Getting to know my new neighborhood...

We have been traveling back and forth to Orange for a very long time (probably 20 years). Last weekend, I wanted to take the time to check out some of my local area merchants. I basically wanted to see what was available.
First I went to Yoder's Country Market. 
Love their selection of various spices, pastas, baking goods and bakery items. They also have a bookstore and outdoor furniture. 

I just bought a couple items this time & I received a 2015 calendar with coupons for each month.

Also, I went to visit Miller Farms Market. The gentleman in front of this main building, said "Wait, I wasn't smiling". I laughed and offered to take the picture again. He had gathered some apples from the market and headed across the street to the Farm House Kitchen across the street. I need to find out more. One of the things I have been thinking about is teaching pressure canning, dehydrating, etc. 

I picked up some local fresh eggs and honey. I prepped my eggs with mineral oil and now I have some store at our new house. 

How to store eggs for nine months: Redux: Egg-cellent Egg-ducation

Buy Fresh, Buy local ya'll

Water Kefir (part 2)

I think I am becoming obsessed with water kefir. Seriously. This stuff is so good for you. I am working on building up probiotics in my body. Funny thing, I have never really been crazy about soda/pop or straight up juice.
But for me, water kefir is amazing. Here is how it is going in my "experiential kitchen".

photo credit Rawfully Tempting

Since I last posted, I have made a batch out of freeze dried fruit from Starbucks (strawberries and blueberries) & mango /orange juice. Plus, I have dehydrated blueberries, raspberries & some more juice (I really am just trying to get some bottles to store my kefir) and I have been dehydrating more fruit (mango and oranges) for coming batches.

I can't seem to make enough of it fast enough. I have even thought about getting more water kefir grains to up my production. The temperature in my house has been cool, so it has been taking 4-5 days for the kefir to ferment enough. The last batch & this batch I have sat on top of my dehydrator to speed up the process. I will be switching to raw sugar.

Shopping list:

The kefir on the left is the one I purchased first. Decided to go with organic. And as I am writing this up, I am ordering a larger batch. Going to kick it into high gear & share.

                                                            

I had a smaller dehydrator when I started, it finally died. I opted for the 9 tray Excalibur Dehydrator (I saved up my money until I could afford it). I absolutely love it & keep it busy all the time.

                                                     

I have an online Amazon Associate/store called Perky Prepping Gramma's Store. This allows me to show you the products I have personally own, used and endorse. The cost is the same for you, but I do receive some compensation if you purchase through my store. I always appreciate your shopping.

  Instructions with my first batch of Water Kefir

Water Bath vs. Pressure Canning

I have interesting conversations at Starbucks. Today I was chatting with one of my very favorite guests about canning. So, I thought I'd so a quick post on a couple basic principles of canning. Simple basics, never forgetting there were qusetions I didn't even know to ask when I started.

Food at the top of this chart may be water bathed or pressure canned. Please note with the way some tomatoes may be bred for low acidity and may need to actually be pressure canned.

                                                                 

(National Center for Home Food Preservation)

Foods that are strong alkali based, must be pressure canned. Also, understand there is a huge difference between a pressure cooker and a pressure canner.

You may cook in a pressure canner, but you can not can in a pressure cooker.

Note: I found it is important to measure your stove top to whatever is hanging or your stove carefully. Then compare that measurement to the height of your canner. When I ordered my All-American pressure canner, I thought i had measured carefully and I was off by about 1". Sad, sad, sad. 

Needless to say, when we were looking for property, I carried a tape measure with me. I was going to insure that my All-American pressure canner fit on my new stove!

                                                             

Also, take into account how much canning you thing you will be doing. I find I do way more canning that I originally thought I would be and now am very thankful that when I purchased my All-American, that i was able to double stack when canning. The larger size was well worth the money for me when I was canning 40-60 pints of chicken.

Tools, Getting Started and Organized
Other Canning Posts

Taking the First Simple Steps in Prepping

Honestly, I think the first step in preparing is making the decision to start prepping.
I remember so vividly in the beginning not having a clue how to start. I didn't know about prepping or that preppers even existed.
That is the main reason I try to stay very focused on sharing what I am doing. Keeping to the basic principles.
After making the decision to actually start preparing, my next step was I started with a simple list. I got up one morning and wrote down a list of everything I used in that day. Note: I said everything. 
The very first things on my list was toilet paper & water. Water is a very important item to store and often one of the later things that people focus on storing. 

One of the first principles that will help you build up your storage of items your actually use is to "use one, buy two". Now that I have developed the habit, it seems so simple to do. I utilize on-line shopping a lot. While I pulled something from my shelf, i.e. a new bottle of aspirin, I simply go to my on-line shopping cart and add two. I wait until I have the requisite amount to get free shipping (Walmart is $50 of qualified items) and the money (usually on payday) and place my order.

My last Walmart order

Note: I have to tell you I didn't stock Ramen noodles at first, in fact this is the first time I ordered the stuff here. I finally ordered some because Mr. Perky keeps buying them. Obviously he likes to eat them in a pinch, so now I am storing some. 

What else you see here is coconut milk (to round out 144 meals of Thai peanut chicken meals), soap, OTC's and 2 large boxes of baking soda. 

TIP: I signed up for Shop at Home, I link through Shop at Home for my Walmart purchases and receive occasional credits to spend on more preps. Yes, your information is out there, mine is already out there so I try to make my habits work for me.

The bonus of utilizing this principle is that if you have been prepping for a year, you know that you have one years worth or more of supplies. You will find your habits starting to change. 

Do you have a favorite tip to share with a newbie starting to prepare?

I have an online Amazon Associate/store called Perky Prepping Gramma's Store. This allows me to show you the products I have personally own, used and endorse. The cost is the same for you, but I do receive some compensation if you purchase through my store. I always appreciate your shopping.

We received our clear title Deed in the mail!

One of the most interesting comments made when I posted about paying cash for our property was “don't know how anyone but the rich can do this “. Actually, I just smiled.

As you now know from reading the financial posts, we are both blue collar workers by choice. We work multiple jobs between us. We just got very serious, stayed focused and made some uncommon choices.

Below is Forbes' 2014 list of the richest counties in America:

1. Falls Church City, Va.
2. Loudoun County, Va.
3. Los Alamos County, N.M.
4. Howard County, Md.
5. Fairfax County, Va.
6. Hunterdon County, N.J.
7. Arlington County, Va.
8. Douglas County, Colo.
9. Stafford County, Va.
10. Somerset County, N.J.

Read more: http://www.wtop.com/41/3594972/Americas-wealthiest-counties-Six-of-top-10-richest-counties-in-DC-area#ixzz3H3W5QaMy

While we do live in one of these counties, that doesn't mean that we are rich. What that means for us is the cost of living is higher, especially properties. We chose to move out of this area to find a more affordable property and we looked religiously for over year. While this property was really nice, it still needs a lot of work. We are adding an entire new roof, building a garage and fixing it up.

One thing that worked in our favor was standard bank financing was unavailable for this property. Having the ability to pay cash gave us a slight advantage.

What worked for us was we were willing to change our habits, stopped making excuses and recognized that debt was not working for us. This isn't easy, but it is a choice. I have also shared stories of others that are in the process and some even working with far less than we had.

The biggest moment happened yesterday (Oct. 23, 2014) when we received our clear title Deed in the mail. Mr. Perky & I looked at each other and smiled. We accomplished something really big!

To round this out, these are many related posts linked below that show other steps we used to get where we are on our journey. Know that we continue to tithe, still maintain several months of living expenses/emergency fund and we continue to use a certain percentage of all money we earn to keep preparing. Next step - to sell our current home. We still are on a journey...

For more information...
10/10/14 More blogs posts to explain a little more in detail about how we got to this point in our journey. These posts are listed here under"Financial". This will take some time to read.

Romans 13: 8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. (NIV) note that the previous chapter is talking about actually paying what you owe.

Chicken & Dumplings (Food Storage Meal)

When I started storing meals, I definitely took the saying to heart “Store what you eat, eat what you store.” One of our favorite meals is chicken and dumplings.

I stored jiffy mix (yes, now I have all the ingredients to make them now, I just use one batch of my biscuit recipe) and the very first thing I learned to can was chicken breasts.

Now that the weather is chilly, I made our first chicken and dumplings for dinner last night of the season.
First I got the chicken broth boiling and added some chicken breasts.

Then I made and rolled out the dumplings nice & thin. Dropped them in the broth and let them cook for about 5 minutes.

Teaching the next generation. My son loves chicken & dumplings. His wife doesn't know how to make them. Last year I brought all the stuff over (all canned by the way) & the grand children & I made chicken & dumplings. We had a blast. Everyone had two helpings, extra the youngest one, who wanted more canned green beans.

               

I must apologize, I am so unorganized. I've have mentioned multiple times, I have

simply shared my journey with you as I learn. That is literally what I have done. First I started on fb for about 6 months, then I started blogging about what I was doing. Consequently there is a lot of fb that I haven't transferred over. I started to transfer some of the fb albums over to the blog, but I am WAY behind. I just realized I have never posted on the blog something as simply as pressure canning chicken. Have patience, I will work on getting that up in a few days. Maybe after we settle in our new farmstead, I will take some time off work & transfer everything from fb to this blog. I appreciate you putting up with me. See, you are able to do this also. LOL.

“Perky” Richy Caffeinated Peppermint Hot Cocoa

It's chilly this morning and I am now curled up under an afghan on my couch enjoying a piping hot cup of “Perky” Rich Peppermint Hot Cocoa. All the ingredients are from my storage. The cooler temperatures of fall have been calling out to me to start making my cold weather favorites, so I thought I would share.

“Perky” Rich Peppermint Hot Cocoa

Ingredients:

1 cup of milk

2 t. of sugar

2 T. of Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa

1 packet of Starbucks VIA Peppermint Mocha (this adds caffeination)

(personally I wait until the end of the holiday season and stock up)

Dash of salt

¼ vanilla

Directions:

Pour the milk into a small sauce pan and whisk in all the other ingredients until piping hot. Pour into your favorite mug. Add whip or marshmallows if you wish. Enjoy!

This recipe was adapted from the one cup recipe on the Hershey's website. 

Ingredients:
2 T. sugar

2-3 t. Hershey's Cocoa

Dash of salt

1 cup milk

1/4 t. vanilla extract

TIPS:

Storing powered cocoa: On the Hershey Company FAQ they state “Cocoa is considered a non-perishable item which should maintain quality if store at room temperature in a tightly sealed container.” Sounds good to me. I keep mine is a cool, dark dry place place and probably have at least 5 years worth of cocoa stored currently.

I am now getting my Hersey's Dark Cocoa from Amazon.

(one)               (six)

I tend to use the same products all the time. You will often find Amazon associate links, which are part of an affiliate program. I will only link products that I personally have purchased & used. You are able to find all the items mentioned above at Perky Prepping Gramma's. Thanks! ~Perky~