Prepped Living Blog

Merry Christmas! Did you know that the traditional Twelve Days of Christmas actually begin on Christmas day?  I finally managed to re-organize our dry goods shelf.   I had been using my mom’s Tupperware containers (from when she was first married) to store our flour and sugar and a variety of plastic peanut butter jars for the smaller quantity items. Yes, I know, after ALL the research that tells us how bad microplastics are, and on top of that, how bad old plastic can be, I was still using plastic containers! I am dating myself here, but I remember when my grandparents’ entire collection of storage containers consisted of yellow margarine tubs. “Waste not, want not” was a very real motto of those who grew up in the Great Depression. I guess that idea was passed down, because I tend to reuse containers and I find it hard to throw things away. I always have this niggling thought in the back of my mind that a container can be used for SOMETHING. Nevertheless, I decided it was well past t

Our youngest daughter's baby is due next month and she wanted to have some meals and other items prepared ahead of time. She especially wanted to have bone broth available because its nourishing and healing properties are perfect for post-partum. Canning broth and all low-acid foods requires using a pressure canner. Since our daughter had not pressure canned on her own before and since I enjoy canning so much, she invited me to come over and help her can the broth. She started the broth the day before, adding bones, vegetables, and spices to a large stockpot. She covered everything with water, brought it to a boil, added a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar to help break down the animal proteins and connective tissues, then turned it down and let it simmer all day. The next day was canning day, so early that morning she put the broth back on the stove to simmer for a few more hours. It is best to let bone broth simmer for a minimum of 12 hours (longer is even better) to extract the

The other week we tried a recipe I had seen on Instagram. The post touted an easy way to can cranberry juice. There were several reasons I wanted to try this recipe. First, our family enjoys the taste of cranberry juice. Second, I was excited to try a recipe that had no high-fructose corn syrup - we used natural cane sugar to sweeten our juice. Third, I like to keep cranberry juice on hand for those rare times when someone in the household feels the beginning symptoms of a UTI.  The recipe was easy. You can find the instagram post here , and you can read how we did it below: I sterilized my jars and heated the canner while I rinsed the cranberries. I had purchased two 12 oz. bags of cranberries for this experiment. This gave us a total of six cups of cranberries. Following the directions on the Instagram page, I put 1 1/2 cups of cranberries in each jar, added 1/3 cup of organic cane sugar, and filled the jar with hot (boiling) water. I then capped off each jar and put it in the canner

 A few weeks ago, I decided it was time to use our candle wax remnants and repurpose them into new candles. I had been saving wax remnants and glass candle holders for a while, so I felt like I finally had enough to melt down for new candles. My mom had graciously given me some money to spend for my birthday this past summer and I used it to purchase a candle mold and wicks. I already had a pot in which to melt the candles, so I was set for supplies. Here is the mix of candle wax with which I started: Since some of the wax had bits of char, I thought I would use the last of the wax with any of the charred bits that sank to the bottom to make fire starters. For this, I used dryer lint stuffed into the egg depressions of a cardboard egg carton. Wax will be poured over the top of the lint to make the fire starters and then I will cut each egg section apart to give us 12 individual fire starters. These burn well and fairly long, thanks to the wax, and are thus a good option for starting ca