How to Make and Can Old Fashioned Pickled Beets!

By Stephanie Dayle
I originally wrote and published this article for American Preppers Network and have moved it here to my personal site and updated the information, of course with permission. 

It’s that time of year when the beets in your garden should be finishing up. When I was a kid our choices were to eat them fresh, which I loved, or pressure can them, and I despised eating canned beets. They were the source of many late nights at the dinner table while I stared down the “you may not get up until you eat your beets” ultimatum.

As an adult I learned that they could also be pickled, my mom was not fond of pickled beets so she never preserved them that way (you can also dehydrate them but that’s another article). I love old fashioned pickled beets, they are by far one of my most favorite snacks and side dishes! They are a far cry from their pressure canned counterparts. Want to try something unique? Slice them thinly (or 'french' them if you are familiar with that slicing technique) and apply them to a sandwich featuring cured meat, like salami.

And by “old fashioned” I mean they are pickled using a sweet brine with traditional ingredients. 

Row of beets

Why Grow Beets?

For some beets are an acquired taste - like coffee or beer. This means you should keep trying them even if your first impressions weren't really good. The taste will grow on you, as your taste buds learn to appreciate the flavor. Why bother? Because they are a great survival food in your garden to name just one reason, so keep reading oh great finicky one.

Beets are a quick growing, hardy root vegetable. They are cold hardy so beets are a great crop to get in the ground as soon as possible for an early harvest giving you food when nothing else is ready yet. Beets can be steamed, roasted (my favorite), grilled, shredded for salad, and of course they can be preserved by being canned or pickled. 

They are also packed with potassium, magnesium, folate, and B vitamins! In other words, they are really good for you (and for any of you who are a possible 'mom-to-be'). Beets are also really good for livestock and are often fed to cattle, horses, and are also good for chickens. The greens are completely eatable and are often prepared like ‘collard greens,’ beets can also be juiced or dehydrated. Pigs, cattle, chickens and horses also enjoy the greens so nothing goes to waste. Click here for heirloom beet seed.

Here is a quick ‘how to’ on canning pickled beets!

Canning Pickled Beets

(recipe courtesy of the Ball Blue Book)

• 3 quarts beets (double recipe if you have more)
• 2 C sugar
• 2 sticks cinnamon
• 1 Tbsp whole allspice
• 1/2 Tbsp of whole cloves (I add this is variation of the recipe)
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 1/2 cups vinegar (use cider vinegar)
• 1 1/2 C water

Remove tops and roots, then wash beets.

To peel beets: Cook beets for 20-30 in a large stock pot or canner (like pictured above), until you can just barely stick a fork them, then run them under cold water or stick them in a tub of cold water and peel them easily with your hands. 

• Wash beets, cook beets, peel and then quarter beets.
• Combine everything except beets in large sauce pot.
• Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
• Remove cinnamon sticks.
• Pack beets into hot jars leaving 1/4″ headspace.
• Ladle hot liquid over beets leaving 1/4″ headspace.
• Remove air bubbles, then add lids and bands.
• Process for 30 minutes in a hot water bath canner.
• Yield: Approximately 6 pints or 3 quarts.

All ingredients combined and simmering – this is the sweet brine ready to go!

Sterilized jars filled with peeled beets – ready for the brine.

Water bath canner full of jars.

Finished product.

**This recipe and process is approved for safety – I even asked the WSU Extension Office if adding a few cloves was ok – they said it would not alter the safety of the recipe. Many people have written articles about pickling beets on the internet, any similarities are merely coincidence.**

Learn to Eat ALL of the Animal: Ox Tail Stew

By Stephanie Dayle

Below is a Home Front Video that demonstrates "How to Process an Ox Tail" for all of you "do it yourselfers" that grow your own meat or buy it farm fresh.  Here is a TIP: If you are not doing the butchering yourself you have to specifically request that the butcher or farmer save these parts for you or they will be thrown out. Then you will most likely have to process them - like I am doing in the video - in order to eat it or freeze it.

My theory on the "Odd Parts" 

It's very important to me that I eat and use as much of the animals that I raise for food as possible. I love and care for them to the best of my ability, killing them is not easy - even if they taste good. In my opinion I would be disrespecting them and my own efforts if I threw away edible parts just because society thinks they are yucky.

 The truth is humans have eaten and enjoyed these parts for thousands of years. Originally they were eaten out of necessity (because one had to eat it), but eventually folks learned how to make them taste pretty good. This is the start of a series which will go over how to process and cook many odd parts from a beef.

 Some of these recipes I learned from my mom, some of them I found online and tweaked them until I liked them. Growing up, my family was a big believer in eating the "odd parts." Too often today when people think of beef all they think of is steaks and hamburger - maybe they think of roast if they grew up with a mom that cooked. THERE IS SO MUCH MORE to a beef than steaks and hamburger!

Ox Tail in a bowl of cool water waiting to be processed.

Cooking from scratch is a big part of "Self-Reliance" and while I have no desire to turn this into a cooking blog, I do believe there are many important lessons in self-reliance to learn through cooking. After all - what good is it to store food and grow it if you have no idea how to cook it?! And if you are going to cook it, it might as well taste good so you will want to cook it again right? So I will be including recipes as much as possible (I inevitably get asked for them anyways).

 Let's make a deal. Give these an honest try, once - in the process you will learn and prove to YOURSELF that you can do it. If you really don't like the taste of the dish - you don't have to eat it again, BUT at least you will know how to fix it if you have to and carry that confidence with you.

And as last resort, if you absolutely cannot eat Ox Tail, yet you are raising your own beef or buying it farm raised, save that part and strip the meat to give to your dog or maybe a neighbors dog. You could even make dog food out of it yourself, to learn how click here ---> How to Make and Can Dog Food! 

Ingredients:

• 1 can of kidney beans (or the equivalent of dry beans that have been soaked overnight - more beans don't hurt)
• 3-4 pounds oxtail
• 1 Large sweet onion, chopped
• 1 small bunch of chopped green onions
• 4 garlic cloves, smashed
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 2 tablespoons red pepper flakes
• 4 teaspoons hot paprika (I did half smoked paprika and half reg, because I did not have hot)
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 tablespoons hot sauce (I used the hottest oriental chili sauce I could find)
• 4 tablespoons gravy master
• 6 cups beef broth (homemade is better!)
• 4 teaspoons tomato paste (or one small can if you don't make your own)
• Salt to taste (I used a little less than 1 TBS)

One large pot of fluffy white or brown rice.

Ready to set in the fridge overnight.

Directions:

In a crock-pot, add oxtails, onions, scallions, garlic, thyme, red pepper, paprika, bay leaf, hot sauce, and gravy master and marinate at least 4 hours or overnight in the refrigerator, stirring occasionally. I would also like to add that this also makes a GREAT dutch oven recipe - but let the ox tail marinate in a covered glass bowl overnight, then add it to your dutch oven prior to cooking.

 Add enough water to just cover the oxtails and cook on low, for 8-10 hours. Every hour or so add some water or broth, alternating, as necessary, to keep oxtails some what covered with liquid. With 2 hours of cooking time left, add the beans, tomato paste, and 2 more cups of beef broth if needed.

Simmer uncovered 2 hours, skimming fat off top and stirring occasionally. In the last 1/2 hour of cook time, season with salt. Serve with rice and enjoy. Go ahead and pick up the chunks of ox tail with your fingers and pull the remaining meat off with your teeth, I won't tell anyone! Remember hand washing before eating is golden!

Finished product should be very red from the paprika and more like a thick gravy than a stew.
This is why it is so good served over rice.

Click here to follow me on facebook! 

For more homesteading and preparedness tips - or just to keep up on what is going on at The Home Front! To share this post, click on the little gray the social media links below.

How To Make Your Own Sugar

By Stephanie Dayle Via - The American Preppers Network

Making My Own Sugar

It started like this. In my quest for self-reliance, I wanted to have the ability to produce my own sugar if need be. I planned on adding honey bees to the farmstead this last spring - but 'we' spent money on a new chainsaw instead. My next thought was maple trees? Not unless I could pay to put in a bunch of 10 year-old sugar maple tress, hope they all lived, then maybe in another 10-15 years when they started to mature I would have some smallish trees I might be able to tap. Stevia plants? I found out, not only do they not grow in my zone, but I have noticed that they are rather finicky to grow indoors and don't like big shifts in temperature. That wouldn't work in our house with wood heat. Then I found my answer through my grandma.

Public Domain Image

Public Domain Image - Old USDA Poster

Sugar Beets. They used to grow them when my grandma was a child - but not just a couple of rows of them, they would plant a small field of them. She said that when they used the sugar from them, it was always a super dark brown sugar. So if one were using it in something like white cake or egg nog, that it would darken the color of what they were making but she remembered it still tasted really good. She said they processed them outside, because they smelled a little. Sugar beets contain 10-16% sucrose, compared to a sugar maple sap at 2% - this is why you need up to 40 gallons of sugar maple sap boiled down to make one gallon of maple syrup. The process is a tad quicker with sugar beets.

With a little research, I found a place to buy sugar beet seed and another place here and saw that they would grow perfectly in our Zone climate. They can be planted 4 weeks prior to the last frost, are cold hardy, and grow in full or partial sun. They also do not require a lot of water which makes them perfect! Sugar beets are cousins of turnips so their greens are completely edible for people, chickens, horses, pigs and cows. Needless to say, they did not go to waste at my place. They are really low maintenance and I really enjoyed growing them - you can pull them in mid summer or you can wait and pull them in the fall.

Do not worry about 'accidentally' buying GMO sugar beet seed. GMO sugar beet seed is not sold to home gardeners, they are only available to commercial farmers in bulk. So if one wanted to buy some GMO beet seed, you would have to buy a 50lb bag of it (for more info see Fear Free Garden Seeds).

Here is the process I used: Once pulled, I cut the greens off and saved the ones we wanted to eat in the fridge, then I put the greens that were going to the chickens and livestock in a separate bucket. I scrubbed all the beats really well with a stiff bristle brush. When canning beets, you are supposed to boil and peel them first. However, I was not canning these beets wanted to use as much of the beet as possible so I did not peel them.

Next I chopped them up by hand into tiny cubes. I have also heard that using your food processor to shred them works well. Then I added them to a big stock pot and added just enough water to cover them up. I set them to boil for an hour. Your goal here is to extract as much sugar as possible through cooking them so you actually want them to end up all mushy. It was recommended to me that I cook them for 30-45 minutes, but I ended up cooking them for over an hour.

Then you need to strain the beet pulp from the liquid and transfer the liquid into a different pot. I read that traditionally a cheese cloth bag was used for straining then you twist it and wring it out to extract as much liquid as possible. I found using a manual food mill helped move this process along a little faster. I mashed the beets in the mill and collected the liquid below. I stopped short of ricing them, as I didn't want all of the beet pulp to end up in the pot. This remaining liquid was then run through a jelly bag to remove any remaining chunks of plant matter. If you don't remove all the beet pulp - it will not store well.

The next step is cooking the liquid down. I was told that 'back in the day' they would reduce it down until crystals formed. I have found no guide on how much you are to reduce the liquid by or for how long to reduce the liquids. On that note, I was also told that at the time, most people did not have enough patience for crystallized sugar and would instead make beet 'syrup' and use the syrup in place of dry sugar. So with the goal of syrup in mind I brought my beet liquid up to a boil and started reducing, and reducing, and reducing the liquid.

After several hours, I was left with a small amount in one of my smallest pots. Now I was very suspicious of this because I could still smell the 'beets' and it still seemed watery, but when I tasted it - it was wonderful! It had a rich sweet syrupy flavor. So I continued boiling until I could see some 'sheeting' action with the syrup. "Sheeting" is what happens when you pour a little bit of the syrup out of the pot or a ladle and instead of it just pouring out like water, it starts to spread out, stick, and stiffen up a little. It may look like a little sheet of syrup trying to cling to the pot. This is also how to tell if maple syrup is ready for a hydrometer test. 

Before a hydrometer was commonly used, once the syrup started sheeting it was ready. A hydrometer reading will tell you what the sugar content is for the syrup, it has to be done at a specific temperature and would take another complete article to explain. I didn't bother with a hydrometer test as I am not selling my syrup and therefore had no desire to grade it, once it started sheeting it was good enough for me to consume.

Now, at this point if you wanted, you could take your syrup to 40°F - 45°F above the boiling temperature of water at your elevation (a candy thermometer is handy for this, may I suggest a non-digital one) - if it foams you can skim the foam off, or add a drop or two of vegetable oil. Basically what you are doing is making hard rock candy, so if you have ever made candy before: you are taking the sugar syrup to the "hard crack stage" (click link for more info). Then move it to a large flat pan continuously stirring until all moisture is gone. Later after it has cooled and hardened you can use a screen or a grater to grate down the hardened mass to a finer sugar like powder.

Sadly, I didn't end up with much syrup for all of my work. I understand now why each family grew so many sugar beets. I stuck the less than half full bottle of sugar beet syrup in my fridge and used it in my coffee, on my pancakes, and in smoothies for the rest of the summer. It always added a nice flavor. I am afraid if I had boiled it down to crystals I would not have had much to show for myself, however, if storage is your goal, crystals are the way to go.

My grandma told me that while the syrup they had never went bad, it was not uncommon for some mold to collect on the top of the syrup. To fix this they would just scoop it off with a spoon and bring the syrup back up to a boil for a few minutes again and it was good to go, however I don't think I will be trying that unless I have to, so for now I will just use the fridge.

The nice thing about this process is how little waste is produced and how usable every part of the sugar beet is! The beet pulp from cooking the beets went to the chickens and they LOVED it, but people can eat that too. The greens and tops went to both the livestock , chickens, and of course to us. The greens are completely edible - dehydrated and stored for later use in soups or Quiche or you can cook them up like collared greens. Collard greens, in one form or another, have been prepared by humans for 2000 years and were originally a survival food. They are a very good source of vitamin C, soluble fiber, and other good stuff . Here is a quick recipe I used, while not completely traditional - they sure did taste pretty good!

Collard Greens from Sugar Beet Greens

• 2 cloves of mashed garlic (don't bother with a silly garlic press just use the back of your spoon)
• 5 cups of chicken stock
• One to one and a half pack of bacon! (traditionally this would be a ham hock - this recipe cheats and takes less time)
• 5 bunches collard greens (or in this case beet greens) - rinsed, trimmed and chopped
• salt and black pepper to taste

Wash the greens thoroughly. Remove the thick stems that run down the center. Don't worry about doing this to the small tender leaves. Stack 6 or 7 leaves on top of each other, roll them up, and slice them at one inch increments. Next, chop your bacon up into one or two-inch pieces and add it to a stock pot over medium heat. Once it begins to cook, add the garlic to the pot and cook the garlic in the bacon grease until it starts to look translucent. 

At this point add the chicken broth and simmer for 20 minutes. Then add your greens to the mix and cook for them for 30 - 45 minutes ( I have found that you don't need to cook beet greens as long as turnip greens or kale), add your salt and pepper and adjust seasonings according to your taste. Then drain your greens and serve. (Be sure to reserve the liquid, it can be used later for re-heating left over greens as they just don't play well with microwaves.) Also I have been told by my friend who live in the South that you can save that broth which they call a collard 'liquor' and use is in further cooking or to sip on when you have a cold or flu. It is full of essential vitamins and minerals including iron and vitamin C. Especially important is that it contains a lot of vitamin K, which aids in blood clotting.

So there you have it. My ongoing experience with sugar beets. 

Click here to visit the Home Front General Store
For your everyday emergency preparedness needs.

Cake Mix for Food Storage and Recipe!

By Stephanie Dayle - via American Preppers Network  

If you are like me and enjoy something sweet every now and then, you might want to consider adding some cake mix to your food storage.  Some people may think this is a frivolous item, but some good 'easy to cook' comfort foods may come in handy to help keep everyone sane.  Plus, I believe in prepping what you eat and eating what you prep.  This is the surest way to have a store of food that you know how to cook, like to eat, and will eat.  This also means that you are rotating your food and using it.

There are lots of things that you can make with cake mix.  You can make cake pops, you can make cupcakes, you can make cake mix cookies, you can make cake batter waffles, and you can use cake batter to turn simple popcorn into a delightful dessert.  No oven?  No electricity?  You can make cake batter pancakes topped with some warm frosting (cause nothing goes better with cake batter pancakes than more sugar) with a frying pan over a wood stove or even a fire.  You can also use it to help out cornbread, and you can make brownies with chocolate cake mix.

As you can see its a very versatile item to add to your rotation.  Anytime I can find something like cake mix, that has many uses, and that stores well, its a no brainer to add it to my food rotation.  You can safely keep a 1-2 year supply on your shelves and rotate them or you can stick them in long term storage for perhaps up to 5 years.  There are two main approaches you can take to cake mix.

Buy it in the Box.
 For the most part I will buy mine in the box.  I wait for there to be a couple of coupons then I wait for the mixes to go on sale somewhere, ideally for .89 to .99 cents a box, then I apply the coupon which knocks at least half of that off.  I will buy as many as I have coupons for.  At .50 cents a box, you might be able to beat that by making your own mix, but not by much once you count for all the ingredients.  If you can't get the price per box down that low, you may want to consider making the mix from scratch.

For those of you out there who are gluten free, Betty Crocker has several different types of gluten free boxed cake mix, as do several other different companies - but you guys are going to save the most money by making the mixes from scratch as food companies are still charging a premium for gluten free food.  Click here for a simple GF Yellow Cake Mix recipe.

With Food Storage
I already have the ingredients needed for these mixes in my food storage already, if you don't plan on picking up some egg powder, and powdered milk for your storage.  Some people add these ingredients to the mix prior to storage so when it comes time to cook it, all they have to do is add water and butter.  If the mix calls for butter or oil you can do a few things, you can either make sure you have enough butter and oil stored to get you through a disaster, you can add powdered butter or margarine to the mix, OR you can sub out the butter or oil for a bean puree.

Now before you wrinkle your nose, I have done this several times to make cakes a little more healthy and/or to make them vegan for friends of mine and it has tasted JUST FINE.  Really!  In a long term emergency, replacing butter or vegetable oil with some (soaked and cooked) bean puree, in cake mix will save that precious resource for other uses, it will also increase the amount of protein in the cake mix making even more useful in a situation where protein might be a luxury.  The amount of beans you would want to add is about 1/2 cup of bean puree per box maybe a tad more.  That is just about a can of beans, drained and rinsed and pureed.  Think black beans for chocolate cake and white beans for yellow cake.

From Scratch

Learning how to make cake mix yourself is a good thing to do whether your are storing it or not.  It's another exercise in self sufficiency and your end product will inevitably be more healthy than the store bought version.  Plus, in a long term disaster, you will eventually run out of pre-made mix, and if you want cake, you will have to know how to make your own from scratch.

THE MIX (this is based on Everyday Food Storage's recipe for yellow cake mix but I made a few modifications to make it work for me, keep in mind cake made from scratch will have a slightly different texture than the store bought stuff):

• 9 Cup flour total - If you are milling your own flour  from wheat berries you will want to reach for some soft winter wheat as you want the lower protein content of that type of wheat for cakes; you will also want to mill it a tad more fine than all purpose flour but you don't want it so fine that you make something like wheat starch.  If you are not milling your own flour, you can use 9 cups of pastry flour (which is almost just like cake flour but not bleached) or 9 cups of all purpose flour with one tablespoon of flour out of every cup replaced with a tablespoon of corn starch)  OR you can just use cake flour (I am not a huge fan of cake flour because it is bleached and so refined and, therefore, not real good for you but it does really make the best cakes).
• 6 Cup sugar - just regular sugar
• Heaping 2/3 Cup dry non-instant milk powder or 1 1/3 C. dry instant milk powder
• Heaping 1/4 Cup baking powder
• 4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla powder - I have found that vanilla powder is a little easier to  incorporate into baking mixes for storage.
• 1 1/3 Cup dry egg powder (this assumes the egg powder ratio is one large egg = 2 Tbs dry egg powder + 1/4 Cup. water, if your brand of egg powder is different you will have to adjust the recipe).
   

Combine ingredients thoroughly and store in an air tight container.  You can mix this up - freeze it a couple of times to kill any dormant bugs in the flour and seal it in a Mylar bag with an oxygen absorber.  Don't forget to write the type of cake mix and the cooking instructions on each package.  Or you can mix it up as you need it, if you are already stocking all the ingredients.

Using the Mix:

• 4 1/3 Cup  yellow cake mix (make it a heaping 4 1/3 Cup if you used instant milk powder)
• 1/2 Cup softened butter or bean puree
• 1 3/4 Cup  water
• 1 tsp vanilla (or 1/2 tsp of vanilla powder)

Heat oven to 350 degree F.  Grease bottom and sides of 9×13 pan, two 9×9 pans,  or two 8×8 round pans.  Beat all ingredients with electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds, then beat on high speed 3 minutes.  Pour into prepared pans and bake 9×13 35-40 minutes, 9-inch 25-30 minutes, 8-inch rounds 30-35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Public Domain Image

Everyday Food Storage suggests these variations:  Add 1 Cup freeze dried fruit hydrated in the 1 3/4 Cup water to make it fruit flavored.  OR my variation: add some fruit jam which you made yourself in-between the layers of cake! You can also experiment with adding jello or kool-aid to flavor and color your cake mix.

Click here for a Chocolate Cake Mix recipe also from Everyday Food Storage!

Do you stock boxed mix or make it from scratch?  I hear about people making cake from scratch less and less these days, it is truly becoming a rarity.  Also let me know if you give this a try!

Buckwheat Waffles from Scratch

By - Stephanie Dayle

I was playing around in the kitchen yesterday, and decided I should share this high protein waffle/pancake recipe. Those of you that have seen me around the APN forum know that I can't have gluten and that I am very into buckwheat. Buckwheat grows like a weed in colder climates, it out competes weeds and grass, has a short growing season, doesn't need any fertilizer and leaves the soil improved when its done kinda like alfalfa does. It's a complete protein like quinoa - only I think it tastes better.

Anyways, I came up with a very tasty recipe then sat down and started adding up the protein in my head, these dang things are so high in protein they are almost like eating meat! If there comes a time that meat is a luxury and you wanted to fill up on a breakfast that lasts you through the day this would be it. Besides the fact that it tastes good - and is way better for you than the store bought wheat stuff in a bag these pancakes will stick with you all day. We store lots of different kinds of flours not only for my dietary requirements, but because it helps prevent appetite fatigue. So this is no sweat for us to make.

Buckwheat Waffle/Pancake Mix
Makes aprox 4 full size round waffles or 6+ pancakes

• 1/2 Cup Buckwheat Flour
• 1/4 Quinoa Flour (your can sub Sorghum Flour or even Whole Wheat flour if you want, but the protein level will drop with wheat)
• 1/4 Corn Flour (not corn meal - corn flour is a much finer grind, but not as fine as corn starch)
• 2 TBS of Tapioca Starch (or Corn Starch - action is similar will not taste different either way)
• 2 Tsp ground Flax Seed
• 1 TBS Baking Powder
• 1/2 Tsp Baking Soda
• 1/4 Tsp Cinnamon
• 1/4 Tsp Salt
• 1 Large egg
• 1-2 TBS of Maple Syrup (optional for flavor)
• 1/2 Tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1/2 Cup Milk

It always helps when cooking with different types of flours to shift them all together with the baking powder, and soda - this just helps you get a little more cohesiveness out of the batter or dough. Add water to desired thickness. This will also make a fine pancake batter and requires NO xantham gum.

The advantage to learning how to make common bread products without wheat is that if we ever run short on wheat - we will still be able to make alot of the things we enjoy to eat out of other flours. There is a trick to it, but it in the long run its a worthwhile skill to have.

When I make this at home I serve it up with a side of scrambled eggs and I don't get hungry until way past lunch time. I also like doubling this batch and making extra - I stick them in my freezer and make my own 'toaster' waffles. These make great sandwiches too! Just get them out of the freezer toast them, add some peanut (or I prefer almond butter) and homemade jelly - as you are leaving for work or school and you are good to go for a quick breakfast that will last. The high protein content and buckwheat will stabilize your blood sugar so that when you do get hungry, it won't be the "I gotta eat something or I am going to starve to death" kind of hungry, it will be the annoying "but I can deal with you" type of hungry.

10 Reasons Why Everyone Should Store Oats

Post by Stephanie Dayle - via The American Preppers Network

And eat them too!

Oats are one of those storage foods people LOVE to ignore.  I can’t even get my own husband to eat them.  Since we both came from rural areas and grew up with the same self-reliant and frugal values, I couldn’t understand this.  I love oats!  Why would anyone not like oats?  Soon I learned it wasn’t just him, but mostly everyone else I ran into.  I am convinced that most people who don’t like oats are running into one of two main problems.  They never had them prepared correctly to begin with; and/or they just don’t know what to do with them other than make oatmeal.  I am going to solve these problems with you today.  Oats are an extremely valuable item to put in your food stores and an incredibly healthy addition to your diet and here’s why:

1. Oats Store Exceedingly Well: Oats, especially in their slightly modified form of groats, and steel-cut oats – will last a LONG, LONG time and still deliver life-sustaining nutrition.  How long?  Studies performed at BYU have shown oats to still deliver “life-sustaining nutrition” for over 30 years if stored correctly.  Click here to see an article on Dry Canning – which would be the only way to safely store them long-term.  Even the more processed form of Rolled Oats or Traditional Oats will store 20+ years if stored correctly, Provident Living’s website claims 30 years.  However, processing oats shortens their storage life, so the more processed they are, the shorter their shelf life.

Ready to soak overnight

2. Oats Can be Easily Prepared Without Power:  A supply of rolled oats can be prepared in many different ways.  The most common and easy way, is to boil them.  This can be accomplished easily by setting your oats in water and a hint of lemon juice or vinegar overnight to soak(This makes them easier to digest and they will cook up so much nicer for you), the next morning your pre-soaked old-fashioned oats will cook up as easily as quick oats, this also saves on fuel for cooking.  For the slow cooking of steel-cut oats or even rolled oats you can use a Dutch Oven with an ample supply of water.  Place in a bed of coals, use charcoal briquettes, or use a kitchen oven on top of your wood stove.  The sealing lid of the Dutch Oven locks in moisture and prevents the oatmeal from drying out.  Or like in Scottish Haggis, it can be stuffed inside of various meats and used as a binder or stuffing.  They can also be enjoyed as a drink that has been around for ages and the nice thing about the drink is that you still get many of the health benefits from the oats.  You can also use oats to make your own granola as a snack or travel food (again you can do this with your Dutch Oven if need be click here to see an article on Choosing and Seasoning a Dutch Oven).  Lastly, oats in the form of whole oats (with the hulls intact) can be sprouted in a matter of 3 days or so and eaten as lovely nutrient rich sprouts.

Sweet Cinnamon Oak Drink
• 1 C Old Fashioned Rolled Oats
• 1 (4-inch) Cinnamon Stick, Broken into Chunks
• 4 C Water
• Sugar or Honey to taste
In a large pitcher, soak the oats, cinnamon and water for a minimum of one hour, preferably three.

Oatmeal

Blend the mixture (remove the cinnamon stick) in a blender.  Strain and sweeten to taste.  Serve well-chilled or over ice.

Slow Cooker Oat Meal from Food Network’s Good Eats

• 1 cup steel-cut oats
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• 1 cup dried figs (or fruit of your choice)
• 4 cups water
• 1/2 cup half-and-half

In a slow cooker (or Dutch Oven), combine all ingredients and set to low heat.  Cover and let cook for 8 to 9 hours (mine looked pretty good after 4 hours but I would not have hesitated to cook them longer) stir them to check for burning or drying and add more water if needed.  If you are using a slow cooker (electric crock pot) method it works best if started before you go to bed.  This way your oatmeal will be finished by morning.

3.  Oats are Higher in Protein Than Wheat or Rice:  Oat protein is 16.9 g to that of even Brown Rice at  7.94 g.  Oat protein is almost equal to soy protein, which research has shown is equal to meat, milk, and egg protein (a bonus for those of us who don’t like soy).  The protein content of the different forms of oats ranges from 12 to 24%, the highest among cereals making oats an excellent choice to store as a survival food for times when other sources of protein are scarce.

4.  Oats Make You Feel Fuller Longer:  Oats contain more soluble fiber than any other grain, resulting in slower digestion and an extended sensation of fullness.  Staying fuller longer could come in handy when food is scarce.

5.  Oats Will Help Control Blood Sugar and Cholesterol:  Oats contain complex carbohydrates which help stabilize blood sugar and the before mentioned soluble fiber slows the absorption of glucose.  The soluble fiber in oats has also been proven to lower bad cholesterol  (LDL) by essentially taking it out with trash as it moves through and out of your system so to speak.  Oats could be one of your only tools in treating someone with high cholesterol in a prolonged emergency when they do not have access to their statin drugs and oats could be one of many dietary tools for helping to manage blood sugar levels (assuming you don’t smother the oats in sugar).

6.  Oats Can be Used as a Meat Expander: During the depression, many families added oats to their meat when grinding and cooking it to make it go further and to keep everyone fuller a little longer.  A favorite place to add oats was and still is to meat loaves as oats tend to take on the flavor of whatever they are cooked with.

7.  Oats Can be Grown Where Wheat Cannot:  Oats are grown in temperate regions.  They have a lower summer heat requirement and greater tolerance of rain than other cereals such as wheat, rye or barley.  They could be grown in areas with cool, wet summers, such as the Northwest.  As an example to their hardiness, they are being grown successfully in Iceland.  Oats also do not require weeding as they usually choke out most weeds.  Whole oats can be planted as seeds.

8.  Oats Can be Ground Into Flour:  Groats are a good choice for flour making, but you can also use old-fashioned rolled oats.  Rolled oats can be turned into oat flour with a strong food processor while groats will require a grain mill.  Oat flour adds the health benefit of oats to any baked good.  Oat flour, if coming from a wheat-free facility, can also help fill the holes in a gluten-free diet.  If wheat becomes more scarce, oat flour may become its substitute.

9.  Oats are Inexpensive and Versatile:  Beside all the uses you’ve read about so far, left over oatmeal can be made into a simple homemade oat bread.  Click here to view the recipe.  Not only does this save money, but it adds nutrition and depth of flavor to your bread.  Oats are relatively inexpensive due to their use as livestock feed and their unpopularity as people food.  When compared to other high protein grains, oats are rather inexpensive making it an important choice for food storage.  Now is a good time to stock up on oats.

10.  Oats Can Double as an Animal Feed:  Complex carbohydrates, in oats, have been providing energy to livestock for a very long time.  Horses were the reason humans started cultivating oats.  They can be fed to horses, cows, dogs (in the form of oatmeal), chickens, goats, sheep and almost every other farm animal.

5 Types of Oats and Why it Matters!

Whole Oats - These oats are usually straight from the field and still have a hull.  You usually can only get these from a feed or farm supply store.  Unless you have the means to remove the hull I would not recommend getting them unless you want them as animal feed or as seed – if you do buy them and want to use them as food, make sure they have not been treated with any kind of chemicals or poison.

Groats - These are oats with the hull removed, but are still difficult to come by.  they can be found in co-ops and health food stores.  They take a very long time to cook up, and remain hard and unpleasant to eat – BUT they are excellent if you want to grind them into flour with your home grain mill.  You could also run them through your steel burrs if you have them on your grain mill, on a course grind and make your own version of steel-cut oats, which makes a very nice porridge.  These are fairly difficult to grind without practice however, so another option would be if you have a roller mill or roller mill attachment for your meat grinder or KitchenAid, you can make your own old-fashioned rolled oats from groats.

Steel Cut Oats
Public Domain Image

Steel Cut Oats - These are oats that have been cut by steel blades into small pieces.  They cook up finer and quicker than groats to make a nice porridge, and many people say that flavor from steel-cut oats is better than the old-fashioned rolled oat porridge we know as “oatmeal.”  They are also known as Irish Oats or Pinhead Oats.  Cooking time on Steel cut oats is 35-60 minutes if not longer.

Rolled Oats or Old Fashioned Oats - Are a processed version of groats.  They are groats that have been steamed and rolled flat to speed up cooking time to around 10-15 minutes in boiling water.

Quick Oats - Once again these are groats that have been steamed, but they have been rolled even thinner to decrease cooking time even more to 3-5 minutes in boiling water.  Once oats are processed to this extreme they start losing some of their nutritional value as the processing methods begin to damage the soluble fiber within the oats.

Rolled Oats
Public Domain Image

Instant Oats - these are oats, usually quick oats, that have been pre-cooked and then dehydrated.  You only need to add hot water to these oats for a finished product.  They do not store well at all and are the least nutritious of all the different forms of oats, but they still have a well deserved spot in your Bug Out Bag, or your 72 hour kit.  Flavored Quaker Instant Oatmeal is this type of oats.

And let’s not forget about oatmeal cookies!! While not vital to survival they sure are good and would serve as a nice easy to make comfort food – click here for a wheat free oatmeal cookie recipe!

Click Here to Visit The Home Front General Store!