Cooking Tip - What to do with Cranberries, Raspberries and Lemons?

Let's pretend for a moment that you have an off grid home and have easy access to cranberries and raspberries.

Plus, let's pretend you also have access to a lemon tree (either outdoors or in a greenhouse). Lemon trees don't normally grow in Canada, but in the USA (basically anywhere south of Ohio) you can grow them easily.

Or maybe you just happen to have all 3 things in your fridge. Here's what you can do:

Make pink lemonade!

The pink lemonade "flavour" actually comes from cranberry and raspberry juice that is added to the lemonade.

So all you need to do is use any extra raspberries and cranberries you have, combine it with lemon juice and sugar... and you've got yourself pink lemonade.

Add some ice and you've got a nice cold drink to enjoy this summer.

 (Add some vodka and you've got a drink suitable for inviting friends over to play board games, cards, etc.)

Why my wife and I buy half a pig every year

The Cost Savings / Financial Cooking Tip

Every year my wife and I buy half a pig from a farmer and pay for the butchering.

My parents buy half a pig, my younger sister and her husband buy half a pig, my older sister and her husband buy half a pig. So two pigs total, bought and butchered.

This process bypasses the normal farmer to butcher to distributor to grocery store routine, cutting out at least two middle men.

This results in a significant price difference.

In 2018 the cost of our half pig was $200.92... for which we get 3 large coolers full of pork, including ribs, sausages, ground pork, roasts, bacon, side pork, etc. If you want any of the meat smoked or extra services, that costs extra.

So a typical pig is going to garner you a little more than 200 lbs of meat. About 210 lbs on average.

So our share of half of pig is about 105 lbs for $200.92, so that is slightly less than $2 CDN per lb of pork.

Compare that to the prices of various kinds of pork you might find in your local grocery store. Like $6 for 1 lb of bacon, or $4 for 1 lb of ribs.

But basically you are looking at savings of roughly half of what it would normally cost you to get the same amount of pork from the grocery store. Or more savings, depending on the prices in your local grocery store.

So as a financial cooking tip goes buying your meat straight from the source saves a lot of money.

Bypassing the Farmer and Butcher

If you raised your own pigs and butchered them yourself, you would save money that way too. But then you run into the problem of how much time requirements are needed to be raising 1 or more pigs. It only really becomes effective for your time if you are raising lots of pigs, feeding them all, and preferably butchering them yourself for maximum profit when selling the pigs to interested 3rd parties.

The amount of time required to do all that becomes truly prohibitive.

This is why hunting to me makes a smart / low time requirement alternative. The deer, moose or elk will provide a decent amount of meat, and your only time expenditures is learning how to hunt, and learning how to butcher the deer yourself - which may or may not include learning how to make sausages with a sausage press.

The financial savings / time savings of hunting thus starts to make a lot of sense... But there is still the cost of getting your hunting license and the necessary equipment (firearms, bows, learning how to shoot properly, etc), and the actual hunting tags. So there are additional costs involved.

However hunting deer is so old school... especially when there is something even smarter.

Why not farm deer instead?

The deer feed themselves, you really just need to capture them and fence them in.

Deer farming has been a thing in Ontario for decades (perhaps longer) and when I was in high school I regularly passed a deer farm every time I went to school or whenever my parents when shopping or to visit relatives that took us past the deer farm.

It was just a thing that was there that I saw regularly.

But mention deer farming to city people and it is a bit like trying to explain to them that cows are female, bulls are male, and they are all cattle. They don't know that such things exist, and they don't know the difference between a sow and a boar.

So yes, deer farming is a thing.

The beauty of deer farming is that once you have the deer fenced in with a large enough area, they can graze within the forested regions of your property, there are hopefully no predators getting in through the fences, and the deer basically fend for themselves with respect to feeding themselves and breeding.

The trick to deer farming is you have to know how to manage your livestock. To only eat what you need as opposed of just eating them constantly because you can. So for example only eating the males who lack a mate, or the older males who are past their prime.

Another trick is that you want to prevent inbreeding, which can lead to diseases. So you will want to add new deer once in awhile by trading them with other deer farmers. So there will be some financial costs of trading deer once in awhile if you do decide to prevent an abundance of inbreeding.

Farming Rabbits is Easier

So yeah, if you really want to make your life easier. The solution is rabbits. Very high in protein, very lean. Goes well with fried potatoes.

Fence them in, grow a garden so you have other things to eat with the rabbit meat, any vegetables you don't eat just feed to the rabbits.

Bonus, rabbits also make nice mittens.

Trout Farms and How to Gut and Cook Trout

Spring and early summer is a good time of the year for trout fishing.

But if you have never done trout fishing, or you have children or friends who have never gone fishing, then Trout Farms are a good place to start.

A few examples near Toronto

Primrose Trout Farm
595646 Blind Line, Shelburne, ON L0N 1S8

Milford Bay Trout Farm
1224 Hewlitt Rd, Bracebridge, ON P1L 1X4

Linwood Acres Trout Farm
8382 Gilmour Rd, Campbellcroft, ON L0A 1B0

Burd's Family Fishing
13077 ON-48, Whitchurch-Stouffville, ON L4A 7X3

Trout Farms typically charge a small entrance fee and then a fee for every 100 grams of fish you catch. Rates vary on location. Thus while you are paying for it, you are also more likely to actually catch a fish, and this thus makes a good introduction for people who are new to fishing - and not used to the concept of going fishing and perhaps not catching a single bite.

Note - To get your monies worth, in theory it is best to arrive early, catch as many fish as you can, and leave with lots of fish. Sure, it costs you more as per the weight of all the fish you catch, but you only have to pay the entrance fee once. Then you fillet the trouts and keep them in the freezer for whenever you want to eat them.

The video below is from "Outdoor Boys" and shows Luke and the boys fishing at a local trout farm, how to gut a fish, how to fillet a fish, and several different cooking recipes.




Easy Pan Fried Trout Recipe

Makes 6 servings
Cooking time: Varies

Ingredients

2 lbs whole trout fillets
2 Tbsp (30 mL) whole wheat or all-purpose flour
¼ tsp (2 mL) freshly ground pepper
2 Tbsp (30 mL) milk
2 Tbsp (30 mL) canola oil lemon and parsley, optional garnishes

Instructions

On a plate, mix flour with pepper for dredging the fish.

Place milk in bowl, dip trout in milk and then place on plate to coat with flour on both sides.
In large saucepan, heat canola oil to medium-high. Place fish in pan and fry for approximately 4 – 5 minutes per side or until golden brown.

Allow fish to stand in pan for about 10 minutes before slicing and serving. Garnish with a wedge of lemon.

Goes well with baked potatoes, french fries, and fried/cooked vegetables.



Happy Fishing and Eating!

Antler, a good place to try venison in Toronto

Antler Kitchen & Bar
★★★★★
4.8 Star Rating on Google
4.5 Star Rating on Yelp (although to be fair, a lot of Yelp reviews are fake)

Where
1454 Dundas St W, Toronto, ON M6J 1Y6

Website
antlerkitchenbar.com

Reservations by Phone
(647) 345-8300

Hours
Sunday 11a.m.–2:30p.m., 5–10p.m.
Monday Closed
Tuesday 5–11p.m.
Wednesday 5–11p.m.
Thursday 5–11p.m.
Friday 5p.m.–12a.m.
Saturday 11a.m.–2:30p.m., 5p.m.–12a.m.

"Antler" is a local Toronto restaurant and bar which serves up a variety of options on its menu, including vegan and vegetarian dishes, as well as locally sourced ethical meat such as beef and venison. Venison, for those who don't know, is deer meat.

Venison is tastier than beef, but also more nutritious. Deer thrive in the forest, which also means that consuming venison has a significantly lower carbon footprint than conventional cattle livestock.

As such if a person is curious about trying venison, wants a healthier / more ethical alternative to beef, then venison is certainly an option. Also since Antler does source a variety of other ethically grown meats, it is also a good place to try those too.

Myself I have had both venison and moose meat. Both are very tasty, and I would definitely eat them again.

Antler has both a brunch and a dinner menu with a variety of options on both, and I am currently thinking of taking my wife there as a celebration for her graduating from law school. (We might end up going somewhere else, as it will likely come down to my wife's decision. It is her graduation after all, not mine. But maybe I can go to Antler next year for my birthday or some other event.)

Might even take our son with us. He needs to be trying new foods. (He will be be 10 months old a week from now.)

Antler Brunch Menu
http://www.dine.to/menus/menu_177773_document.pdf

Antler Dinner Menu
http://www.dine.to/menus/menu_177774_document.pdf

While browsing the dinner menu I also noted the wild boar. Ooooooo! Something I haven't had before, sounds like something to try.

IN THE NEWS

Antler recently got a lot of media attention because of vegans protesting outside of the restaurant. One of the owners, who doubles as a chef/butcher, got frustrated with the vegans constantly and repeatedly protesting outside his restaurant and decided to butcher a leg of deer in the restaurant window for the vegans to watch - you know, to spite them and to send the message that he and his business partner are not about to change their ways.

The vegans, who were effectively trying to extort the business, recorded the butchering and it went viral online and in the news media. And it backfired on them. "Antler" is now more popular than ever and as mentioned above, now requires reservations.

It is so popular I hope they end up opening a second restaurant. The vegans will be truly upset if it comes to that.

Personal Note - I have nothing personal against vegans myself, but I do wish they would mind their own business when it came to promoting their beliefs and not be all Hitler (Hitler was a vegetarian) on trying to force their beliefs on to others. In fact, I have a personal rule that every time a vegan tries to force their beliefs unto me I go out and eat a rabbit, a duck or some other cute tasty animal.

So here is the video, as posted on WatchMojo (which tells you how viral the clip became).



Later the owner/chef/butcher Michel Hunter became internet famous and has since done a number of interviews. Like the following interview with Joe Rogan, who is pro-hunting.



Seeing as I am also trying to build Project Gridless as a YouTube channel, I am also going to reach out shortly to see if we can organize a video interview. So check back in a few weeks and we shall see if I managed to score an interview with Michel, who is really busy these days thanks to all the extra publicity.

UPDATE

So I did get a response, but they are no longer doing interviews and apparently waiting for the fuss to die down.

So here is my thought... wait a few months, contact them then and see if an interview can still be arranged - and perhaps focus on a specific topic such as "The Proper Way to Butcher a Deer" or some similar useful topic.

How to Smoke and Preserve Meat Off the Grid

One of the things I love about frontier / settler knowledge is that the knowledge and skills can still be used today for a variety of useful things.

One such example, is how to smoke and preserve meat using only sticks, firewood, and a blanket. The video below, courtesy of the James Townsend & Son YouTube channel (aka Townsends) shows a very easy to master system for smoking and preserving meat.

Afterwards the dried/smoked meat can be stored in a dry place for weeks or even a month and still be good to eat. It can also be added to soup, stews, and other foods.

This also ends up being an excellent survival method of preserving food when living in the wilderness for months at a time.

How to make Flatbread and other types of bread off the grid

So in the first video below the chef from "Food Wishes" demonstrates how to make flatbread, which as he points out was originally made on large flat rocks that were heated on hot coals of a fire.

However you can just as easily make your flatbread in a cast iron skillet (again over hot coals) or on a wood stove or electric stove.

The second and third videos are from "Coalcracker Bushcraft" and show how to make biscuits and camp bread, also over a fire but using a Dutch Oven instead.

A Dutch Oven is a handy off grid device because they are meant to be used with hot coals on top of the lid and help heat whatever is inside more evenly.



How to make Biscuits in a Dutch Oven over a Fire



How to make Camp Bread in a Dutch Oven over a Fire

Cooking Grouse, Wild Turkey and Waterfowl

The videos further below are about hunting and cooking Grouse, Wild Turkey and Waterfowl (geese and ducks).

For more about the hunting aspect of this see my previous post on Hunting Grouse, Wild Turkey and Waterfowl.

For best results get a good clean wingshot on the bird, snap the bird's neck to make sure it is dead. Do not use any kind of toxic bullets (or poison tipped arrows) because such substances will foul the meat. (And such things are illegal anyway, so why bother to do something illegal when it will ruin your meal later?)

Grouse, Wild Turkey and Waterfowls all make for great meals and the meat can be preserved in your freezer all year round so you can enjoy wild turkey, goose, duck or grouse for Thanksgiving and Christmas and other events.


COOKING GROUSE



WILD TURKEY



WILD GOOSE



DUCK

How to Catch, Clean and Cook Carp - Fishing and Cooking

Regarding of whether you use fly fishing or bowfishing, carp is a great way to have some fun and eat it too.

On the right and below is two different kinds of carp archery targets. One is a paper target you can use for practicing for bowfishing, the other is a 3D foam target of a carp.

Regardless of whether you use a paper target or a foam target for practice, it is very important to practice your bowfishing skills before actually going bowfishing.

Hence why having a target is so handy.

And with respect to fly fishing, well then it is best you know your equipment really well and how to use it properly.

The video below will show you how to catch, clean and cook carp - the catching part is fly fishing - and they also show the "ethical way to kill carp", which is to freeze kill it in a bucket of ice. The cooking part is more gentile - myself I would probably put it on a stick and roast the fish meat over a campfire - but to each their own.

How To Feed Your Kids Off The Grid

Making and maintaining a garden will be a mandatory part of your daily living if you want to live off the grid and be self sufficient. You could of course hunt and fish, but eating fish and meat all the time isn't very healthy for you - or your kids.

Children need lots of vitamins, a variety of them, in order to grow up healthy. This means lots of fruits, veggies, berries and nuts.

Now depending on the season and where you live in the wilderness you can gather nuts and berries. But be sure to learn which berries are edible and which are poisonous. Same goes with mushrooms, although to be fair less than 1% of mushrooms are poisonous.

Also, in addition to nutritional value, you can't always rely on hunting or fishing. Sometimes there is very little game available, during the winter months. Or maybe the fish just won't bite. Either way, you are going to need a more reliable source of food.

Here is some tips for growing your own garden!

#1. More is Better. Why? Expect some of the food to spoil. It is better to have more than enough than not enough.

#2. Pests and insects will be a nuisance. You need to find a way to deter pests and keep your plants insect free. Now you might think that pesticides is the easy solution, but another easy solution is to either plant something which is poisonous or repels numerous insects. For example, Chrysanthemums are poisonous to bed bugs... So if you get a bed bug infestation go buy yourself some Chrysanthemums potted flowers. A variety of insects all have vulnerabilities to certain plants which either kill with poison or repel them due to their smell.

#3. If possible build a greenhouse. You can regulate the control of water and sunlight, heat and cold, more easily inside a greenhouse. For discounts on heating lamps / daylight lamps if you have excess electricity, go try police auctions because the police seize equipment from grow ops and later sell them. So its a cheap way to get extra stuff for your greenhouse.

#4. Variety - You can't live on potatoes alone. Try to get as much variety in your planted veggies as possible. For fruit this will be more difficult as apple trees / etc take decades to grow and produce lots of fruit.

#5. Storing fruits and veggies. You will need to learn how to store your food for the winter. Some of this may require canning, or you may need to make a cold cellar where you can store food in a dry environment during the winter. Do NOT store onions and potatoes next to each other! The onions do not react well with other vegetables, causing them to grow rot on them.

#6. Weeding is a necessary part of growing a garden. You will need to weed it regularly so your plants grow efficiently and aren't losing precious water and nutrients to rival weeds. Plan to weed your garden every 2 or 3 days, because weeds grow very quickly.

NOTE: Weeds would be ideal for terraforming Mars for an oxygenated atmosphere because they grow quickly, are hardy plants, produce oxygen, reproduce quickly and could turn Mars into a green planet in a short number of years.

2nd Note: Reminder to Self, write a post about settling Mars / terraforming Mars / Living Off the Grid on Mars.

#7. Get input from your kids about what foods to grow. Try and grow more foods that your kids like and will eat. But try to keep a variety at the same time.

#8. Think yield per square foot. Try to allocate equal space to plants based on yield per square foot so you get a roughly equal amount of various foods. If you eat more of one type of food, try to plant more of that so you have adequate amounts.

#9. Learn patience. Gardening is a great way to learn patience, but you also need perseverance to stick with it. You reap what you sow!

#10. Get your kids involved in the planting, weeding, watering and harvestingn process. They will enjoy the food more if they know they helped grow it.

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