I’m New to Tenkara Fishing, and I Love IT

Monday, June 10th, 2013 (Leave a reply)

My friend, Brandon Moon from Moonlitflyfishing.com, traded me a Tenkara fly fishing setup for some work I did for him. I have been out fishing 3 times now and it is so easy to learn and start catching fish. Recently I was at the local gravel pond just practicing with the Tenkara pole and I caught just under 20 fish in a short amount of time, I’m sure the other fisherman there were cussing under their breath every time I pulled one in. I need to take my camera next time.

I have always wanted to fly fish but have not had the money to get the gear or the time to develop the technique. A Tenkara rod costs a fraction of the price of a fly fishing rod plus it doesn’t have a reel to buy. The line ties to the end of the pole and to bring a fish in you just pull the rod behind you and grab the lined and yank it in. I never knew how much fun I was missing not fishing with flies, it is such a blast.

Tenkara fly fishing setup is perfect for a bug out bag because it collapses to 1 1/2 foot thin pole and the line and flies take up very little space. Plus, it seriously works great and is easy to use even in small creeks you might hike into.

some videos you might enjoy:

Now that I have had a some fun using Tenkara fishing, I really look forward to taking my daughter to catch some fish. I also want to take my scouts out for a fun day of fishing but I think I need another pole or 2 for them to share before I do.

UPDATE: I went Tenkara fishing at the pond 2 more times before I got a chance to publish this post and thought I would add a bit more here at the end. Saturday morning I went with Brandon Moon, who got me set up to Tenkara fly fish, and I caught 7 trout. I also went this morning, Monday, and caught 22 trout by 10am, I definitely out fished everyone else there combined. This just goes to show that Tenkara works on still water as well as streams, creeks, and rivers. I do look forward to fishing Tenkara on the river again though, I am officially addicted to Tenkara fly fishing now.

Spinach Artichoke Kamut Pizza

Thursday, June 6th, 2013 (Leave a reply)

Pizza Dough Rolled Out

Half-Baked Dough Topped

One thing that I really enjoy using for pizza dough is KAMUT flour, it adds such a great taste. I commonly use a half KAMUT half white flour combo for a light textured crust with the wonderful flavor of KAMUT.

I could probably pull off a 100% KAMUT crust but I am not a purest and I like this recipe better right now. I based my recipe off of whole wheat pizza recipe I found from Donna Miller that I have been using for about a year now. I have altered this recipe several times now but the recipe below is what I like most.

When I buy pizza, I really like Papa John’s Spinach Alfredo Pizza with bacon, spinach is a great pizza ingredient. Recently I found this recipe for Spinach Artichoke pizza that has just become my new favorite toppings. Combine the Spinach Artichoke with homemade KAMUT pizza crust and I am loving life, and so is whoever we invite over to share it with us.

On with the recipes…

Kamut Pizza Dough

Makes 2 large thick pizza crusts.

Author: Food Prepper

Ingredients

1½ cups hot tap water
4 tablespoons white sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon garlic powder
¼ teaspoon onion powder
2 cups KAMUT flour (freshly milled)
2 cups all-purpose white flour
½ teaspoon yeast

Instructions

Start the night before and bake the next day for lunch or dinner.
Add all ingredients into the mixer except for the all-purpose white flour and yeast.
Mix on low for 30 seconds.
Add the all-purpose what flour to mixer bowl and add yeast on top of the flour.
Mix on medium speed for 3½ minutes, add a little more flour if you feel it is needed.
Remove dough from mixer and place in a greased bowl that is 3 times the size of the dough.
Cover bowl lightly with plastic wrap and let rise over night.
The next morning, dust the counter top with some flour and dump the dough out onto the floured surface.
Divide the dough in half.
Form each piece into a ball by pushing the edges into the bottom center of the dough until the top is a smooth round shape.
pinch the bottom together and place each dough ball into a separate zip-lock bag with some air in each bag.
Placed bagged dough in the fridge for use later, at least 30 minutes.
Remove dough from fridge and roll each out onto a piece of parchment paper, leaving the edge a little thicker than the rest.
Place pizza stone in oven and pre-heat to 425 degrees.
Let oven pre-heat for 30 minutes.
Transfer parchment paper with rolled out dough into the oven (flat cookie sheet works well for this) and bake for 4 minutes, then remove from oven. Repeat this step for 2nd pizza dough.
Top half-baked pizza crust with sauce, toppings and cheese.
Bake for 8-12 more minutes, until bottom of crust is well browned but not burnt.

Spinach Artichoke Pizza Toppings

This makes enough sauce for about 2 large pizzas.

Author: Food Prepper

Ingredients

¾ cup heavy cream
6 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons cream cheese
¾ cup fresh-grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons granular Parmesan, the stuff in the can (or use more Parmesan cheese)
1 teaspoon garlic powder
6 ounces fresh spinach leaves, chopped smaller
1 can artichoke hearts, rinsed and dried and chopped into 8ths
Dash Italian seasoning
¼ teaspoon salt
About 1½ cups mozzarella cheese to top pizza

Instructions

Add butter, heavy cream, and cream cheese to a sauce pan and stir over low heat until fully melted.
Add grated and granular Parmesan cheese to sauce pan.
Stir together and continue to cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Cook spinach with 2 tablespoons water over medium low heat until wilted.
Drain spinach and squeeze spinach dry in a few paper towels.
Add spinach to sauce and stir well.
Spread sauce over pizza crust and top with mozzarella cheese and artichoke.

Spinach artichoke pizza topping compliments whole wheat pizza crust quite well also, or any other pizza crust you want to put it on.

Enter to WIN a GRAIN MILL

Monday, June 3rd, 2013 (Leave a reply)

I think that everyone should have a grain mill, especially prepper. I understand that some of you cannot afford one and so I thought I would pass along this giveaway information where you can enter to win an electric or hand grain mill at: http://www.thewondermill.com/challenges/blogger-challenge-non-wheat-flour/

Giveaway ends September 1st 2013.

WonderMill-Wonder-Junior-Grain-Mills

I will try to keep this page updated to active grain mill giveaways, so check back for current giveaways available.

Feel free to inform me of any grain mill giveaways that you know of by commenting below.

Chocolate Pancakes using Spelt Four

Thursday, May 30th, 2013 (Leave a reply)

Comfort foods can help lighten our minds of the troubles we might go through if we ever had to use our food storage to get by. One thing my wife is addicted to, and most other women, is chocolate anything. Having this in mind, I decided to work up a chocolate pancake recipe for the current WonderMill Challenge that I am participating in (which I hope to get some cash from). I found a chocolate whole wheat pancake recipe on Food+Fun=Life blog that looked delicious.

After trying her recipe, I decided to make some I made some big changes. I added an egg, used spelt flour (freshly milled at a fine setting), and used a baking powder / baking soda combination instead of 4 teaspoons baking powder. I really liked the taste and texture that I got and I think the spelt flour tastes better than whole wheat flour with chocolate, plus spelt is better for you.

These pancakes disappeared super quick and are now our family favorite, it tastes a bit like chocolate cake. We have been topping them with a vanilla sauce found at the Food+Fun=Life blog, she also has a peanut butter sauce there that I would like to try also. Here is my pancake recipe below.

Spelt Chocolate Pancakes

Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

10 mins

Total time

20 mins

Makes about 12 small pancakes.

Author: Food Prepper

Serves: 3-4

Ingredients

2 cups spelt flour
½ cup cocoa powder
3 tablespoons sugar
1½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 large egg

Instructions

Pre-heat electric griddle to 375 degrees..
Add all dry ingredients to a mixing bowl and whisk together.
Add all wet ingredients to a 2nd mixing bowl and whisk together.
Add dry ingredient mix to wet ingredient mixing bowl and whisk till it just comes together.
Lightly spray your hot griddle with cooking spray.
Use a ¼ measuring cup to scoop the pancake batter onto the griddle.
I cook my pancakes 1 minute 45 seconds on the first side and 2 minutes 15 seconds on the second side for perfect pancakes, this may vary on your griddle.

The photographs are courtesy of my wife, she is a great photographer.

No Yeast? No Problem! (+ Pizza)

Monday, May 13th, 2013 (1 Reply)

I have been seeing “sourdough” quite a bit lately on some of the food blogs I check up on. There are supposedly several benefits to using sourdough (aka natural yeast) rather than commercial yeast, I won’t get into these benefits but you can research them for yourself. Seeing all these sourdough posts got me thinking, WHAT IF I RAN OUT OF YEAST? What if I could not get any more yeast? What would I do? The answer is simple, I can capture my own wild yeast by creating a sourdough starter.

There are many sourdough starter methods out there but I found a simple one that just uses water and flour. You just mix flour with water, let it sit for 12 hours and feed it flour and water again. You keep feeding it flour and water every 12 hours and about 3 days in your starter will start getting bubbles in it, this is captured wild yeast. The method I used was from ebook “Sourdough from A to Z” which is similar the process in this video (click for video) but the ebook is much better in my opinion.

I decided I had to try this in-case I needed to do it. I used freshly ground whole wheat flour from my WonderMill grain mill and in about a week I had an active sourdough starter. The process was simple, the hard part was remembering to feed it every 12 hours or so. I also found that if you keep your sourdough well feed, it will not have a sour taste.

Our Little Pizza Princess

Last night, I added half of the starter to a pizza dough recipe I have used in the past. It took a little guessing to adjust the flour and water of the recipe for the addition of my sourdough starter since it was not a sourdough recipe. I let the dough rise overnight and baked pizza for lunch the next day. It worked wonderfully and tasted great.

I am definitely going to keep my sourdough starter going and use it in some other recipes for fun. The topping for this pizza was probably the best I have tried yet, Spinach Artichoke with a homemade sauce. I’ve mentioned before that I am an artichoke lover, and I am always on the lookout for a new artichoke recipe.

Spinach Artichoke Whole Wheat Pizza

Several items I used in this post are things I store in my food storage such as canned artichoke, whole wheat, water, and shredded cheese. We have also started a vegetable garden this year and our spinach is already starting to grow. Just trying to keep true to “storing what I eat and eating what I store”.

And if you ever run out of yeast you now know you can capture your own. I suggest you give it a try and become familiar to the way mankind did before commercial yeast was available.

I also shared this post on Bake Your Own Bread linkup.

Artichoke Pasta Salad

Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013 (2 Replies)

Artichoke is something I have fallen in love with ever since I ate at a local Greek restaurant. Ever since then I look for something with artichoke on the menu of restaurants. I recently started to look into canned artichoke in my kitchen and have been having a lot of fun, one day I plan on getting daring and use fresh artichoke. Canned artichoke keeps for about a year, a good item to store if you can rotate it into your regular recipes.

My wife used to make pasta salad from a box quite a bit, which tastes fine but it is nothing compared to this pasta salad. Needless to say, we don’t buy boxed pasta salads anymore. We make it fresh and we make enough to use for a couple days.

5.0 from 1 reviews

Artichoke Pasta Salad

Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

10 mins

Total time

20 mins

Author: Food Prepper

Ingredients

3 cups uncooked bow-tie pasta (or other pasta)
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1 can water-packed artichoke hearts, rinsed, drained and chopped
2 can (2-1/4 ounces) sliced ripe olives, drained
3 ounces sliced pepperoni
1 small onion (red or yellow), diced
½ cup shredded Parmesan cheese
½ cup chopped green pepper
(optional) 1 Avocado diced
1 cup Italian salad dressing

Instructions

Cook pasta according to package directions.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the mozzarella cheese, artichokes, avocado, olives, pepperoni, onion, Parmesan cheese, green pepper, and Italian dressing.
Stir until well mixed.
Drain pasta and rinse under cold water until pasta is chilled.
Add chilled pasta to mixing bowl and toss together.
Serve right away or cover and chill in the fridge till ready. I think it tastes better when it has chilled in the fridge for 30+ minutes, it seems to marinate a bit.

I usually use store bought Italian dressing because it is so cheap but you can even make your own Italian dressing dry mix if you want to store it long term. I make sure I have the spices and dry herbs to make the dry mix and put the recipe in my collection if I end up needing it.

Dry pasta is also a great item to have in your food storage, if stored properly it will keep for a really long time. I buy it in regular size packages and stuff the packages into a sealed 5 gallon bucket. Pasta does not have hardly any nutritional value, like white flour, but it is great for adding variety to your meals and it is easy to cook. My favorite pasta to use is the bow-tie pasta, it seems to be the easiest pasta for my toddler to eat by herself.

I store quite a bit of shredded cheese in my freezer which will keep it good for about 6 months or so, I haven’t fully tested this yet. I buy huge bags of shredded cheese at Costco and divide it up in freezer bags for convenience.

Onions and green pepper, as well as other vegetables you could substitute into this recipe, are easy to grow in your own garden. We started our first vegetable garden at our new house this year, hope all grows well. Even though onions and green peppers are cheap to buy I think it is a good thing for any prepper to grown there own.

Spelt Wheat

Thursday, April 11th, 2013 (Leave a reply)

One of my goals in my food storage is to have, and learn to use, a wide variety of different whole grains in my food storage. I now have a few 5 gallon buckets of Spelt Wheat and baked quite a few recipes with it. So far I have found spelt wheat to work great for pancakes and cookies and I hope to explore some new foods this spring and summer with it.

Spelt is much lower in gluten than whole wheat and also much higher in protein and other nutrients. It is considered an ancient grain like KAMUT but it has a has quite a different taste and grinds up much finer than KAMUT wheat. Spelt wheat will store 30+ in good conditions, just like whole wheat.

Because spelt is lower in gluten than whole wheat it can be tougher to use for making yeast breads by itself, loaves may come out much denser than normal. The plus side to being lower in gluten is that spelt is easier on your tummy and many people who are gluten intolerant can eat spelt with out the side effects they get from other wheat products.

Spelt not only works great in non-yeast-ed baked goods by itself but it is also a great wheat to combine with other whole grain flours. Chef Brad created a whole grain flour mix called WonderFlour to replace all-purpose flour in most recipes. He sells pre-packaged WonderFlour but you can also make your own with a good grain mill, click here to see the video for making WonderFlour. I found out about WonderFlour while taking the Grain Mill Wagon Challenge and it was fun to play with.

Spelt Recipes to Try:

Spelt Pancakes

Spelt Chocolate Chip Cookies

Whole Grain Peach Pancakes

Spelt Gingerbread Pancakes

Ricotta Spelt Waffles

Vegetable Garden Minestrone Soup

Tuesday, March 26th, 2013 (3 Replies)

My parents have always had a large garden that produces quite a bit, kind-of fitting since both of their parents were involved in farming during the great depression and through out their lives. if you ask my mom’s dad about the great depression he would tell you that he didn’t even notice it because his family and those in his community ate what they grew. It was so awesome as a kid to go out in our garden and just eat food right off the vine, peas where our favorites.

Now that I have a yard big enough to have a garden so we are starting this year with our first square food garden, the soil in our yard is not that good for a garden. We are planning to add more square food gardens every year till we have quite a garden to eat from, hope that plan works out like I am hoping. The idea is to grow more of what we eat instead of relying on the grocery stores for fresh fruits and veggies. We even planted 5 fruit trees last fall that should be producing in 3-4 years.

In the thought of starting our own garden, I wanted to share an awesome minestrone soup recipe that uses vegetables that can mostly be grown in our garden, as we expand it. My in-laws shared this recipe with us. The soup is a bit of work, mostly dicing and chopping, but it is so worth it.

5.0 from 1 reviews

Vegetable Garden Minestrone Soup

Prep time

20 mins

Cook time

50 mins

Total time

1 hour 10 mins

Author: Food Prepper

Serves: 10

Ingredients

Olive oil
1 small onion, diced
1 large carrot, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
2-3 small zucchinis, chopped
1 yellow squash, chopped
1 hand full fresh green beans, chopped
2 cups cauliflower, chopped in larger chunks
Small head of cabbage, chopped
1 tablespoon salt
¼ cup shredded Parmesan cheese (or cheese rind)
2 small tomatoes, diced
3 cups water
2 stalks fresh basil
1 can garbanzo beans
1½ cups frozen super sweet white corn

Instructions

Pre-chop all your vegetables before you start.
Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to a very large stock pot and heat to medium heat.
Add the following vegetables to the pot one by one stirring about 30 seconds before adding the next vegetable, add a small drizzle of olive oil with each vegetable. Add onion, carrots, celery, zucchini, yellow squash, green beans, and cauliflower.
Cover and let cook for about 7 minutes.
Add cabbage, salt, parmesan cheese, tomatoes, and water to the pot and stir together.
Cover and reduce heat to a simmer for 30 minutes.
Add basil stalks, garbanzo beans, and white corn to pot and stir together.
Cover and simmer for 5 minutes.
Remove basil stalks (and cheese rind if you used one) and remove pot from heat.
Serve topped with shredded parmesan cheese and a little drizzle of olive oil.

I also thought this recipe would give you a break from the whole grain recipes I have been sharing. I hope you give it a try and enjoy it.

We submitted this recipe to several whole food linkups: Whole Foods Wednesday, Traditional Tuesdays, Real Food Wednesday, Tasty Traditions, Nomday Monday, Delicious Dish Tuesday, Chef’s Day Off, and Eat Make Grow,

Oat Flour Pancakes (Old-Fashioned)

Wednesday, March 20th, 2013 (5 Replies)

I have about 40 pounds oat groats in my food storage right now that I need to start implementing more in my recipes because I want to eat what I store. I’ve used oats in the past by rolling oat groats into rolled oats with my friends Marga Oat Roller, I have also used oat flour sparingly in a few recipes. I decided to try something with all oat flour and my little girl has been a pancake eating monster lately so here goes another pancake recipe.

To make oat flour it is best to use a grain mill and grind it from oat groats or steel cut oats, rolled oats from the store have usually lost much nutritional value and they tend to get stuck going into electric grain mills. I like to grind my oats on a setting just between Pastry and Bread on my WonderMill grain mill.

This oat pancake recipe would be great for adding fruit to or topping with a fruit compote, or just plain syrup. Oat flour pancakes are a great alternative for those of you who are gluten-intolerant and some people who need to be gluten-free. I have heard some people that many people who have celiac disease can sometimes have issues with oats also. Those with celiac will also want to make sure that there oats are certified gluten-free as some oats are harvested with the same equipment that harvests wheat.

5.0 from 3 reviews

Oat Flour Pancakes (Old-Fashioned Style)

makes about 12 pancakes at the ¼ cup batter size.

Author: Food Prepper

Ingredients

1¾ cup freshly ground oat flour
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1½ tablespoons canola oil
2 large eggs
½ teaspoon vanilla (optional)

Instructions

Pre-heat electric griddle to 375 degrees..
Add all dry ingredients to a mixing bowl and whisk together.
Add all wet ingredients to a 2nd mixing bowl and whisk together.
Add dry ingredient mix to wet ingredient mixing bowl and whisk till it just comes together.
Lightly spray your hot griddle with cooking spray.
Use a ¼ measuring cup to scoop the pancake batter onto the griddle.
I cook my pancakes 1 minute 45 seconds on the first side and 2 minutes 15 seconds on the second side for perfect pancakes, this may vary on your griddle.

Maple Extract

Thursday, March 14th, 2013 (Leave a reply)

An opened container of imitation maple extract, or maple flavoring, will last a year in your cupboard. I am guessing that an unopened container will much longer but I don’t know for sure. I try to keep 3 bottles of imitation maple extract in my cupboard at all times, which is about a 6-12 month supply for our family.

It can be used for making syrup for pancakes or even flavoring breads, cookies, baked goods, cranberry sauce, frosting, meats, grilling, sauces, and other sweets.

Recipes to Try Using Maple:

Imitation Maple Syrup

100% Whole Wheat Rolls

I hope to have more recipe posts to share in the near future.