Farmington West Provident Living

For a food that is incredibly nutritious and versatile in its uses, beans sure do get a bad wrap.  The reality is the more you eat beans the less likely you are to have the adverse effect that most people fear when eating beans.  Beans are actually incredibly good for your digestion and helps keep your GI tract healthy because of all the fiber that they contain.  It is recommended that the average adult consume about 25-38g of fiber a day (let's face it most of us don't get that), by eating a 1/2 cup of beans everyday you will get closer to achieving this goal and it will actually help your body adjust enough that you won't have the embarrassing side effects. The other great thing about beans is it is a good source of protein.  By replacing beans for whatever other meat you would have normally eaten that day you will reduce your overall cholesterol, sodium, saturated and trans fat intake.      So how do dry beans and canned beans stack up against each other? Well in researc

If you have ever bought some freeze dried fruits or vegetables thinking they would be great in an emergency, but now find yourself wondering how to use them, this post is for you. Cooking with freeze dried foods is super simple and easy and requires far less water than you might think.  In fact there are some uses where you don't have to rehydrate at all. There is a little bit of a learning curve but hopefully this post will lessen the curve for most of you. Another great thing is that you can freeze dry pretty much everything so there is a huge variety of foods or pre-made meals that are available.      DRY USES- The best part of freeze-dried foods is that you can just eat them as they are (yes, even meat!).  Just pop them in your mouth and let them melt.  I really enjoy doing this with yogurt bites (greek yogurt ones are the best) and any type of fruit. Freeze dried meats and all meals are cooked before they are freeze dried so you don't have to worry about getting sick from

Drying  your own foods  in a food dehydrator or in your oven is simple and mostly hands-off, but to make it worth your effort , it helps to have a handful of basic ideas for using these dried goods.  Most uses require that the food be rehydrated, a process usually referred to as refreshing.  Refreshing is done by soaking or cooking (or a combination of both) the dehydrated food in water until the desired volume is restored.  The amount of water and the length of time needed to refresh 1 cup of dried food will vary, here is a table that will help you know for most dehydrated fruits and veggies. If your foods have been properly pretreated  before dehydration, the refreshing process takes less time for most vegetables.  For the most part dehydrated vegetables that have been refreshed take less time to cook than fresh veggies. Do NOT rehydrate foods until you are actually ready to use them.  Since the dehydrating process doesn't actually cook the foods once they are rehydrated they be

As we delve into cooking with our preserved foods, it is important to understand the differences between dehydrating and freeze drying.  If you were unable to harvest enough to preserve hopefully this will help you decide how to best bulk up your food storage.   FREEZE DRIED                                            DEHYDRATED    DEHYDRATING- The process of dehydrating is accomplished by removing the moisture from the foods by circulating dry, hot air across the food. This removes most of the moisture from the food and the moisture that is in the air continues to be removed by the hot air. The temperatures are hot enough to remove the moisture but not to cook the food. When food is dehydrated about 90-95% of the moisture is removed from the food.  Foods that are dehydrated at home will retain about a 10% moisture content, commercially dehydrated foods will have a lower moisture content. Dehydrated food tends to wither and be hard.  Commercially dehydrated foods will have a longer shel

The final cooking method we are going to talk about is thermal cooking.  What can I say about thermal cooking other than it is AWESOME!!! A few years ago when we first did our cooking without power class I had never tried thermal cooking.  I saw the demonstration and bought the thermal cooker that was being offered at the time figuring it would be good to have another way to cook during an emergency.  I wasn't super sure how often I would use it, but I figured I better use it and figure it out before I actually needed it and let me tell you I am a convert.  I can't believe how many years were wasted with out knowing how to use a thermal cooker.  I will never go back.  Now I don't use my thermal cooker all the time but it has definitely paid its dividends.       How does thermal cooking work and what are the benefits of using it? Well, be it a thermal cooker, thermos, wonder bag, or wonder box, they all work on the same principles.  First you decide what you are cooking, pre

The last type of cooking fuel we will discus is reflected heat, specifically sunlight and candles. When used properly they create almost a convection style oven and cooks your food like a convection oven with equally dispersed heat and no hot spots. Best of all these heat sources are either free or super inexpensive.     SOLAR OVENS- There are many advantages to using solar energy to cook and not just during an emergency.  One of the biggest advantages is that it doesn't require any actual fuel so while the stove itself is an initial investment after that it is free to use.  It works best on sunny days when the UV index reaches about 7, however it will definitely work even at lower UV indexes it will just take a little longer to cook your meal. Another thing to consider is that during an emergency you will want to try to conserve as much of your fuel as possible, so learning how to harness the power of the sun to cook will give you a great advantage in this area.  During the summer

In an emergency we still need to have a way to cook and maybe you just aren't a fan of cooking over fire or charcoal.  That is totally fine because there are many other options for cooking. In fact, there are so many varieties and choices of portable stoves and fuels out there it's almost impossible to choose which one is best.  In this post we will be discussing all of the choices out there and giving you the pros and cons to each one so that you can ultimately decide which is best for you (maybe it is more than one). Some other important things to keep in mind when deciding is that some of these have specific accessories and cookware that will need to be used with them rather than your everyday cookware and all of these need to be used in a well ventilated area.      BUTANE- Butane stoves are often used by caterers and are simple to use, even a child could use it, but actually should never use it (unless closely supervised). They come with either a single or double burner and

Cooking with charcoal is relatively simple and is actually similar to cooking with the coals from a camp fire.  You can also use many of the same tools and and cookware when using charcoal. Some of the benefits of using charcoal vs. a wood fire are: you can still use charcoal even when fires are banned, they will still light even when it is windy and it is easier to control the heat with charcoal.    Now, there are 2 different types of charcoal (who knew?). The first is the one you have all probably heard of and used and that is charcoal briquettes. The other one is lump charcoal. Trust me there is serious debate out there about which one is better, so what are the differences and benefits of each kind?     LUMP- This type of charcoal is made by slowly burning wood pieces in the absence of oxygen until all the sap, moisture and chemicals are burned out.  What is left is mostly carbon. It contains no fillers or additives which makes it a cleaner way to use charcoal.        Pros-All natu

We all probably have great memories of sitting around campfires telling stories or singing songs while roasting hot dogs or mallows for s'mores, but there are so many more great things you can cook over a campfire. Learning how to cook over a fire is a one of the many ways we can prepare for times when we have to cook without power during an emergency.      There are many different techniques and ways that you can cook over a campfire.  The real trick is prepping your fire pit and building the correct fire to allow you to cook whatever you want. There are 2 main ways to build you own fire pit.  First is the most common, just dig a circle pit surround it with rocks or something similar, these will help with some wind break and also help keep little ones from walking right through it.  The second kind is a straight fire pit where you don't have to dig a hole, just find some good relatively flat rocks and make 2 straight lines with them and then one bigger rock which you will pl

Fuel is one of those things that we all use/need on a daily basis and, more than likely, take for granted that it will always be there when we need it.  Aside from a major event it most likely will be, but with all the unrest in our world right now it would be fool hearted to take anything for granted.    How much fuel should you have on hand and what types of fuels? Well it would be great if we could all have a year's worth and I'm sure that seems unrealistic, but if you are wise and use conservatively and plan accordingly it really is quite realistic. Just start small like you would with your food and definitely diversify the types of fuels you have on hand and you will see it can be done. Not all fuels will store indefinitely, just like food, fuel also needs to be rotated and stored properly. In this post we will be giving an overview to help us get ready for the upcoming weeks where we will be focusing on cooking without power. We will delve into more specifics about each