Esbit Pocket Stoves

Quality Solid Fuel Stoves Made in Germany

Esbit Pocket Stove

For nearly 75 years, the German company Esbit has been making quality stoves, fuel tablets, cookware and cooking supplies.  These are high quality fold-up pocket stoves that are built to last and have been used all over the world for camping, outdoor cooking and emergency preparedness.  Esbit makes pocket stoves, wing stoves, cookset combos, titanium stoves and mugs, windscreens, pots, pans, solid fuel tablets and other outdoor cookware.

Titanium Mug on Esbit Pocket Stove

As a young boy scout, we used solid fuel tablet stoves, but they were not Esbit Stoves.  I felt like they were more of a gimmick than anything.  I really didn't see how we could use them and they were of rather poor quality.  I wish I would have had an Esbit Stove!  Esbit Stoves are sturdy and compact, while the fuel tablets burn hot and clean.

Esbit Complete Cookset

With an Esbit Stove you can heat water for rehydrating MountainHouse Meals, you can cook small meals and you can boil water for water purification.  You can even use the fuel tablets for starting a fire.  These tablets burn at over 1300 degrees and last for over 12 minutes!  These tablets can help you get a fire going or dry out wet tinder.  An Esbit Stove and a good supply of Esbit Fuel Tablets make a great addition to your 72 hour kit or personal backpacking assembly.

Troy's Delicious Banana Blueberry Muffins

Banana Blueberry Muffins from your Food Storage

Banana Chips are not just a snack.  This great food storage item can also be used in recipes that call for bananas.  However, there are a few details of which you should be aware.   Banana chips are dehydrated and coated with oil (usually coconut oil) and sugar.  This makes them crisp and yummy to snack on, but makes rehydrating them a bit of a challenge.  Soaking in cold water doesn't yield great results.  However, by using hot water to rehydrate them they become soft and rehydrate quite nicely.  They are then ready to be added into muffins, breads, pancakes, waffles and other baked foods.  For a nice cruncy variation you can add chopped pieces of Banana Chips in dry to your recipe.

Banana Chips rehydrated in hot water

Here is a great way to use banana chips and freeze dried blueberries from your food storage in muffins:

Banana Blueberry Muffins

1 cup Natural White Flour
1 cup Prairie Gold Whole Wheat Flour
1 cup Sugar
2 tsp Rumford Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Real Salt
1/2 cup rehydrated Country Cream Instant Milk or other rehydrated powdered milk
1/2 cup Red Feather Pure Creamery Canned Butter (melted)
1 reconstituted egg (or fresh egg lightly beaten)
1 tsp of vanilla
1 cup rehydrated Freeze Dried Bluberries (or fresh or frozen blueberries)
1 cup rehydrated Banana Chips (chopped in food chopper)

Rehydrate banana chips and blueberries.  Mix dry ingredients.  Add Milk, butter, egg and vanilla.  Mix until just moistened.  Add blueberries and chopped bananas.  Bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes.  Makes about 18 muffins.

Freeze Dried or Dehydrated Fruit

Eat as a snack or use in place of fresh fruit in your recipes

For me it has been hard to imagine not having fresh pineapple once in a while.  Even though it is hard to eat a lot of it without my tongue going raw, it is so delicious that I usually indulge until I can't taste anything for hours.  Canned pineapple is OK.....but just not the same.  So, when companies started coming out with Freeze Dried Pineapple I was a bit skeptical.  Dehydrated pineapple has been around for years and is quite common in various trail mixes.  Dehydrated pineapple retains a fairly good deal of its moisture and is quite chewy and delicious.  However, I must admit that Freeze Dried Pineapple is really the way to go if you are craving a delicious snack.  It is not quite as good as fresh pineapple, but it runs pretty close behind in my book.

The offering of dehydrated and freeze dried fruits in cans is now quite staggering.  For years it was mainly apple chips that were available.  However, you can now find freeze dried and/or dehydrated peaches, strawberries, apples, apricots, pears, blueberries, mangos, bananas, blackberries, raspberries, mandarin oranges and more!  Freeze dried fruits generally rehydrate better, but dehydrated fruits can often be rehydrated in hot water or being cooked in water.  If you need these delicious freeze dried fruits for a recipe you can soak them in water four about 10-15 minutes or until they fully rehydrate.  Then, just add them into your recipe.  Depending on the fruit they work great in pancakes, muffins, cobblers and other baked goods.  The nice thing is that they are ready to be used and do not spoil like fresh fruit.

We have several sample cans at the store for you to try........but beware.........these wonderful freeze dried fruits can be addicting!

Berkey Purifiers - The Ultimate in Purification

Stainless Steel Housing with Ceramic and Active Charcoal Purification Elements

 

For us, there is nothing more enjoyable than having at our fingertips great tasting, clean water that has not been stripped of trace minerals.  A Berkey Purification System on your countertop is a truly great way to improve your quality of life and have you prepared for emergencies.

So many times we focus on food storage and give very little thought to water.  We really should be thinking:  Water! Water! Water!  With the Berkey Purification System, you can enjoy great water every day and have a filtration and purification system in place to deal with emergencies.  We think that every household should have one of these units.  Why?  There are several reasons:

These purifiers are easy to use!  Just fill up the top reservoir with water.  The water then is absorbed by the filters and then is gravity fed down through the purification elements and into the lower chamber where it can be dispensed.  The set of 2 filters that comes with each unit will last for 6,000 gallons before replacing.  It would take almost 5 years using 3 gallons of water a day to go through that much water!

Do you have water stored in 55 gallon drums or other containers?  Do you ever wonder if it is truly potable?  Berkey water purification systems will not only purify stored water that may not be safe for drinking, but it will also improve the taste of water.  What a great combination!

Another fantastic reason to own a Berkey is for personal health reasons.  With all of the water treatment and water product options out there, we believe that the Berkey Purification Systems make things simple.  We feel like Berkey systems provide great benefits at an affordable price with little to no maintenance.  Berkey systems purify water and leave the trace minerals in the water.  These units remove chlorine, pesticides, herbicides and a whole host of volatile organic compounds.  They significantly remove heavy metals by up to 95% !  You can also add an additional filter to remove fluoride and arsenic.

Many people want an affordable option to bottled water or water purchased by the gallon.  Others are tired of making trips and hauling heavy containers of water.  With a Berkey Purification System you not only have immediate access to pure, great tasting water, but you also save yourself money and are making an environmentally conscious choice by not using so much plastic.

Berkey Purification Systems make an important part of your emergency water filtration and purification planning.  These units can be used to filter and purify lake water, streams, stagnant pools and other water sources to remove germs, bacteria, cysts and protozoa and improve the taste of the water.  You can see the power filtration and purification process of the Berkey by adding red food coloring to the water to be filtered in the top.  This unit will remove the food coloring!  This is also a way to periodically test your filters for performance.

Many of you have heard of the Big Berkey, but our preference is the step up in size, which is the Royal Berkey.  (The Big Berkey is kind of small....it only holds 2 gallons of water while the Royal Berkey holds 3 gallons of water.)  You can find pricing and additional details at our store website:  http://www.preparingwisely.com/water_storage_supplies__filters  .  Start improving your water, your health and your emergency preparedness today with the Berkey Purification System!