Recipe: Emergency Baby Formula

Recipe: Emergency Baby Formula
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I am happy to say, we are out of Baby Formula Stage, little W.T. is getting bigger, so much so that we are now giving him much more water than milk, but when in we transitioned him off of breast milk, I looked up several recipes for “Emergency Baby Formula” I found this one from Prepared Not Scared to be the best.

There is some controversy over this, as Breast Milk and Formula both have more “optimal nutrients” but many generations of babies were successfully raised on this or similar formulas (or even goats milk) – as with anything – use your own common sense and research.  I am not a doctor, so I am not qualified or legally able to give you advice on what is best for your baby.

I will tell you, if it was this or nothing, it there is no question that I would choose to feed my child something like this rather than let them starve. Also, remember, cow’s milk is not readily digestible by young babies, hence the need for formula in the first place.  You can’t give a baby cow’s milk and expect them to thrive because the high protein is more than an infant’s kidney’s can handle.  Cow’s milk also does not have the right amounts of iron and vitamin C to fill your infant’s needs.

Ingredients:

  • 1/3 cup plus 2 Tbsp. Instant Powdered Milk OR 1/4 cup Non Instant Powdered Milk
  • 1 1/2 cup Boiled Water
  • 1 Tbsp. Oil
  • 2 tsp. Sugar

Procedure

  • Mix powdered milk and water together.
  • Blend thoroughly.
  • Add oil and sugar.

If baby bottles are not available, milk can be spoon fed to an infant.

Recipe: Peanut Butter Ramen – Not quite Pad Thai

Peanut Butter Ramen - Not quite Pad Thai
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This video shows a redneckinized Thai peanut noodles.  Kind of – my wife just calls it gross.

But I like Thai food on occasion, and I have a lot of Ramen stored away.  Ramen noodles are not the healthiest meal, but it is cheap.

Add a little chicken and some peanut butter and soy sauce and you have a pretty decent peanut butter ramen dish that I can’t quite call pad thai noodles, but its good enough for my redneck tastebuds

In making this dish, I got carried away with the peanut butter, I added about twice as much as it needed, but I like peanut butter and added for consistency and did not bother to taste.

I would suggest trying this if you store a lot of ramen, but also to taste as you mix…

Many commenters remarked on the large amount of peanut butter.  I did use a lot more than needed, but I like it that way.

This is not a health food in any stretch, and its not something I would enjoy eating often.

Peanut butter ramen is a novel meal.  The idea of taking something simple and modifying it is quite useful even if you don’t like this recipe.

How to Make Sweet Tea Vodka

 

52 Unique Techniques for Stocking Food for Prepper
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I love sweet tea, and I wanted to try to make something a little different, so I made up some sweet tea vodka.

  • To make tea infused vodka just pour a cup of vodka into a mason jar and add a tea bag and let steep until it got to the desired color.
  • To make sweet tea vodka add a tablespoon of sugar per cup of vodka.
  • After an hour the alcohol has pulled out the tea. and made tea with a kick.

I like mixing it half and half with lemonade to make a drink called the John Daly, but you can drink shots of your sweet tea vodka or chase it.

Anyway you want it that’s the way you get it.

This was a little bitter for my taste, so I mixed it with lemonade.  I prefer the John Daly as my method of drinking sweat tea vodka.

Actually, my favorite adult beverage is muscadine wine.  One of  these days I am going to plant some muscidines so I can make my own wine from the grapes.  I did grow blackberries for that reason, but the kiowa blackberries tended to get eaten before they were turned to juice.

Kitchen DIY:Golden Eggs

Kitchen DIY:Golden Eggs
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Once again I have to say I believe that the foundational idea behind crowd-sourcing is capabilities at its best – people have ideas that they beleive in and ask others to contribute funds with the promise of rewards when the project is completed.  Now I do have anecdotal evidence that my “favorite” crowd-sourcing platform has a liberal bias, but I still believe in helping people invent new things when the reward strikes me as worth the money.

Golden Eggs was one successful Kickstarter project that I helped fund.

Golden Eggs, are hard-boiled eggs that are scrambled in the shell before they are boiled.  Its a neat concept, and I had seen (and planned a video around) the process using a tea towel, but when I happened upon the kick starter project I decided to postpone the video and get the device.

Basically the golden goose is a silicone and hard plastic shell that fits around almost any sized egg (any egg you will get at a grocery store) which cradles the egg as it is spun very rapidly allowing inertia to scramble the egg.

It took me a couple tries to get the technique down – I had to figure out how to get the device spinning, and then when to stop (I spun a couple to failure breaking the egg in the goose.

When I boiled the eggs and peeled them to find a yellow egg instead of a white one I felt good.  Good enough to want to share, but not so ecstatic that I will do all my eggs this way – its a fun novelty, but I got TIRED….

Kitchen DIY: 2 Great Grilled Cheese Sandwich Techniques

Kitchen DIY: 2 Great Grilled Cheese Sandwich Techniques
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Feminists have no fear, as I am the sammich maker at my house.  I mean I do tell Genny to go make me a sandwich, but she tells me to get up and make it myself….

Having a toddler means I have plenty of time to get my grilled cheese skills refined – so much so that I want to share 2 Great Grilled Cheese Sandwich Techniques that I have perfected.  One is faster, one tastes better – but hey its a grilled cheese, so all recipes are fast and good enough…

First, instead of using butter on your bread – try mayonnaise – the fat content fries the bread beautifully, but it gives the sandwich a nice taste, plus it is much easier to spread.

the second is to heat the over to 350 and pour a little oil in a cookie sheet and lay out an even number of slices of bread in the oil – layering a single slice of cheese (or grated cheese) on each slice.  Bake for about 10 minutes and then combine two slices to make a nice set of sandwiches all at once.

Like I said, these 2 Grilled Cheese Sandwich Techniques are easy, there isn’t much to them, but they are tasty and fast.