Buying Local - A trip to the farmers markets

A day well spent - locally grown SC produce and products

The past several weeks of work have been unbelievably busy.  A client visit, audits, a job fair, catering for the client visit, our annual fund raiser wrap up, the company picnic - all in addition to my regular work load.  It's left me with less coherent thoughts than I'd like at the end of any given day, and many attempts at blog posts lately seem more like sleep deprived ramblings.  This weekend was the first weekend I had 2 days off in a row in what feels like forever.  

Much as the bed called to me sweetly and sang siren songs of snug little naps, Bear and I headed out to the farmer's market in Florence, SC.  Sweet potatoes are in season and there's nothing better than fresh sweet potatoes straight from the local farms...blame it on those adorable baskets they come in, but one basket sitting by its lonesome just seemed sad so we got two.  Which equals 20 very generous pounds of sweet potatoes - one guess as to what I'm canning as I type.  The Collard Greens looked glorious, big, leafy, just the right shade of green and we'd just gone through our first frost (which improves their taste, oddly enough) so I grabbed a bunch of those for Thanksgiving dinner.  Then the apples beckoned with their shiny colorful skins and you can't say no to fresh apples that look so beautiful.  Especially not when Bear and my Mama have both requested my Caramel Apple Pie for dessert.  They deserve farm fresh, just picked apples for their pie so that's what they got.  Pounds and pounds of them.  About 7 apples will end up in the actual pie, the rest will be turned into pie filling, canned, and stashed away in our food storage along with the many, many jars of sweet potatoes.  Currently we have 20 pint jars and 7 quart jars and there's still many more waiting to be canned.  I think I may have a produce problem.  Is there a support group for that?  How do you tell when someone is produce drunk and needs to be cut off?  We also ended up with a lovely ornamental cabbage plant with stunning shades of purple in it for only $2.00.  In hindsight, we should have gotten several more. 

After the farmers market we headed south and stopped off at Abbott Farms where they have some of the absolute best fruit ciders anywhere in the history of mankind.  The white peach cider is to die for, the blueberry is delightful, and then there's the apple pie cider.  We haven't tried it yet, but we needed it in our lives.  I also needed a small bottle of the strawberry cider because...well, just because.  In addition to their ciders, they carry homemade ice creams, sodas, breads, preserves, canned produce, sauces, salsas, handmade soaps - it's like one stop shopping for every foodie on your holiday gift list.  Plus, they have samples that change daily, so we got to sample two new ciders, blueberry preserves, peach salsa and I forget what else, but it was all really, really good. The peach soap they make smells just like a ripe peach and looked too pretty to leave sitting by the register so we got a bar of that too.  Looking back, it might not have been such a bad idea to get a few more bars...   

After loading our box of goodies from Abbott Farms we admired our haul nestled happily in the back of the SUV.  We rode contentedly back towards home, high from our food sampling and the promise of more good food to come until Bear, my voice of reason, piped up with, "Do we have enough mason jars to can all this food with?"  Off to the local restaurant supply we went, where we  scouted for prepper essentials and ended up with 4 cases of mason jars, and a few miscellaneous odds and ends we needed for our preps.  Now that I see how many sweet potatoes are left, all the apples, and the collard greens (the remainder of which will be canned) I'm thinking maybe we could have gotten another case or two of jars...

In upcoming posts I'll be sharing how I can sweet potatoes (slightly different from other methods) and my caramel apple pie and bacon-bacon bourbon pecan pie recipes, providing we can get a picture of them before they disappear.  I hope you were able to spend your weekend enjoying all the delights of this season and finding some new things to be thankful for.  As for me, I'm thankful for my (always hectic, often stressful) job that allows me to support local businesses and farms, and for my family, who always appreciates the fruits of my labor...as evidenced by how fast food disappears around here.  
Till next time, y'all!  Oh - and if you happen to go to a farmers market in the near future, could you pick me up just a few pounds of apples?  I forgot to grab some for making applesauce.  Just 10 pounds or so ought to do it.    

Prepping for Beginners Part I – An intro into the basics of food preservation items

NYC's Lower East Side 96 hours after Hurricane Sandy - dumpster diving for food. 

There is an abundance of information and products out there for people who are into preparedness.  For a beginner, all the information and all those different products can become overwhelming.  After witnessing people digging through a dumpster of spoiled food just 96 hours after Hurricane Sandy hit, I’m glad I stuck to it and continued prepping.  But for the novice prepper, those who are just dipping their toes into these waters, it can sometimes almost seem like a different language is being spoken.  In today’s post, we’re going to cover some of the most common items I ran across when researching food storage and demystify them for the absolute novice, as well as covering where to find some of these items without overpaying.

Food grade buckets

You know what they are, plastic buckets that are rated safe to store food in.  I wasn’t mystified as to what they were so much as where to get them.  The prices online seemed incredibly high for a 5 or 6 gallon bucket.  On a whim, we went to Lowes where we discovered 5 gallon food grade buckets MUCH cheaper than anywhere on the internet.  We got the buckets and matching lids for under $4 each.  Check the local hardware or big box stores near you for these items – just make sure they’re food grade. 

A 5 Gallon Food Grade Bucket - Stackable and essential for protecting your investment

Mylar bags 

The only time I’d heard of mylar was for balloons.  Mylar bags come in different thicknesses and sizes; their purpose is to help protect your dry goods such as rice, grains, sugar, etc. from degrading due to exposure to pantry pests, light and oxygen.  Typically, you place your mylar bags of food inside of your food grade buckets for long term storage.  The recommended thickness is 5 mil, thinner than that can let light into the bag and shorten the shelf life of your food.  I tend to use the 1 gallon sized bags over the 5 gallon bags as we live in the South, and I don’t want to expose more of my food to the elements than necessary.  So we package everything into 1 gallon bags and use a bag at a time while ensuring that the rest of the rice or beans or whatever remains fresh. 

You seal them by using heat – there are specially made sealers or you can use the PracticalPrepper2000 – also known as a clothes iron set on the nylon setting.  Works just as well, and it’s a lot cheaper.  I’ve also heard that a flat iron works very well, but I’m not willing to experiment with my Chi flat iron!  Before you seal your mylar bags, you will need to add in…

Oxygen Absorbers 

These a magical thing to me, as I cannot scientifically explain their chemical make up or what makes them work.  All I can tell you is they suck out all the oxygen from your mylar bags and makes for an airtight seal.  No oxygen means no bugs, and your food stays fresher for longer.  They come in different cc’s – I use 300 ccs in my 1 gallon mylar bags; after 24 hours you’ll notice that the bags look like they’ve been shrink wrapped – this is great, it means the oxygen absorbers are doing their thing!

The best prices on mylar bags and oxygen absorbers that we’ve found has been on Amazon, and I take advantage of the free shipping whenever possible.  Some sellers sell the bags and the absorbers together, which is a great thing as you will want to use ALL your oxygen absorbers once you open the bag they’re in, or they loose potency.  We generally build up a supply of dry goods that need to go into the bags and then I fill the bags assembly line style, once all the bags are filled I open the pack of oxy absorbers and then quickly seal them with the clothes iron. 

Mason jars

You all know what they are, but did you know you could store DRY goods in them?  I use pint sized canning jars when I’m storing dry foods, add in an oxygen absorber, put the lid and ring on and get the delightful sound of my jar “pinging” – ensuring that I have an airtight seal until they’re opened for use.  I use pint sized jars for storing bouillon, many preppers use quart sized jars and layer freeze dried or dehydrated foods (like peppers, onions, celery, spices, beans and rice) all into one jar for a quick and easy meal ready to be reconstituted.  We have a local restaurant supply store that has the lowest price on mason jars, but even our local Lowes runs specials on them during canning season (usually in the fall where we live). 

Of course, you can also use your mason jars to pressure can, which is what I use mine most often for.  Speaking of pressure canning…

The Pressure Canner

Pressure canners are really far less intimidating than you think.  I was scared to get one, then scared to use it, because I’d heard horror stories of mishaps with them.  But they are an essential part of prepping in my opinion, and you’re able to can just about everything with them – veggies, sauces, fruits, even meat.  Especially meat!  I won’t knock dehydrated or freeze dried meats, because a protein source is critical for survival, but I would much rather have canned meat any day of the week.  There are guidelines to follow, and methods to canning meat, and they must be followed to the letter if you want to ensure it’ll be safe for consumption later on.  The Canning Granny is a wealth of information on all things canning, and a google search will also bring up the recommended process of canning your items at the correct time and pressure for your altitude.  Most canners come with an instruction book that will also provide you with this information.  For those of you with pets, you can also can your own pet food – remember that preparedness should also extend to our four legged family members, too!  My Mama sent me my Presto pressure canner (Megalodon) from Amazon, and I love it. 

There are a lot of things I’m deliberately not covering in this post, since the goal was to go over the bare bones of food preservation and explain the uses for the various things you will see on many prepper related sites without completely overwhelming you.  Remember – you can’t eat the whole cow in one sitting, but you can eat the whole cow if you have it preserved properly!

Till next time, y’all!