Q and A: Baking mixes, storing dry pasta, and root cellar
Baking mixes
After looking at the Bisquick type recipes in your new book am wondering, other than shelf life, is there any difference in how these mixes work? Shortening compared to dehydrated shortening.
Betty Anderson
Berryville, Arkansas
No differences other than possibly having to add a bit more liquid in some recipes to create the most workable dough when you use the dehydrated shortening. I use both with equally good results. — Jackie
Storing dry pasta
What is the best way to store dry pasta? I really would like to store it in glass jars but I don’t know how. I guess the other way might be in the bags that I see in the survival write-up web sites.
Charles Hancock
Hazel Green, Alabama
Dry pasta stores very easily with no extra frills and supplies. You can simply pour it into glass jars and screw down the lid. I used to store mine in gallon glass jars for years. Now I store mine in used, clean popcorn tins, like you get around Christmas. I’ve never had any get rancid or in any way damaged. Works great! And it’s cheap. — Jackie
Root cellar
I have a question on root cellars. My wife and I have finally managed to buy a piece of land on which to build our retreat. It does not / will not have electricity but I would like to be able to store some foodstuffs and canned goods there but obviously they need to be kept from freezing. Unfortunately the home site is literally on the side of a mountain so digging a cellar is out of the question due to ledge rock. My thought was to build a small room from block and cover it with earth. Would this work and if so how deeply must it be covered?
Allen Foster
Northfield, New Hampshire
Yes, this will certainly work. If you would insulate the sides of your root cellar with dense insulation board (below grade quality), you can probably pile dirt over it about three feet deep in your location. You will have to play with this a little by keeping a thermometer in it for the first couple of years. You may have to add some more dirt later if your cellar gets down too close to freezing. Snow on the dirt will also help insulate your root cellar. Be sure to add a double door system with an air lock between to help protect your cellar when you enter and exit during the winter. And don’t forget to insulate your doors and add a vent through the roof that can be opened and closed as needed to keep the cellar cool, not freezing, and keep the condensation down. Pick up a copy of Bubel’s book, ROOT CELLARING. It is very good and a complete book on many different methods of construction. — Jackie
January 27th, 2012 at 1:51 pm
Not related to the topics above, but, I accidentally stumbled on a different way to seperate cream from milk, and was wondering if it would work on goat milk. My parents had a gallon of store-bought whole milk that got left in the truck overnight and froze solid. When we put it in the fridge to thaw, the cream thawed within a few hours and could be poured off, but the skim part took nearly 2 days to thaw out! This was the mass-produced homogenized kind of milk, which isn’t supposed to seperate at all.
It worked sort of like the technique you suggested for freeze-concentrating juices. I don’t have a goat handy, but is there any way you could test that on goat’s milk and see if it works? It might save a few of your readers the expense of buying a cream seperator
January 30th, 2012 at 5:04 pm
Ellendra,
I will try it when one of my does freshens. Any other goat owners out there that have tried this??
Jackie
January 31st, 2012 at 12:44 am
I just made an improvised pineapple upside down cake using your pancake mix plus two eggs,a dash of cinnamon and vanilla, the liquid from the pineapple 1/4 c sugar and enough milk to make it “cake batterish”. Turned out great for just winging it! When I first made up the pancake mix a few days ago I thought it looked like it’d last months, but it’s so good and easy we’re blowing through it! mmm