Let The Sun Do The Cooking!

Use the free heat of the sun to cook your food. It is easy and energy efficient. It saves on fuel cost and  in the summer helps to keep you cool by not having to heat up the house with your stove. With solar cooking it is cooked with lower temperatures that will not burn the food and makes it easy to just let it cook away without stirring or checking all of the time. Set it in the heat of the sun and come back after a few hours to a well- cooked meal.

A great idea is to set it up on a table that can spin so that you can make it follow the sun during the day. Makes it easy for us with bad backs, also. Don't have to pick up the whole cooker, just spin the table the bit that it needs turned.You can easily cook all year long with a All Season Solar Cooker.  You can bake bread, cookies, and cakes in a solar cooker. The best thing to make , since it is set and cooking all day, is stews, beans, soups, and casseroles.

You can easily make one. The links below have plans for making them and recipes.

• http://www.solarcooking.org
• http://cookwiththesun.com

Having a solar cooker is great for kids , also. They can learn to use one easily and be cooking in one in no time. My son was 7 years old when he made one out of a pizza box. It worked pretty good. He baked cookies in it and did some hot dogs. It was fun for him and he learned a lot about the sun and how it works.
Get the whole family involved.

COMMENT BELOW WITH YOUR FAVORITE THING TO COOK IN A SOLAR COOKER>>>

Bake A Cake In A Jar

This is such a cool idea. Bake the cake in the canning jar and then you can store it. You can use box cake mix or make your own cake.

• Always use the wide mouth straight sided glass canning jars.
• Lightly coat the inside with vegetable oil or cooking spray.
• Fill the jars only about half way to give the cake room to rise.
•  Keep the mouth clean to ensure a good seal.
• Be careful when removing the jars from the oven. 
• Store in the fridge or the freezer for up to 6 months.

Dollar Tree Stockup

Wow! Found another great item at dollar tree! They had other flavors, but, i think i can do more with these. Canned roast beef would be great to add to this!

Food Storage Recipe - Creamy Vegetable Soup With Dumplings

Eating by oil lamp light!

It is getting to be that time of year to be making soups that will keep you warm and satisfied all day long. This is a hearty soup that will stay with you all day and keep you coming back for more.

NEED:

For Soup ~

3 cups of water or broth

2 medium onions, chopped

2 celery stalks, diced

2 cups of canned tomatoes , chopped up and include the sauce.

2 carrots, sliced

2 potatoes, diced

1 or 2 cups of any other of your favorite vegetables

1/2 cup of butter

1/2 cup of whole wheat flour

salt and pepper to taste

For Dumplings ~

2 cups of whole wheat flour

3 teaspoon of baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup of minced parsley

1/4 cup of shortening

1 egg, slightly beaten

3/4 cup of milk

SOUP:  In a large covered pot, cook the vegetables in the broth until the firmest ones are barely tender. This should take about 30 minutes. Melt the butter in a small saucepan and stir in the flour to form a smooth paste.Mix in 1 cup of the broth from the vegetables to make a lump free sauce. Gradually stir it into the large pot of soup.

DUMPLINGS: Stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cut in the parsley and the shortening until it looks like coarse meal. Mix in the egg and milk. Blend it until all of the dry ingredients are just dampened. Drop the batter by spoonfuls on top of the boiling soup, cover the pot , and simmer for about 15 minutes before serving.

Organize The Food Storage

I have this shelf in my kitchen where I have food storage items that we use daily. It helps with keeping track of dates and what we need more of, etc. But, this past week it was used so much and dug thru so much that it needs reorganized. Plan on doing it tomorrow. Think it will be a day of free time. Hope to get a lot done that was put off the past week. When your food storage is organized it is easier to keep track of. 

Oregano Oil ~ Antibiotic Substitute

  When we are talking about Oregano Oil we are not talking about the kitchen type oregano. The true Oregano to use is Origanum Compactum.

Here are some recipes to use for a natural antibiotic.

Recipe #1

10 drops of lemon essential oil

8 drops of mountain savory

3 drops of Oregano oil

Put into "00" Empty Gelatin Capsules and take 2 capsules 1 time a day

Recipe #2

4 drops of Oregano oil

2 drops of frankincense

12 drops of thieves ( proprietary blend)

Put into "00" Empty Gelatin Capsules and take 1 3 times a day

Recipe #3

5 drops of oregano oil

5  drops of thieves ( proprietary blend)

Put into "00" Empty Gelatin Capsules and fill the remainder of the capsule with peppermint oil. Take this with food , 2 times a day.

I am not a doctor and you need to seek medical council before trying something like this, but they are all natural and I have found that they work very well. I do not like the idea of going to a dr and them giving out antibiotics for every single thing! Not good at all. They give  out antibiotics a lot of times for stuff that doesn't even need antibiotics.

Water Dowsing

My grandfather was a huge believer in dowsing. We lived out in the boondocks and he used it to find water for their well.

He always told me that he only dowsed for need. If he felt like he was tired or not relaxed enough to dowse then he would stop. Either let someone else do it or wait until he felt that the answers were coming naturally. I can still see him walking slowly around the 3 acres they had looking for water. He went over it a few times to make sure and each time he got the same answer and they had water the whole time they were out there! 

You can get a ton of information online about dowsing for water and go from there. 

Food Storage Recipe - Oatmeal Milk Frozen Coffee

We love making and drinking Oatmeal Milk! My daughter takes it and makes these frozen coffee drinks that are absolutely delicious!! Plus saves you the money that you would have spent on a frappe out of the home. They are over $3.00 , so if you buy one everyday that is at least $20.00 a week that you are saving. They can be even more at some places.

All you need is 1 cup of coffee that you had frozen.

2 cups of your homemade oatmeal milk

1 cup of ice

Put all of this in the blender and turn it on high.

Blend until the ice is all blended up well.

Pour into your big cup and enjoy.

These are extra good in the summer , but we drink them all year long. We also enjoy ice cream more in the winter also.

What types of "summer" foods do you enjoy in the winter???

Better Off

Library book sales are an awesome place to get some great books to read. I found this gem today...Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology (P.S.).


What is the least we need to achieve the most? With this question in mind, MIT graduate Eric Brende flipped the switch on technology. He and his wife, Mary, ditched their car, electric stove, refrigerator, running water, and everything else motorized or "hooked to the grid," and spent eighteen months living in a remote community so primitive in its technology that even the Amish consider it antiquated.

Better Off is the story of their real-life experiment to see whether our cell phones, wide-screen TVs, and SUVs have made life easier -- or whether life would be preferable without them. This smart, funny, and enlightening book mingles scientific analysis with the human story to demonstrate how a world free of technological excess can shrink stress -- and waistlines -- and expand happiness, health, and leisure.

Food Storage Recipe - Pinto Bean pie

This just goes to show you that there are very many things that can be done with pinto beans. Like the Pinto Bean Fudge.Learn to make them all. This adds a lot of variety to your food storage recipes. Not just boring pots of bean. Make stuff that your family will love.

NEED:

2 eggs -  well beaten

1 cups of sugar

1 cup of cooked and mashed Pinto beans

1 cup evaporated milk

1/2 cup of shredded coconut

2 teaspoon vanilla

1/8 teaspoon salt

Mix all of the ingredients together very well and pour into a pie dish that has a pie crust in it. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

When it cools serve it with whip cream.