How to Make Hard Boiled Eggs in a Oven

 

52 Unique Techniques for Stocking Food for Prepper
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If you want to make bulk hard boiled eggs, or want a simple recipe you can try baking them in the shell rather than boiling you can always use your oven to make baked hard boiled eggs.

Simply put eggs in a cupcake pan and bake at 325-350 (depending on oven) for 30 minutes.

When you do this, the shell will get little brown burn spots – don’t worry about it, they will disappear after the next step.

Once you are done baking them, use tongs to put eggs in a large bowl of ice water. This stops the cooking of the egg.

After about 10 minutes you can pull them put and peel them.

Before you comment that it takes longer than boiling, please realize I know it takes longer, but it is easier, and I doing a lot of eggs at once it is more economical.

Since Genny eats eggs for breakfast on her diet, this method of hard “boiling” saves her a lot of time and effort.  That makes it worth it.

I would suggest you try these oven baked hard boiled eggs the next time you want a hard egg.  Its even something you can do with golden eggs.

How to Lash a Tripod

 

Basic Lashing - Making a Tripod
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Today I want to talk about how to lash a tripod.

I needed something to hold up some homemade mosquito repellent trays, and all I had was trees and string so…

Lashing is a great skill to have, with some rope and a little knowledge you can make all sorts of useful things.

This is pretty simple and by making a tripod you can easily make other things.

A homesteader, bushcrafter, or prepper should really take time to learn basic lashing.

Remember, a bridge is two large tripods connected by rope.  One tripod inverted over another makes a tower.  You can make a smaller tripods to hold meat over a fire or make a small stand.

How to Lash a Tripod:

  • Start with a Clove Hitch around one pole.
  • Wrap about six racking turns (Racking is the when the rope passes between the poles over one and under the next).
    • This increases the contact between rope and wood and reduces slipping.
  • Next make two or three tight frapping turns in the two gaps.  (Frapping is wrapping around the rope between the sticks – it is 90 degrees to the racking turns).
  • Finish with a Clove Hitch.
  • Cross the two outside poles to form the tripod.

 

Tomato Pasta

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This article on tomato pasta is the next evolution from my homemade pasta experiments.

Once you get the basics down you can experiment to get your recipes tweaked to culinary perfection.

In this post we will use homemade tomato powder to make a flavored Tomato Powder Pasta. This would work with almost any other powders.

Feel free to experiment with spices, herbs, or other vegetables like spinach.

Step 1: Create Powder

In an upcoming post on my blog, I will show how to make a great tomato powder by using the leftover tomato skins from making salsa, but if your in a hurry, its really easy to make this powder by putting a can of cheap tomato paste in your dehydrator and drying it down until it is like a fruit roll up.

We used a “bullet” but any blender would do the trick. I cut the chewy tomato sheet into strips about 1×1/2 inches so that they would pulverize easier.

I choose to stop after most of the tomato was a powder, but there were still some little chunks.

Step 2: Mix pasta

Dump the tomato powder in with your flour and mix while dry.
Next make a small imprint into the center of your flour and add one egg per cup of mix.
Beat eggs and slowly enlarge your strokes to incorporate flour. Don’t rush or you will end up with a bowl of crumb. Go slowly and you will be rewarded with a lump of dough.
If you need to fix your crumbly dough because you whisked too fast, you can add a little water.

Step 3: Knead and Roll

Knead your dough until it become smooth and uniform in texture.
Then roll out the dough as thin as you possibly can.,

Step 4: Cut Boil and Serve

Cut your noodles however you wish
Boil for two minutes in slightly salted water
Serve immediately with a tasty sauce.

How to Modify a TDI Knife with Tek Lok

 

Modifying A TDI Knife with Tek Lok
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I love my Ka-Bar TDI, it is very ergonomic and designed to be used weak-handed to help defend against gun grab situations.  I modified it to make it easy to carry.  Additionally, if you need a smaller EDC knife, I have a post on how to conceal the Ka Bar LDK.

The problem with the TDI is not the knife.  It is an extremely well designed knife, with a nice Kydex sheath.  In order to keep it inexpensive something had to give.

What “gave” was the belt clip.

I am not the only person to hate the mounting system on this knife.  Ka-Bar even sells replacement mounting hardware to replace the belt clip when it invariably bends.

This post shows how I went about modifying a TDI knife with Tek Lok

The belt clip is just a thin piece of tempered steel.  If the knife ever catches on something the loop will open up.  Unfortunately, it will never bend back to hold the knife tightly again.

This problem with an otherwise fantastic knife has created a small cottage industry of custom sheathes for this knife.

However, I like the sheath that came with it so I decided to see if I could engineer a solution.

Introducing Tek Lok

Modifying A TDI Knife with Tek Lok
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I happened to have some Tek-Lok belt clips in the shop from an earlier project. It seemed like a perfect fit.  A good knife mounted to a well thought out belt clip.

Its such a good idea that I was not the only person to think of if, however, most people used the large Tek-Loks, and drilled holes through their sheaths to mount the two together.

Looking at the sheath, the mount, and the two sizes of Tek-Loks, I saw that a small one fits flush against the old belt clip.

I cut off the belt clip from the mounting bracket and used my grinder to smooth everything out.

I then used a punch to mark out the 4 mounting holes.

After drilling out the 4 holes, I mounted the tek-lok to the mounting bracket made from the old belt clip, and then mounted the bracket to the sheath.

It does stick out a little more (about 1/8 inch) than the old system, but it is MUCH more secure.

One thing I need to mention is that the small tek-lok was not designed for use on wide belts like my 5.11 rigger belt so it does not “slide on”, I have to force the belt into the tek-lok, and then clamp it shut.

While this is not that difficult, it is an extra step when getting dressed. On the other hand, this makes the knife fixed and it does not move on your belt.

I am very pleased with this project, and it is one that I use quite a bit.

Review Mason Jar Sprouting Lid

Review Mason Jar Sprouting Lid

Review Mason Jar Sprouting Lid
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Since wheat is such a large part of my food storage plan, I try to sprout it occasionally to keep my family accustomed to the taste and texture of different ways to eat bulk wheat.

One of the problems I have when I sprout is not straining the wheat properly and having a white mold grow in my sprouting jar.

When I saw a $5 Mason Jar Sprouting Lid on Amazon I thought I would try it.

This lid made sprouting using mason jars much easier – I could fill and drain the jar without having to take the lid off –

It was much simpler than my old method of using a piece of cheesecloth and a rubber band.

It is also easier to clean – and I imagine that it will last as long as I will.

For those that don’t want to use a store-bought solution – I imagine you could drill a bunch of 1/8 inch holes in a plastic mayonnaise jar lid.

Sprouting is a great way to get more nutrients and use out of seeds, and seeds are generally easier to store than many other foods, so I feel that this is a win.

However, if you don’t want to buy a lid like this, I think you could probably improvise a mason jar sprouting lid using a Parmesan cheese lid.