Food Dehydrating Fun!

A few weeks ago I received my Excalibur dehydrator in the mail. I bought a refurbished model with a 10 year warranty for $160 at the companies website (they're regularly over $200) but shipping was another $56 and duty was $27. I'd recommend looking into the Canadian supplier, Basic Life Essentials, to lower shipping and avoid duty taxes. You can also order them from Amazon.

There are less expensive dehydrator brands out there but if you want to seriously get into dehydrating as a way of preserving and storing food I'd go for an Excalibur. I used to have one of the smaller less expensive models. They're good for trying out dehydrating and making a few snacks but f you want to dehydrate a bushel of apples that you pick up on sale at a farmers market or do a whole 10 pound bag of potatoes you'll need the Excalibur. The other models aren't large enough and it would literally take a week to dry all those apples or potatoes. For this reason I'd also recommend getting the 9 tray Excalibur instead I'd the 4 tray model if you can afford it.

I've been trying out tons of different foods in the dehydrator and so far I'm pretty impressed. You can eat the foods dry themselves or rehydrate them to use in meals. When you dehydrate the food the texture is never the same as fresh but that's okay if your using them in stews, soups etc.. To rehydrated them I boil the dried food for a few minutes. You can also steam your veggies to rehydrate them.

(Above: dried tomato, red /green peppers, celery, mushrooms, broccoli, potatoes and my assistant)

The dried peppers in my homemade salsa are pretty good. The potatoes are excellent pan fried or in a stew but they're too thick and slimy mashed. Rehydrated apples in an apple crisp are also really good.  Tomatoes come out soft but are good for soups.  As for broccoli, the stems get too tough so just dehydrate the tops. I haven't done onions or garlic yet because supposedly they really stink up the house and it's too cold to open the windows to ventilate.

My general idea is to buy veggies on sale and dehydrate them so they'll last a long time. I got a bunch of mason jars for my birthday and bought oxygen absorbers from that Canadian supplier I mentioned above. If I put the dried food in the jars with the O2 absorber it should last at least a year though various sources claim they'll last up to 5 even 30 years! Personally 5 years seems the limit to me and after 2 years I'd be wary.

The website Dehydrate 2 Store is a great resource with tons of recipies, tips and how-too videos.  The book "The Dehydrator Bible" also has a lot of great tips and recipes which is where I found my recipe for apple crisp.

I'm learning that there are a lot of different methods and recommendations out there so if you want to get into dehydrating try different things and have fun experimenting!

My Dollar Store Emergency Bug Out Bag

I've been meaning to put together an emergency "bug out bag" for a while now but I never seemed to get around to it.  The expense and effort make me keep putting it off.

Then the other day while walking through my local dollar store I realized that they had a lot of things that could go in a bug out bag.  It occurred to me that I could probably create a BOB with one trip to the dollar store and it would be inexpensive to boot!

Well, it would up taking two trips to two different dollar stores but I put together what I think is a pretty decent BOB for under $50!

This first pic shows what I picked up at a "Dollarama" dollar store for under $20

Kleenex (also used for toilet paper)
Dust masks
Sanitary napkins (for the ladies in the family)
Soap
Duct tape
2 pairs work gloves
Utility tool (might go buy more)
Tea candles
Note pad
"Sharpie" style markers
Basic small first aid kit (will replace with a better one later)

There were a few things I couldn't find at that store so I went to another "dollar store" near my place and picked all this up for $30.

Two hand crank LED flashlights
4 plastic rain ponchos
Nylon rope
two tarps
Matches
Garbage bags
Wire Twist ties
Backpack

I think I've got some pretty good basics I'll probably add more stuff and upgrade some things as time goes on.

For example, the bag is only 2/3 full and I'd like to include a hand-crank radio which I've seen go for around $10.

I hear from a lot of people that they don't have the money to do prepping but this shows that it can be done inexpensively.  Admittedly $50 is a lot of money but you don't have to buy it all at once.  Just pick up an extra item or two each time you go shopping and after a couple weeks you'll have a BOB!

Canadian Tire Deal for Ottawa Preppers

If you're in the Ottawa area you might want to might want to stop by the Canadian Tire on Coventry Rd. where they've got portable power battery packs on sale for $60 (regular $150).

It appears that these are only at the Coventry Rd store since I haven't seen them anywhere.

These things have 400w, LED lamps, speakers, USB jack, MP3 player jack and both 120v outlets and a 12v DC outlet.

I picked one up for the next time we have a power outage.  At least we'll have light and be able to charge our laptops / cell phones.  The 12v DC outlet will also be handy to warm up the baby's milk using the bottle warmer we have for our car.

The 12v DC outlet could also be hooked up to a solar panel and you can recharge the unit that way.  Such a set up would have been really handy during the massive 2003 blackout we had in North America.

Intro to Canadian Prepping

Hi all!

Thanks to Kymber for setting me up on the Canadian Preppers Network!

I’ve always had an interest in “survivalism” but was wary of the “extreme” elements involved, or at least how survivalism was presented in the media. I really wasn’t interested in owning dozens of firearms and was turned off by the “Rambo mentality” of some survivalists.

I’m not expecting to be overrun by fascist government zombie soldiers and I’m not too worried about the world ending in 2012. What I’m more concerned about is how my family would handle another ice storm like Eastern Ontario had in 1997 where we were without heat and power for weeks or if for some reason we had to get by on just one income.

A few months ago I found Jack Spirko’s “The Survivalist Podcast” and became hooked. His thoughts concerning “modern survivalism” and the “prepper” movement perfectly shaped the vague notions I had floating in my head and presented them in a organized way. At the Survival Podcast forums I finally found a group of people proposing sensible solutions to real-life problems.

The prepper movement is so versatile and “big tent” that it appeals to the hardcore survivalist, to the “treehuggers” to the stay-at-home mom. In fact, one thing that appealed to me is that so many women are not just becoming preppers; but they’re also becoming leaders in the community!

My goal is to do a post or two a week and I’ll cover things a young Canadian family like mine can do to take steps toward preparedness and independence including:

- debt repayments
- simple energy efficiency tips
- easy first prepping steps
- planning and building a new (semi) off-grid home

Being fairly new to prepping I’m hoping to document my progress on these topics and learn from the comments of other preppers.

For now I’ll leave you with my personal motto:

“If you don’t take control of your life, somebody else will.”