Salting Fish, pickling and making candied fruits

December 2008

A week ago, I made some salted fish using the dry salting method. I did a couple of fishs (already ate one and it was perfect). Salting is a great preservation method for fish and other meats. I also made some candied fruits and pickled some red pepper.

Yummy Jerky!

It's easy to make your own Beef Jerky at home or in your apartment, it's also a wonderful snack. Just need to cut your meat (low fat as much as possible) in fine strips and let it marinate for a few hours first. I use soy sauce, garlic, Thai spices, pepper, French herbs in my marinade but your imagination is the limit.

Using steel wire (sold in most hardware stores), hang the strips in the oven - set the temperature at around 100 degrees. I leave the oven door slightly open and within 6-8 hrs you'll have your own jerky!

It's also a cool way to conserve meat for an extended period.

ACORNS - It's the season!

November 2008

I collected some acorns (Oak nuts) last weekend, did some hiking in the Angeles Forest and found an oak tree that had huge acorns (further research indicated the tree may be a non-native, European oak). I collected around 2 full bags.

All acorns have tannic acid (some more or less) and thus taste bitter. You basically shell them and then leach. The leaching process consist of either boiling the acorns (anywhere between 1 to 3 hrs from my experience) or using running water - leaching removes the tannic acid and thus the bitterness. There are various methods to prepare acorn which I won't go into details here.

I've already used the leached acorns as breakfast "cereals" and also made flour which I stored for future use. Later this week, I plan to make some acorn coffee (acorn can be used as a substitute) - never did that before so I'm curious to see how it will taste.

Yummy Bugs! Entomophagy

October 2008

Entomophagy is the practice of eating bugs. Yuck you may say but realize that a large percentage of the world population eat bugs as a usual part of their diet. Actually you eat bugs too, you just don't know it. You eat bugs when you eat peanut butter, canned vegetables and even Ketchup. Yep! It's in it! A little online search will confirm that.

Bugs are actually extremely nutritious and are an excellent way to supplement your diet in your day to day life and knowing which bugs you can eat can also be part of your preparedness arsenal.

I plan to incorporate some of my bug recipes in my 2009 classes.

WILD PLANTS SOAP

October 2008

With the plants collected during my desert trip (see below), I've created various organic soaps. It's been a fascinating process and I've learn a lot on how to incorporate wild plants into soap and make it work beautifully.

The soaps are made of organic oil (Olive and Coconut). The Desert Sage soap was made using beef tallow.

The Creosote Soap and California Sage have the most exquisite smells. The soaps are still curing (takes 3 weeks) and I can't wait to start using them.

I plan to continue doing some research over the next few months on how to incorporate wild plants into soap so stay tuned!

Saugus Night Precision Rifle Match

September 2008

Participated in a night precision rifle match with my son. We formed a team. This was a fun match incorporating precision shooting, handgun and shotgun. We ended up making second place.

SOLAR ENERGY and PREPAREDNESS CLASS

September 2008

During this class we reviewed some of the most popular solar ovens sold commercially. We used various ovens to cook a beef stew and vegetables (for the vegetarian in the group).

While lunch was cooking, we also made a home-built solar oven using simple materials such as cardboard boxes, aluminum paper, tape, etc... and tested the temperature.

It took only 3 hrs to cook a full beef stew and around 1 1/2 hr to cook the vegetables.

We also had a talk about preparedness, food and nutrition. We tasted some of the various kinds of food that can be used for long time storage such as military rations, dehydrated food and high energy emergency food.

TRACKING COURSE and WILD FOOD

July 2008

I gave 2 classes in July. The first part (and longest) of the class was related to human tracking.

We learned some of the basic methods for tracking such as those used in search and rescue-type scenarios. This includes; How to create a "tracking" stick and use it to actually follow tracks, what are the various signs and how to read them, what to look for and how to train yourself to see signs, etc...

We also did some drills by actually tracking someone for a short distance.

During the second part of the class, we went hiking and collected some wild food and made a salad. We also tasted a nettle soup that I had prepared for the class.