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!

Aurora Firestarter

Great Firestarter is Made in the USA!

This firestarter is my new favorite emergency preparedness item.  Like many of you I struggle starting fires with a bow and drill and the hand drill.  In the mean time, I keep this firestarter handy with some dry lint or cotton balls to help with starting and I have had great success with starting fires with my first strike.

Since videos are a great way of demonstrating products, I videotaped our son on a recent campout using this firestarter.  He got a fire started on the second strike!  Hope you enjoy:

Freeze Dried Corn

So Sweet It Can Be Eaten Right Out Of The Can!

This product is delicious rehydrated and can even be eaten dry as a snack!  The Honeyville Farms Freeze Dried Corn is a sweet yellow corn that has been flash frozen and then sublimated to extract almost all of the moisture from the corn and then is canned for long-term storage as a dry product.   The freeze drying process for sweet yellow corn removes approximately 97% of the water while helping to retain the natural taste and nutrition. This product comes sealed in a #10 can and has a shelf life of  up to 15 years in the sealed, unopened can.

Rehydrating can be done in several ways.  The following video provides some great instruction on how to do this:

This is a very popular product because of its high quality and great taste.  Here is a great Chili Corn Bread Recipe where you can use your reconstituted sweet yellow corn:

Green Chili Corn Bread

1/2 Cup Corn Meal or Corn Flour

1 Cup Natural White Flour or other white flour

1 tsp Real Salt or other table salt

1/2 tsp Baking Soda (preferably aluminum free)

1/3 cup Red Feather Pure Creamery Canned Butter or other butter

2 Eggs or 2 Tablespoons Whole Egg Powder and 8 Tablespoons Water

1 Cup Reconstituted Freeze Dried Corn

2 Cups Reconstituted Freeze Dried Shredded Cheese or 2 Cups Freshly Grated Cheddar Cheese

1 Can Green Chilies

1/4 cup Honey or Sugar

3/4 Cup Milk or 3/4 Reconstituted Country Cream Real Instant Milk

Mix all ingredients together and place in glass baking dish.  Bake at 350 Degrees for 50 minutes or until done.

How to Grind Your Own Stone Ground Flour With the WonderMill Jr. Delux

Grinding Your Own Nutritions Stone Ground Flour is Easy with the WonderMill Junior Deluxe

WonderMill Junior Deluxe with Stone Grinders

There are many advantages to grinding your own flour, and nutritionally, there is nothing better than stone grinding your own flour at a slow speed.  We enjoy the fact that the WonderMill Junior Deluxe comes with a set of stone grinders that make grinding your own flour easy.  You can use the stones to crack wheat, mill farina (creamy wheat) or grind flour down to pastry fine consistency.  No wonder the manufacturer calls it the World's Best handmill!

Whole Powdered Eggs

An Important Part of Your Food Storage Program

I love my chickens and the fresh eggs that I receive from them each day, but in the preparedness world it is often prudent to also have on hand a long-term food storage item as a backup.  Whole powdered eggs are a great shelf stable product.  The Honeyville brand of whole powdered eggs for instance will last 10 years in the unopened can and up to 1 year after opening.   Some people are a bit skeptical about purchasing them or using them based on their reputation.  Our family has used them in Pancakes, muffins, cookies and other baked goods.  They are easy to measure out and work great.  A good recommendation is to have two (2) to four (4) of the #10 Cans of Whole Powdered Eggs per person in your food storage for cooking and baking needs.

We have also made scrambled eggs with them.  Here is a picture of what they look like once they are cooked.  I put green chilies in with them to help improve the taste.  As scrambled eggs they taste different than fresh eggs because the powdered eggs have been pasteurized.  However, the eggs do bake up nice and fluffy.  If you add spices and/or vegetables they are pretty good.  Our kids actually ate them up with more zeal than we did, probably because they didn't have any pre-conceived notions about powdered eggs like we as adults did!