Food Storage Feast students: Introduce yourselves here

[Noah Darco]

Hello Food Storage Feast students!

Please drop us a note here when you join the course.

If you like, tell us a little about yourself and what you personally hope to achieve with Food Storage Feast.

We're glad you're here!

-Noah Darco & Chef Keith Snow

[CharlesH]

My wife said yes and we enrolled this evening!  Looking forward to watching the videos and downloading the recipes.
 
We are in SW Michigan on 27 acres.  Both of us work in town and homestead.  We have a large garden, fruit trees (pear, apple, peach, apricot, plum, and persimmons all fruiting), bee hives, keep a few feeder steers, and do meat birds, feeder hogs, and ducks each year.  Our preps are based around those things (two large freezers stay pretty full and we can and dehydrate a lot).  We are looking forward to using our home raised staples along with stuff Keith talks about on his show like beans, potato flakes, rice, etc.

[Noah Darco]

Hi Charles! Thanks for checking in, and helping inaugurate the introductions thread. And, welcome!

Chef Keith and I envisioned a lot of home-grown and home-preserved foods going in to the Food Storage Feast recipes, thinking of homesteaders like you. We've aimed to make the recipes as flexible as possible, so they can be made with more fresh ingredients when those are available, but still serve a whole and delicious meal when the grid is down and you're reaping the rewards of a well-rounded storage pantry.

One of the next written articles going into the course will be about developing cooking as a skill for maximum flexibility in a pinch, and will also deal specifically with rules of thumb for ingredient substitutions - freeze-dried vs. fresh, herbs that work well in the place of others, etc.

[chefkeithsnow]

Hey Charles,

Very impressed with your hoemsteading efforts...fruit trees are something we always really wanted...but honestly..back east and down south..it's hard with pests...need allot of spraying...

I hope you get value from our course..don't hesitate to come here and ask for a recipe or ideas etc.. I'm not opposed to taking ideas for and developing recipes and videos for those recipes.....

Be well..and stay tuned!

Keith

[jakerobinson]

Howdy, I live in Tennessee on 5 acres and restoring a hundred year old school house as our home. I have bees and I usually have a garden each year.
 I planted about a hundred twenty fruit and nut trees this past fall however we have a severe drought so we'll see how many make it. 

I like dry canning (vaccucanning) and have some longer-term food storage. I want to be more knowledgeable about cooking on the Fly, that's what you have on hand and making it taste and enjoyable.
Lifetime member of MSB and been to at least 6 workshops at Jack's homestead.  Love to learn new skills!

[tabbyinc]

After listening to Jack for years now, I have taken an equal roll in the kitchen and my wife loves it, so when I told her about this FSF class, she said yes before I finished the sentence.  We live in North Texas on 2 acres and have bees, a garden, fruit trees, 6 cats, 2 dogs, 4 turkeys, 6 goats, few dozen chickens and a bunny and will be working on our aquaponics system this spring.  We also do all types of canning (hot, pressure and dry), as well as make goat milk soap, brew beer and make mead.... life is good!

[CharlesH]

Very cool!  Nice to meet both of you.  I've looked over the courses so far but not started digging in yet, I thikn my wife and I are planning to go through them together on Wednesday nights.

[Noah Darco]

Hey, jakerobinson & tabbyinc, welcome to the forum!

Vacucanning is the best way we know of to preserve dry ingredients in quantities that make for easy rotation - in fact we're working on some recommendations for low-cost ways to get in to vacucanning, to be included in the course.

[Bones]

Howdy all! Long time listener to TSP and lifetime prepper (although we just called it living growing up) now residing on our 16 acre homestead in the Pineywoods of SE Texas. I love to cook but have never trained formally and thought his might just be the course for me and my stacks and stacks of long term storage food. We grow our own eggs, chickens, ducks, pigs and geese out here along with a moderate garden and almost 80 fruit and nut trees we've incorporated into our permaculture designed property. I usually harvest a deer or two and all the squirrels and wild rabbits you could want from the property but have yet to get anyone but the dogs and me to try the smaller game. I'm looking forward to learning from this course and my wife is looking forward to some new meals from me.

[4Gators]

Hello All!

Looking forward to the show... Got the kids excited about getting in the kitchen with me (that alone was worth the money)!  I hope to gain a broader knowledge of blending flavors and make a wider array of dishes using basic staple ingredients in a way that can rotate my food stores. 

Question: I understand that the course is still in process (under construction) and am wondering if the course will also include instructions on preserving harvested foods & game?  Thinking along the lines of different ways to preserve wild game, utilizing foraged & home garden foods, and dehydrating?  I can, but have little luck & lack of experience dehydrating.

[Noah Darco]

Welcome Bones and 4Gators! Thanks for checking in here.

4Gators, thanks for your question about food dehydration and game preservation techniques. Those are, unfortunately, beyond the scope of the course, although we will be covering basic packaging and rotation techniques and ideas. Food Storage Feast is first and foremost a cooking course, designed to teach you to integrate your storage food into what you eat everyday.

[4Gators]

Food Storage Feast is first and foremost a cooking course, designed to teach you to integrate your storage food into what you eat everyday.

Thank you!  My boys are hoping squirrel & rabbit are included in the game animal section.  LOL -

[chefkeithsnow]

Great collection of experience here...so many people doing so many neat things.  I wish more of my close friends understood the value of getting off their rumps and starting to build some security....I mean anything...a couple cans of beans and bag of rice is a good start.  They look at me like I have 4 arms when I suggest it....

Don't mean to vent..but I have friends with $750,000 homes with $25 dollars worth of crap food in the pantry...and multiple kids...I thought I'd heard everything when my kids said their kids were driving to town(8 miles one way) to get lunch becuse they have no food at home...DUH !!  the parents drive to town 2 times per day..yet nobody can manage to get to the grocery store...cubboards are bare...yet they do manage to take trips to Disney etc..  hmmmm  priorities a little whacked ?

ok..I'm done....of the soap box...

Congrats to the folks here actually doing something...

As far as the question on game...bugs bunny will make several appearnces in the game section....tons of folks keep those critters for food..!

Keith

[tabbyinc]

]

[oregoncactus]

Hey everyone!

We live in the AZ desert.  We have two places - a 2 acre horse property near my husband's work and a more remote 15 acre mesquite forest property that we are just beginning to develop.  We currently have apple, plum, peach, mulberry, fig, pomegranate, lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit and meyer lemon trees.  We are next adding a tropical section with avocado, banana, papaya, and mango trees.  I am looking forward to learning how to prepare basic stored items and items we grow to make delicious meals.

@Chef Keith - you are so right about people living in $750,000 homes not having food.  We moved from one of those neighborhoods.  People had fancy kitchens with high end appliances but the only one they operated was the microwave to warm frozen or store prepped foods.  And eating out was standard for them. 

[CharlesH]

I would love to live in a place where I could raise pomegranate.  Welcome OC!

[Noah Darco]

Welcome, oregoncactus!

While it would take a herd of wild horses to drag me away from the warm community and cold climate I call home, things like citrus, fig, and pomegranate trees do make me think twice once in a while. I need to go raid the fruit bowl now.

[Carlyle]

Hello from Southern Colorado.  I have a one acre plot that I am slowly making a little more self sufficient.  I have a small garden and five fruit trees.    I am interested in taking this class as I have cooked for many years, but am interested in making my preps taste great and to start using my preps as part of my daily living.   

[Straylight]

Hello from Montreal, Canada!

I signed up earlier this week after listening to Chef Keith's interview on TSP. I'm hoping to improve my cooking skills while developing a nice base of recipes that make use of staple ingredients/herbs so I waste less. I live in a condo in the middle of the downtown area, storage space is a premium and take out food is, well, over-indulged in 

Last year I started using a slow cooker to bulk cook and store stuff like stews, chillis and pulled pork. So I'd like to be able to buy a bag of potato's instead of a few individually - but when I do that now, more often than not I don't have enough uses for em and they'll go back before being used. Another issue would be a recipe that catches my eye but had 15 ingredients, so I'll end up with an obscure spice used once and the rest goes stale.

Can't wait to start trying some of the recipes and seeing how the site develops!

[TxGal]

This mentality is widespread. Doesn't matter if it's the big fancy home or the not so fancy homes. People don't like using their time to cook, mostly because they don't have the skills, but also because they prefer the highly salted, sugared, and fattening foods that they can purchase so easily. I have known several people in my life that eat every single meal out or buy the prepared crap from the frozen section that just needs to be nuked. I don't understand this mentality.

We prepare 99% of our meals at home using basic ingredients, but we make amazing food! Homemade breads and soups are actually so easy and cheap, cheap to make!

Don't mean to vent..but I have friends with $750,000 homes with $25 dollars worth of crap food in the pantry...and multiple kids...I thought I'd heard everything when my kids said their kids were driving to town(8 miles one way) to get lunch becuse they have no food at home...DUH !!  the parents drive to town 2 times per day..yet nobody can manage to get to the grocery store...cubboards are bare...yet they do manage to take trips to Disney etc..  hmmmm  priorities a little whacked ?

Keith

[cathy112]

Hi everyone,  I hope i replied to this correctly and in the right place.  I have been listening to TSP for many years and Chef Keith Snow too.  I love to cook, I will cook anything and everything.  My husband grows a huge vegetable garden every summer.  I have learned to dehydrate, blanch and freeze, and cook so many things.  This year I learned to dehydrate many herbs that I planted so i have many herbs all year long.  Last summer i found out about a chili pepper farm near where we live.  Got carried away, bought 16 different pepper plants, this farm has over 500 varieties.  We were overwhelmed at how they produced what seemed like hundreds of peppers.  I dried them, ground them, and made our own pepper blend that could be put on anything.  OMG !  it was so good, we gave them to friends and family.  it was overwhelming, we weren't prepared for the produce we got, but it was so fun.
I look forward to learning more recipes, this is so awesome. Thanks Jack and Keith for putting this all together.

I know people who don't cook and have the beautiful kitchens mentioned, I just don't get that. Especially with children, how do you eat out 3 times a day.  that makes no sense.  That would get old so fast in my opinion.

[CharlesH]

You done posted good, Cathy!  . I'm with everyone on the nice kitchens that never get used.  All that space and money spent on places to stand around and lean on counters while visiting.  We do that in our kitchen, too, but we are usually standing around and visiting while someone is cooking something!

[chefkeithsnow]

Hello from Southern Colorado.  I have a one acre plot that I am slowly making a little more self sufficient.  I have a small garden and five fruit trees.    I am interested in taking this class as I have cooked for many years, but am interested in making my preps taste great and to start using my preps as part of my daily living.   

Carlyle,

sounds like you have a good thin going there in CO...cooking with bland preps can be challenging....I address this by adding in lots of flavor, sauces, spices etc.  Many people are not aware that the state of CO grows some amazing fruit....and there is such low humidity, not many pests and cool nighttime temps..all that makes for top quality tree fruit...I've eaten some apricots and peaches from the wes slope that were light years better then eastern fruit....

Keith

[chefkeithsnow]

Hello from Montreal, Canada!

Last year I started using a slow cooker to bulk cook and store stuff like stews, chillis and pulled pork. So I'd like to be able to buy a bag of potato's instead of a few individually - but when I do that now, more often than not I don't have enough uses for em and they'll go back before being used. Another issue would be a recipe that catches my eye but had 15 ingredients, so I'll end up with an obscure spice used once and the rest goes stale.

Can't wait to start trying some of the recipes and seeing how the site develops!

I hope this course gives you some ideas and helps you be more self sufficient!
Keith

[Carlyle]

Carlyle,

sounds like you have a good thin going there in CO...cooking with bland preps can be challenging....I address this by adding in lots of flavor, sauces, spices etc.  Many people are not aware that the state of CO grows some amazing fruit....and there is such low humidity, not many pests and cool nighttime temps..all that makes for top quality tree fruit...I've eaten some apricots and peaches from the wes slope that were light years better then eastern fruit....

Keith

Thanks Keith!

The fruit trees do really well here as long as they get lots of water when the high temps hit.  Nice that they finally legalized the catchment of rain water to help with water from the ditch shares.  3-5 more trees going in this spring as well as some berry bushes.  Looking forward to more as I begin reading the class material.

[chefkeithsnow]

Thanks Keith!

The fruit trees do really well here as long as they get lots of water when the high temps hit.  Nice that they finally legalized the catchment of rain water to help with water from the ditch shares.  3-5 more trees going in this spring as well as some berry bushes.  Looking forward to more as I begin reading the class material.

What a novel thought..being able to use the freakin water that falls fro mthe sky and lands on our roof....I'm sorry, any municipality or state that say you cannot harvest rain water is corrupt!!   

Happy growing....
Keith

[Catskill_Frank]

Hi Everyone,

I've been listening to TSP since the summer of 2013. I signed up for Food Storage Feast because my wife and I eat out too much and we would like to eat more at home. Having all the ingredients on hand and the recipes readily available will cancel most of our excuses.

My wife and I live in Western Connecticut and are building our dream home on 68 acres in New York State (oh, how I wish we chose New Hampshire, instead...lol). We, currently, have 2 dogs, 2 kittens, 2 barn cats (who live at our barn on the 68 acres), 8 hens (in CT) and 6 quail (9 found their freedom). We hope to move into our home (a geodesic dome) by mid- to late- summer 2017.

[Noah Darco]

Welcome, Catskill_Frank!

I understand your preference for NH, but I do remember a whole lot of really beautiful country in the mountains of upstate NY from my travels there a while back. I was particularly struck by the abundance of running surface water. It's a shame that it's shoehorned in politically with NYC, but still, it's some of the most beautiful homestead country I've seen back east.

[katroo]

Hi!  Carl and Lis checking in from just north of you, near Lynchburg, VA.  We have land (not a farm, yet), but we do eat!  Looking forward to cooking our way though our stores.

[chefkeithsnow]

Carl and Lis,

Welcome!!

It's pretty up that way in VA....you grow the best peanuts anywhere...not sure why GA gets all the credit! Have a big can in my pantry!

Please let me know if you have any questions...be sure to check the updates page for new postings. New content being added often...have many new recipes / videos in production right now. If my voice would cooperate I could finish them!! Been hacking for weeks now..

http://harvesteating.com/food-storage-feast-4/welcome/updates/

My best
Keith