>>40 Canning food is definitely a must for self-sustainability and getting the most out of food, whether growing it yourself or buying it in bulk at the store. I recommend the Ball Complete Book of Home Preservation: https://volafile.org/r/1budpnx60

>>40 I think the near forgotten skill of making leatherbritches is a damn important preservation skill to have.

>>44 Canning is surprisingly easy with the right tools, but store bought produce is financially unviable for preservation. Its absolutely nessesary tho when you got your own vegetable garden because good luck eating a sack of cucumbers before it spoils. >>47 Got any reading material on drying? Ive done my share of canning way back when, but Ive never actually learned to dry shit in bulk as it wasnt viable where I come from.

>>48 >Got any reading material on drying? Not really but making leatherbritches is as easy as pie. My grandma use to make them all the time. All you have to do is string the beans up one by one with a needle and thread and hang them in the dry. Some people pre cut the beans and some people string them whole. You can also do the same to cabbage, an individual leaf at a time. You can also do hot peppers the same way. The main thing is keeping them dry and keeping insects off of them. You could set up a curtain surrounding them made of something like cheese cloth or muslin to keep them clean and still let air circulate.

Big tubs of lard! Even if you end up with low supplies, like just beans and flour, the quality application of lard will make it not be shit. ProTip: You can preserve meat at the bottom too.

>>52 That reminds me, you can preserve butter for situations where you lack access to refrigeration or other forms of cooling by clarifying it. Also know as ghee if you're from Pajeetland. All you have to do is heat butter until it melts then keep heating it untill you drive off the watter and cook all the milk proteins then filter it. What you have left is pure butter oil that's shelf stable as long as you keep it sealed and in a dark and reasonably cool part of your storage.

>>52 My grandfather used to mix rape oil and lard in the field for cooking, and it was fucking disgusting. Practical, but incredibly nasty.

>>40 https://invidio.us/watch?v=jZoHuMwZwTk Speaking of MREs, anyone know of Steve1989MREInfo? He does reviews of them - including ones that are absolutely ancient. Watch at your own risk.

>>48 National Center for Food Preservation has sections on drying and curing/smoking: https://nchfp.uga.edu/

I've canned a lot more this summer so far than I have in the past two years. In particular, I canned maybe four jars of pickles last year and hoarded them all winter to be sure they would last. This year, I'm going all out. And since I've been trying to minimise expense, I'm trying out different herbs in my pickles: coriander seed, black peppercorns, fresh oregano, fresh sage, and fresh basil. I'm excited to see if it turns out. Dill is master race, but I ran out. If anyone has any other suggestions for seasonings to add, let me know: I still have upcoming jars to can.

>>173 Cant name a specific ressource on the web since I havent done any research in the anglosphere, but look up russian and eastern yuropean canning recipes. Rus kitchen usually goes for mellow taste, while eastern yuropean canning usually goes full retard with spices. Also buy more dill you faggot, its the cheapest shit on the block and pickles without dill is a war crime.

Meat is getting expensive. Does anybody have good tips on making it last longer? I've been adding flour/breadcrumbs and doing dishes with a lot of "filler" and gravy to try to stretch my supplies out, but it still costs an arm and a leg and I can only fit about a 1.5 month supply of meat in my freezer.

>>173 >canning spices I add spicy oregano and lemon thyme to literally everything I can. I could and sometimes do eat that stuff right off the plant, and lemon thyme always adds a nice little zest and a hint of spice to whatever you put it on. I dry my own herbs and it's unbelievably easy. Grab a handful of whatever it is you want to dry, wrap it together into a mighty faggot with string, hang that into a paper bag, and fold the bag (making sure the end of the string is outside of the fold). Staple/glue shut and bam, you have a mostly-impervious-to-bugs paper drying bag, which will catch any leaves that fall off the bunch, and can be hung anywhere dry in your house. At this very moment I have about fifteen bags of oregano, thyme and dill hanging in my mud room. >>184 Do you mean preserving meat, or simply stretching it further? As far as preserving goes, you could try salting it. I don't like doing it this way, but it's an ancient method of preservation and it works provided that you've got a region in your house that doesn't exceed 38 degrees F. >pork: cut into slabs, coat with a shitload of pickling salt and optional herbs. Cram it into a big jar/crock and cover with cheesecloth, then store in a dark place at around 34-38 degrees for a month. Voila, you've just made salt pork that will last a couple months >Beef: get a 4 pound slab of brisket and cover with brown sugar, put in a covered dish, store in cold place for 2 days (no more than 3) >in a bowl crush 1/4 cup juniper berries, 2 tablespoons black peppercorns, 1/4 cup pickling/(((kosher))) salt, 2 tbsp allspice. Every day for 14 entire days rub a couple teaspoons of this stuff all over the beef before returning it to its cold place. After those 14 days rinse the beef, bake in a casserole dish with a cup of water for about 4 hours. Cool, wrap in Saran wrap, weight it down, back into its cold place. It'll last about a month

>>189 I mean stretching it. I don't have the space to salt my own stuff. I just buy like two whole pork loins, entire chickens, and big 10 pound tubes of ground beef and freeze them. Then try to make them last. Also the temperature is regularly well above 38 F. Hell, it's regularly above 38 C. I just need ideas for how to use less meat while still making dishes that are filling. As it is, I lean too heavily on carbs to pad things, I think. Would be nice to pad it with fats or vegetables. For example, I found I can get away with meatloaf that is ~50% carrot. or "beef" stew that is 80% vegetables. What are other good "mix-ins" for beef dishes?

>>190 If youre just talking about stretching, Ive been using canned chickpeas for that. Also works well as a ground meat substitute for chili or similar dishes. Chickpeas are generally a very useful thing to have in your kitchen because you can substitute a bunch of shit with them. As a general thing I would recommend using more varied spices and more spice in total, that way you can make the most out of the amount of meat you have in your dish. Oh and if you want to really make it count, use twice or thrice the amount of onions you usually would, and fry them in a pan that has all the fat from the meat on it still.

Suggestions on ratios for powdered cheese+powdered milk+powdered butter+sodium citrate to make cheese sauce for mac and cheese? >>184 Chop carrot finely, cook it to reduce the water and increase relative protean, add MSG and cumin. Hides really well in ground meat that will be covered in a sauce or heavy seasoning. When I get the stuff, there's something I wanted to try in a cook book I found about taking this further from Vegetables for Carnivores (I recomend the book just for the introductory bits of food science) that claims it will turn carrots into a meat substitute on their own. Need stainless steel insert pan (I'm told Sams sells them) and a good spice grinder (recomendations that are cheap?) for it though.

>>243 It's been awhile since I've used sodium citrate; evaporated milk is much easier and the ratios are less strict. You don't need any of the other stuff (the powdered bits), just sodium citrate and fresh cheese. Or powdered, if that's your thing, but I think the powdered cheese might just melt in without needing anything to emulsify. For Mac & Cheese in particular, I like to do a pound of pasta, a pound of cheese, and about 12-16 oz of evaporated milk. For sodium citrate, I think 1 cup of milk and 1 tbsp of sodium citrate would be sufficient for a pound of cheese and pasta. Should firm up nicely. If you get the ratio of liquids to cheese correct then it's fine. You just need enough of whatever else to emulsify.

Fermentation is certainly a survival technique that is simple to do and allows you to enjoy produce for a year or more. My current on-going project is fermenting garlic in honey. For about the first two weeks, you see bubbles coming from the garlic and you need to flip your jar daily to make sure the floating garlic is covered, burping the jar afterward to be sure your jar doesn't explode. After a month, the bubbles go away and the garlic starts darkening and sinks. Technically it's ready after that month, but I'm going to ferment mine for three months for maximum potency before enjoying. You can keep it on a dark, cool shelf for one year at least. Mine pictured is about twenty days away from being three months old. While it's generally made to take when you get sick, I picture myself enjoying it with chicken and pork. Already tested the honey and it's garlicy (without the bite) and sweet.

Here niggas https://the-eye.eu/public/Books/Survival_Guide/