To make you think!

What if they implement the draft? 

What if they send the National Guard and regular Army to two fronts (Ukraine and Taiwan) to fight WWIII…..

Send our able bodied overseas to fight contrived wars and leave them there like they did in Afghanistan? 

What if the CCP UN blue helmets come across the borders (Canada and Mexico) to pick up the slack with the outrage of a starving population, or civil war? 

Ya gotta give the CCP credit….We send our troops to save Taiwan, and they slip their CCP UN “peace keepers”, that Biden invites, in the back door to take possession of their new “bread basket”. 

The puzzle pieces are starting to slide into place…..can you see it….or am I wrong? 

Hope I am.

Using left-over foods for new meals

 How to use your left-over foods

We are all suffering from high cost foods, but how do we use everything we buy?

There are a few meals that are even better the next day, at least for us, including beef stew, lasagna, and spaghetti, but in today's world of high cost, those meals are stupid expensive for the average family. Sad isn't it, to say that spaghetti is now too expensive to make? But I digress...

I wanted to share some recipes with you for using some of your left over foods or maybe just some extras that did not get cooked, and you do not want them to go to waste.

Potatoes! One of what used to be the cheapest ingredients in your pantry. Now? They are climbing in cost. 

So, let's use them all up!

Recipe 1: Using left over baked potatoes and the odd slice of bacon.

Potatoes, cabbage, and ham

• ½ medium head cabbage, sliced
• 3 slices bacon, diced
• 1 onion, thinly sliced
• 1 cup cubed cooked ham
• 1 tablespoon butter or margarine. Though I do not ever use margarine.
• 3 cups potatoes - baked, cooled and thinly sliced
• ½ teaspoon paprika
• salt and pepper to taste

I save bacon grease. I have made this before with no meat, or just very little, but using bacon grease for flavoring. 

Directions

Instructions Checklist

• Step 1

  In a medium saucepan, cook cabbage in a small amount of water for about 5 minutes, or until tender. Drain, and set aside.

• Step 2

  In a well-seasoned cast iron skillet, cook bacon and onion until onion is soft and bacon is cooked. Add ham, and cook until heated through. Add butter, then mix in the cooked cabbage and potatoes. Season with paprika, salt, and pepper. Cook until browned on bottom, turn, and brown again.

Mashed Potato Pancakes

Ingredients

Ingredient Checklist

• 2 cups mashed potatoes
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 onion, finely diced
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, bacon grease, lard, or vegetable oil

Directions

Instructions Checklist

• Step 1

  Beat egg in a medium size mixing bowl. Mix egg and onion with mashed potatoes. Add salt and pepper.

• Step 2

  Heat olive oil in a medium size frying pan, over a medium heat. Scoop the potato mixture into the frying pan in 4 inch circles, pat with a spatula to flatten the mounds to approximately 1/2 to 1 inch thick. Cook until bottom is browned. Flip the patty over and brown on the other side.

Baked Potato Hashbrowns

Put your left over baked potatoes in the fridge after dinner.

Next morning, (or when you want them), peel, (or not), your potatoes.

Shred them into a bowl.

Add diced onion, (or not)

Add diced green pepper, (or not)

Add diced ham or bacon bits, (or not)

Mix carefully, trying not to mash the shredded potato. Does not matter if you do, but I prefer it all shredded.

Fry in your favorite frying pan, (I prefer cast iron), in bacon grease, butter, lard, or olive oil. Just enough to cover the bottom of the pan, you are not deep frying these. Crisp/brown them on each side, as much as you prefer.

I hope these recipes helped you.

Have a blessed day!

A VERY rude awakening

We are all about to have a rude awakening. Some of us are old enough to remember the past. The younger generation has been so spoiled by the goodness of living in the USA, that they have no idea what is coming.

They are about to see why our parents/grandparents drove cars until the wheels fell off.

Why it was typical to have one car per family.

Why young newlyweds weren’t automatically entitled to a fully furnished house. Or lavish wedding (Do y’all remember when a wedding reception typically occurred in the fellowship hall of the church? And the only food was wedding cake, mints, mixed nuts and punch?) A honeymoon might include a night at a hotel, or if they were really lucky they might get a weekend in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

There weren’t restaurants on every corner, because people only RARELY ate out. They cooked every meal at home. Or packed a lunch for the road. And they never wasted leftovers. Picky eaters? You either ate what your Mama cooked or you did without. AND NO ONE CARED. We are about to rediscover potato patties, soup, hash, biscuit pudding, rice pudding and bread with gravy.

NO FOOD WAS WASTED.

People had few outfits. You had church clothes and play clothes. And you took care of those clothes. Holes were mended and it didn’t matter if you liked the clothes or not. You wore what you had.

People didn’t snack or eat all day long either. People were rarely overweight. Because they didn’t have an unlimited supply of food at their fingertips.

People weren’t being constantly entertained. Kids played outside and made up games with their imaginations. No fancy vacations. There was no money for all these extras that we consider “Rights”.

Maybe people will finally wake up and realize that it is a PRIVILEGE to be an American. And feel gratitude and quit being such entitled whiney babies.

People shed blood and died to give us this life.

AND WE ARE STARTING TO PROVE THAT WE DON’T DESERVE IT.

This is spot on.

Copied, (and edited), from a friend of a friend.

It’s coming. I hope you’re preparing and ready. If not it’s never to late to start. But start.

How to save food for short and long term.

 How to save food for short and long term.

1. When you are grocery shopping, purchase 1 more of each item that you can, for each family member.

2. The "sell by date", is NOT the expiration date on most foods!

3. Store your foods in a dark and cool area if at all possible.

4. Buy in bulk, whenever possible. Especially staple foods, such as flour, sugar, cornmeal, beans, rice, oatmeal, etc.

5. If you do not know how, LEARN to cook from scratch!

6. STOP wasting your money on prepackaged foods, whenever possible!!! I am sorry, your kid does not need the super cool new Lunchables! What he/she needs is a HEALTHY and wholesome lunch. Sandwich, piece of fruit, cold veggie. Buy milk from the school. You do not need to have the Caprisun. (Those things are NASTY anyhow. Look up what is in my Caprisun bag.) And yes, "Little Slugger and/or "Little Princess" will eat what you send, or go hungry. And I guarantee, they will NOT allow themselves to go hungry very long. They WILL eat what you send!

7. Learn how to can. Both pressure canning and waterbath canning.

8. Learn how to dehydrate foods.

9. Gardening! Even simple pot/container gardening can help you save money on foods.

10. Mason jars are your friends! 1 quart and 1/2 gallon jars are my go to for short term storage. 

11. 5 gallon food grade buckets are your BEST friends! Lined with a NO SCENT liner/plastic bag for short term foods such as rice, oatmeal, beans, flour. Lined with a mylar bag(s) with O2 absorbers for long term, (Over 1 year) storage. I use both 5 gallon and 1 gallon mylar bags. 3, 1 gallon mylar bags fir nicely into a 5 gallon bucket, with a bit of space left in the center for sealed items such as baking powder or other spices.

5 gallon bucket are also easy to stack and to move. For me, they are easier than totes. Even during our rat and mouse infestation, we did not have anything get into our 5 gallon buckets, but we did have some issues with critters getting into the totes. I have totes for things like camping gear, kitchen items, etc.

12. Last but definitely NOT least, store what you eat, and eat what you store. Rotate your short term to constantly keep fresh foods there. If you store foods you do not normally eat, or know how to prepare, you ARE going to have major issues on hand when it comes time to have to use these foods. 

Saving Water and Electricity

 Saving water and electricity:

Money is stupid tight right now, and I am always looking for ways to save on my daily electric and water usage.

(Power/water bill is going WAY up!)

Something my husband bought over a year ago annoyed me at the time, but as time has gone on, I am grateful that he did buy it.

He bought it for convenience, I now use it and REUSE it to save money.

The Dawn Dishwashing foam bottle.

When it was empty, I almost threw it away, but changed my mind. I went online to figure out how to refill it.

Granted, you basically have to "break it", to reuse it, but the small break was nothing, and now, I refill it every time it is emptied, and the small break, really makes no difference.

By using this foam setup, I rarely have to fill a sink with soapy water to wash dishes. Granted, when canning or jelly making, soapy filled sink is the "go to".

Now, when I am doing dishes, I start with an empty sink, use a bit of hot water to wash the first few, and then rinse them over the wash side, to have that water fill my wash sink for the dirtier dishes.

By doing this, I am saving on water usage and electricity for the water heater.