List of Hardware for the Prepping of Food

List of hardware for food prep atshtf ________________________________________


     I've been thinking that we need to make specialty lists for different purposes such as items to help prep and cook foods atshtf. This list will be just for food preparation and cooking in a stay at home or things to have at the retreat situation but would like others to help with a separate list for bug out situations that you could carry on your backs or in a pull wagon.


Items for prepping foods without city power supply: Can openers, multiple hand crank can openers. Buy good ones that will last and are sturdy. Pots that will hold up over an open fire. Cast iron cookware is number one and secondly would suggest black granite ware pots because they can be used in solar ovens as well. Third suggestion would be camping cookware which would be easiest to use in a bug out situation. They are usually nesting and can be used in multiple ways. The fourth suggestion is a good non teflon wok with lid and utensils because it would be great for over an open fire. Many people in Asia only have woks and maybe one other pot for cooking.
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Large metal utensils such as spoons, slotted spoons, and spatulas for non bugout situations.
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Knives, butcher knife (should be carbon steel so it can be sharpened easily for multiple uses such as cutting up game or vegetables or slicing cooked meats. Can also be a good self defense weapon.
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Bread pans for baking breads or loaves of anything. Can also be used for caseroles, cakes, or even to make jello in in the colder weather. Ice chests of various types for keeping animals out of foods kept outdoors in the cold for storage of meats, leftovers, dairy, etc. Will also help keep foods from getting to hot in the summer even without ice and protect open foods from rodents. Egg beaters, whisks, colanders, mandolins, graters, hand cranked food processors, pasta makers, blenders, toasters, metal skewers, tongs, fish baskets for cooking over a grill or fire, steamer baskets, deep fryer baskets, seed and bean sprouting supplies, leather pot holders and good cloth pot holder mits. All of these items are able to be purchased at non electric places such as Lehmans and most can be purchase at China Mart or on the web and you probably already have much of this list.
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Bowls of different types for different uses. Ceramic or glass, metal and wood all have important uses, plastic bowls are good for storage with lids.
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Cookbooks whether they are recipes from the web such as Frugal Forums or books you can buy such as cooking with storage foods, beans and rice cookbooks, campfire cooking, solar cooking or crockpot cookery can be used for solar cooking, wild game cookery, wok cookery, etc. You need to find books that you can adapt to non electric cooking. Cookbooks such as were written in the colonial days up through the 1940's are great books to teach to cook frugally and well over wood stoves, fireplaces, gas stoves etc. There are many of the really old cookbooks for free on the net that you can either download (which would take a lot of paper and ink) or to copy and paste the recipes that you like and make a personal cookbook that you think your family would go for atshtf. There are sites on the net with recipes such as; http://www.solarovens.org/recipes/ Or just buy a crockpot cookbook for slow cooking recipes that can be used in the solar oven. You can also bake, roast and steam in your solar oven. Casseroles, breads, cakes, cookies, roasted meats, baked potatoes, custards, pies, etc. about the only thing you cannot do is fry in the solar oven. It may take longer to cook some dishes but it still comes out great and you will have a hard time burning anything except cookies, but they at least burn evenly. ;-)
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Now lets talk about ways to cook. We have just been talking about solar cooking in solar ovens. commercial ones cook the best but you can make your own and have something on hand until you can afford a commercial one. There are the oven style and the cook-it style which is a reflector and oven bag cookery. There is also the fresnel lens cookers. You can probaly fry in that last style. I don't have one and never have tried one but I have read about them.
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Rocket stoves are a convenient and frugal style of cooker that uses very little fuel and it can be nothing more than branches, paper, cardboard, pine cones, etc. just don't use pressure treated wood.
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Campfire cooking is a wonderful way to cook if your are not severely limited on wood. It does take a bit to do any amount of cooking, but one good thing about it is that the food is wonderful in flavor being cooked on an open fire and you can do spit style cooking as well as fry foods. You can buy the wrought iron items to use over the fire to hang pots or use as a spit etc. from online or make them yourself with directions from the net. They can be made from iron pipes and the grill over the fire can be an oven rack from a discarded stove or grill.
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Wood stoves which will probably be used by many for heating their homes can be cooked on indoors and you can even bake your biscuits or corn bread etc on top of one with a camp oven over them. This is really only practical in the colder months of the year. Since there will be no air conditioning you will not want to heat up your house. Wood cook stoves are great but again not comfortable to cook in the summer on or in them.
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There is also hobo stoves which you can use any fuel you may have on hand, I personally use buddy burners in mine for short term power outages. The plans and directions for these are also on the net. The buddy burner will last for approximately 2 hours and will definitely cook most of what you would want to cook.
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There are propane grills, charcoal grills, and coleman style gas stoves, and also some kerosene stoves out there but they all take fossil fuels that are expensive and will be hard to replace so I would save those to use for special occasions or when wood is not available and the sun is not out. The frugality of the solar oven and the rocket stove and buddy burners make them my personal favorites.
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My next in line is propane grills and burners if you can afford to store a quantity of propane and lastly due to the cost of wood if you have to buy it are the wood stove and campfire style cooking. The wood we will be buying or collecting mostly will go for heating our home in the wood stove. So in the winter I will be making lots of stews and soups, rice and beans etc. on our boxwood stove. Also don't forget your camp oven, if you purchase one they usually come with a temp. guage which will come in very handy. You can make them but you will have to guess about your temp. unless you can rig up a guage yourself. .
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Grain mills are an important item if you want to be able to grind your wheat, corn, beans, rice or whatever into a meal or flour. It was the second most important item on my list after a water filter. I researched it and found that the most durable mill was a Country Living Grain Mill. I saved for quite a while to buy it. As a matter of fact I bought it after I bought my grains and was a nervous wreck until I did get it. I do think I need a second mill for smaller amounts of flour to make pancakes or biscuits. I don't want to drag the big mill out and it is large and heavy to just grind a cup or three of flour. I will probably be grinding large amounts of flour just one or two times a week so the major mess can be cleaned up more easily and then the mill can be stored out of the way until the next time. Please don't buy your grains and no mill. Boiled wheat is no where near the same thing as bread...........
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Next on my list which really should have been first is WATER equipment such as filters, barrels, pumps etc. My favorite filters are the large drip filter Berkey style filters whether homemade or bought. Mine is a Katydyn brand but it is the same exact style as the Berkey's are. You will need large amounts of water for cooking, washing foods, hygiene of the kitchen and of the members of the household. The pets and animals will need water etc. . Everyone already knows the rule of 3's so I won't repeat them but water is number 2 on there just because air is always number one. . Now lets talk about how to prepare for tshtf when it comes to water. A deep well is the most effective method of getting water but then there are parts of the country where the wells would have to be hundreds of feet deep and would be out of range money wise. I can't really speak to desert areas as I have never even been to a desert in my life. I would imagine buying cisterns and having them filled would be good for them and living next to an area where there is water available. For most of the country wells are practical and there is enough rainfall in most of the country that we can capture the rain through gutters and containers. There is also other methods of collection such as pools, barrels with large plastic funnels, homebuilt ponds, etc. For the short term I have about a hundred 2 liter soda bottles filled with water. Of course they are treated and rotated out for fresh treated water twice a year. Half every six months.
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Suggestions for food preservation for the future if there is no power is solar dehydrators, water bath canners, and pressure canners as well as having a smoke house. The plans for the solar dehydrators and the smoke houses are on the net for free and are there for the Preppers who want to google them.
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As far as the canners go, I have bought all mine either on the net used or at thrift stores or estate or yard sales. The one thing that can really cost dearly is the jars, lids and rings. If you have the money buy the tattler lids for your jars if not then let me suggest you buy your extra lids for the future from Dollar General they have the regular lids for a dollar per pack of 12. Cheapest I have found anywhere. The wide mouth lids are quite expensive and if I had it to do over I wouldn't have bought any wide mouth jars. I bought most of my jars by advertising what I was willing to pay per dosen (my you know what key is broken so I have to spell dosen with the s. Sorry. I bought many dosen's of jars this way locally. Many older folks who are now passing away used to can food yearly and the grandchildren of those people who are cleaning out grandma's attics, garages and cupboards don't want them and would otherwise probably just throw them away so they are willing to sell them for cheap. Try it....
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Lastly I want to talk about the many remarks of buying huge quantities of paper plates, paper towels etc. because of water shortages. I think having a supply of paper plates is advisable but I have no room to have a years supply of paper plates, and plastic utensils etc. as well as not having the money to purchase them. So my idea is to assign eating utensils and plates, mugs,and glasses to each individual in the family and then have everyone clean their own utensils with first wiping them off with newpaper which I have stored up and then taking a rag with bleach water and wiping them down. The rag may be kept in a small amount of bleach water while the family does their own items and then can be wrung out and hung to dry for the next time. If they wipe their dishes well before washing them with the rag there won't be much in the way of food left on them and it will be very frugal to wash them. By not using soap and just using hot water with a little bleach it will still be sterile without having to rinse or even dip the plates, glasses, mugs or utensils. The only things that will have to be washed in any amount of water will be the pots or serving bowls. But there won't be many serving bowls except for non cooked items or cold served items such as fruit salad, jello, or potato salad, slaws, or meat or seafood salads. One pot of boiling water of about a quart could wash these things easily and even the dirtiest water can be used to soak pots that need soaking then they can be washed with a small amount of boiling water with bleach and a little soap afterwards.
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I must admit I have made many of the items that can be homemade to use in my preservation, storage, cooking etc. because of deciding I need to put our available funds elsewhere but when I do buy items that I cannot make I look for used first and then sales or discounted items second. Research to me means searching and then searching and then searching again as many times as it takes to find the items I need at the cheapest prices. One warning I have for everyone is to check out the cost of shipping if it comes from somewhere else thru whatever site or method you use. My experience has shown me that shipping costs vary widely and can make the seemingly cheap item terribly expensive. Compare to your door price not just the listed prices. Remember to keep the use of credit also in mind. If you can't pay it off immediately after it is put on your card you may be paying interest which also runs the price up. Just sayin...........
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I hope that this will open a dialog about equipment for your food storage and prepping and survival atshtf. As you can see I didn't get into gardening, building, or wood chopping supplies. Those things should be on a list of their own.
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So happy prepping!