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Traditional Sour Cabbage Rolls

At this time of year, I’m cleaning out my freezers for the summer months. I am always looking for recipes to use up frozen tomatoes, ground meats, organs and bones. Traditional Sour Cabbage Rolls are a great food for cold winter days or even rainy summer weather like today. This recipe does not use brown rice so is safe for people on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. If you would like, add 1/2c of raw brown rice to the recipe. Note the optional organ meats. Try adding the organs meats to casserole type meals and see if anyone notices the change. Joette Calabrese in Secret Spoonfuls: Confessions of a Sneaky Mom, recommends adding organ meats to increase the nutrient content of a meal.

Rolls
1 head of sour cabbage
2lbs. ground pastured beef
1lb. ground pastured pork
1/2lb. ground organ meats (optional)
2c finely chopped onions
3-4 minced cloves of garlic
1T paprika
1tsp sea salt
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Sauce
3-4 frozen garden tomatoes, skins removed
2-3c bone broth
You can make your own sour cabbage, if you have time, or buy it from a store. Carefully peel the cabbage leaves off the head. You will need to cut through the heavy vein at the base of the stem to get the leaves off. After removing the leaves, cut the leaf in half and remove the large central vein in the middle with a knife. This vein gets in the way of forming the cabbage roll. Use about 2-3 tablespoons of the raw meat filling and form into a oval shape. Place the filling on the half leaf and start rolling from the vein end towards the edge of the leaf. Tuck in each end to close the roll. Do not over stuff the cabbage roll. The rolls should be placed one at a time into a large Dutch Oven with the seam side down. (If you have an enamel Dutch Oven this is the time to use it, due to the acids in the tomatoes and sour cabbage.) Make two or three layers of rolls for the best results. Top each layer with one or two hand crushed tomatoes. Pour as much bone broth as needed to completely cover the cabbage rolls. Bake uncovered at 300F for two hours. The cabbage rolls taste even better the next day after the flavors meld together.

Chicks, Chicks and More Chicks

Last year a neighbor lent us an incubator and we hatched two loads of eggs. The first hatch was Quail eggs which went very well. For the second hatch, we ordered fertile eggs from a small backyard breeder of heritage birds. Unfortunately, this hatch did not go very well. We had what is known as a sticky hatch. This is when something goes wrong with the hatching and the chicks have trouble getting out of the shell. We had about 50% mortality in the shell and in the first few days of life. There was also a number of birth defects in the chicks. This sticky hatch really put us back last year. We ended up having to buy some point of lay hens to get the right number of birds.

A few days ago, we received our order of day old chicks from Miller Hatcheries. The chicks come in the mail from Westlock, AB. When the call from Canada Post came in, we drove down to the post office and picked up the birds. We have found getting live chicks from a respected hatchery will ensure healthy birds and less mortality. We get the chicks without immunization and do not have them de-beaked. Chickens that are not in confinement do not need be de-beaked for their own safety and actually need their beaks for foraging in the pasture. We ordered 50 Cornish Giants, a meat bird, and 50 sexed Red Rock Cross laying hens.

It is very important for the chicks to be kept at a constant temperature, so for the first week we have the chicks in our living room. Shaen got two large cardboard boxes, which he joined together into one very large box. He covered the bottom of the box with a few inches of spelt hulls from Fieldstone Granary. He set up the water and food. We use a standard un-medicated chick starter. When the chicks get a bit bigger we will put them on pasture and a homemade chick scratch made from organic grains from Fieldstone Granary. Shaen uses a red heat lamp for warmth. Miller Hatchery sends detailed instructions about the care of chicks, but Shaen likes watching the chick’s behavior for a better gauge of comfort. If the chicks are crowded around underneath the heat lamp, it is too cold, and he will lower the lamp to increase the temperature. If the chicks are crowded around the perimeter of the box, it is too hot, and he will raise the heat lamp. Shaen likes to see the chicks actively moving around in comfort.

Later we got a call from Rochester Hatchery. They specialize in heritage breeds. Originally, they had no extra birds available for this year, so we got put on their call list for order cancellations. We got the Rochester’s Heritage Group Pack. There is a mixture of 50 Ameraucana, Buff Orpingtons, Danish Brown Leghorns and Buff Brahams. There are a lot of chicks in my living room this week!

Birthday Chocolate Ice Cream

2-3 raw pastured eggs
1/4c raw local honey
1/4c organic cocoa powder
4c raw cream
1T organic vanilla extract
small amount of liqueur, if desired

In Dietary Dangers the Weston A Price Foundation consider chocolate a food to avoid. Cocoa and very dark chocolate may have some health benefits in small qualities but most commercial chocolate is full of chemical additives. If you consume chocolate on special occasions the best options are using organic cocoa powder or organic cocoa nibs. If you must purchase chocolate choose a very dark chocolate from a high quality Chocolatier.

This ice cream is a holiday favorite in our household. If you cannot find raw cream, use a quality organic whipping cream without additives. Using a raw local honey is a great way to help your immune system if you have seasonal allergies, but the honey must be local and raw to be helpful. Blend the honey, egg yolks, cocoa powder and vanilla together and then add the cream. Pour the ingredients into an ice cream maker or use a shallow container in the freezer. For more information about making ice cream without a machine please read Cream, Cream and More Ice Cream.

When ready to serve, put ice cream in chilled bowls. Add a small amount of a liqueur that goes well with chocolate, if desired. Here is a list of liqueurs.

Milk, Milk and More Milk

Patty is into her flush of milk. Even though Patty is feeding two adopted calves, she is producing over 56L of milk and cream a week. It is time to freeze milk for the winter even through it is hard to think about the cold winter months when the summer heat has just started. There are some good reasons to milk seasonally and freeze milk:

1. The best milk is from cows on fresh green pasture which is only available for part of the year in Kamloops.
2. Unless you have a herd of dairy cows and can stagger pregnancies, having fresh raw milk all year round is almost impossible. Milking cows need to be dried off at some point in their pregnancy. The milking cow will be physically stressed by any third trimester milking. This stress may negatively affect the calf’s health and the cow’s longevity.
3. The Milker needs a break from the twice a day labor of milking. Milking in winter, in the dark and cold, isn’t any fun.

Last year, I experimented with freezing milk with and without the cream. Skimmed milk freezes very well and when unfrozen is similar to a commercial 2% milk. Milk with a cream layer has a lumpy texture when unfrozen. Last year, I tried freezing in glass jars to avoid using plastics. This did not go very well. I had some breakages which made me realize that sometimes it is better to use plastics even though I do not consider plastics in contact with food safe.

This year, I will skim off the cream and freeze the milk in 2L rectangle plastic containers. I will pop the frozen milk out of the plastic container, use two layers of plastic bags to protect the milk from off flavors, and date each brick. I will need put away about 110, 2L bricks of milk to make it through Patty’s dry period. This spring, we consumed frozen milk which was about five months old. I could not detect any off flavors, so storing for six months seems possible.

Freezing milk is easy and can save money. My family goes through about 8L of milk and about 1L of cream a week. Of course, I can’t get raw milk from the Industrial Food System but the closest product, organic milk, would cost my family over $2000 a year. My family goes through about two or three pounds of organic butter a week, which costs over $1000 a year. If you are interested in how to make butter please read Making Raw Sweet Butter or Raw Cultured Butter.

Another product we make is ice cream. High quality ice cream is very expensive. During the hot summer months, we make about 1L of ice cream ever day. If you would like to learn some of our favorite ice cream recipes, please read Cream, Cream and More Ice Cream Recipes. Our girls can eat as much of this delicious food as they want. I feel very good about the quality of the ice cream knowing every ingredient that went into the dessert. I know the raw cream is full of healthy fats that will help my girls grow into strong women.

Cream, Cream and More Ice Cream Recipes

Making ice cream at home, will save you money, and the product will be better than anything available commercially. There are so many nasty additives in commercial ice cream. None of these additives are necessary, and some may harm your family members. In fact, commercial ice cream has become an ersatz food and should be avoided. Raw ice cream made at home is a superfood. Do not worry if your children eat a lot of this delicious food.

I have just started using a Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker, but a machine is not needed for making ice cream. I do not like the idea that ice cream makers have an inner lining made of aluminum. The Wise Traditions Study Group considers the aluminum used in this manner is “safe”. There is no heat used so no metal is transferred to the food.

If you do not have a ice cream maker, pour the ingredients into a shallow container and place in the freezer. Every hour, remove the container and mix the contents vigorously to break up the ice crystals. This will give a creamy smooth texture to the ice cream. If you forget about the ice cream and it freezes solid, just cut the ice cream up into small squares and blend in the food processor until smooth and creamy. I made ice cream for years with this method.

Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
4 cups raw cream
3 raw pastured egg yolks
1/4c raw local honey
2T organic vanilla extract
small amount of freshly ground vanilla bean (optional)
This ice cream is an all time favorite in our household. If you cannot find raw cream, use a quality organic whipping cream without additives. Using a raw local honey is a great way to help your immune system if you have seasonal allergies, but the honey must be local and raw to be helpful. Blend the honey, egg yolks and vanilla together and then add the cream. Pour the ingredients into an ice cream maker or use a shallow container in the freezer. The egg yolks gives this ice cream a rich yellow color. You will never look at the “white” color of commercial vanilla ice cream the same again.

Very Berry Ice Cream
3c raw cream
2c frozen strawberries, blueberries or cherries
2 raw pastured egg yolks
1/8c raw local honey (optional)
At this time of year, I am digging into the bottom of my deep freezers, emptying out fruit picked last season. Use a food processor to puree the frozen fruit. If you cannot find raw cream, use a quality organic whipping cream without additives. Add the other ingredients and blend. Pour the ingredients into an ice cream maker or, if you do not have a ice cream maker, pour into a shallow container and place in the freezer. This ice cream will be ready very quickly because of the frozen fruit.

Updated July 6, 2010: Here is a recipe for Birthday Chocolate Ice Cream.

Lacto-Fermentation Horseradish Condiment

Making fresh horseradish condiment at home is very easy. Making condiments at home saves money and the condiment will be of better quality than any product available from the Industrial Food System. If you have a sensitivity to the Nightshade Family, using horseradish instead of hot peppers is a good substitute. Common symptoms of Nightshade Family sensitivity are the many forms of Arthritis, digestive disorders, and unexplained pain and stiffness that does not go away with treatment. If you would like more information about this topic please read an essay from the Weston A Price Foundation called Nightshades.

2c finely grated and peeled horseradish root
1T sea salt
1/4c live whey culture
extra filtered water if horseradish root is very dry (optional)
Clean and peel the horseradish root. Grate the horseradish root in a well ventilated space or work outside. Or chop up the horseradish into small pieces and grind into a fine paste using a food processor. The vapors that come off horseradish root makes crying from onions seem like a joke! Add the sea salt and homemade whey. Store the horseradish in a glass jar with extra space at the top to take the expansion during fermentation. If you do not know how to make whey please read Making Homemade Lacto-Fermentation Whole Seed Mustard. Let the horseradish sit in a warm place in your kitchen for 2-3 days until you can see many bubbles forming in the condiment. The horseradish condiment will last for months in the fridge. The horseradish’s flavor will continue to “evolve” and mellow from the action of the live whey culture in your fridge over a number of months. You can serve the horseradish as is, or remove an amount you are going to use that day and add an equal amount of heavy fresh cream. I like it the best this way.

Pastures, Electric Fences and Milking Problems

About 2 weeks ago, Joe and Eric finished the perimeter fencing and one cross fence on the far side of the gully. Joe dug out the spring with a big excavator and there is a 3000 gallon accumulation tank which works as a reservoir for the spring. Joe did some work with a backhoe putting in a road into the middle of the lower four acres.

Shaen worked every free minute he had to get the pasture ready for moving Patty and the calves. Shaen has 700′ of 3/4″ black poly hose running from the spring. There is a filter to reduce particulates in the line. He has about 45psi at the bottom of the hose but this pressure increases as the accumulation tank is drawn down. He finished off the roadway with a backhoe and made a turnaround large enough for us to bring in our big truck.

Shean moved an 8′x12′ tool shed to the property. It was scary for me to watch him move the heavy building but he got it into place without anyone getting injured. This building is a secure storage area for equipment and supplies for the cattle. It will also be one side wall for a hay, feed and chip shed which we will be building this summer. We built a small paddock about 30′x30′ to train the cattle on electric fencing. Shaen called it the ugliest fence he’d ever seen. The fence is pretty rickety too, but we were running out of time and just needed to move the cattle. The idea was to use the paddock to train the cattle on electric fences. Thus, strength wasn’t really needed.

We moved the cattle to the new pasture on May 30, 2010. Patty immediately started eating the wonderful rich forage. The calves started running around, leaping and jumping. But the training on electric fencing in the small paddock did not go well. Patty hit her nose on the electric fence then backed up in a hurry and hit her butt into another electric fence. She was quite upset, having no place to go but up. The calves found ways to break out of the paddock and would walk through the electric fencing taking the shock over stopping their romping. Then Patty walked through an un-electrified gate as we madly chased the calves around the property. It was not an auspicious start!

Shaen was worried we would never catch them again on the property. We stopped chasing and started working to secure the paddock so the calves could not get out. Patty headed up the gully to feast on some delicious forage. The calves leaped and jumped for joy at their new found freedom. After we got the paddock secure we worked together to catch the calves which were tired after all that wonderful play. I caught Patty and we milked her. But she did not want to go back into the paddock. As I led her towards the paddock she took me for a run. I did not let go but instinctively dropped to the ground on my knees. This spun Patty around. I weigh about 125lbs and Patty weighs about 800lbs. After that incident we got her into the paddock but without power to the electric fence. We were betting Patty wouldn’t walk through the fence, even through she likely could. We thought Patty, having been trained to fences, would not consider the idea that she could just walk through our weak fence. This proved to be true and we found Patty and the calves in the paddock in the morning.

The next day’s milking went better. Our netted electric fencing arrived too. Shean worked to get the fencing up and make a new pasture area for Patty and another area for the calves. We also had another problem. Two of Patty’s teats had sores from the vigorous feeding of the calves. One teat was especially damaged. We decided to try two controlled feedings a day. This time we protected the damaged teats with our hands and would allow each calf one undamaged teat to drain. When the calves started to seriously butt Patty they would be pulled off and returned to their electrified pasture area. We carefully milked out the damaged teats. After we were finished milking, we used Bag Balm on her teats and udder. I am somewhat uncomfortable using Bag Balm because of the petroleum product and antiseptic chemical in the preparation. We will shift over to straight coconut oil as soon as possible.

Within a few days Patty and the calves got used to the netted electric fences and the double strand electric wire. We are getting used to the twice a day milking. We are getting about 14 gallons of milk a week, even though Patty is feeding twins. With the fresh forage the cream line is going up from about 10% of the volume to 30% for night milking and 50% for morning milking. Patty’s teats are healing but we have to clear brush in the pasture area because Patty is getting scratches on her udder as she moves around to feed. We are starting to understand why farmers coddled their dairy cows. They do have special needs.

Undated July 11, 2010: After about a week of controlled feeding, Shaen decided to go back to bottle feeding for the male calf. He is just too rough on Patty’s teats. We have to allow the female calf to suckle on Patty or Patty will not let-down her milk. The calves are always in a separate pasture from Patty, though Patty can see the calves throughout the day. We cannot understand why the female calf fights us going to the feeding. We understand why she would fight us when we pull her off to milk Patty. It’s a lot of extra work to manage the cow calf relationship. I hope we will not have to do this for Patty’s next calf.

Krystal, our relief milker, started using an Ouch Cream on Patty’s damaged teat. This cream finished off the healing of this very big wound on one of Patty’s teats.

Patty has been plagued by hordes of flies so we have moved our layers to the pasture. It took about a week for the chickens to realize the wonderful maggots to be found in the cow patties. Our little manure spreaders are enjoying a wonderful meal while cleaning up the pasture. The number of flies on Patty has halved.

Making Homemade Lacto-Fermentation Whole Seed Mustard

There are many types of prepared mustard. In France, Dijon mustard is light in color and has a strong flavor. Bordeaux mustard is darker, with a mild flavor, and may include additives such as salt, vinegar, sugar and tarragon. Meaux mustard is mild and made from crushed mustard seeds rather than grinding seeds to a fine powder. German mustard is similar to Bordeaux mustard. English mustard is very strong. American-style yellow mustard is a mixture of the mildest mustard seeds with salt, vinegar, sugar, and turmeric. The turmeric gives mustard its characteristic color.

Homemade Lacto-Fermentation Whole Seed Mustard
Making homemade mustard is very easy. It will be fresher and of better quality than any mustard you can find commercially. Making your own mustard will also save money. This whole seed mustard is very much like the French Meaux Mustard. This recipe will get its vinegar-like flavor from lacto-fermentation. The mustard’s flavor will continue to “evolve” from the action of the live whey culture in your fridge over a number of months. The mustard will start as fiery hot and age into a mild, complex rich flavor.

1c brown mustard seeds
1T sea salt
1/4tsp turmeric (optional)
1/4c live whey culture
Take the mustard seeds and soak them for two days in filtered water. Change the water once or twice in a day. The mustard seeds should start to sprout during this time. (If they do not, find another source of seeds. The seeds are dead and have been given some sort of treatment to make the seeds store longer.) After the seeds have started to sprout, rinse the seeds one more time and pour off the water. Mix the mustard seeds, sea salt and turmeric, if desired. You can use any food processor to grind the seeds into a fine paste. Add more filtered water, if needed, for a smooth consistency. Store the mustard in a glass container. Add the live culture whey and let the mustard sit at room temperature for two days. This will activate the culture and make the mustard last for months in the fridge. The fresh mustard will start out very hot and mellow over time.

Live Whey Culture
Live whey culture is very easy to make. Use a cheese cloth bag or fine cotton cloth to drain the whey from homemade yoghurt. Whey is the whitish, watery material that comes off the yoghurt. If you continue to drain the yoghurt for about 24 hours, you will have a lovely yoghurt cream cheese. You can store live whey culture for months in the fridge.

Whole Seed Mustard Dressing
1c extra virgin olive oil
1tsp sea salt
1/4c raw apple cider vinegar, raw wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar
1T cold-pressed sesame seed oil (optional)
1T whole seed mustard
After you ground your mustard seeds into a fine paste in the food processor, cleaning out the last of the mustard paste can be a chore. You can “clean” out your food processor by making some salad dressing. Add all of the ingredients together and blend. The mustard will emulsify the oils into a thick, creamy dressing. Store the dressing in a glass container in the fridge for easy use.

Recipes for Nourishing Traditional Travel Foods

Beef Jerky
2 large lean beef roasts (about 6 pounds)
1tsp Himalayan salt per pound of meat (or to taste)
Let the pastured beef roasts thaw in the fridge for 3-4 days. This gives the roasts a bit more aging which improves the end flavor. Cut the roasts into 1/4 inch strips the width of the roast, if possible. Add Himalayan salt to the strips of meat and mix well. Let the meat sit for a few hours or overnight, if you have time. Himalayan salt is a “pink salt”. Traditional pink salts were used for curing meats. These pink salts have natural sodium nitrites and sodium nitrates. Himalayan salt is great for curing meat. Put the salted meat into the dehydrator at a low temperature for 12-24 hours. The best beef jerky is dried but chewy. For travel, store a day’s supply in paper bags with a plastic zip-lock outer bag.

Soaked and Dried Nut Granola
3c soaked and dried pecans
3c soaked and dried walnuts
6-12 pitted and soaked dates
1T vanilla extract
1T ground cinnamon
1/2tsp sea salt (optional)
1c soaked and dried pumpkin and sunflower seeds (optional)
Soak the pecans and walnuts in lightly salted water for 12 hours. Pour off salted water and dehydrate nuts of 12-24 hours at a low temperature. When the nuts are dried they can be stored in the freezer for later use. Grind the nuts into a course meal in a food processor and put aside in a large bowl. In a small bowl, cover the dates with very hot water. Soak the dates until soft. Grind up the dates in a food processor and add some of the date water to make a smooth paste. Add the vanilla extract, ground cinnamon and sea salt. Mix in nuts and add more date water, if needed. Add whole pumpkin and sunflower seeds, if desired. You can shape the mixture into granola bars or crumble into irregular shapes for a granola cereal. For travel, store a day’s supply in paper bags with a plastic zip-lock outer bag.

Dried Bananas
2-3 bunches of over ripe bananas
Peel the bananas and cut in half. Then cut down the mid-line of the banana. You will have four pieces for each banana. Place the cut bananas in the dehydrator with the curved side down, to avoid sticking. Dry at low temperature for 24-36 hours. My girls call these dried bananas candy.

Frozen Tomato Salsa
6 large frozen garden tomatoes
1 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped
1 fresh red or green pepper, chopped
1 small fresh carrot, chopped
1 small onion, chopped (optional)
small amount of fresh hot pepper, minced (optional)
1tsp sea salt
Frozen tomatoes make wonderful salsa. Let the tomatoes unfreeze overnight and pour off extra liquid from the tomatoes. (This liquid is great for thinning out guacamole.) Chop or food process the fresh vegetables. Add unfrozen, drained and hand-crushed tomatoes. You can remove the tomato skins, if desired. Add sea salt to taste. For travel, store the salsa in a glass mason jar with a plastic lid.

Frozen Berry Sauce
2c frozen garden raspberries
2c frozen garden blueberries
small amount of local raw honey (optional)
Lightly simmer at very low temperature until the berries lose their shape. (You can use any frozen fruit you have leftover after the winter.) Do not over cook the sauce. When the sauce cools, add a small amount of local raw honey, if desired. For travel, store the berry sauce in a glass mason jar with a plastic lid.

Caesar Dressing Base
4 cloves garlic, finely grated or minced
1/2c olive oil
juice of one lemon
1/2tsp sea salt
Mix all the ingredients together and store in a small mason jar. When ready to make the salad, rip up most of a head of romaine lettuce. Soft boil two eggs for five minutes and add half of the Caesar dressing to the eggs and mix well. Pour over romaine lettuce and serve.

Spelt Sourdough Pancakes
10c whole spelt grains, soaked, sprouted and dehydrated
sourdough culture with Kefir culture
2c ground spelt flour
2-3 pastured eggs
1/2tsp baking soda
1tsp sea salt
Take the whole spelt grains and cover with filtered water. Soak the spelt for 2-3 days, changing the water 2 times each day. When the spelt has small sprouts, rinse and drain one more time. Dehydrate the grains for 12 hours or until dry and store in the freezer for later use. Grind the spelt into flour and add to sourdough culture. (I use a Vita-Mix for grinding grains.) Add raw milk Kefir to culture and stir. Return culture to fridge for the night. When ready to make pancakes in the morning, preheat two or three cast iron pans on the stove-top. Use a small amount of lard or schmaltz in the pan. The pans are at the right temperature when the grease is just below the smoking point. Fill a large bowl with about 2 cups ground spelt flour, baking soda, and sea salt. Mix well. Add eggs and about 3 cups of the sourdough culture. Add more culture to thin out the mixture. Pour about 1/2 cup of batter onto the hot grill. Turn pancakes when brown and bubbly. For travel, I cool the pancakes and layer with wax paper. I divide the pancakes into daily amounts and wrap the stack in wax paper bags.

Eating Nourishing Traditional Foods While Traveling

I have had a number of people ask me how I travel on a restrictive diet like the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. Actually, it’s very easy and I do not suffer at all. For example, our family just spent five days canoeing Clearwater Lake in Wells Gray Park. Here are some tips for eating nourishing traditional meals while doing wilderness travel. These tips could easily be used for camping road trips, though we would do our cooking on a small gas barbecue or camp stove. Here are Recipes for Eating Nourishing Traditional Travel Foods.

1. Start preparing dried goods a week before leaving. These foods are for emergency rations and quick snacks. I soaked, sprouted and dehydrated whole spelt grains. I dehydrated two large lean roasts for beef jerky. I prepared some soaked and dried nuts and seeds. I made a few pounds of soaked and dried nut granola for snacks. I packed some raisins, dates and dried bananas. I have a L’Equip Food Dehydrator but, because of the amounts I was processing, I used my sister’s Excalibur Food Dehydrator and really liked it too. For travel, store a day’s supply of each item in paper bags with a plastic zip-lock outer bag. By processing my own dried snacks at home, I save money and produce a higher quality product.
2. Start preparing condiments two days before leaving. This trip I prepared three special condiments. I prepared salsa, berry sauce and Caesar dressing base. I stored the condiments in a glass mason jar with a Bernardin plastic lid. I find these plastic lids easier to use and clean and the plastic does not touch the food. Portion homemade fermented condiments for your trip in appropriately sized wide mouth mason jars. Examples of homemade condiments are: horseradish sauce, mustard, ketchups, and fermented vegetables. Recipes for these condiments can be found in Sally Fallon’s book Nourishing Traditions. I stored the condiments in the cooler. By processing my own homemade condiments, I save money and produce a much higher quality product.
3. Think about your cooking methods and organize appropriate equipment. Wells Gray Park has developed wilderness camps with fire pits and metal grills, so we planned on cooking over an open fire. (We brought along a MSR stove for emergency use, which we didn’t use during the trip.) We brought a normal camping set of stainless steal pots for boiling water, but these light pots tend to burn food very easily. We decided to try doing all our cooking with my Mother’s cast iron Dutch oven. We found the lid worked great for warming food or frying even with the ringed grooves in the lid. I would definitely bring the Dutch oven for cooking over open fires again. Early explorers used cast iron Dutch ovens for all their food preparation including baking bread. Here is an example of a camp Dutch oven with three legs on the pot and the lid.
4. Use your frozen foods as ice. Traveling by canoe allows the use of a hard shelled cooler for frozen foods. This trip I used two thermal bags, one inside the other, inside the hard shelled cooler to store our frozen foods. I brought along 3lbs of pastured ground beef, 1lb of pastured lamb, 2lbs pastured sirloin steaks, 1lb of pasteurized butter and 1lb of raw butter. After five days we brought home half the meat and butter which was partly frozen. The cooler didn’t fill with dirty icy water. It was an easy cleanup after the trip. I would definitely use the thermal bags again.
5. Organize your storage system and eat your fresh supplies first. With canoe travel, extra weight isn’t really an issue, but space is limited. We had one hard shelled cooler for frozen foods and one bin for dried and fresh foods. In the cooler was the layered thermal bags with the frozen meat and butter. On the other side of the cooler was 2L of raw milk, two precooked and sliced beef roasts, and the condiments. In the bin was all the dried stores, 2 dozen pastured eggs, 2lbs of raw gouda cheese, 3lbs of dried cured bacon, and 3lbs of cured sausage. On top of all this was 2 heads of romaine lettuce, 6 apples, 6 mangoes, 6 tomatoes, green onions and carrots. The morning of the trip, I made up about 30 sourdough pancakes, which I cooled, layered in wax paper and divided into daily amounts. The sourdough pancakes lasted very well throughout the trip. The girls enjoyed the pancakes cold with raw butter or warmed with bacon, butter and berry sauce. We had food for about eight days for four people.
6. Start travel days with a good breakfast and a prepared dinner. At home we cooked two chickens in the Dutch oven. One chicken would have been enough. We cooked some brown rice in bone broth. Both pots were placed in a traditional straw hot box. A simple hot box can be made with a cardboard box filled with straw or any insulating material. Five hours later we had a hot meal after loading the canoe.
7. Use a stainless steel thermos for hot drinks and bring raw cider vinegar for drinking water. Start the trip with a full thermos and keep the thermos full. The last thing I do in a day is fill the thermos so the family will have hot drinks first thing in the morning. This is a good safety practice during wilderness travel. Putting a teaspoon of cider vinegar in drinking water makes a very refreshing drink. It is also reputed to relieve muscle stiffness, which I have found to be true.
8. What about the bugs? I am not fond of putting poison on my skin so I do not use bug spray. I have noticed that if I do not eat anything sweet while out in the woods, the bugs do not feed on me. As soon as I eat even a piece of fruit, the bugs are biting within the hour. I remember complaining to an old hunter about being eaten alive by bugs. He say to me: “You have sweet blood. That’s why the bugs eat you.” Sweet blood. I have gone from being the person eaten alive, to the one in the group not bothered by bugs. It makes me wonder if others have had this experience too. So, if you are bothered by bugs in the woods, try going low carbohydrate a few days before and during the trip. If it works for you, please contact me.