyaki-style jerky is to use equal parts of Worcestershire sauce and
soy sauce, then add in some garlic powder, salt, black pepper and, if you’re like me and
like it a bit spicy, a bit of cayenne powder and some crushed red pepper flakes. Make
enough marinade to cover the meat and stir it several times so that the meat in the
middle gets marinated too.
If you’re using a dry rub, just add it to the meat an hour or so before you start the
dehydration process. The recipe for this one is all on you. There are a kazillion Cajun,
Mediterranean, Italian and American rub recipes out there that you can pick and choose
from.
Cutting the Meat
The first step to making your own jerky is choosing the right meat. You need for it to be
lean and as free of tendons as possible. I like to use a rump roast. Yes, it’s expensive but
it makes good jerky.
Venison jerky made from rump roast is amazingly delicious and much better for you
than beef because it has a much lower fat content. Low fat content is a good thing not
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only from a health perspective but also from a preservation perspective. The leaner your
meat is, the longer it will take for it to go rancid.
In order to get the amount of jerky that you want, assume that you’re going to lose half
the weight of the meat if you leave your jerky a bit moist and 2/3 of the weight if you
make it completely dry. I suggest making it a bit moist if you’re going to eat it quickly
but making it dry if you’re trying to preserve it for long term.
Now that you have your meat, you need to slice it. Your butcher may do this for you but I
prefer to do it myself. Unlike when you’re cutting steaks, you’re going to cut the meat
WITH the grain. Figure out which way the grain goes on the roast and that’s the
direction that you’re going to cut. Next, you’re going to need an EXTREMELY sharp
knife. I use my butcher knife.
I’ve found that it’s easier to cut the meat if it’s extremely cold or even partially frozen.
Don’t try to cut it if it’s completely frozen unless you want to lose a finger. Also, if you
have to force the knife through the meat, it’s going to be hard to get the proper
thickness.
You want each slice to be as close to exactly the same thickness throughout as possible.
Shoot to make each slice no thicker than a quarter inch thick. This will give you plenty to
chew on without worrying about moisture still being locked in the center of the slice to
make your meat go rancid faster than anticipated.
Once you have the meat cut, prepare it as I explained above either using your marinade
or your rub.
Drying the Jerky
If you’re using a food dehydrator, this is the easy part. Just put the meat on the trays in a
single layer and turn the machine on. I’ve found that the bottom layers dry faster so I
prefer to switch the layers around a bit and as some of the pieces are done, I consolidate
the slices onto fewer trays until it’s all finished.
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If you’re using the oven, you’re going to need to do smaller batches because you’ll be
using a cookie sheet and you won’t be able to fit as much on it as you can a dehydrator.
Place the meat on the tray in a single layer.
An alternative that I’ve seen to using a cookie sheet in the oven is to hang the slices from
the racks by using a toothpick inserted through one end of the meat and hooking it
between the slats of the rack. Personally, this seems like it would be really messy.
Either way, set your oven to 150 degrees and cook for about 2 hours. Check it and, if
you’re using a cookie sheet, flip the meat over. Cook for another two hours or until meat
is done.
You’ll know that your meat is done when you can bend it and no moisture beads out of
the crack. Again, if you want it a bit moister to make it less leathery, stop at this point. If
you want to completely dry it out, cook it until it cracks when you bend it sort of like stiff
leather would. It’s not as tasty but it will last longer.
Once your jerky is done, (assuming you have any left after the family figures out that it’s
finished) you can either choose to eat it now or preserve it. You can preserve it by
vacuum sealing it into bags or by dry canning it.
If you don’t have access to an oven or dehydrator, follow all instructions up to the point
of cooking. Then string it onto a piece of wire and hang it over a fire to dry. Remember
to keep it high enough that it’s only getting low heat. You want to dry it out, not cook
and burn it.
The European Jerky: Pastrami
Just like corned beef, pastrami was invented as a survival food, for long-term storage in
the absence of modern-day refrigeration methods.
What is pastrami? Well, a good old meat product, made from beef, mutton, pork or even
turkey. The raw meat is the main ingredient, partially dried and seasoned with spices
and herbs, marinated, and afterwards smoked and steamed.
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Brine is made by boiling one gallon of water into a big pot, then adding the following
ingredients:
• juniper berries (5),

• garlic (6 cloves,
smashed/peeled) ,
• salt (3/4 cup),
• bay leaves (3 broken into
pieces),
• brown sugar (1/2 cup),
• curing salt (3/4 cup),
• mustard seeds (1 tbsp.),
• peppercorns (1 tbsp) if you like it spicy.
Let it cool down and then put the meat inside (beef brisket for example, flat, trimmed to
1/4 inch), and refrigerate it for three days.
For the rub, combine coriander seeds (3 tbsp.), cinnamon (1 tsp), bay leaves (2) and
black pepper (3 tbsp) in a spice grinder, then pulse until coarsely ground. After that add
some sweet paprika (2 tbsp.), ground clove (1/2 tbsp.), and brown sugar.
The meat must be removed from the brine and rinsed in cold running water, then you
must pat it dry using paper towels; now it’s time to put the aforementioned rub on the
brisket, cover it with plastic wrap and let it sit into the refrigerator for one day.
The next step is to smoke the beef brisket for 3 to 4 hours on a charcoal/gas grill over
low heat (200 F to 275 F) or use a dedicated smoker. The pastrami should be
smoked/cooked until the internal temperature of the meat reaches 175 degrees F, then
allow it to cool off at room temperature.
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How to Can Meat

Though there are many different methods of preparing meat for long-term storage,
without a doubt, canning it is the easiest way to store large quantities of it in a manner
that gives you an almost eternal shelf life.
Canning meat off grid is pretty much the same as if you do it in the modern fashion; as a
matter of fact, if you have solar power, you can probably use the same methods that
everybody else does.
It used to be considered safe to simply can your meat in boiling water baths but that’s
not the case anymore. If you’re near sea-level where the boiling point of water is the
highest, you MAY be OK to can your meat using the water bath method as long as you
keep it at a hard boil for at least three hours. Even then, there’s no assurance that it will
be safe to eat though our older generations did it and seemed to fair ok.
The recommended method of canning meat (and low-acid vegetables) is to use a

pressure canner. This is because of the high risk of botulism. Botulism is a type of food
poisoning that can quite literally kill you if you get it. It affects your central nervous
system and causes facial and/or body paralysis, difficulty breathing and swallowing and
other not-so-pleasant reactions. Needless to say, if you can’t breathe, you’re going to be
in a bit of trouble.
Botulism is caused by the bacteria Clostridium

botulinum. This bacterium is extremely difficult
to kill with the average heat that is used in water
bath canning and can live without oxygen in
your jars.
As a matter of fact, it produces oxygen, which is

why you should throw out any canned foods
that have bulging lids or bubbles or foam on the
top or up the sides when you look at the jar.
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We’ve gotten a bit astray, but I wanted to really drive home why it’s critical to can your
meat using a pressure canner instead of using a water bath. Now we can proceed with
the actual methods of canning meat off-grid.
What You Need for Canning Meat
In order to can any type of food, including meat, you’re going to need glass jars, lids and
rings. The problem is that the jars and rings can be reused but the lids can’t. Or at least
MOST of them can’t.
There are now a couple of companies that make lids that can be reused almost endlessly,
so even if they cost a bit more, they’ll pay for themselves many times over. The reusable
lids that I’ve used are Tattler brand. The second good thing about them is that they’re
BPA-free.
When using these lids though, there are a couple of differences between them and the
standard lids that you’re probably used to. When you put the lids and rings on the jar,
you need to unscrew the lids a quarter of a turn in order to allow the hot air to escape
while the contents are processing. Once the jars of food are processed, remove them
from the canner. As soon as you do this, tighten the rings back down so that the rubber
can seal correctly as the food cools.
When it comes to reusing your jars, always make sure that you thoroughly clean them
and inspect them for any flaws. If there is even the slightest chip anywhere, especially
along the mouth, then use it to store your dry goods or other items that don’t require a
seal. You’ll also need a pressure canner. The good thing about a pressure canner is that
you can use it as a water bath canner for all of your fruits and veggies that aren’t low
acid.
Canning Meat without a Stove
If you have an old-fashioned wood-burning cook stove then you’re in a much better
position to can foods, especially if you’re pressure-canning them.
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Remember one thing though – if you’re without

power, that means that you’re without air
conditioning so canning inside is going to turn
your house into an oven in the middle of the
summer.
Though many people say that pressure canning

over an open fire is impossible, it’s really not.
That’s not to say it’s easy because it’s not, but it
IS possible. You’re going to need A LOT of wood
because you’re going to need to keep your fire hot enough to sustain the pressure inside
of the canner.
If the water quits boiling for even a bit, you’ve already lost because the meat needs to
stay under pressure for the amount of time necessary (it will vary based on the size of
your jars) in order to kill botulinum bacteria.
Here’s how I’ve seen my mom do it (she’s really a homesteading gal!). She built her own
outdoor grill using cinder blocks. Her canning side was surrounded by three sides by
cinder blocks and her grate was placed at the top of two blocks, so that the canner was
pretty close to the fire.
You want to start with a really hot fire; your canner will pressurize much faster that way.
Also, have a big supply of wood handy; remember that if you’re canning multiple
batches, this is going to turn into an all-day (or even all week) job. Green beans need to
process under pressure for about 25 minutes if you’re using quart jars. Quart jars of
meat needs 90 minutes of processing!
Your canner can only hold so many jars, so if you’re doing multiple batches, prepare to
have enough wood to keep that fire hot for several hours. You’re going to have to watch
your fire closely. You want it hot enough to bring the pot to pressure but not so hot that
you blow it up!
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Another good tip that I read from somebody else was that if you’re sterilizing your jars
outside, put a lid over the pot; otherwise ashes will get in the water. The last thing that
you want to do is add extra work to an already excruciatingly long process!
Be extremely careful when you’re canning over an open fire. It may be best to start with
some water bath canning so that you can get a feel for how much wood it takes to keep
the water boiling but not overflowing, etc. Then after you get a better feel for the
process, move up to pressure canning.
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TOP RECIPES YOU

SHOULDN’T MISS
5 Classic American Recipes We All Love
We all have that one family dish that we’re known for, the one that was passed down to
us from our ancestors.
It may be a dip, or a cake, or your grandma’s meatloaf, but if I ask you what your
favorite family recipe is, I almost guarantee something instantly comes to mind, and
odds are good that we even have it committed to memory.
My family is full of cooks, though traditionally most of them are women.
154
My former father-in-law Max, on the other hand, probably taught me more about
cooking than I ever learned from my family, because he taught me the WHYs of cooking,
not just the hows. He taught me how to make all of my grandmothers’-and of course his-
recipes come out right every time. Even if they don’t, I have a good idea of what
happened.
So, which is MY favorite family recipe? For now, in no particular order, here are the top
recipes that I came up with.
Apple Pie
We would be absolutely remiss if we didn’t start with the one
food that has a place at any holiday, picnic, or any other event
where people gather to eat, drink, and be merry: apple pie!
There are about a million different variations on the recipe,

but the traditional, lattice-work pie is the one that instantly
jumps to mind.
I’m going to share three tips here that Max taught me for a flaky, fabulous crust – use
very cold water, add a ½ tsp of vinegar to your water, and butter is king. My grandma
used lard, back when it was readily available because they made it.
Many people turn to Crisco, which is fine, but lacks flavor and is hydrogenated. The
flavor of butter is incredible and the texture is light and flakey.
Dough:
• 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

• 4 tsp. sugar
• 1/4 tsp. fine salt
• 1 ¾ stick cold butter, diced
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten with 2 tbsp. ice cold water
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Filling:
• 2 tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice

• 3 lbs. baking apples like Golden Delicious or Granny Smith
• 2/3 cup sugar, plus more for sprinkling on the pie
• 1/2 stick unsalted butter
• 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
Directions
To make the dough by hand:
Whisk together the flour, sugar and salt in a medium bowl. Using your fingers, work the
butter into the dry ingredients until it resembles yellow cornmeal mixed with bean-size
bits of butter. (If the flour/butter mixture gets warm, refrigerate it for 10 minutes before
proceeding.)
Add the egg and stir the dough together with a fork or by hand in the bowl. If the dough
is dry, sprinkle up to a tablespoon more of cold water over the mixture.
To make the dough in a food processor:
Pulse the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor fitted with the metal blade until
combined. Add the butter and pulse until it resembles yellow cornmeal mixed with
bean-size bits of butter, about 10 times.
Add the egg and pulse 1 to 2 times; don’t let the dough form into a ball in the machine.
(If the dough is very dry, add up to a tablespoon more of cold water.) Remove the bowl
from the machine, remove the blade and bring the dough together by hand.
Form the dough into a flat circle, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate until thoroughly
chilled, at least 1 hour.
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For the filling:
Put the lemon juice in a medium bowl. Peel, halve and core the apples. Cut each half
into 4 wedges. Toss the apple with the lemon juice. Add the sugar and toss to combine
evenly.
Melt the butter over medium-high heat in a large skillet. Add the apples and cook,
stirring, until the sugar dissolves and the mixture begins to simmer, about 2 minutes.
Cover, reduce the heat to medium-low and cook until the apples soften and release most
of their juices, about 7 minutes.
Strain the apples in a colander over a medium bowl to catch all the juice. Shake the
colander to get as much liquid as possible. Return the juices to the skillet, and simmer
over medium heat until thickened and lightly caramelized, about 10 minutes.
Toss the apples with the reduced juice and spices in a medium bowl. Set aside to cool
completely. (This filling can be made up to 2 days ahead and refrigerated or canned, or
frozen for up to 6 months.)
To assemble the pie:
Cut the dough in half. On a lightly floured surface, roll each half into a circle 11 to 12
inches wide. Layer the dough between pieces of parchment or wax paper on a baking
sheet and refrigerate for at least 10 minutes.
Line the bottom of a 9-inch pie pan with one of the discs of dough, and trim it so it lays
about 1/2 inch beyond the edge of the pan. Add the apple filling to the pan.
Cut the second round into 1/2-inch thick strips. Lay strips of dough, evenly spaced,
across the entire pie. Weave more strips of dough perpendicular through the previous
strips to make a lattice or basket weave design across the entire pie. Trim the excess
ends from the strips of dough.
Pinch the bottom crust edge and lattice edge together, and flute the edge as desired.
Make sure that the lattice is closed around the edges so that the filling doesn’t boil out.
157
Brush the surface of the dough with egg and then sprinkle with sugar. Refrigerate for at
least 30 minutes.
Bake the pie on the preheated baking sheet until the crust is golden, 50 to 60 minutes.
Cool on a rack for at least 3 hours before serving. The pie keeps well at room
temperature (covered) for 24 hours, or refrigerated for up to 4 days.
Pot Roast
America is a place where nationalities blend and
merge to create a new, unique set of ideals and
goals. As such, our recipes are a beautiful
hodge-podge of different ethnicities,
intertwined and adjusted to make them as
American as we are. There’s probably nothing that represents that better than the good
old pot roast!
Like every other recipe on the list, there are a million variations, but here’s mine.
• 3-5 lb. chuck roast

• 2 medium onions
• 2 pounds baby carrots
• 5 medium potatoes
• 1 tbsp. salt
• 2 tsp. black pepper
• 2 tsp Italian seasoning
• 1 tbsp. olive oil
Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Heat olive oil in your Dutch oven on medium heat and sear
each side of the roast. Remove roast. Add onions and sear on each side. Remove and do
the same with the carrots. Remove; pour in 3 -4 cups water.
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Scrape all of the deliciousness off the bottom, then add the roast and top with the onions
and carrots. Sprinkle the seasonings over the top and around the water. Put the lid on
the Dutch oven and bake for an hour per pound.
Meatloaf (or amazing meatballs!)

• 3 lbs. ground beef
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup oatmeal
• ½ cup ketchup
• 3 tbsp. mustard
• 1 1/2 tbsp. Italian seasoning
• 2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. onion powder
• 1 tsp. garlic powder
This one’s easy. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Combine everything in a bowl. If it’s a little
sloppy, add a bit more oats. If it’s too dry, add a bit more ketchup. You want to be moist
enough to form into a loaf but not so wet that it sticks to your hands.
Ideally, you should be able to form it into a meatball that’s a little mushy. Press into a
loaf pan or square iron skillet. Bake for 1 ½-2 hours until meat thermometer reads 160
degrees.
Fried Chicken
Picnics and Sunday dinners all across the South wouldn’t be the same without fried
chicken. It’s crispy, crunchy, and oh-so-juicy!
Chicken:
• 8 serving pieces chicken, light or dark meat
159
• 2 cups milk or buttermilk

• 2 tsp. salt
• 2-3 cups peanut oil, more if needed
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
Put oil in a large skillet (you want about an inch) and heat to 375 degrees. You’ll know
it’s hot when you toss in a bit of flour and it sizzles. While your oil is heating, combine
all dry ingredients in a medium bowl, and place the milk in another.
Dredge the chicken through the milk then through the flour mixture so that it’s well-
coated. Drop gently into the oil. You’ll hear it sizzle. When it stops sizzling and is brown
on one side, turn it and cook it on the other side.
When it quits sizzling, it’s done. Drain on paper towels and enjoy.
Buttery, Flakey Biscuits

I’m from the South, but biscuits are eaten in all parts of the south. Biscuits were a staple
food for our ancestors and this recipe has been passed down to me via my father-in-law.
The important part about keeping your biscuits light is to knead them only enough to
combine them. Unlike bread, the more you knead biscuits, the tougher they get.
• 2 cups all-purpose flour

• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 3 teaspoons sugar
• 1 stick cold butter (1/2 cup) cut into eighths
• 1 large egg
• 2/3 cup 2% milk
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Combine all of the dry ingredients then cut the butter in
until you have coarse crumbs, with no chunks bigger than a pea. The goal is to
160
incorporate the butter throughout the flour. Then whisk together the milk and egg and
add to the flour. Stir to combine, then knead no more than necessary to make it smooth.
Roll it out to about ½ inch thick and cut with a biscuit cutter or water glass. Place in a
greased baking dish so that they’re touching a bit and bake 5-10 minutes or until golden
brown. Serve piping hot!
Top 9 Civil War Recipes
The Civil War was brutal. That’s all there is to it. If you’ve seen The Free State of Jones,
even the first fifteen minutes of the movie bring home some of the atrocities that men –
on both sides – had to endure.
While it’s true that the Union soldiers were generally better fed than the Confederate
soldiers were, neither side was eating steak and eggs, at least not with any kind of
regularity. Because an army really does march on its stomach, food supplies going both
directions were interrupted as often as possible.
Unfortunately, that often meant burning fields and slaughtering animals, leaving them
to rot, as a regiment passed through an area, in order to keep the other side from eating.
The casualties of those actions weren’t just soldiers – the families who depended upon
those animals and crops to exist also starved.
Because food conditions became so brutal, especially in the South, both soldiers and
families had to learn how to survive with very little food. I don’t think I know a single
person who hasn’t seen GONE WITH THE WIND, and though it’s not one of my
favorite movies, it does point out some valid points.
The land was destroyed and plundered. A woman who had been raised “gently” aka-
spoiled, and had no skill or knowledge whatsoever, learned what she needed to in order
to survive. Scarlet isn’t necessarily the greatest example of how things went down simply
161
because she was entitled and duplicitous, but the movie did have a realistic element to
it.
So what was a man to do if he was on the march and had very little time to cook, and
very few ingredients to do it with? And what about the women and infirm left at home?
How did they live? The answer is: simply and with what little they had on hand.
The one advantage that both sides had was that the country was still agricultural.
People, at least in the part of the country where they were fighting, weren’t dependent
upon outside sources for survival. Family or estate gardens were the norm rather than
the exception and fruit trees and wild berries grew in abundance.
This allowed the soldiers to grab food from along the trail and it allowed families who
may have lost most of everything else to have at least enough to survive. Remember, too,
that canning was a huge part of life back then, so if families managed to hide their food
or were fortunate enough to remain off the marching trails, they had food stockpiled.
The marching soldiers weren’t quite so lucky, and it wasn’t always because food was
scarce. There was also the fact that most of the men had no idea how to cook; they’d
never had reason to learn because they had women or servants to do that.
The North had an advantage here at the start of the war because they had the United
States Sanitary Commission watching out for them. They were a system of volunteers
that were trained to find and distribute food to soldiers in the field.
They knew about what was in season where, and how to preserve it and transport it. It
was their sole job to keep the soldiers constantly fed. That doesn’t mean the food tasted
good, though, and they didn’t always come through so the soldiers were left to their own
devices.
It was so bad that a hotel owner named Sanderson proposed that they actually teach two
people per 100 to cook so that somebody had at least rudimentary skills. He also wrote a
cookbook that offered suggestions on cooking methods and some simple recipes.
162
On the other hand, the Confederacy was a ragtag team who came together as farmers,
miners, plantation owners, and other working men who were fighting for what they
believed in. They weren’t soldiers and didn’t have any sort of organized system in place.
They ate on the run and were dependent on what they could catch, hunt, pick, or pilfer.
Families along the way were often sympathetic to the cause and would offer what they
could.
Either way, if you have an entire army of people who are great at shooting a rabbit but
have no idea how to cook it, you can imagine that foodborne illness was a serious issue.
The typical daily allotment for a confederate soldier was twelve ounces of back and a
pound of cornmeal (also called Indian meal) or hardtack. In the beginning, sugar, beans
and coffee were part of the allotment, but faded out as food supplies dwindled.
Union soldiers received salted pork or beef, coffee, sugar, vinegar, salt, and dried fruits
and veggies when they were in season. There were also civilian merchants called sutlers
that set up shop in camps and sold canned fruit, sugar, tobacco, and coffee.
Hardtack was a staple on both sides and often was the only thing that stood between a
man and starvation, though it hardly qualified as food and had practically no nutritional
value other than carbohydrates because it was flour and water. Both sides also carried a
canvas bag with buckles called a haversack that held their food and anything else they
needed to survive for a few days on their own.
Finally, Confederate soldiers would often trade tobacco to Union soldiers for coffee
beans, though it was done in secret because, obviously, fraternization was frowned
upon.
I think it’s critical to remember here that these were brothers fighting brothers. Unlike
other wars, these men were still countrymen, though their convictions had brought
them to war. Sometimes, men managed to find uneasy peace long enough to help each
other.
163
By the end of the war, things were so bad that there were food riots in many southern
cities because food lines had been severed, personal food sources had been pillaged
and/or destroyed, and people were starving. Even rats were fair game.
Here are a few recipes that soldiers used, and note that there are often no amounts listed
but it was just a “make-do” type of cooking:
Battlefield Cornbread
Mix cornmeal with enough pork fat to make a stiff batter. Spin
your bayonet in it until coated, then hold over the fire to cook
the bread.
Indian Sagamite
This was simple – three parts corn meal and one-part brown
sugar, browned in a skillet. In small amounts, it allays hunger and thirst, making it a
good food for scouts.
Coffee Substitute
Wash ripe acorns in the shell dry them, and parch them until the open. Take the shell off
and roast the nuts with a little bacon fat and you’ll have a “splendid cup of coffee.”
Chicory was also used, and chicory coffee remains a southern thing.
Plain Irish Stew (Feeds 50)

Cut fifty pounds of mutton into ¼-pound chunks. Put them in a pot and add twelve
pounds of whole potatoes along with 8 tablespoons of salt and three teaspoons pepper.
Cover with water, about a half-pint to each pound of meat. Light the fire and simmer
(well, it says 1-1 ½ hours of gentle ebulation).
164
Hard Tack
Dissolve 1 ½ tbsp. salt in 1 cup water. Mix into 5 cups flour. Knead into a dough and roll
out to 1/3-inch thickness. Cut into 3-inch squares and pierce each with a fork or
whatever is available. Cook on low temperature of 250 degrees to prevent burning for at
least 4 hours, turning over halfway through.
Johnnycakes
• 2 cups boiling water
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1 tablespoon bacon fat
Bring the water to a boil and slowly add the cornmeal. Cook for 5 minutes then add the
remaining ingredients. Place a 3-oz. scoop into a hot greased skillet and cook for five
minutes on each side or until each side is lightly browned.
Confederate Biscuits
• 2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 6 tablespoons shortening (lard or butter will
do. Butter will make them heavier and
crispier)
• 2/3 cup buttermilk
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Stir together dry ingredients. Cut in shortening until mixture is the consistency of meal.
Stir in the buttermilk. Form into a ball and place on a floured surface. Knead a few times
– not much or they’ll be heavy. Pat out into about ½-inch thick. Cut with a cup, tin, or
biscuit cutter and place on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 450 degrees for 8-10
minutes.
Fried Catfish
• 2 catfish fillets
• 1 cup flour or cornmeal
• salt and pepper
• 1 cup pork fat
Melt fat in a cast-iron skillet. Mix dry ingredients well, then roll the catfish filets in
them. Put in skillet carefully – the grease is hot. Cook on each side for 5 minutes.
Turnip Greens
1. 2 bunches turnip greens
2. 4 turnips
3. 1 onion (sliced)
4. 1 tablespoon salt
5. 1 piece fatback
6. 4-5 cups water, enough to keep them from burning
Rinse greens well under cold water. Add greens, turnips and onions to boiling water
with fat back and salt. Cook for 20 minutes or until turnips are tender and serve.
These are just a few basic recipes that were common, simple foods during the Civil War,
and all of them except the hardtack remain common Southern foods today.
As a matter of fact, the biscuit recipe above is mine, handed down to me twenty-five
years ago from my father-in-law, who learned it from his grandmother. And the turnip
166
greens recipe is my husband’s, and he learned it from his grandmother. Imagine my

surprise when I found near-identical ones on a Civil War site!
I shouldn’t have been surprised, though. Many of my recipes are ones that have been
handed down to me from my mother, grandmother, or ex father-in-law, all of whom
learned them from THEIR elders. Unfortunately, most of these recipes that were
standard foods have been lost.
A Note on Healthy Eating

It’s no secret our ancestors had a much shorter lifespan than we do today, but much of
that average has been distorted by child mortality figures and disease, and if you look at
their diet—without processed foods, toxic additives, or other mess… you’ll soon see the
benefits.
In fact, there is one little-known community—the Seventh-Day Adventists—centered

around Loma Linda in California, who’ve experienced a startling health boost, just by
eating more like our ancestors: adopting a semi-vegetarian diet, eating only natural
foods, cooking at home, and drinking mostly water. All things our ancestors did without
thinking, but we struggle with today—a trend that’s been proven, time and again
worldwide.
In fact, studies have shown:
• Death rates from all cancers were 40% lower for Adventist men and 24% lower for
Adventist women.
• Lung cancer is 79% lower.
• Colorectal cancer 38% lower.
• Breast cancer 15% lower.
• Coronary heart disease is 34% lower for Adventist men, and 2% lower for Adventist
women.
• And on average Adventist men will live 7.3 years longer than other Californians, and
Adventist women 4.4 years.
167
All in all, that’s 10 years longer than the average American!
All thanks to their traditional diet.
And the golden rule?
Simply try not to eat anything your great-great grandparents or forefathers wouldn’t
recognize. Stick with preparing your meals—as I’ve detailed in this book—and you can’t
go far wrong.
This is just one step on your journey, thank you for taking it with me.
Yours sincerely,
Lisa Cook
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©Forgotten Lessons of Yesterday

INTRODUCTION TO BASIC COOKING ........................................................ 8

Basic Skills You Need for Making Food........................................................................... 8

How to Preserve Food .................................................................................................. 9

How to Dehydrate Fruits and Veggies ....................................................................... 16

How to Grind Grains ...................................................................................................17

How to Measure without a Scale ................................................................................ 18

How to Slaughter Animals.......................................................................................... 22

The “Must Have” List for the Cook’s Kitchen ................................................................ 24

Part 1 – FLOUR, BREADS & PASTA ........................................................... 30

Grinding Grains for Making Flour at Home.................................................................. 30

Equipment Needed for Grinding Grains .................................................................... 31

What Kinds of Grains Work Best? ............................................................................. 31

Grinding Your Own Grains......................................................................................... 33

Helpful Tips ................................................................................................................ 35

The Flour ........................................................................................................................ 35

The Difference between Meal and Flour .................................................................... 35

Storing Your Flour ...................................................................................................... 36

7 Easy Homemade Breads for A Healthy Life ............................................................... 37

1. Basic White Bread ................................................................................................... 38

2. Low Glycemic Index Banana Bread ....................................................................... 39

3. Light Fluffy Cheddar Bacon Biscuits ...................................................................... 40

4. Cinnamon Flax Muffin ........................................................................................... 41

5. Rosemary Herb French Bread ................................................................................ 41

6. Wonderful Wheat-Free Wheat Bread .................................................................... 43

7. Coffee Can Bread .................................................................................................. 434

How to Make and Preserve Pasta .................................................................................. 45

What You Need for Making Pasta .............................................................................. 46

How You Make It ........................................................................................................ 47

Useful Tips .................................................................................................................. 48

Part 2 – MILK &DAIRY ............................................................................. 50

5 Ways to Preserve Milk ................................................................................................ 50

How to Make Cheese at Home ....................................................................................... 55

Cheese Salt .................................................................................................................. 57

Calcium Chloride ........................................................................................................ 57

Cheese Culture ............................................................................................................ 57

4 Types of Cheese to Make at Home .......................................................................... 60

Preserving Your Cheese .............................................................................................. 66

How to Make and Can Butter ........................................................................................ 67

Start with Good Cream ............................................................................................... 68

Straining and Cleaning the Butter ............................................................................. 70

Canning Your Butter................................................................................................... 70

3 Types of Yogurts to Make at Home..............................................................................71

Traditional Yogurt ...................................................................................................... 72

Almond Milk Yogurt ................................................................................................... 74

Coconut Milk Yogurt .................................................................................................. 75

Part 3 – SWEETENERS, FATS & SEASONINGS ......................................... 76

How to Make Sugar at Home ......................................................................................... 76

How to Make Beet Sugar ............................................................................................ 77

How to Make Maple Sugar at Home .......................................................................... 78

How to Make Maple Syrup at Home ............................................................................. 79

What You Need for Maple Syrup? ..............................................................................80

Let’s Make the Maple Syrup! ...................................................................................... 83

How to Make Vegetable Oil ........................................................................................... 85

Getting Started with Vegetable Oil ............................................................................. 86

Making Oil .................................................................................................................. 87

How to Grow Your Herbs .............................................................................................. 88

Growing and Harvesting Garlic.................................................................................. 89