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Category: cooking/baking

Fri. Nov. 28, 2025 – a pause that refreshes?

Cold. Yeah, seriously, 50F is cold here. I’ll have to run the heat if it doesn’t warm up. Cold morning, nice day. Like Thanksgiving Day.

Well, we did the traditional feast yesterday. Kids contributed with pies and a casserole. I just ate. And while they were cooking I did some sorting and disposal of canned food, some work on my cameras, and a couple of other small things. I took it easy, but didn’t want to lose all my momentum.

Today I’ve got a couple of auction pickups to do. One for resale, one for Christmas presents. I’ve got some people covered, or more than covered, and some that are currently present-less. And I haven’t found good White Elephant gifts for my non-prepping hobby get together. That means I’m on the prowl for good/appropriate gifts.

I also have stuff to do on my truck, like headlight replacement, radio install, stereo install, cleaning… and stuff to do around the house. Many of my neighbors started their Christmas decorating already, so I might do some of that today too. Who knows? If I make plans the universe is bound to screw them up somehow, so better to just see what I get done.

The first pass through my stored canned food tells me I need to do some more culling and cleanup. Add that to the list. Buying food and stacking it is a solid prep though.

I’m always gonna tell you to stack something, even if it’s just good experiences. They can keep you warm and sane when the going gets tough.

We can all use a little help when that happens.

nick

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Thur. Nov. 27, 2025 – Thanksgiving day, US

Cold. By Texas standards anyway. It was in the 50sF last night and damp, so it felt even cooler. Probably it will be cold, then cool, then warm today with sun and clear skies. Nice.

I spent yesterday doing small things on the list. I got several done, and kept moving forward. Baby steps are still steps, right?? For an unhurried day, there was a lot going on. We even had some carnivore drama in the back yard to deal with.

D1 had a date, and the guy seems nice. She had a good night and was beaming. Her previous dates have been pretty lackluster, so I’m happy for her, but I’m still a dad with my little girl going out with boys. Kid is tall, in good shape and confident. Nice change from the emo simps.

Between D1, D2, and their friends, I’m coming to think that their emotional maturity is a couple of years behind where I’d expect it to be. Certainly it’s behind where my generation was. There are a couple of reasons that could be, 2 years of pandemic and social media are the obvious possibilities. And of course, we’re mostly talking about middle and upper middle class white kids. The hispanic kids have a different experience and point of view from what I can see.

It will be interesting to watch how this generation grows up.

But, that’s all for later. Today we take the time to pause and give thanks. There are always things to be thankful for, even at our darkest hours, and Thanksgiving Day gives an opportunity to stop, take stock, and find those things.

I’m thankful for Bob giving me this opportunity, and for Barbara’s faith and trust. I’m thankful for all of you who stop by and share your lives and thoughts with me and the rest of this community. I’m thankful for the world we live in, for the beauty of the natural world and everything in it. I’m thankful for the opportunity to love and be loved, and for my family and the support they give. I’m thankful to be alive. When I was young, I never thought I’d see 26 years of age, and here I am 33 years past that point.

There have been good times and bad during those years, but they made me who I am and I’m ok with that. They have all been a gift; one I’m glad to share with the people in my life. I look forward to many more, no matter the challenges and heartbreak that may be ahead of us.

Thank you all,

nick

(stack something good)

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Wed. Nov. 26, 2025 – cooking today

A bit cooler, and clear today. It got chilly last night. I still expect it to be high 80sF or even into the 90sF like yesterday by late afternoon though.

I was less productive than I’d hoped on Tuesday. I did get the grocery shopping done. That’s a good thing.

Today should be more small tasks and cooking pies, as well as getting prepped for tomorrow’s feast. We are cutting back on sides for Thanksgiving dinner, but there will still be some french meat pie, and several dessert pies. And a 12 pound bird.

And while I feel like a slacker that we didn’t go to the BOL, this is a much more relaxing plan.

I feel the need to adjust to the kids’ plans and to encourage the desire to work that D1 seems to have found. Building good kids is sort of the ultimate prep, so I’m trying to be flexible. We have much to be thankful for, and where we celebrate that thankfulness isn’t as important as taking the time to do so. Besides, if you are smart, you take your joy where you find it.

Build. Improve. Stack. Live.

nick

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Fri. Nov. 14, 2025 – half way through November already…

Cool and damp, followed by warm and damp, but the radio said no rain for a few more days. Back to watering the lawn I guess. It’s still very nice in the afternoon.

I did some small things, including trying a new way to cook dinner. I tried a pork roast in the crock pot without all the liquid, going for a slow bake. It worked out better than I expected, although I chickened out and added 1/2 cup water so the new potatoes and onion wedges would have something to cook in. I think it’s a good choice when I have to leave the house and won’t be home when a roast would have to go into the oven. It was well past 150F in 3 1/2 hours on the crock pot’s high setting. I would normally put it in the oven at 320F for about an hour for the 3 pounds. It might take an extra 20 minutes after that.

Packet gravy, and heat and eat bread rounded out the meal.

Today I don’t have any pickups so I can work my list. That’s my plan anyway. Nose to the grindstone, feet to the fire, once more into the breech…

And some sort of stacking is always appropriate.
n

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Wed. Oct. 22, 2025 – hoping to catch up, knowing I won’t

Cool, and warm later. Some clouds. Probably not any rain though. And that’s what yesterday was like too. Just gradual changes day to day, and soon we’ll be headed into Winter. Such as it is in Houston.

I got nothing done yesterday morning, except sleep. I can rationalize that sleeping helps fight off any infection from the little disease bags, but it’s a rationalization and part of me regrets the loss of usable time. Part of my likes to sleep though.

In the afternoon, I did pickups, getting some housewares for here, 100ft of direct burial gas line, small engine parts, and some Christmas decorations. The gas line will go to the BOL against the possible eventual need to replace my main line to the house, or for future use either in a shop space, or second living area. It was so cheap I couldn’t say no.

Then it was home to leftovers for dinner, some auction stuff, and a tiny fire by the water feature…

Today, I’m going to try to wrap up the wall repairs, and get as far along on the pantry project as I can. Now W is talking about repainting the whole laundry room instead of just doing the 2×8 ft repair area in a match color. I think I’ll at least get primer on it, and that might be “good enough” with the cabinet covering most of the repaired area. I don’t want the project to take forever.

And there is the rest of the list that needs work, including a Costco run for paper products and anything that might be on sale this period. There is always more to do.

Stack, work, improve. Do what you can.

nick

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Thur. Oct. 16, 2025 – oh oh, we’re half way there, oh oh livin’ on a prayer

It’s a good thing you can’t hear my voice when I sing. Continuing with the cool morning, warm afternoons, with overall cooling trend. Also supposed to be clear for the next couple of days. That’s a lot of clear, dry days in a row. My grass is crunchy and the grass over the septic field at the BOL is probably completely dead. That’s not good.

I did a couple of the things on my list, but avoided drywall mud again. It’s messy and I have to move stuff to do it, as well as diving deep in the garage for the tools… so I’ve been putting off what is a short and straightforward job. I have to get better at this. Picked up my stuff yesterday, with some stuff for the BOL, and a couple of household things. I’m stacked up on “pet stain and odor” remover. Damn dog.

Now to move a couple of things along, and then collect my stuff today. More stuff for the BOL, as well as some gub stuff. I won some mags and refills for the hole puncher. I’m stopping at an estate sale this morning to see if I can’t get some more. This sale also has a bunch of pews and a few dozen cans of freeze drieds… guy had some of his priorities straight.

The brand of FDs is unfamiliar to me, but matches the typical “buy this and you’ll be set” exploitive strategy employed by pretty much everyone but Auguson Farms and Mountain House. In other words, it’s all carb heavy, but still under caloried, and about half is breakfast or side dishes rather than main courses– with no real main courses except the few additional Mountain House cans. “Mac and Cheese with meat” is not dinner. A serving of meat, with a side of mac is. Soup mixes and oatmeal, cereal and pasta dishes are not really the best way to spend money on freeze dried foods, and are just in the kits to bulk out the days they can claim, and to extract extra money from your wallet.

Little protein and no fat isn’t going to keep you working in the fields all day. That’s one of the reasons I save all my bacon fat in jars. Fat is good energy and helps you feel full. The Oregon Trail cookbook I read has a surprising number of recipes that start with “melt 5 pounds of bear fat”. Heritage breeds of pig have about twice the fat of modern piggies (iirc), and the fat was more important to the household than the meat in the old days.

If you don’t have fat stored, you might want to reconsider that. You can buy ghee, lard, bacon fat, and beef tallow in the store and they all keep a really long time, especially if you put them in the fridge or freezer until they are needed. Fat can be used to preserve food too, as ‘potted’ meat for example. Saving your own is not only easy, but you paid for the fat when you bought the meat, so why NOT keep it?

Stacks don’t have to be separate from your normal life, and it’s a lot easier if they are just part of it. Put some back for later…

nick

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Thur. Oct. 9, 2025 – things continue to get spicy in our corner of the multiverse

Cool-ish. It was still very comfortable after midnight so I think it might be a bit warmer this morning. And since it was well into the 90sF yesterday afternoon, a little bit of summer is still holding on. Unless we get rain and a front moving through, I expect today to get hot and muggy too.

I did auction stuff in the morning, and then met a young man to sell my buddy’s item. He had Radio Operator plates on his vehicle, so that was pretty cool. He said he got licensed so he could do more drone stuff, rather than from any love of ham radio though. Some of the video from the bigger more pro level drones uses part of the ham spectrum. He’s got a drone operator’s license too. I’ll have to meet with him again on Friday because I forgot some of the paperwork he needs.

That took about an hour and a half to do, with a bit of chatting, and then it was home to do kid taxi stuff, after a local pickup.

Since I was home I cooked some pork tenderloin for dinner. Oven roasted potatoes, and baked apple slices with cinnamon and honey in bacon fat rounded out the meal. It was pretty good. I am wondering when the girls will get a bit more interested in cooking. I don’t think that they really consider it a skill, since it’s always just happened. Baking, that they were interested in, but mostly learned on their own. Dinner hasn’t caught their interest.

We all need to eat and being able to cook with whatever resources you have is a pretty big plus in my book. It’s funny, because my dad cooked all the big meals at our house, and we (me and my sibs) considered my mom’s cooking to be … workmanlike is probably the best description. We’d joke that she could burn water, but she pointed out that we didn’t starve while she did most of the weekday cooking.

I didn’t really learn cooking from either of them. I did basics when I was in school and afterwards, with some time working in a restaurant kitchen that helped me get the mechanics of it down. I’m no chef, can’t make hollandaise or a souffle’, but I can follow recipes and can even get a good idea what a basic recipe will taste like from reading it, and what can be altered or improvised.

I use some of my dad’s recipes and do my own versions of a couple of his signatures, which were pretty variable anyway. I’ve mentioned and recommended several books before, including

    The Simple Fools Handbook to Cooking

(very helpful when I went away to school and needed simple meals), a pre-1975* version of

    The Joy of Cooking

, and for apocalypse cooking using all those stored can goods

    A Man, A Can, and A Plan

. There are others to fill in the gaps and I love the ‘church lady’ recipe books, but Joy of Cooking will teach you everything you need to know, and it’s filled with humor too. If I could only have one book, my go to is Joy of Cooking.

Those other gaps are filled with

    Two Burners and an Ice Chest

(focused on cooking on a boat),

    America’s Favorite Brand Name Recipes

(all the best recipes from the back of cans and boxes), and a couple of books on wild game cooking.

Someone here recommended a good cast iron book or D/L but I never got to actually try it out.

I’m a firm believer that in addition to everyday feeding the family, everyone should have at least one meal that they can make for guests that, with a little attention to presentation, is restaurant quality at home.

Like any knowledge based skill with a large practical component, the only really good way to learn cooking is with practice. And by eating all the things…

——
Today I’ve got some pickups. Yeah, I’m cutting back, but there was a thing for my non-prepping hobby, and some things for vehicles and the BOL that I just couldn’t pass up. I am buying a lot less, and I do have more time since I’m doing fewer pickups.

Then I’ll try to get some more work in here at the house, and maybe at the shop. Some of it is actually synergistic as I can move stuff from here to there and kill two birds with one rock.

And some of it is managing the stacks. More breakage means more replacement… so stack it up.

nick

*versions after the mid 1970s (of all cookbooks, not just Joy) start to harp on salt, fat, cream, etc with some very sketchy “science” and I prefer to not have my recipes constantly nagging me.

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Sun. Oct. 5, 2025 – 10052025 – the times are getting spicy

Cooler here than in Houston. And still damp. I’ll have to wait for the dew to burn off before mowing, but I’ll find other things to do. Hopefully it won’t be too hot in the afternoon sun.

I spent Saturday afternoon finishing up my front walk project at the house. When I installed the flagstone walk, I used polymeric sand between the stones. It’s sand with glue in it. It stays in place better than plain sand but isn’t a permanent solution. After a few years, it was pretty much gone and the deep empty joints were a tripping hazard. Halloween trick or treating is coming up, and I do not want people tripping on my walk. So I finally got enough mortar mix and took the time. It was only a few hours in total, and looks good. It won’t last forever, but should hold up for a couple more years. 80% solution.

Then I loaded up and headed to the BOL.

Today, the main goal is mowing. But really, I also need to do more organizing and putting away… and with the domestic violence and dissension growing, I need to do an inventory and check supply levels. I will have to move getting a safe and a storage magazine for this place up the list. Which, because of the fractal nature of my tasks means making the room for them, and organizing a trailer, work party, and time to collect them and get them here. Then I’ll have to stock them.

Food, water, medical, and alternative cooking, heating, cooling, and sanitation are mostly in place already. A couple of security things, networks and cameras mainly, need to be installed, as well as some physical security measures. Comms are behind too, but I have the stuff, I just need to move forward on getting it in place and tested. I need a couple of alternative antennas that I can put up without building my tower, and I need to get the radios up here.

I used the sale on kero someone mentioned to get 10 gallons more, which I brought up with me. Lowes online had a great price. I’ll pickup two more 220W solar panels Monday. Now my mojo needs to get some batteries, and I need to find a suitable 36v inverter. Probably time to refill all the propane bottles too.

At home I’ve got generator stuff to do. I’ve been slack about it this year, mainly due to the lack of hurricanes. Time to move that stuff forward too. And I need to sort canned goods and replace losses. Attacks on law enforcement, especially organized ones, while the noose tightens on certain international financiers, will likely increase. Things are getting spicy. I expect some attacks on infrastructure soon.

All this while also living a normal life for my kids.

Stack while you can. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

nick

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Sun. Sept. 28, 2025 – might head out today

Cooler than it has been, then warming like usual. It was 66F when I went to bed, so I’m thinking it will start cool too. It certainly got warm in the sun, well into the 90sF yesterday afternoon. With the dampness, it was actually chilly last night.

I got stuff done during the day, but it wasn’t stuff that was high on my list. I mostly pressure washed stuff. Had to be done, in fact was overdue to be done, but it probably could have been put off some more. It was low involvement and fairly low effort though which suited my mood. I even took down most of the kids’ play structure before losing the daylight. That’s an end of an era.

I’m beginning to think that I need to actually start exercising in some real way. I’ve always added and lost muscle rapidly as needed, but I’m finding it easier to lose, and faster, than in the past. If I want to stay strong, I’m going to have to work at it, and I hate the idea of that. I’m thinking something like a bowflex, where I can do a 30 minute circuit, just to stay ahead of entropy. I’m open to suggestions and any first hand experience.

Today I’ll do some more domestic bliss and home stuff, but I’m also thinking about heading to the BOL. If I go, I’ll stay overnight and come home Monday night. I’ve got a load of stuff to take up, and I’m sure that entropy has had its messy fingers all over my stuff up there. Something needs attention, it always does.

With the cooling days, I might have switched to A/C in the garage just in time to need to switch back to heat… it’s been a weird weather year.

Maybe time for some Fall planting?

Planting is a prep, as the learning curve for growing food is steep.

Much easier and more reliable to stack. Probably best to do both.

nick

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Fri. Sept. 19, 2025 – “… people say we monkee around…”

Cool then hot. When you’re hot you’re hot, so cool you’re hot… I feel like singing today. No idea why. Anyway, yesterday was as expected and today will probably be too. Unless the forecast squeezes just a little rain out on us.

I did get a bunch of things done yesterday, but they were all little, and at home. I put off pickups until I had my pickup back, and just stayed home and chipped away at stuff.

I broke down the brisket, and cooked some. 3 pounds in the crock pot with salt, pepper, garlic salt, and four onions sliced thin. 6 hours later, it was filling the house with good smells. Unfortunately, the beef fat I was rendering on the stove didn’t smell so nice. I did get 2 cups of tallow at the end of the day, and I’d have just thrown that fat out. There was almost a cup in the crock pot too, but I didn’t render that.

As a side I made a recipe for dinner rolls from a magazine put out by our local electrical co-op at the BOL. Every month they feature other co-op members’ recipes. They were quick and easy, even from scratch. Unfortunately, the gamma seal lid on my bucket of flour failed, and the bucket went wet and rotten. I had a backup, so I opened that and made the rolls. That’s the second bucket of flour to turn into stinky glue.

My storage conditions sux teh bunnies, so I’m glad I don’t have even more breakage, but gamma lids are supposed to be good. They aren’t fool proof, and I’m the fool to prove it. Use a real lid for long term, and gammas only for the bucket you are working out of.

Moisture is my biggest problem with long term storage of anything, followed by sunlight. I’m the opposite of a cool dark place, and it shows.

Still, nice to know I can make light fluffy rolls with simple ingredients and only a little time. I think we’re most likely to be eating flat bread during any prolonged event, just because you don’t have the time for rising dough, or the energy for long baking. Just look at what poor people around the world eat, and it’s mostly flat bread.

I may try them with bacon fat instead of ‘solid vegetable shortening’ next time, just because I’ve got more bacon fat, but I try to make a new recipe as closely as possible the first time.

Late in the day I got my truck back. I’m $1500 lighter, but the A/C works again, and the oil got changed. There is a list of things that need attention, but most of it isn’t critical or in the budget for this year. In a couple more years it will be an antique and then maybe I’ll do a half arsed ‘restoration’ for D2. I can’t replace it for $100/ month, and that’s about what I’ve been spending on it. Plus, it’s a simple and reliable design, without all the tracking, ads, and “driver assistance” that I don’t want.

Today I’ll be doing those delayed pickups. And more stuff around the house. I have two specific missions for W as birthday requests, so I need to get them done.

Of course there are all the usual things on the list too, and stacking. Busy busy me…

nick

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