In September of 2009, almost a year ago, I did a review over on Amazon for a the 10 1/2-quart All-American Pressure Canner. Thought I would share that short review here also, because I still love my small canner for quick, well, smaller batches. Yes, I still have my 21 1/2-quart and use it, but I have always believed that there is a place for the smaller canners in our kitchens.

My Reivew

This is the second All-American I have (I have #921 - 21 1/2-Qt also), and I love it!

The smaller size means that it sits on top of the stove at all times, ready to be used. While making dinner on the front burners, I often have this canner working on the back burner. After we finally get up from the table (no one ever seems to want to!), depending on what I canned, but usually something that goes for 90 minutes at 10 psi, it is time to take jars out of the canner. There are some steps to do in between, but our table is in the kitchen, so I get up to check on/turn off burner, etc., while still being able to enjoy the wonderful conversation and shananigans going on at the table. Once the canner is cool, it gets a vinegar & soap bath (I have hard water), dried and put on back burner for next load, jars are on a towel ready to cool and seal overnight, and then be put away in the morning while the coffee is perking.

The smaller size means I don’t feel guilty if I don’t have two levels of jars to can (one on top of the other). If I only have 4 pints of picadillo to can, then I only can 4 pints, and no guilt about all that space being wasted. :-)

Don’t get me wrong, I love my 921 also - I would not know what to do without it, but this 910 has just as much place in my kitchen.

I’ve been asked why my site has taken on more of a food and preparedness feel.

Well, my site never really was about just one thing. I’m not about just one thing, I have many interests and I think I have always shared that through my posts. As for photography, I still do that, it is just my main subjects have changed, a little. I still love to go out and take nature images, I just have been keeping them to myself. :o) I don’t think though that being prepared is automatically separate from other things, like weather. To me, when thinking weather, or bad weather actually, the first thing that goes through my mind is, are we prepared? But it is more than that, I want to not only be prepared as best that I can, but to be more self-reliant.

I know, that phrase is bantered around a lot, but think about it… our forefathers (and mothers too!) were mostly self-reliant, at least mine were. They actually lived off the land, so to speak. They canned food, smoked food, dehydrated food, and of course grew food! With all the technology that has been shoved at us to make things ‘easier and faster’, why aren’t we more self-reliant?

The LDS church teaches their members to have at least one year worth of food and supplies ready, in case. I don’t belong to their church, but I have got to tell you, I think that has to be one of the smartest things I have ever heard. Not only do they teach it, but, they teach how to do it, and they help their members be able to do it through distribution centers. Exactly why don’t other churches do that for their members? Sure, it is all well and good to say, you need to do this and then not teach how to do it.

With all the natural disasters (tornadoes, floods, blizzards, hurricanes, etc.) isn’t the smart thing to do is be prepared to the best of our ability? I honestly do not know a whole lot of people who could go out and purchase a years worth of food and supplies in one shot, let alone finding a place to store it, but, what about starting small and trying for 1 month. Then pushing it further, try for 2 months or maybe 3 months at a time. Break it down into a feasible and reasonable size and I bet you can!

But, I don’t have a big yard or even little yard to grow food on! I know that is what you are saying, I can hear you, even from here. Or you happen to live in a place where there are deed restrictions and you aren’t allowed, or you have physical limitations. Whatever. You can still do what you can reasonably do. So, you don’t have an acre to grow on, corn can be grown in containers, so can tomatoes, beans, onions, potatoes and so much more. Well it goes bad and I have no where to store it. Then try canning it and dehydrating it! I kid you not, I fit a 5 pound bag of carrots into a quart sized jar, after I dehydrated them. I was amazed, flabbergasted, in awe! Think about it… by dehydrating, just imagine how much you could store. And canning, whether it is water bath canning or pressure canning, there is just something magical about going to the shelves, pulling off a jar of chili, tomato sauce, stew or soup (or whatever) that you canned, a year ago, and it being absolutely delicious, nutritious, and super fast when you are hungry. Now.

So, you would rather not have to can, dehydrate or wring a chicken neck (and no, I have not done this!), but just want to go to the store and purchase it, well you can still do that. Instead of buying just 1 or 2 cans of whatever, grab three or more, if you can. When you get home, put the 1 or 2 cans into your working pantry and put the other(s) in your storage pantry. Then, the next time you go, again grab 3 (or more) and do the same. Now look in your storage pantry, you now have 2 extras stored (or more). Keep doing this and slowly build up your storage. When your store has sales, stock up, and if you have coupons to use during those sales, well, that is even better!

Growing up I lived down in southern Miami area, and in our utility/laundry room we had one wall that was full of built-in shelves that we used for our pantry. I have to be honest, I never really thought much about it until I didn’t have that space anymore. I look back now and think, wow, we were absolutely lucky to have that, especially when I look at our small cupboard that is our pantry now. Of course, living in Florida, we do not have the option of having a basement, I wish, so I’ve had to get creative.

Closets have extra shelves tucked in, a stand-alone ‘pantry’ with doors was purchased and that sits next to the table just outside of the kitchen. Not only do we not have a nice large kitchen with pantry/storage area, but we also do not have a lot of counter space, nor kitchen cabinets. So, on the side of that stand-alone ‘pantry’ you’ll find hanging my wire canning rack, flour sifter, mesh strainer, thermometer for cooking and more. The top holds a couple of cases of canning jars for when I want to do a quick batch. On the opposite wall on the other side of the table is a stand-alone book shelf, it holds our working pantry of pasta, rice, sugar, mixing bowls, oven sheets, food processor, food storage bags, measuring cups and more. On the side of course we have more items hanging up like different sized bread pans, apple peeler/corer and more. Sure I would love to have everything I use in one area, the kitchen, but I can’t, so I figured out a way to have it work for us.

In our family room, next to the sofa is where the old sub-woofer is, you know the kind, it is as big as a side table. We don’t use it anymore, but sitting on top of it is a case of freeze-dried and dehydrated foods in #10 cans. There is a board on top of that, along with a fabric tablecloth. We use it as a side table. It works!

So, even if you don’t have a basement, or a large pantry, there are places to still store extras, you just need to get creative, as well as remember to rotate out the oldest first. Whenever we bring something in, food-wise, it gets dated. I can’t wait though to get a couple of can organizers, so that I don’t have to manually rotate out the old. If you look over in the sidebar, scroll down to F.Y.I. you will find the organizers. Not expensive and they work, how cool is that!

With all your preparing though, don’t forget non-food items. I know there are a few things that I stock up on, okay, I go overboard on. For instance, toilet paper. That is one item, I never want to be without! Don’t forget the charcoal and/or the gas for your grill, trust me, that grill, when you can’t cook inside because you have no power (and no gas or wood stove) is a lifesaver. You can grill on it, you can take your pots and pans and use it to cook and bake even.

There are a lot of websites, magazines, and books out there about preparedness, so I won’t go into the different items, but start today, even if it is just 1 item.

I am still working toward having my year (and more) storage, I know that I have at least 5 months on hand. Come to think of it, if I had not experimented for 6 months, I would have about 11 months already. However, I did experiment. I did not go grocery shopping for 6 months and used what we had on hand. It was very liberating and taught me more about what we need more of and even about what we can do without so much of.

I know this post is long, and there really is a whole lot more that I could talk about, to be honest, I haven’t even made a small indentation into being prepared, let alone, self-reliant. For now though, I’ll leave you with this thought and question…

Being prepared isn’t just for natural emergencies. What would happen if the business you worked for, closed. Would you have enough extra in storage to feed yourself and your family, until you found a new job?

The other night I was pouring a bag of sugar into the sugar container and noticed a recipe on the side of the bag for ‘Old Fashioned Sugar Cookies’. Funny how we can see things all the time, but not really pay attention. This time, I did.

What else was I to do, but to make cookies at 9 o’clock at night!

As I started to get the ingredients together, I decided to try and make it a little healthier. I mean come on, it’s a sugar cookie, so I can only go for healthier, not healthy. So, I grabbed some hard white winter wheat berries, yet still, I wanted… more. In our kitchen pantry, next to the grain grinder is where I keep the bin for the oats. Click.

Love when that light bulb turns on! Oats!

Okay, we can work with this, whole wheat, oats, farro*, maybe use less sugar, and since I didn’t have any butter thawed, and no cream thawed to make butter, let’s change out the butter called for with shortening. That works, a crunchier cookie!

Quickly grinding some whole wheat, oats and farro together into flour (1 cup wheat berries, 1/2 cup rolled oats and 1/4 cup farro), I grabbed the other ingredients: shortening, whole powdered eggs, salt, vanilla extract and baking powder. Oh, and some water.

The original recipe called for the butter and sugar to be creamed together in a separate bowl, yada, yada, yada. I didn’t have the patience for all that. So, herein lies my ‘healthier’ sugar cookie and how I did it.

*Emmer (Triticum dicoccum) wheat is one of the three hulled wheats known in Italy as farro and is the wheat that is most commonly called farro. It is rich in fiber, protein, magnesium, and vitamins. I have been told that biblical spelt is now correctly identified as emmer wheat, and that spelt (Triticum spelta) wheat was not grown in ancient Israel.

Multi-grain Sugar Cookies

ingredients

• 2 cups flour (fresh ground whole wheat, oats and farro mixed)
• 1/2 cup PLUS 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 cup shortening (PLUS - 3 tablespoons water - see notes below)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon whole powdered eggs (PLUS 2 tablespoons water)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

directions

• Toss all ingredients into medium sized mixing bowl.
• Using hand-mixer (or use your stand mixer if you want) mix all ingredients for about 5-7 minutes. Mixture will be crumbly.
• Cover and place bowl in refrigerator for about 15 minutes. Scrape dough out of bowl and roll it into 2 equal logs. Wrap and chill for 2 hours. (I use waxed paper to roll mine.)
• Turn oven on to preheat: 350°F
• While oven is heating, slice logs, about 1/4-inch thick. Then gently pat them back into ’rounds’. (Mine all started turning into half-moons from the slicing.) Then I gave them one gentle squish between my palms to flatten them slightly and placed them about an inch apart on Silpat covered baking sheets.
• Bake at 350° for approximately 12 minutes, or until lightly golden (look at the edges, you will start to see that turn first). Let set on tray for 1-2 minutes and then move to cooling rack to cool completely.
• Cookies can be stored in airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days. (Here I am guessing that long, because we used shortening instead of butter - but always check yours, if you aren’t sure, don’t eat it!)

Notes:

If you look on your shortening container, you’ll notice the conversion for replacing it for butter, is 1 cup shortening PLUS 6 teaspoons water equals 1 cup butter. Yup, that is teaspoons, not tablespoons.

Now, I’ll be honest, when I read the conversion at time of baking, I swear it said tablespoons, so that is what I based recipe on - needed to replace 1/2 cup butter, so changed it to 1/2 cup shortening and 3 tablespoons water. It wasn’t until 2 days later that I realized my oopsie. That is a big oops, but, I can only assume because of the whole wheat and oat flour (which is denser) that it actually worked out, perfectly. So now my oops, is a, thata girl! :o)

Oh, and another thing, if like me you decide late at night to bake something you’ve never baked before, before you start grabbing all those ingredients you’ll need and starting to grind and mix, read the instructions first. ALL of them. I didn’t until after I ground my wheat and oats and started mixing everything. That is when I noticed that they needed to be chilled. Oops.

I cannot wait to experiment some more with this recipe, maybe try using honey instead of the sugar, or other things. I’ll let you know!