Nature’s Pantry: Acorns

It’s that time of year when all the acorns are starting to fall. Squirrels are collecting and hiding them for winter storage and so are some of us who think outside the box when it comes to our food supply.  These little natural treats are some of the easiest natural foods you can find anywhere and if you’re ever in a survival situation can save your life. With the average oak tree producing 2,000 pounds of acorns a year, is it any wonder that people have started looking to them for a food source again?

Nutritional Overview
Let’s look at the nutritional facts of oak nuts shall we? One cup of acorns will provide you with 110 calories, 12g of carbs, and 1.7g of healthy protein! In comparison, a cup of peanuts will give you 828 calories, 24g of carbs, and 38g of protein. Yes, in a survival situation you’ll get more bang for your buck with peanuts, but let’s be honest, most of us won’t find them laying on the ground abundantly.

This also means that if you’re looking for a nutty snack alternative to peanuts that won’t add tons of calories, the acorn is the perfect fit. Not to mention free! Most people will even let you harvest the acorns from their oak trees in the fall because they make mowing a nightmare!

Uses of Acorns
With the increase of people who don’t want to use grain based flours in their cooking we’ve all noticed the popularity of using nut-based flours. In fact, many Native tribes were using acorn flour thousands of years ago. Acorns can also make a delicious nut butter once you’ve prepped and roasted them. Not to mention just roasting, salting, and popping the yumminess into your mouth.

One of my favorite recipes to use acorns is has to be acorn brittle. Substitute the traditional peanuts or almonds with acorns and follow your favorite recipe for a lower calorie treat. Prior to the wide availability of coffee, acorn coffee was always a favorite on cold winter mornings.

Types of Acorns and Best Uses
One of the reasons that acorns aren’t as popular as other locally available nuts is that they do take some work to make them palatable. Most acorns are high in tannin and have a bitter taste. If you eat a lot of these types of acorns without flushing them they can upset your stomach. Acorns typically fall into 3 types of nuts: sweet, large, and fatty. Sweet nuts have lower tannins so won’t require as many leeching/flushing as the others. Large nuts are typically higher in carbs and tend to make better acorn flour. Fatty nuts are of course higher in fat content than the others, and thus are better suited to making acorn oil for cooking.

What do I mean when I speak of flushing or leeching the acorns? Since acorns have a high tannin content, you need to rinse some of the tannins out before you eat them or they can make you sick. With that in mind, if you’ve never prepared acorns before it is better to overdue the flush than not flush them enough.

Preparing Acorns for Eating

A great example of an oak weevil hole. This acorn should be tossed out.

The first step is to make sure that the acorn has not been compromised by an oak weevil. To tell this, look at your acorn. If you see a small hole in the shell, the nut has been compromised and should be discarded. If you have a nut without a hole, the nut inside is probably still good. Unlike with many types of nuts, acorns still in the shell can last for years and still be edible.

Shelling acorns is a bit tricky and by far the hardest step in the process. The easiest way I’ve found is to let the nuts dry in the shells for a month or two. Then on a flat surface, set the nuts so the flat side is the bottom. Lay another flat heavy object on the nuts and push until you hear them crack! Be warned though, acorns will oxidize so once you crack them put them in water.

Now it’s time to take care of those bitter tannins. To do this, soak your acorns in hot water until the water cools. Pour off the water and refill with more hot water. Repeat this step as many times as it takes to get the flavor you’re looking for. Acorns taste and have a consistency like chestnuts.

Once you’ve removed the tannins, it’s time to dry roast the nuts. I’ve heard of people who don’t roast the nuts if they’re going to make flour, but I personally do. It brings out a nuttier taste that I prefer. Spread out the wet nuts into a single layer. Sprinkle with salt if you’re going to munch them, or leave them plain for flour. Then bake for 15-20 minutes at 375F.

If you’re making flour, grind the roasted nuts down. If you’re munching them, dig in!

Be sure to check back because we’ll be undergoing a change in direction shortly that you won’t want to miss!

 

Wonderful TV Show for Homesteaders

One of my life long friends has been teasing me about being Barbara Good/Felicity Kendal from an old BritCom called “Good Neighbors” or “The Good Life”. I had never seen it but I looked it up on Wikipedia and could vaguely see what she meant. Well, for my birthday she surprised me with the series on DVD! I’m honestly in love with it.

Tom & Barbara Good working in their homestead in the midst of a middle class neighborhood

The premise is a 40-year-old office worker has a midlife crisis and decides he and his wife are going to turn their yard into a homestead. Even though the series is from the mid-1970s it really showcases homesteading perfectly in my opinion.

Tom and Barbara live in a middle class neighborhood, yes neighborhood. Their yard becomes home to chickens, pigs, and goats to the delight of the audience. The writers take us through the Goods going offgrid with their effluence digester, taking their goats to graze in the town square, looking at common items differently, and bartering modern luxuries for necessities. All while their neighbors and best friends continue living like a typical middle class household.

The Goods and their neighbors the Leadbetters have the stereotypical interaction between homesteaders and ‘normal’ people

It truly is a delightful TV series that shows the triumphs and heartbreaks when you choose to live a simpler life.

Recipe: Pumpkin Dog Treats

Tis the season where every new product is pumpkin flavored. Why? Because aside from carving jack o lanterns and tin cans of puree for pie the average person has no idea what to do with pumpkins sadly.

When my son was little, he wanted to grow his own pumpkins for carving so we did. It broke my heart seeing all the waste though so I thought of more ways to use the produce. I’m by no means one of the gazillion pumpkin aholics out there, but it is a tasty treat in the fall.

Another benefit of pumpkins is that if kept in a cool place, fresh pumpkins will keep for ages without other assistance. There’s a reason pumpkins were a popular food prior to refrigerators.

Now my dogs absolutely love their pumpkin treats. Not only is it cheaper than the store bought varieties but it’s healthier too! My old man dog started having problems pooping and the added pumpkin fiber makes it easier on him.

I’m not quite sure on the amounts since I just eye ball it but I’ve roughly estimated. I make my treats softer and more gooey rather than crunchy and about 1/2 inch square. The size and consistency works best for my chihuahuas since they’re older.

Don’t they look delicious?

Ingredients: 4C flour, 1C pumpkin pureed, 2 eggs, 1/2Tspn salt, & water

1. In a bowl, mix pumpkin, eggs, and salt until smooth
2. Slowly add in flour and mix thoroughly
3. Add water as needed until all the flour has been added and the dough is cook consistency
4. Allow the dough to sit for 15 minutes and preheat the oven to 350F
5. On ungreased cookie sheet, lay out 1/2 inch balls so they aren’t touching. The dough doesn’t swell at all so you can really load the sheet up
6. Bake 10 minutes on one side. Flip the treats over and turn the pan. Bake for another 5 minutes for gooey consistency or 10 minutes for crunchy.

I usually get roughly 140 treats out of the recipe. I store them in a ziplock bag in the freezer to keep them fresh.

DIY: Homemade Rock Sinkers

Don’t laugh until you read what homemade rock sinkers are all about and my reasoning on why I first tried it. What are sinkers made of? (Lead) Is that healthy to be exposed to? (No) Is it expensive to purchase sinkers? (Yes) See where I’m going with this? Good!

The idea came to me when we were setting lines and ended up tying a rock onto the trot line because the current was so strong nothing else was working. Ancient people used rocks with holes drilled through them as anchors so why wouldn’t it work if I modified it a little? And, yes it does work!

Swivel Sinker Needs: whatever rock size you want to use, swivels, glue

Making your own lead-free swivel sinkers:
1. Be sure the rocks don’t have any sharp edges because it can cut your line.
2. Rough up the part of the rock that you’re going to glue the swivel to. It’ll help your glue hold better.
3. Then just glue it on and allow to dry. Be sure you use a water-proof glue that will work with stone as not all glues will.

Making 100% natural lead-free sinkers:
1. With a 1/8 inch stone bit, drill a hole through the center of the rock.
2. Soften any sharp edges on the rock either by hand or by using a rock tumbler.

I prefer the all stone sinkers because I like my weight to be able to move along the line in a slip sinker rig. My son prefers the swivel sinkers. Both save a ton of money on tackle so are winners!

Dirt Cheap Recipe: Bean Burrito Filling

My house smells heavenly already and so far I’ve had zero work involved thanks to the trusty old slow cooker. Now once I start making tortillas there will be some work, but still it’s super simple and actually fun. This is one of my family’s favorite ‘fast food’ recipes and incredibly enough is one of the cheapest meals I cook. Burritos! I cook these in bulk because they freeze wonderfully and make great grab-n-go meals.

Ingredients: 2lbs dried pinto beans, , 3C chopped tomatoes, 2C uncooked rice, 1C chopped green pepper, 1/2C chopped onions, 2 cloves smashed garlic, 4 beef bouillon cubes, water

Directions: Dump all the dry ingredients into the slow cooker and fill with water. Leave it alone unless you need to add more water while cooking. You’ll know it’s done when the beans are tender to the touch. Spoon out excess water.

Now we usually eat just this with bread for a meal! Once we’re ready to make burritos though there’s a little trick I do that makes them extra gooey and delicious! We like a mixture of whole and mashed beans in ours so I mash a few up until I get the right consistency. Allow to cool before you finish the burritos!

To freeze, I roll the burritos up like normal in my homemade tortillas and then wrap in wax paper. This makes it easy to grab one when you want and makes them portable!

Cost for batch: Less than $5 since almost everything is grown in our garden!
Food Produced: Typically makes about 50 burritos for the freezer

Recipe: Foolproof Flour Tortilla

Yes, you can buy tortillas but have you actually noticed how expensive they are?!? Not to mention all the extra stuff they throw in to keep them shelf safe. Making tortillas is not really much time or effort. Especially when you taste them!

Ingredients for tortillas: 3C flour, 1tsp salt, 1/3C vegetable oil (sometimes I substitute lard or bacon grease YUM!), 1C warm water

Directions: Mix all the ingredients together until it forms a dough. Don’t over work the dough or your tortillas will be chewy! Evenly divide the dough to get uniform sized tortillas (see below). Press out a piece of dough then roll out with a rolling pin. Transfer the tortilla to an ungreased hot pan and cook for 1 minute or until you see brown spots appearing. Flip and repeat.

Taco size tortilla: divide dough into 12
Burrito size tortilla: divide dough into 8

Cost per batch: Less than $2
Cost at store: Approx $4-5
Cook Time: 15min
Savings: $2-3 and a lot of additives!

DIY Mosquito B Gone

This year I’ve developed an allergy to mosquito bites somehow. A single bite blows up to the size of a baseball. Needless to say, as much as I’m outside it’s a big inconvenience! I dislike using DEET for obvious reasons so it’s been research, trial, and error time for a decent safe way to keep the skeeters away. So far, this is what I’ve found that works.

Herb Treatment

I’ve bumped up how much rosemary, mint, and lemongrass I’m growing in the yard. It’s helped significantly reduce the bug population actually. There’s less fleas, ticks, chiggers, and mosquitoes. I keep them trimmed regularly to release the scents (which smell heavenly too) and if I don’t need to trim them I’ll still brush against the plants. The extra herbs also help make my own bug b gone spray.

Bug Repellent Spray

This spray also works great as a flea treatment on your animals and is completely safe. I checked with my vet. You can use a crock pot or just let the tea steep in the sun! Fresh herbs work but I’ve found that dried ones seem to pack more of a punch since I can put a higher concentrate in.

Ingredients: 1C rosemary or lavender, 1C mint, 1C lemongrass (all dried or double if fresh)
Directions: Warm 3C water and mix the herbs into it. In a crockpot, allow to steep 24hours. If using the sun, 3 days at least seem to work. Strain tea and put in a dark container to store. In a spray bottle mix 4parts tea to 1part vodka/rubbing alcohol and 1part apple cider vinegar. Just spray as needed!

Mosquito Trap

Yes it works! And it also will help trap flies too. Everything you’ll need to make it you already have probably.

Supplies: empty plastic 2liter bottle, packet of yeast, sugar, and tape

Directions: Cut the bottle like you did making the Bait Trap, invert the top inside the bottom half & tape into place. In a pan, warm 1C water until it’s hot to the touch. Dissolve 2Tbspn of sugar into the water. Then dissolve the packet of yeast into the water. Pour the water mixture into the bottle making sure to leave only about 1/4 inch between the water and the end of the funnel spout. As the yeast eats the sugar it’ll release CO2 and attract the pests!

Change in Diet

For some people this works better than others honestly. Mosquitos, ticks, fleas, and chiggers hate the taste of onions, garlic, and asafoetida, So since these pests dine on our blood it only makes sense that they’ll avoid those who taste like these things right? Just by bumping up my consumption, I’ve watched other people get eaten up by mosquitoes even when they’re wearing DEET sprays while I’m left alone with no spray at all!

Perfume Stinks Pretty to Pests

I know there’s a lot of people who can’t go without perfumed products whether it’s a spray, wash, deodorant, or laundry soap. This time of year, all the pretty smell is going to do is attract bugs. You’re not going to smell bad if you bath regularly and go with lower perfumed products. Plus, you should be bathing more anyway to wash the dried sweat off your body which is another attractant for skeeters.

Slow Cooker Chex Mix Recipe

My family loves to munch crunchy food, but chips are unhealthy and expensive. One of the substitutes we use is chex mix. At $2 a box for the cheap cereal, I can make huge batches for just a few bucks. Cooking it in the stove isn’t hard at all, but with summer just around the corner I thought I’d see if there was an alternative method that produced yummy results.

The two methods I found were microwave and slow cooker. The microwave didn’t make the mix as crunchy as I’d like. It was really fast though, but that meant I had to constantly pay attention to it. Not my favorite bag of marbles. The slow cooker method took a lot longer than the other two ways, but it came out crunchy and delicious. It took about 3 hours and I only had to stir it about 6 times (more attention towards the end of cooking time so it didn’t burn).

Slow Cooker Chex Mix Recipe Ingredients:

• 13 total cups of Chex cereal, cheerios, nuts, pretzels, and oyster crackers. The actual mix doesn’t matter so you can tailor it to your tastes.
• 6 tablespoons melted butter
• 1 tablespoon seasoned salt
• 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 1 teaspoon garlic salt
• Cayenne pepper to taste

1. Toss the 13 cups of cereal mix into the slow cooker
2. In a bowl mix the butter and seasonings until they’re mixed thoroughly.
3. Evenly pour the butter mix over the cereal and gently stir to coat the cereal.
4. Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook low for 3 hours. Make sure there’s room for the moisture to vent or the chex mix won’t crisp up. Stir every 30-60 minutes so the mixture doesn’t burn.

This is just the basic recipe obviously. You can add different spices to find the flavor that you want.

Total Cost: Roughly $3 per 13oz or $0.23 per ounce
Bag of Chex Mix: $2.99 per 9oz or $0.33 per ounce
Total Savings: $0.10 per ounce or $1.30 per batch

Fish Chum Tutorial

Crappie are starting to bite here which means fishing season is just around the corner. We fish A LOT. It’s great family time, relaxing, cheap, and relieves the strain of the food budget. There’s nothing like fresh fish. In my local grocery store, fresh water fish I can catch locally costs between $8.99 and 19.99 per pound! Of course, these are all farm raised fish so in my personal opinion they don’t taste as good as wild fish.

We usually put roughly 100 pounds of fish in the freezer by the end of the season. So that means we’re saving roughly $900-2,000 just by catching them ourselves! One of our secrets is chumming. It’s a cheap way to ‘build’ a fishing hole that provides guaranteed results.

Every die hard fisherman has their own secret chum recipe but we’re pretty basic with ours.

Chum Recipe

You’ll need 5 pounds of milo-based bird seed, 4 packets of dry yeast, 4 cups of sugar, 5 gallon bucket with a lid, and enough water to fill the bucket. This chum recipe is for fermented grain so you’ll definitely want a lid for the bucket and to keep it in an area you’re not going to smell it.

1. Bloom the yeast in a couple cups of warm water.
2. Dump the bird seed into the bucket and add the sugar and activated yeast.
3. Fill the bucket the rest of the way with warm water.
4. Wait an hour and add additional water to fill the bucket.
5. You’ll know the chum is ready when it quits ‘cooking’ and releasing gas bubbles. Depending on the temperature this can be a couple days up to a few weeks.

Tips: Check the water and burp the bucket daily. The grain will soak up a lot of water so you’ll have to add more throughout the process. It’s important that you burp the bucket since the grain will be fermenting and producing gases. Otherwise, it’ll pop the lid itself and make a mess. DO NOT USE MEAT. I can’t stress this enough. It’ll make the chum go from a strong beer smell to rancid meat and will attract flies. When it’s just the grain, flies aren’t that attracted to it.

You can use basically any grain for this recipe, but milo seems to work the best in my area. It’s small enough that the fish can’t fill up on it quickly and pretty cheap. We actually get the scoop outs from local farmers. It’s the grain residue that’s left in the truck when they dump it. It’s usually dirty so is considered waste. The most we’ve paid for milo scoop out is $5 for 50 gallons of the stuff, but usually farmers just give it away if you’ll clean it out of the truck.

To Use, scatter a few cups in the fishing hole you’re building. We usually bait it well the first day and every day or so go back and toss a few more cups of chum out. The water is a great attractant too. One thing we do is mill the grain down after it’s fermented and make a slurry. It puts the scent in the water but doesn’t actually feed the fish.

This chum attracts pretty much every species where I live. First come in the perch and minnows, then the bass, and finally the catfish. Chum isn’t legal to use everywhere so be sure to check your local restrictions before using.

DIY Cheese – Basic 3 ingredient Farm Cheese Recipe

If you’ve never made your own cheese before it can be a little daunting. Recipes call for rennet, cultures, special chemicals, certain temperatures, etc. It seems like rocket science, but I’ll let you in on a little secret… You can make your own delicious farm cheese with  just three simple ingredients already in your kitchen in less than an hour.

It’s delicious and without all the questionable chemicals, colorings, and preservatives. It’s even simple enough your kids can help and be amazed. Once you master the basic farm cheese recipe, you can make endless variations of flavored cheeses.

Ingredients: 1 gallon Whole Milk (Raw or Pasteurized), 1/2 cup white vinegar, and 2 teaspoons salt. That’s it!

Make Your Own Fresh Farm Cheese:

1. On a medium heat, pour the milk into a large pot and bring to a boil. You need to stir a lot or the milk will scorch to the bottom.
2. Once it comes to a boil, lower the heat and add the vinegar. It’ll be amazing how quickly the milk solids curdle separating the curds and whey.
3. Line a colander with cheese cloth then twist the clothe over the pot with the whey in it to squeeze out excess whey.
4. Recrumble the curds and rinse with cold water.
5. Sprinkle with the salt and mix thoroughly. Then twist the cloth back up.
6. Leave in the colander with a weighted pot on top of cheese until you get the consistency you’re looking for. The longer you press the whey out, the drier and firmer the cheese will be.

Personally, I love adding dried tomatoes and peppers to the cheese and leaving it soft. It’s a delicious spread. We also add bacon crumbles, pimentos, and roasted garlic to name just a few variations. We even use our homemade cheese instead of mozzarella on our pizzas.

You can also “pull” this cheese for a stringy rather than crumbly texture. And don’t dump the leftover whey! There’s a ton of recipes it is yummy in.