Today Patch and I decided to combine various errands we needed to run, and go on an adventure. We stopped by Honeyville, a store which sells survival gear, freeze dried and dried foods, food storage and cooking supplies, and more. If you've watched the show American Preppers, you have probably seen an ad for them, and they are right down the street from Patch, so we recently checked it out. We have been buying small containers of some of the foods to see how we like them.
While there today we bought a small radio which can bearged by solar power, hand crank, or can run on AAA batteries. It also can be used to charge a cell phone or other device through a micro USB in it's side. We tried it out, and it's very cool. Patch plans to use it and create a Faraday cage for when she's not using it. Can't be too safe. It was only about 35 dollars, and she will use it quite a bit, so it's well worth the cost, and a great addition to our emergency kits. We have been creating one for each of us in each car just in case of an emergency. Back in CA we had one in each car plus a bag for each of us in the house just in case of a major earth quake. Since I experienced being just blocks from ground zero of the Northridge Earthquake in 1994, we were super careful, but since moving to AZ we stopped being prepared for earthquakes as they are so rare here. Still, you just never know what could happen, so we decided recently to build new emergency kits and have 3 in each car, one for each of us. Hopefully we will never need them, but if we do, they're there. And part of that is emergency rations, and other easy to store food which is part of why we stopped by Honeyville.
While there, I met a lady, Chef Tess, who had just given a lesson on baking with the items available in the store, and we had an awesome conversation about solar ovens. She uses hers all the time. Patch and I have been wanting to build a solar dehydrator and possibly a solar oven. After all, why spend money on a new dehydrator (ours died) when the sun is so plentiful here in Laveen, AZ? It only makes sense and as Tess said, it saves money on the utlities you're not using. At first she built her own out of cardboard and tin foil, but after a while she bought a solar oven. I plan to make our dehydrator a bit more long lasting than cardboard, but even so her DIY version lasted her 2 years, so that's a good thing. She says the one she bought there works much more efficiently (understandable) but I think we could build one ourselves for cheaper that is just as good. I will post about how it goes when we try. In the mean time, you can check out her blog at http://cheftessbakeresse.com.
Another fun thing we found was "Cranberry Beans." And I've been trying to expand the foods I eat, so I grabbed a small bag on sale. I'm putting them to soak tonight and will make some tomorrow. We will see what they're like, but I love beans so I suspect they will be delicious to me. The real test will be if Patch and Carlie like them and I found a recipe for them that sounds delicious, so hopefully they will enjoy them as much as I do. After all, I hear that beans are one of those carbohydrates that are good for Diabetics, plus I'm told they're good for digestion, heart health, and more. Hopefully it will encourage us to have more than just the occasional re-fried beans or black beans from a can and to move towards cooking from dried beans, which I'm told are healthier than canned. We will see.
Last but not least we got a small can of freeze dried peaches and a can of freeze dried blueberries. It turns out a serving of blueberries is much lower in carb count than the peaches. Not too surprising since the nurse in my diabetes class encourages us to eat berries. They are tasty, which also didn't surprise me, so we'll be buying a couple larger cans in the future to add to our emergency food storage. All in all, a good shopping trip!
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