Green Onion Wraps Recipe

Green Onion Wraps Recipe

 

52 Unique Techniques for Stocking Food for Prepper
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The recipe for green onion wraps is something I have not seen anywhere else, it’s not my original idea (a coworker at the prison’s girlfriend used to make them for him when her husband was out of town).

Whatever the source, these green onion meat wraps are great at parties and well worth making.

Even if I disagreed with my co-workers method of getting this recipe for this appetizer (sometimes known as a dried beef roll-up), I almost started rooting for the husband to go out of town, as these things are very good.

Functionally, they are a lot like my recipe for cowboy sushi.  Which is to say they are a savory vegitable wrapped in sweet cream cheese and a meat.  They also are something novel, which on first glance, seems to be questionable.  However, like my sushi recipe, they are addictive once you try them.

This recipe is great tasting and both fun and easy to make.

Recipe for Green Onion Wraps

Ingredients:

  • Jar of dried beef (small 3 inch circles of sliced beef that are like an unflavored pepperoni/jerky)
  • Softened cream cheese
  • Bundle of green onions

Procedure:

  • Cut the roots off of the ends of your green onions
  • Place a large dollop of cream cheese on the center of a slice of dried beef
  • Center the end of the onion on the slice of dried beef (perpendicularly) and wrap the beef around the onion end

Eat buy inserting the whole blob of beef in your mouth and biting the onion in two – it tastes extremely good…

Alternatively I have found this site which describes an alternate recipe (which is easier, but not prettier, way of doing a similar thing)…
Hope you enjoy this.

How to Build a Water Bottle Skylight

How to Build a Water Bottle Skylight

 

How to Build a Water Bottle Bulb
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I spend a lot of time looking at appropriate technologies coming from missionaries and other groups that work in third world countries.

I figure – if it works in areas lacking infrastructure then it will work if we ever lose our infrastructure.

This idea came from a couple of YouTube videos I saw of people making water bottle skylights out of 20oz soda bottles.

This is also called a solar bottle bulb.  Either way, the concept is pretty simple I have used this in domes and animal houses several times.

Most specifically I got it from the video at the bottom of this page.

I modified it slightly and was quite pleased that two of them gave enough light in my cement dome that I can see what I am doing.

Actually, if I am in the general area of one of the lights I can actually read by the light.

This technique was used on my Dome of Doom on Doomsday Preppers and it works very well.  I have a series on how I made my cement EMT dome.

 

Parts:

  • 1 clear soda bottle
  • Water
    Bleach
  • Plastic roof flashing
  • 2 eyebolts
  • Wire
  • Duct tape
  • Mylar space blanket

Procedure:

  • Drill two small holes on opposite sides of the plastic flashing, and thread the eyebolts in the holes
  • Fill the bottle with water, leaving enough space that you can add about a ¼ cup of bleach to keep anything from growing in the water.
  • Cut the mylar blanket into a strip approximately 1/3 the height of the bottle.
  • Center the mylar strip in the middle of the bottle and wrap it tightly – you need to leave unwrapped bottle at the top of the bottle to gather light, and at the bottom to release it. – Basically you are making a reflective tube to channel the light.
  • Insert the bottle into the flashing, leaving about 1/3 of the bottle sticking outside the top of the flashing.
  • Wrap wire around one eye bolt, pull the wire tight over the bottom of the bottle, and then secure it to the other eye bolt – this keeps the bottle from dropping out of the flashing.
  • Insert the entire assembly on your roof and calk as needed to prevent leaks.

Note:

Over time UV light will degrade the plastic – but since soda bottles are everywhere, it is a simple process to rebuild as needed.

 

Cowboy Sushi

How to Make Cowboy Sushi

52 Unique Techniques for Stocking Food for Prepper
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I made some cowboy sushi because I wanted to make something nice for my wife.  I told her it was to help her with her Thanksgiving meal at her school, but really I just wanted her to know I was thinking about her.

She always says I am too inventive in the kitchen, but I felt that Cowboy Sushi (while novel) was something she would like.

What is Cowboy Sushi

This recipe for cowboy sushi is really nothing but cream cheese and ham wrapped around s pickle.  I understand that people may think that combination sounds weird.  However, let me tell you cowboy sushi actually tastes very good.  For some reason this just works.  In that manner, this “sushi” recipe is a lot like my green onion wraps

I got this idea from pinterest, but the original site is http://goodwifeinthekitchen.blogspot.com/2008/09/cowboy-sushi.html.

This is a neat site, and it has some interesting posts on organization that you may find useful.

I found I needed to modify the technique to work, but I really enjoyed the finished product.

Recipe for Cowboy Sushi

Ingredients:

  • large whole kosher dill pickles
  • Sliced Ham
  • Softened cream cheese

Procedure:

  • Spread a thin layer of cream cheese over a ham slice (you will need 4 or five slices for each pickle)
  • Roll the ham around the pickle
  • Place the center of the second slice of ham where the ends of the first slice met (this overlaps the ends)
  • Repeat 2 or three more times to build a good ham wrap around the pickle
  • Refrigerate to firm the cheese and the ham
  • Slice into thick slices (I like cutting off the ends first)

This is a very simple snack, and like sushi is relatively light and is great to eat on hot days when you don’t feel like making a big production of cooking.

Using a Pencil Sharpener for Tinder

Using a Pencil Sharpener for Tinder
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As far as survival gear goes, I like cheap, light, unobtrusive, and multi-use. Today’s tip of using a Pencil Sharpener for Tinder fits all those things.

If you keep a small pencil sharpener in your gear you can use it to make tinder for your fire. It the outside of the wood is wet from a quick rainstorm, by cutting into the wood you can access dry material.

As a side benefit – the pencil sharpener will put a point on small diameter wood which you could use to make traps, fishing implements, tent stakes – whatever – and in a pinch the razor can be removed and uses as a small knife.

Not bad for something you can buy at the dollar store…

The best thing about using a pencil sharpener for tinder is that it weighs practically nothing, is small and ob obtrusive, and if you take care when selecting it, you may be able to disassemble it to get a razor you could use if needed.

This is a great survival kit idea, it it light, cheap, small, and never goes bad.  I make a point to keep a pencil sharpener in all my tool bags just for those reasons.

How to Assemble a Harbor Freight Cement Mixer

How to Assemble a Harbor Freight Cement Mixer

 

How to Assemble a Harbor Freight Cement Mixer
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This article is not a step by step guide to Harbor Freight Cement Mixer Assembly, you can get that in the video below, but rather extra tips I learned from the install and first use of my 3.5 cubic foot mixer.

First off, in the event you lost your instructions here is a link for an online copy of the PDF from Harbor Freight – it is copy written, so I am just providing a link.

Next realize that for around $20 you are not getting heavy duty metal. However, this does have some good reviews on many of the harbor freight sites.  Additionally I have found that if you take reasonable precautions, the mixer is well worth the money.

You want to make sure you have metric tools.  You will also need:

  1. slip ring pliers
  2. Loctite
  3. gasket compound
  4. larger wheels
  5. a wood block
  6. a couple of lag bolts

I also found that a length of pipe helps with assembly of the Harbor Freight cement mixer.

Harbor Freight Cement Mixer Build Tips

When putting the mixer together, the drive shaft is already assembled.   As far as our build went we had to remove the slip rings in order to install the motor mount case, and on the other side the dump control lever.  We did not have slip ring pliers so we had to modify a pair of needle nose pliers, and reinstall them by using a pipe over the shaft and knocking the ring back in.  This was due to quality control issues so your mileage may vary.

Also, on the drive shaft, when you bolt on the cast iron pulley, and the gear that turns the mixer tub, use Loctite, and you may want to consider buying two lock washers and adding them.

When we were using this in the dome build, the bolts backed out twice.  That ended up losing the keyway and rendering the mixer unusable.

While you have the Loctite out, remove the small screws holding the case on the electric motor.  I did not notice at the time of the first use, but later

I saw that most of the bolts backed out, and the last one was hanging on by just a few threads.

When putting the tub together, it is easier to use gasket compound to hold the rubber gasket on the tub.  I forgot to get some (it was recommended in several videos).  During assembly I found that since many of the bolt holes punched in the gasket were a little off, if I pushed the bolts through the tub, the gasket would hold them on and the bolts would hold the gasket on flat.

When putting the motor together, and working the electrical, I found it was much easier to unbolt the switch housing from the casing in order to more easily make the electrical connections.

The hardest thing to do was figure out the mixer blades.  The instructions were very poor translations from the original Chinese.  After much discussion, and trying various ways, we realized that there were stickers on the tub that helped.  If the arrows on the top half and the bottom half lined up, and you used the third arrow to find the direction of rotation, it was much easier to figure out what is happening. Remember the blades scoop up the cement as it rotates, and then dumps the mix at the top of the rotation.

Lastly, the wheels are not big enough to raise the mixer high enough to dump in a wheel barrow.  I suggest you get a set of 10 inch air filled tires while you are at harbor freight.  Bolt an 8 inch 4×4 n to the foot on the other end of the mixer.

It only took an hour or so to put the mixer together, and our first use was pretty rigorous. In my opinion, this is a harbor freight tool that is worth the time and the money.