Prepped Living Blog

It is always difficult to remember everything we do in between updates, but here is a decent representative list of the projects we have been working on since May: Gardening Harvested Parsley, Basil, Mustard Greens, and Tomatoes from the AeroGarden Harvested Strawberries, Jalapenos, and Anaheim Peppers Planted Jerusalem Artichokes (Sunchokes) Growing (or attempting to grow!) a Variety of Produce in the Regular Garden Growing Tomatoes and Garden Huckleberries in the Greenhouse Canning Serviceberry Syrup Hawthorn Jam Serviceberry/Hawthorn Berry Juice Freezing Eggs (raw, scrambled)  Serviceberries Oregon Grapes Cherries Pear Butter Dehydrator/Air Drying Herbs for Tea - Mint (orange, sweet, chocolate), Rose Petals, Lemon Balm, Plantain Culinary Herbs - Basil, Parsley, Oregano, Tarragon Medicinal Herbs - St. John's Wort, Comfrey, Plantain, Calendula, Yarrow, Feverfew Other - Day Lily, Mushrooms Other Homestead Projects Rendering Lard & Tallow Vanilla Extract Sewing - modifying the n...

Have you ever picked elderflower? Elderflower is not well-known as a flavor in the US, but it is a nice, light floral flavor that is sometimes used in ice cream, sparkling waters, and even in cakes. We frequently make elder berry syrup and have heard that you can use the flowers as well, but have never experimented with the flowers - that is, until now. This year, we finally picked some of the flowers to try. First, I couldn't believe how lovely they smell! These tiny, delicate flowers have the most beautiful, sweet fragrance. No wonder elderflower is a popular flavor in Europe! The flavor is as lovely and light as the fragrance. We only have one bush close to the house so we didn't have a lot of flowers with which to experiment. After deliberating, we opted to make elderflower syrup. We searched online for syrup recipes. Most called for citric acid (as a preservative), several called for lemon (which we didn't have), and nearly all of them called for more flowers than we ...

We had the opportunity to forage some local plants recently. While many things are not quite ready to pick, below are some of the items we harvested on our latest walk: Wild Rose Petals -  Wild rose petals are delightful in herbal tea blends. If you are careful to just pick the petals, it will still produce rose hips for fall foraging. There are several varieties of wild rose out there, many of which have very fragrant petals you can harvest in the spring and produce rose hips you can harvest in the fall. Plantain -  We have both narrow and broad leaf plantain in our area. I was able to find some very large narrow leaf on the hill where there is no foot or car traffic, so I opted to pick there. Plantain is a great plant for wound healing and a simple poultice can be made by chewing the leaves (saliva breaks down the cell walls to release the healing constituents) (1). You can also make a poultice from the dried leaves by adding warm water and creating a paste. We like to add ...

Hello! It has been a while since we have done an update on our various projects, so here is a brief overview of a few of our projects. First of all, let me say that we have been a bit slow in the project area due to a significant amount of uncharacteristic travelling this spring and summer. The travelling was fabulous, but the amount of foraging and gardening we typically do this time of year has suffered. Nevertheless, I remind myself that each person's journey, whether prepping, homesteading, or living healthy, is accomplished one step at a time. Do what you can when you can, even if is just one small thing at a time. Little steps do add up. So, without further ado, here are some of our "little steps": Note: This blog post contains affiliate links. As an affiliate, we may earn from qualifying purchases. We know you have many choices when you shop. Thank you for supporting our blog and website! In the Garden - Successes and Failures We had quite a time this year getting ...

We enjoy trying new recipes each year. This spring we tried a new flower jelly - peony jelly. We have made dandelion and lilac jelly in the past and enjoyed them immensely. We had peonies in our yard, so when I saw a recipe for peony jelly, I decided this would be one of our new recipes to try this year. It fits well with our "harvest what you have" mindset. We had peonies, so why not? I am notorious for finding a recipe online and forgetting to bookmark it. Sadly, that is exactly what I did with the peony recipe we used. However, the recipe we used was similar to this one from Daily Dish Recipes and this one from Practical Self Reliance. First, I picked four large blossoms. I picked out any leaves and rinsed them well to remove any potential bugs and dirt. Four blossoms gave me almost eight cups of petals. I then put the blossoms in a half-gallon jar and covered them with boiling water. I let it cool on the counter for a bit. After ten minutes or so, the water was already ...

Foraging is not just about collecting plants for herbal remedies. You can forage for fruits and berries that you can turn into delicious jams, jellies, or syrups. Huckleberries are hands down the most popular wild fruit to forage in our area. It is so popular here that each family's favorite foraging spot is a closely guarded secret. Our family likes huckleberry jam, but we enjoy having a variety of flavors to fill the pantry. A few of our favorites from foraged fruits are mixed berry (consisting of whatever blend of berries we happen to have on hand that year), serviceberry, and Oregon grape. Mixed berry jam and lilac jelly Fruits and Berries Here is a list of fruits & berries you might have growing wild in your area that you can forage to make jams, jellies, and syrups. There are many more possibilities, this is just a sampling! Huckleberry Blackberry Wild Raspberry Wild Strawberry Serviceberry Thimbleberry Currant Gooseberry Elderberry Oregon Grape Apples Wild Plum Rose Hi...

The idea behind Prepped Living does not equate with building a bunker and filling it with MREs. It is meant to be a way of life. It can incorporate aspects of homesteading, homemaking, preparedness, self-sufficiency, gardening, foraging, DIY, and yes, even survival skills. It means doing what you can when you can to develop essential skills and improve your health. It is meant to be woven into your everyday life, not to be an all-consuming burden to your time or resources. In reality, it is nearly impossible to be completely prepared for all potential emergencies. If you would like to read about why we developed an interest in living a bit more prepared, see our " About Us " page on our website. Each family's version of prepped living will look different. You may raise livestock on a large piece of land. You may have a container garden on your apartment balcony. You may have neither, but perhaps you make your meals from scratch and do a bit of sewing. All of these skills ...

Here are some updates on a few projects we started earlier this year: Canned Cranberry Juice We opened a jar of the cranberry juice I canned a few weeks ago. I was curious to see if we like it enough to can more. Everything I read about it was spot on. It is definitely not as strong as commercial cranberry juice, but it does have a lovely light cranberry flavor that is very pleasant. Our eldest son was eager to use it to make a cranberry cocktail for Christmas. When I asked him if the flavor was too light to make a good cocktail, he said that, on the contrary, it works well because you get the flavor of cranberry without it overpowering the other flavors in the drink. Here is a picture of the drink he made. Isn't it pretty? Cranberry Cocktail Photo by Connor Thomas The verdict: This is a project that I definitely want to repeat. I like the idea of having a supply of healthy cranberry juice on the shelf. Rum-Soaked Cherries We also tried our rum-soaked cherries. I thought the cherry...

Some of you may have seen my earlier post on edible flowers.  I just put up new article on the website listing five edible flowers you can forage.  The post contains links to recipes and other useful information, so head over to the website and check it out here . To help pique your interest, here is a small visual preview for the article  -- The past week has been less fruitful than I anticipated due to health issues. Nonetheless, each day is a blessing and an opportunity to learn something useful.  Have a great week!

As I have delved a bit more each year into local edibles, I have discovered an assortment of edible flowers.  Of course, we dry various herbs and flowers for tea, but there are those that are good for eating as well. What is so great about edible flowers?  These can add beauty to your garden while still being practical in that they are a source of food - a win-win for any survival situation. Some of these I have mentioned in previous posts, but for ease of reference, I am listing them again here. Here is a short list of blossoms we have tasted: Oxeye Daisy - These flowers are fabulous for adapting to the flavor of whatever dish you are preparing. We first tried these battered and fried.  While prepared this way they didn't seem to have a strong flavor of their own. Nevertheless, we enjoyed eating them both with a savory and with a semi-sweet batter. One of my good friends and favorite foragers, Mary Banducci, has a paleo-friendly daisy fritter recipe on her page. Click...

With an upcoming family wedding for which to prepare, the past week has been busy. Wedding preparations have included making and freezing cake pops and learning how to make flower crowns for the bridesmaids. This has been a wonderful year so far for weddings. We have been invited to four weddings between April and July.  We have one more special wedding to go and then our 2023 wedding season will draw to a close. The Fourth of July was nice and warm. We had a lovely time with family and friends. Outside of that, I have spent my free time this past week preserving cherries, picking serviceberries, drying herbs, and tending to the garden. Serviceberries  - The serviceberries are ripening, so I have been picking every day or two for the last week.  They do not all ripen at once and since the birds love them as much as we do, I try to pick what I can when I can before the birds eat them all. The first day I picked I probably only got three cups. As the season has worn on, the...

We had a lot of rain last week, which "dampened" my forays into the woods to forage, so I spent some time on the website better organizing it and adding another article.  We now have a DIY project section and an article on jean quilts. Click here to see what is new! In spite of the damp weather, I spent a bit of time outside and picked enough to fill the dehydrator.  While I collected several kinds of plants, here are the ones I focused on this past week:   Oxeye Daisies I collected oxeye daisies mainly to dry for tea, but they are also wonderful to eat.  They can be battered and fried, much like fried mushrooms.  We have tried both a sweet and a savory batter for these and have enjoyed both. As with any new food, be careful to avoid these if you have an allergy to other plants in the asteraceae (daisy) family.  One of its many uses in tea is for coughs accompanied by an excess of mucous. Oxeye daisy is said to decrease mucosal secretions and calm inflamed ...

This past week our youngest daughter and I went to a local berry field to pick strawberries. We found a local farmer that does not spray the fields and hasn't fertilized in a couple of years. It was as close to organic as we could find. After spending some time visiting while we picked, we returned to her house to clean and de-hull the berries. The next day I made two batches of freezer jam and froze the rest to use in mixed berry jam later in the season. Freezer jam is a favorite at our house - we have already consumed one and a half containers. It is easy to go through jam quickly when you have homemade sourdough bread, homemade scones, and homemade French toast casserole at the house. Thank you to our two boys for furnishing us with homemade baked goods this week!   We make our own low-tox laundry soap and we were almost out, so in addition to jam, we made another batch of laundry soap. We make this soap once every couple of months or so for a family of six. I put the instructio...

We drink a lot of tea in our family. The girls and I often drink it in the evening as we relax at the end of the day, but even the men in the family enjoy a cup now and then.  During winter cold season, it is a must-have at our house and we will often blend different herbs to help with different symptoms.  We like to grow our own herbs and forage wild herbs for tea. That way we know that there are no chemicals or pesticides on our tea ingredients. Each year I try to add a few more plants to my knowledge base for teas, cooking, and medicinals. One of earliest plants I read about and also one of my favorites to forage are wild rose petals.  Since the wild roses in our area are blooming, the girls and I took the opportunity to pick petals to dry for tea.  We spent a bit of time picking and visiting, then returned to the house to prepare the petals for drying. Our oldest daughter wanted to make rose lemonade, so our youngest daughter and I washed, dried, and spread the p...

Hello!  If you have been to our website ( www.preppedliving.com ), you already know that I try to incorporate the " harvest what you have " idea into our lives.  You may ask what there is available to harvest in North Idaho in May. Well, here is a peek at what we have done this past week: Tarragon - We planted tarragon last year and it was one of the first things to come up this year in our garden.  It grew so much that we already harvested our first cutting. One batch went into the dehydrator and another batch is hanging to dry in the attic.  This is an herb I never really used until about 2.5 years ago.  I since discovered that I really enjoy the flavor of tarragon in beef soup. It adds just a touch of sweetness and depth of flavor. I have since been wondering what other culinary uses tarragon has. Do you have a favorite use for this herb?  If so, feel free to share in the comments below. I would love to add more ideas to my repertoire. Lilacs - Our lilac...

The pine trees are in bloom and have spread yellow pollen everywhere over the past several days. I took the opportunity to try my hand at collecting pine pollen, which reportedly has some great health benefits.  My chosen method of collection was painstakingly slow.  I used a small Ziploc bag (that was all I had with me), put it around the catkins, and gently shook the pollen into the bag.  While I did collect a bit of pollen, I had more covering my arms than I had in the bag. Next time, I will use a larger paper bag so that I can put it around the end of the entire branch and collect from multiple clusters at a time. I did collect a few of the catkins themselves to see if dehydrating them and then collecting the pollen will be a viable option this late in the season. I read that it is best to try this method just before the pollen is released or at the very beginning of the pollen season.