By Kellene Bishop
Author’s Note: Before reading this article, I want to be perfectly clear that my objective is not to “freak you out.” Mental Preparedness comes more readily when we allow ourselves to mentally picture scenarios and then allow our brain to strategically work on solving the anticipated problems. I hope this article does that for you today.
If I were a terrorist, I would plan an EMP attack on a day like this.
There’s no such thing as an opportune time for a trial, right? As such, it’s a bit naïve of us to think that if an EMP strike does hit, it will conveniently do so while we are gathered all comfy and cozy in our homes. If I was a nefarious terrorist, I would plan an EMP strike for a freezing snowy winter day affecting most of the country AND during a late time of day that would most affect rush hour. To add to that timing, I would plan it to occur while Congress was out of session for the Christmas break. That would be a true formula for chaos.
Our autos and other modes of transportation will be the most noticeable initial casualty as the result of an EMP strike. Just think what would happen if you were commuting home on the freeway and all of the sudden your vehicle, as well as all of the other cars around you, had all of their electronics stop functioning. The power steering would go out. The power brakes would go out. And like a synchronized swimming team, all of the autos that were made after 1970 would simple stop operating. Sure they might travel another few feet—until they slammed into another car that suddenly stopped operating. Imagine this scene on your jam packed freeway on the way home from work or while running errands. Now picture that scene duplicated throughout thousands upon thousands of bustling cities throughout the country.
In an EMP attack, planes would fall from the sky.
Keeping in line with the disruption of transportation, planes will fall from the sky as their electronics completely fail them. At any given time there are well over 5,000 non-military airplanes over the air space of the U.S. Boeing estimates that one of their 737’s take off or land every 4.9 seconds, although that’s for the world, not just the U.S. Boeing states that they have over 1.5 million planes in the air at all times of the day. Even without that, picture being one of the casualties stranded in the O’Hare or JFK Airport with no lights, no food, and no way to get out of town to your family.
The second part of this impact will be painfully felt in our modes of communication. Your cell phone will be completely useless for anything other than a paper weight. Your car radio will not function or provide you with any information to figure out what went wrong. Regardless of the abundance of injuries that will take place all over the nation, no ambulance, tow truck or life flight will be available to heed your call for help.
The third largest impact that you will notice is in the availability, or rather LACK of available medical care. If you can hobble your way to a hospital from the site of the freeway catastrophe, you will inevitably find the facilities in chaos, overflowing with panicked patients and medical personnel. Their backup generators will be useless in most cases as they typically operate with some electronics. The medical supplies such as bandages and medicine will be exhausted within a couple of hours, not to mention the medical staff. Can you imagine being in the middle of a life-saving surgery and suddenly have the power go off without even so much as a warning beep?
So, what do you do to be prepared? First of all, have your auto supplied with preparedness tools: first aid, water, coat, some food, etc. Be sure that you have a reliable pair of shoes—especially you ladies. Heels are great for partying in, but they make it pretty darn hard to hike in the snow 15 miles should a survival scenario come up. In addition to the obvious tools in your car, you MUST be prepared to defend yourself as well. Violence and desperation will reign supreme in such an environment. There’s no need to be a sitting duck, folks. Act quickly and decisively. When you’ve lost access to communication or news and your cars have suddenly stopped, you will KNOW it’s an EMP folks. Don’t wait around to deliberate with fellow travelers. Get to where you need to be ASAP.
Have a prearranged plan with your loved ones of where to meet in the event of trouble. At least this way your spouse or family and friends will have some peace of mind knowing that you will try to get to that location. Panic is not your friend in an emergency. Peace of mind is, even if it’s challenged by some “what if” scenarios.
Maintaining physical strength isn’t about being able to run a marathon for most people. But everyone’s physical strength will be tested in an EMP scenario. The simple act of getting a glass of water will require work. Flour for a loaf of bread will require arm muscles. Going to the bathroom will require full consciousness. :) That may not daunt some of you, but keep in mind that you may need to cover longer distances than between your house and the outhouse. Thus having working bikes and wagons you can tow on them may be a lifesaver.
Familiarizing yourself with basic medical care such as breaks, sprains, deep cuts, rashes, colds, and flu will also be important. While an EMP won’t send us back to the 19th century in all regards, it certainly would in terms of medical care. We need to take some of the responsibility for self-reliance in this area.
Again, I hope I’ve given you just a few things to think about today. I also really liked how the books “Alas, Babylon” by Pat Frank, and “One Second After” by William Fortschen helped me through some mental preparedness in this exact type of scenario. If you allow your mind to think about and mentally participate in such scenarios, you’ll have a more sound Mental Preparedness to solve the problems in comfort now, rather than in chaos later.
Ham Radio Conditions/MUF
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Friday, December 9, 2011
Rice Milk
When people decide to learn how to make rice milk, they often expect that a lot of special equipment and supplies are required. The reality, however, is very different and rice milk can be made at home using store cupboard ingredients and normal kitchen appliances. The principle for making rice milk at home is the same whether you use white or brown rice. This involves extracting the liquid or milk from cooked rice. There are many ways of doing this and people soon develop their own preferred system.
Ingredients
1 cup of brown rice
4 cups of water
Flavorings as required.
Note: The proportions of rice to water may vary depending on the type of rice used and your own preference for thick or thin rice milk.
Method
Rinse the rice well before cooking
Add the water and rice to a pan and cook the rice gently until the rice is thoroughly cooked and very soft - do not drain the rice
Use a food processor to liquidize the rice and water mix
Strain the liquid through a piece of cheesecloth or muslin if required (this will create a smooth rice milk)
Add flavorings as required
Variations
There are many ways that the basic method of making rice milk can be varied.
Flavorings such as syrup, honey (not for a vegan diet), sweetener or even cocoa powder can be used to give added taste to the milk.
White rice can be substituted for the brown rice. This gives a thinner milk.
Less or more water can be added to create milks of different consistencies.
Ingredients
1 cup of brown rice
4 cups of water
Flavorings as required.
Note: The proportions of rice to water may vary depending on the type of rice used and your own preference for thick or thin rice milk.
Method
Rinse the rice well before cooking
Add the water and rice to a pan and cook the rice gently until the rice is thoroughly cooked and very soft - do not drain the rice
Use a food processor to liquidize the rice and water mix
Strain the liquid through a piece of cheesecloth or muslin if required (this will create a smooth rice milk)
Add flavorings as required
Variations
There are many ways that the basic method of making rice milk can be varied.
Flavorings such as syrup, honey (not for a vegan diet), sweetener or even cocoa powder can be used to give added taste to the milk.
White rice can be substituted for the brown rice. This gives a thinner milk.
Less or more water can be added to create milks of different consistencies.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Herbal Home Remedies: Herbal Vinegars – Part 2
October 20, 2011 Susun S. Weed Wild Food Foraging
Aromatic Delights from your Garden
Part One of this article explained herbal vinegars’ many potent qualities as herbal home remedies, and reviewed the basic tools and simple process of making herbal vinegars. A journey into the author’s garden illustrated how we can reap nature’s rewards and harvest numerous herbs for herbal vinegars. Now, we get to the root of making herbal vinegars: roots! We’ll also review some helpful tips for making vinegars, and review a list of plants that make for tasty vinegars and for herbal calcium supplements.
The main work of this frosty fall morning is to harvest roots: dandelion, burdock, yellow dock, and chicory roots. I’ve been waiting for the frost to bite deep before harvesting the nourishing, medicinal roots of these weeds. With my spading fork (not a shovel, please) I carefully unearth their tender roots, leaving a few to mature and shed seeds so I have a constant supply of young roots. I love the feel of the root sliding free of the soil and into my hands, offering me such gifts of health.
Burdock I admire especially, for its strength of character and its healing qualities. I settle down to do some serious digging to unearth their long roots. For peak benefit, I harvest at the end of the first year of growth, when the roots are most tenacious and least willing to leave the ground. Patience is rewarded when I dig burdock. Eaten cooked or turned into a vinegar (and the pickled pieces of the root consumed with the vinegar), burdock root attracts heavy metals and radioactive isotopes and removes them quickly from the body. For several hundred years at least, and in numerous cases that I have witnessed, burdock root is known to reverse pre-cancerous changes in cells.
Dandelion and chicory are my allies for long life. They support and nourish my liver and improve the production of hydrochloric acid in my stomach, thus ensuring that I will be better nourished by any food I eat. I make separate vinegars of each plant, but like to put both their roots and their leaves together in my vinegar. A spoonful of either of these in a glass of water in the morning or before meals can be used to replace coffee. Note that roasted roots used in coffee substitutes do not have the medicinal value of fresh roots eaten cooked or preserved in vinegar.
Yellow dock is the herbalist’s classic remedy for building iron in the blood. Like calcium, iron is absorbed better when eaten with an acid, such as vinegar, making yellow dock vinegar an especially good way to utilize the iron-enhancing properties of this weed. (It nourishes the iron in the soil, too, and is said to improve the yield of apple trees it grows under.)
And at that thought, I awaken from my reverie and return to spring’s sunshine with a smile. The white cat twines my legs and offers to help me carry the basket back inside to the warmth of the fire. The circle has come around again, like the moon in her courses. Autumn memories yield spring richness. The weeds of fall offer tender green magic in the spring. What I harvested last November has been eaten with joy and I return to be gifted yet again by the wild that lives here with me in my garden.
NOTES ON MAKING HERBAL VINEGAR
It is vital to really fill the jar. This will take more herb or root than you would think.
A good selection of jars of different sizes will enable you to fit your jar to the amount of plant you’ve collected. I especially like baby food jars, mustard jars, olive jars, peanut butter jars and juice jars. Plastic is fine, though I prefer glass.
Always fill jar to the top with plant material; never fill a jar only part way.
Pack the jar full of herb. How much~ How tight~ Tight enough to make a comfortable mattress for a fairy. Not too tight and not too loose. With roots, fill jar to within a thumb’s width of the top.
For maximum strength herbal vinegar, snip or chop herbs and roots.
For maximum visual delight, leave plants whole.
Regular pasteurized apple cider vinegar from the supermarket is what I use when I make my herbal vinegar. Unpasteurized apple cider vinegar can also be used. Note that unpasteurized vinegar forms vinegar “mothers.” Vinegar mothers are harmless. (Actually, they’re of value. I’ve seen vinegar mothers for sale for fancy prices in specialty food shops.) In a jar filled with herb and vinegar, the vinegar mother usually grows across the top of the jar, clinging to the herb, and looking rather like a damp, thin pancake.
Rice vinegar, malt vinegar, wine vinegar, or any other natural vinegar can be used, but they are much more expensive than apple cider vinegar and many have a taste which overpowers or clashes with the taste of the herbs.
I don’t use white vinegar, nor do I use umeboshi vinegar (a Japanese condiment).
The reason that most recipes for herbal vinegar tell you to boil the vinegar is to pasteurize it! I do not find it necessary to heat the vinegar as it is already pasteurized and the final vinegar tastes better if the herbs are not doused with boiling vinegar.
PLANTS THAT MAKE EXCEPTIONALLY GOOD-TASTING HERBAL VINEGARS
Apple mint leaves, stalks
Bee balm (Monarda didyma) flowers, leaves, stalks
Bergamot (Monarda sp.) flowers, leaves, stalks
Burdock (Arctium lappa) roots
Catnip (Nepeta cataria) leaves, stalks
Chicory (Cichorium intybus) leaves, roots
Chives and especially chive blossoms
Dandelion (Traxacum off.) flower buds, leaves, roots
Dill (Anethum graveolens) herb, seeds
Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) herb, seeds
Garlic (Allium sativum)
Garlic mustard (Alliaria officinalis)
Goldenrod (Solidago sp.) flowers
Ginger (Zingiber off.) and Wild ginger (Asarum canadensis) roots
Lavender (Lavendula sp.) flowers, leaves
Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) new growth leaves and roots
Orange mint leaves, stalks
Orange peel, organic only
Peppermint (Mentha piperata and etc.) leaves, stalks
Perilla (Shiso) leaves, stalks
Rosemary (Rosmarinus off.) leaves, stalks
Spearmint (Mentha spicata) leaves, stalks
Thyme (Thymus sp.) leaves, stalks
White pine (Pinus strobus) needles
Yarrow (Achilllea millifolium) flowers and leaves
PLANTS TO USE WHEN MAKING AN HERBAL CALCIUM SUPPLEMENT
Amaranth (Amaranthus retroflexus) leaves
Cabbage leaves
Chickweed (Stellaria media) whole herb
Comfrey (Symphytum officinalis) leaves
Dandelion leaves and root
Kale leaves
Lambsquarter (Chenopodium album) leaves
Mallow (Malva neglecta) leaves
All mints, including sage, motherwort, lemon balm, lavender, peppermint, etc.
Mugwort (cronewort) (Artemisia vulgaris)
Nettle (Urtica dioica) leaves
Parsley (Petroselinum sativum) leaves
Plantain (Plantago majus) leaves
Raspberry (Rubus species) leaves
Red clover (Trifolium pratense) blossoms
Violet (Viola ordorata) leaves
Yellow dock (Rumex crispus and other species) roots
HERBAL VINEGARS WHERE YOU EAT THE PICKLED PLANTS, TOO
Burdock
Chicory
Dandelion
Purslane
Yellow Dock
Aromatic Delights from your Garden
Part One of this article explained herbal vinegars’ many potent qualities as herbal home remedies, and reviewed the basic tools and simple process of making herbal vinegars. A journey into the author’s garden illustrated how we can reap nature’s rewards and harvest numerous herbs for herbal vinegars. Now, we get to the root of making herbal vinegars: roots! We’ll also review some helpful tips for making vinegars, and review a list of plants that make for tasty vinegars and for herbal calcium supplements.
The main work of this frosty fall morning is to harvest roots: dandelion, burdock, yellow dock, and chicory roots. I’ve been waiting for the frost to bite deep before harvesting the nourishing, medicinal roots of these weeds. With my spading fork (not a shovel, please) I carefully unearth their tender roots, leaving a few to mature and shed seeds so I have a constant supply of young roots. I love the feel of the root sliding free of the soil and into my hands, offering me such gifts of health.
Burdock I admire especially, for its strength of character and its healing qualities. I settle down to do some serious digging to unearth their long roots. For peak benefit, I harvest at the end of the first year of growth, when the roots are most tenacious and least willing to leave the ground. Patience is rewarded when I dig burdock. Eaten cooked or turned into a vinegar (and the pickled pieces of the root consumed with the vinegar), burdock root attracts heavy metals and radioactive isotopes and removes them quickly from the body. For several hundred years at least, and in numerous cases that I have witnessed, burdock root is known to reverse pre-cancerous changes in cells.
Dandelion and chicory are my allies for long life. They support and nourish my liver and improve the production of hydrochloric acid in my stomach, thus ensuring that I will be better nourished by any food I eat. I make separate vinegars of each plant, but like to put both their roots and their leaves together in my vinegar. A spoonful of either of these in a glass of water in the morning or before meals can be used to replace coffee. Note that roasted roots used in coffee substitutes do not have the medicinal value of fresh roots eaten cooked or preserved in vinegar.
Yellow dock is the herbalist’s classic remedy for building iron in the blood. Like calcium, iron is absorbed better when eaten with an acid, such as vinegar, making yellow dock vinegar an especially good way to utilize the iron-enhancing properties of this weed. (It nourishes the iron in the soil, too, and is said to improve the yield of apple trees it grows under.)
And at that thought, I awaken from my reverie and return to spring’s sunshine with a smile. The white cat twines my legs and offers to help me carry the basket back inside to the warmth of the fire. The circle has come around again, like the moon in her courses. Autumn memories yield spring richness. The weeds of fall offer tender green magic in the spring. What I harvested last November has been eaten with joy and I return to be gifted yet again by the wild that lives here with me in my garden.
NOTES ON MAKING HERBAL VINEGAR
It is vital to really fill the jar. This will take more herb or root than you would think.
A good selection of jars of different sizes will enable you to fit your jar to the amount of plant you’ve collected. I especially like baby food jars, mustard jars, olive jars, peanut butter jars and juice jars. Plastic is fine, though I prefer glass.
Always fill jar to the top with plant material; never fill a jar only part way.
Pack the jar full of herb. How much~ How tight~ Tight enough to make a comfortable mattress for a fairy. Not too tight and not too loose. With roots, fill jar to within a thumb’s width of the top.
For maximum strength herbal vinegar, snip or chop herbs and roots.
For maximum visual delight, leave plants whole.
Regular pasteurized apple cider vinegar from the supermarket is what I use when I make my herbal vinegar. Unpasteurized apple cider vinegar can also be used. Note that unpasteurized vinegar forms vinegar “mothers.” Vinegar mothers are harmless. (Actually, they’re of value. I’ve seen vinegar mothers for sale for fancy prices in specialty food shops.) In a jar filled with herb and vinegar, the vinegar mother usually grows across the top of the jar, clinging to the herb, and looking rather like a damp, thin pancake.
Rice vinegar, malt vinegar, wine vinegar, or any other natural vinegar can be used, but they are much more expensive than apple cider vinegar and many have a taste which overpowers or clashes with the taste of the herbs.
I don’t use white vinegar, nor do I use umeboshi vinegar (a Japanese condiment).
The reason that most recipes for herbal vinegar tell you to boil the vinegar is to pasteurize it! I do not find it necessary to heat the vinegar as it is already pasteurized and the final vinegar tastes better if the herbs are not doused with boiling vinegar.
PLANTS THAT MAKE EXCEPTIONALLY GOOD-TASTING HERBAL VINEGARS
Apple mint leaves, stalks
Bee balm (Monarda didyma) flowers, leaves, stalks
Bergamot (Monarda sp.) flowers, leaves, stalks
Burdock (Arctium lappa) roots
Catnip (Nepeta cataria) leaves, stalks
Chicory (Cichorium intybus) leaves, roots
Chives and especially chive blossoms
Dandelion (Traxacum off.) flower buds, leaves, roots
Dill (Anethum graveolens) herb, seeds
Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) herb, seeds
Garlic (Allium sativum)
Garlic mustard (Alliaria officinalis)
Goldenrod (Solidago sp.) flowers
Ginger (Zingiber off.) and Wild ginger (Asarum canadensis) roots
Lavender (Lavendula sp.) flowers, leaves
Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) new growth leaves and roots
Orange mint leaves, stalks
Orange peel, organic only
Peppermint (Mentha piperata and etc.) leaves, stalks
Perilla (Shiso) leaves, stalks
Rosemary (Rosmarinus off.) leaves, stalks
Spearmint (Mentha spicata) leaves, stalks
Thyme (Thymus sp.) leaves, stalks
White pine (Pinus strobus) needles
Yarrow (Achilllea millifolium) flowers and leaves
PLANTS TO USE WHEN MAKING AN HERBAL CALCIUM SUPPLEMENT
Amaranth (Amaranthus retroflexus) leaves
Cabbage leaves
Chickweed (Stellaria media) whole herb
Comfrey (Symphytum officinalis) leaves
Dandelion leaves and root
Kale leaves
Lambsquarter (Chenopodium album) leaves
Mallow (Malva neglecta) leaves
All mints, including sage, motherwort, lemon balm, lavender, peppermint, etc.
Mugwort (cronewort) (Artemisia vulgaris)
Nettle (Urtica dioica) leaves
Parsley (Petroselinum sativum) leaves
Plantain (Plantago majus) leaves
Raspberry (Rubus species) leaves
Red clover (Trifolium pratense) blossoms
Violet (Viola ordorata) leaves
Yellow dock (Rumex crispus and other species) roots
HERBAL VINEGARS WHERE YOU EAT THE PICKLED PLANTS, TOO
Burdock
Chicory
Dandelion
Purslane
Yellow Dock
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Herbal Home Remedies: Herbal Vinegars – Part 1
September 8, 2011 Susun S. Weed Wild Food Foraging
Aromatic Delights from your Garden
A pantry full of herbal vinegars is a constant delight. Preserving fresh herbs and roots in vinegar is an easy way to capture their nourishing goodness. It’s easy too. You don’t even have to have an herb garden.
BASIC HERBAL VINEGAR
Takes 5 minutes plus 6 weeks to prepare. You will need the following:
glass or plastic jar of any size up to one quart/liter
plastic lid for jar or
waxed paper and a rubber band
fresh herbs, roots, weeds
one quart/liter apple cider vinegar
1. Fill any size jar with fresh-cut aromatic herbs. (See accompanying list for suggestions of herbs that extract particularly well in vinegar.) For best results and highest mineral content, be sure the jar is well filled with your chosen herb, not just a few sprigs, and be sure to cut the herbs or roots up into small pieces.
2. Pour room-temperature apple cider vinegar into the jar until it is full. Cover jar with a plastic screw-on lid, several layers of plastic or wax paper held on with a rubber band, or a cork. Vinegar disintegrates metal lids.
3. Label the jar with the name of the herb and the date. Put it in some place away from direct sunlight, though it doesn’t have to be in the dark, and some place that isn’t too hot, but not too cold either. A kitchen cupboard is fine, but choose one that you open a lot so you remember to use your vinegar, which will be ready in six weeks.
Apple cider vinegar has been used as a health-giving agent for centuries. Hippocrates, father of medicine, is said to have used only two remedies: honey and vinegar. A small book on Vermont folk remedies—primary among them being apple cider vinegar—has sold over 5 million copies since its publication in the ‘50s. A current ad in a national health magazine states that vinegar can give me a longer, healthier, happier life.
Vinegar has many powers: it lowers cholesterol, improves skin tone, moderates high blood pressure, prevents/counters osteoporosis, and improves metabolic functioning. Herbal vinegars are an unstoppable combination: the healing and nutritional properties of vinegar married to the aromatic and health-protective effects of green herbs (and a few wild roots).
Herbal vinegars don’t taste like medicine. In fact, they taste so good I use them frequently. I pour a spoonful or more on beans and grains at dinner; I use them in salad dressings; I season stir-fry and soups with them. This regular use boosts the nutrient-level of my diet with very little effort and virtually no expense. Sometimes I drink my herbal vinegar in a glass of water in the morning, remembering the many older women who’ve told me that apple cider vinegar prevents and eases their arthritic pains.
I aim to ingest a tablespoon or more of mineral-rich herbal vinegar daily. Not just because herbal vinegars taste great (they do!), but because they offer an easy way to keep my calcium levels high (and that’s a real concern for a menopausal woman of fifty). Herbal vinegars are so rich in nutrients that I never need to take vitamin or mineral pills.
Why vinegar? Water does a poor job of extracting calcium from plants, but calcium and all minerals dissolve into vinegar very easily. You can see this for yourself. Submerge a bone in vinegar for six weeks. What happens? The bone becomes pliable and rubbery. Why? The vinegar extracted the minerals from the bone. (And now the vinegar is loaded with calcium and other bone-building minerals!)
After observing this trick it’s not unusual to fear that if you consume vinegar your bones will dissolve. But you’d have to take off your skin and sit in vinegar for weeks in order for that to happen! Adding vinegar to your food actually helps build bones because it frees up minerals from the vegetables you eat. Adding a splash of vinegar to cooked greens is a classic trick of old ladies who want to be spry and flexible when they’re ancient old ladies. (Maybe your granny already taught you this.) In fact, a spoonful of vinegar on your broccoli or kale or dandelion greens increases the calcium you get by one-third.
All by itself, vinegar helps build bones; and when it’s combined with mineral-rich herbs, vinegar is better than calcium pills. Some people worry that eating vinegar will contribute to an overgrowth of candida yeast in the intestines. My experience has led me to believe that herbal vinegars do just the opposite, perhaps because they’re so mineral rich. Herbal vinegars are especially useful for anyone who can’t (or doesn’t want to) drink milk. A tablespoon of infused herbal vinegar has the same amount of calcium as a glass of milk.
So out the door I go, taking a basket and a pair of scissors, my warm vest and my gloves, to see what I can harvest for my bone-building vinegars.
The first greens to greet me are the slender spires of garlic grass, or wild chives, common in any soil that hasn’t been disturbed too frequently, such as the lawn, the part of the garden where the tiller doesn’t go, the rhubarb patch, the asparagus bed, the coven of comfrey plants. This morning they’re all offering me patches of oniony greens. Snip, snip, snip. The vinegar I’ll make from these tender tops will contain not only minerals, but also allyls, special cancer-preventative compounds found in raw onions, garlic, and the like.
Here where tulips will push up soon, in a sunny corner, is a patch of catnip intermingled with motherwort, two plants especially beloved by women. I use catnip to ease menstrual cramps, relieve colic, and bring on sleep. Motherwort is my favorite remedy for moderating hot flashes and emotional swings. They are both members of the mint family, and like all mints, are exceptionally good sources of calcium and make great-tasting vinegars. Individual mint flavors are magically captured by the vinegar. From now until snow cover next fall, I’ll gather the mints of each season—peppermint, spearmint, lemon balm, bee balm, oregano, shiso, wild bergamot, thyme, hyssop, sage, rosemary, lavender—and activate their unique tastes and their tonic, nourishing properties by steeping them in vinegar. What a tasty way to build strong bones, a healthy heart, emotional stability, and energetic vitality.
Down here, under the wild rose hedge, is a plant familiar to anyone who has walked the woods and roadsides of the east: garlic mustard. I’ll enjoy the leaves in my salad tonight, as I do all winter and spring, but I’ll have to wait a bit longer before I can harvest the roots, which produce a vibrant, horseradishy vinegar that’s just the thing to brighten a winter salad and keep the sinuses clear at the same time.
And what’s this? A patch of chickweed! It’s a good addition to my vinegars and my salads, boosting their calcium content, though adding scant flavor. In protected spots, she offers year-round greens.
Look down. The mugwort is sprouting, all fuzzy and grey. I call it cronewort to honor the wisdom of grey-haired women. The culinary value of this very wild herb is oft overlooked. I was thrilled to find it for sale in Germany right next to the dried caraway and rosemary, in a little jar, in the supermarket. Cronewort vinegar is one of the tastiest and most beneficial of all the vinegars I make. It is renowned as a general nourishing tonic to circulatory, nervous, urinary, and mental functioning, as well as being a specific aid to those wanting sound sleep and strong bones. Cronewort vinegar is free for the making in most cities if you know where this invasive weed grows.
To mellow cronewort’s slightly bitter taste and accent her fragrant, flavorful aspects, I pick her small (under three inches) and add a few of her roots to the jar along with the leaves. I cut the tall flowering stalks of this aromatic plant in the late summer or early autumn, when they’re in full bloom, and dry them. The leaves, stripped carefully from the stalks, provided stuffing (and magic) for our winter dream pillows; they are said to carry one into vivid dreams and visions.
The sun is bright and strong and warm. I turn my face toward it and close my eyes, breathing in. I feel the vibrating life force here. Everything is aquiver. I smile, knowing that that energy will be available to me when I consume the vinegars I’ll make from these herbs and weeds. As I relax against the big oak, I breathe out and envision the garden growing and blooming, fruiting and dying, as the seasons slip through my mind’s eye….
The air grows chillier at night. The leaves fall more quickly with each breeze. The first mild frosts take the basil, the tomatoes and the squash, freeing me to pay attention once again to the perennial herbs and weeds, and urging me to make haste before even the hardy herbs drop their leaves and retreat to winter dormancy.
The day dawns sunny. Yes, now is the time to harvest the last of the garden’s bounty, the rewards of my work, the gifts of the earth. I dress warmly (remembering to wear red; hunting season’s open), stash my red-handled clippers in my back pocket, and take a basket in one hand and a plastic tub in the other.
Then I’m out the door, into autumn’s slanting sunshine and my quiet garden. My black cat bounds over to help me harvest and, after a while, the white cat emerges from under the house to purr and signal her satisfaction with my presence in her domain this morning.
My gardening friends say the harvest is over for the year, but I know my weeds will keep me at work harvesting until well into the winter. In no time at all my deep basket is full and I’m wishing I’d brought another. Violet leaves push against stalks of lamb’s quarter. Hollyhock, wild malva, and plantain leaves jostle for their own spaces against the last of the comfrey and dandelion leaves. (I think dandelion leaves are much better eating in the fall than in the spring, much less bitter to my taste after they’ve been frosted a few nights.) The last of the red clover blossoms snuggle in the middle. Though not aromatic or intensely flavored, a vinegar of these greens will be my super-rich calcium supplement for the dark months of winter.
My baskets are overflowing and I haven’t gotten to the nettles and the raspberry leaves yet. They’re superb sources of calcium, too. Ah! The gracious abundance of weeds, or should I say “volunteer herbs” – I actually respect them more than the cultivated herbs; respect their strident life force, and their powerful nutritional punch, and their added medicinal values that help me stay healthy and filled with energy.
Vinegars, as we’ve read, can be our allies by (among other things) lowering cholesterol, improving skin tone, and metabolic functioning. With a few simple tools, we easily can harvest herbs right in or around our yard to make some yummy, healthy vinegars.
Part two of this article reviews the importance of harvesting the right roots, offers some helpful pointers for making vinegars, and provides an indispensable list of plants that make for tasty vinegars and a list of plants for herbal calcium supplements.
Aromatic Delights from your Garden
A pantry full of herbal vinegars is a constant delight. Preserving fresh herbs and roots in vinegar is an easy way to capture their nourishing goodness. It’s easy too. You don’t even have to have an herb garden.
BASIC HERBAL VINEGAR
Takes 5 minutes plus 6 weeks to prepare. You will need the following:
glass or plastic jar of any size up to one quart/liter
plastic lid for jar or
waxed paper and a rubber band
fresh herbs, roots, weeds
one quart/liter apple cider vinegar
1. Fill any size jar with fresh-cut aromatic herbs. (See accompanying list for suggestions of herbs that extract particularly well in vinegar.) For best results and highest mineral content, be sure the jar is well filled with your chosen herb, not just a few sprigs, and be sure to cut the herbs or roots up into small pieces.
2. Pour room-temperature apple cider vinegar into the jar until it is full. Cover jar with a plastic screw-on lid, several layers of plastic or wax paper held on with a rubber band, or a cork. Vinegar disintegrates metal lids.
3. Label the jar with the name of the herb and the date. Put it in some place away from direct sunlight, though it doesn’t have to be in the dark, and some place that isn’t too hot, but not too cold either. A kitchen cupboard is fine, but choose one that you open a lot so you remember to use your vinegar, which will be ready in six weeks.
Apple cider vinegar has been used as a health-giving agent for centuries. Hippocrates, father of medicine, is said to have used only two remedies: honey and vinegar. A small book on Vermont folk remedies—primary among them being apple cider vinegar—has sold over 5 million copies since its publication in the ‘50s. A current ad in a national health magazine states that vinegar can give me a longer, healthier, happier life.
Vinegar has many powers: it lowers cholesterol, improves skin tone, moderates high blood pressure, prevents/counters osteoporosis, and improves metabolic functioning. Herbal vinegars are an unstoppable combination: the healing and nutritional properties of vinegar married to the aromatic and health-protective effects of green herbs (and a few wild roots).
Herbal vinegars don’t taste like medicine. In fact, they taste so good I use them frequently. I pour a spoonful or more on beans and grains at dinner; I use them in salad dressings; I season stir-fry and soups with them. This regular use boosts the nutrient-level of my diet with very little effort and virtually no expense. Sometimes I drink my herbal vinegar in a glass of water in the morning, remembering the many older women who’ve told me that apple cider vinegar prevents and eases their arthritic pains.
I aim to ingest a tablespoon or more of mineral-rich herbal vinegar daily. Not just because herbal vinegars taste great (they do!), but because they offer an easy way to keep my calcium levels high (and that’s a real concern for a menopausal woman of fifty). Herbal vinegars are so rich in nutrients that I never need to take vitamin or mineral pills.
Why vinegar? Water does a poor job of extracting calcium from plants, but calcium and all minerals dissolve into vinegar very easily. You can see this for yourself. Submerge a bone in vinegar for six weeks. What happens? The bone becomes pliable and rubbery. Why? The vinegar extracted the minerals from the bone. (And now the vinegar is loaded with calcium and other bone-building minerals!)
After observing this trick it’s not unusual to fear that if you consume vinegar your bones will dissolve. But you’d have to take off your skin and sit in vinegar for weeks in order for that to happen! Adding vinegar to your food actually helps build bones because it frees up minerals from the vegetables you eat. Adding a splash of vinegar to cooked greens is a classic trick of old ladies who want to be spry and flexible when they’re ancient old ladies. (Maybe your granny already taught you this.) In fact, a spoonful of vinegar on your broccoli or kale or dandelion greens increases the calcium you get by one-third.
All by itself, vinegar helps build bones; and when it’s combined with mineral-rich herbs, vinegar is better than calcium pills. Some people worry that eating vinegar will contribute to an overgrowth of candida yeast in the intestines. My experience has led me to believe that herbal vinegars do just the opposite, perhaps because they’re so mineral rich. Herbal vinegars are especially useful for anyone who can’t (or doesn’t want to) drink milk. A tablespoon of infused herbal vinegar has the same amount of calcium as a glass of milk.
So out the door I go, taking a basket and a pair of scissors, my warm vest and my gloves, to see what I can harvest for my bone-building vinegars.
The first greens to greet me are the slender spires of garlic grass, or wild chives, common in any soil that hasn’t been disturbed too frequently, such as the lawn, the part of the garden where the tiller doesn’t go, the rhubarb patch, the asparagus bed, the coven of comfrey plants. This morning they’re all offering me patches of oniony greens. Snip, snip, snip. The vinegar I’ll make from these tender tops will contain not only minerals, but also allyls, special cancer-preventative compounds found in raw onions, garlic, and the like.
Here where tulips will push up soon, in a sunny corner, is a patch of catnip intermingled with motherwort, two plants especially beloved by women. I use catnip to ease menstrual cramps, relieve colic, and bring on sleep. Motherwort is my favorite remedy for moderating hot flashes and emotional swings. They are both members of the mint family, and like all mints, are exceptionally good sources of calcium and make great-tasting vinegars. Individual mint flavors are magically captured by the vinegar. From now until snow cover next fall, I’ll gather the mints of each season—peppermint, spearmint, lemon balm, bee balm, oregano, shiso, wild bergamot, thyme, hyssop, sage, rosemary, lavender—and activate their unique tastes and their tonic, nourishing properties by steeping them in vinegar. What a tasty way to build strong bones, a healthy heart, emotional stability, and energetic vitality.
Down here, under the wild rose hedge, is a plant familiar to anyone who has walked the woods and roadsides of the east: garlic mustard. I’ll enjoy the leaves in my salad tonight, as I do all winter and spring, but I’ll have to wait a bit longer before I can harvest the roots, which produce a vibrant, horseradishy vinegar that’s just the thing to brighten a winter salad and keep the sinuses clear at the same time.
And what’s this? A patch of chickweed! It’s a good addition to my vinegars and my salads, boosting their calcium content, though adding scant flavor. In protected spots, she offers year-round greens.
Look down. The mugwort is sprouting, all fuzzy and grey. I call it cronewort to honor the wisdom of grey-haired women. The culinary value of this very wild herb is oft overlooked. I was thrilled to find it for sale in Germany right next to the dried caraway and rosemary, in a little jar, in the supermarket. Cronewort vinegar is one of the tastiest and most beneficial of all the vinegars I make. It is renowned as a general nourishing tonic to circulatory, nervous, urinary, and mental functioning, as well as being a specific aid to those wanting sound sleep and strong bones. Cronewort vinegar is free for the making in most cities if you know where this invasive weed grows.
To mellow cronewort’s slightly bitter taste and accent her fragrant, flavorful aspects, I pick her small (under three inches) and add a few of her roots to the jar along with the leaves. I cut the tall flowering stalks of this aromatic plant in the late summer or early autumn, when they’re in full bloom, and dry them. The leaves, stripped carefully from the stalks, provided stuffing (and magic) for our winter dream pillows; they are said to carry one into vivid dreams and visions.
The sun is bright and strong and warm. I turn my face toward it and close my eyes, breathing in. I feel the vibrating life force here. Everything is aquiver. I smile, knowing that that energy will be available to me when I consume the vinegars I’ll make from these herbs and weeds. As I relax against the big oak, I breathe out and envision the garden growing and blooming, fruiting and dying, as the seasons slip through my mind’s eye….
The air grows chillier at night. The leaves fall more quickly with each breeze. The first mild frosts take the basil, the tomatoes and the squash, freeing me to pay attention once again to the perennial herbs and weeds, and urging me to make haste before even the hardy herbs drop their leaves and retreat to winter dormancy.
The day dawns sunny. Yes, now is the time to harvest the last of the garden’s bounty, the rewards of my work, the gifts of the earth. I dress warmly (remembering to wear red; hunting season’s open), stash my red-handled clippers in my back pocket, and take a basket in one hand and a plastic tub in the other.
Then I’m out the door, into autumn’s slanting sunshine and my quiet garden. My black cat bounds over to help me harvest and, after a while, the white cat emerges from under the house to purr and signal her satisfaction with my presence in her domain this morning.
My gardening friends say the harvest is over for the year, but I know my weeds will keep me at work harvesting until well into the winter. In no time at all my deep basket is full and I’m wishing I’d brought another. Violet leaves push against stalks of lamb’s quarter. Hollyhock, wild malva, and plantain leaves jostle for their own spaces against the last of the comfrey and dandelion leaves. (I think dandelion leaves are much better eating in the fall than in the spring, much less bitter to my taste after they’ve been frosted a few nights.) The last of the red clover blossoms snuggle in the middle. Though not aromatic or intensely flavored, a vinegar of these greens will be my super-rich calcium supplement for the dark months of winter.
My baskets are overflowing and I haven’t gotten to the nettles and the raspberry leaves yet. They’re superb sources of calcium, too. Ah! The gracious abundance of weeds, or should I say “volunteer herbs” – I actually respect them more than the cultivated herbs; respect their strident life force, and their powerful nutritional punch, and their added medicinal values that help me stay healthy and filled with energy.
Vinegars, as we’ve read, can be our allies by (among other things) lowering cholesterol, improving skin tone, and metabolic functioning. With a few simple tools, we easily can harvest herbs right in or around our yard to make some yummy, healthy vinegars.
Part two of this article reviews the importance of harvesting the right roots, offers some helpful pointers for making vinegars, and provides an indispensable list of plants that make for tasty vinegars and a list of plants for herbal calcium supplements.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Pemmican: The Indigenous Sausage
Recipe: Pemmican
The Native People of the temperate and northern regions of America developed a high-energy fast food that is easily transportable and long-storing. We know it as pemmican, or pimikan in the Algonquin languages. The term is derived from pimii, the Cree-Chippewa word for fat. This is quite appropriate labeling, because fat, a concentrated energy source, is the most important ingredient. The second part of this article contains a pemmican recipe.
We are all generally familiar with pemmican already, as it is basically sausage. It is a mixture of dried shredded or pounded meat, usually ungulate (Bison, Elk, Deer), and lard (solid rendered fat), usually ungulate also, which is combined and compressed into cakes.
Pemmican is made by first separating the fat and meat from each other so that they can be processed individually. Meat is best preserved by drying, and fat by rendering. If there is fat in the meat, or vice versa, either could spoil. However, once each is prepared they can be mixed together and the resulting product will have good keeping quality. For travel it is tightly packed in sealed containers (similar to stuffing sausage in casing) so that it will not rancidify.
The popular understanding is that pemmican contains fruit. This is a misconception. Historically, a small amount of dried fruit (such as juneberries) was on occasion added, more for flavor than for its nutritional contribution. Indications are that it was probably no more popular than is sweet sausage in the Euro-American tradition. The practice of adding fruit to pemmican became commonplace with nonnatives, who in my estimation were probably accommodating their acculturated taste for flavor additives in their sausages.
Fat is the primary ingredient in a pemmican recipe because fat has nearly 2 1⁄2 times the energy of complex carbohydrates (which are starch, as found in grains and tubers), sugars or meat. This is important in travel and cold weather because a lot of energy is needed without overloading the system with bulky foods. Another benefit of fat is that it digests slowly, providing steady energy over a long period of time. Sugars break down rapidly, giving a quick energy peak, then a valley. Carbohydrates fare a bit better, yet nowhere near fat. Meat in excess of what is needed to rebuild muscle is broken down and converted to energy, however it requires more water than other energy foods and may carry health risks (see bottom of page).
Fat is more necessary than meat in northern diet. As a traditional North Country travel and winter ration, pemmican needed to sustain life and provide energy, sometimes on its own. Northern greenhorn explorers have died trying to live on lean meat. Some Inuit Peoples’ winter diets consist of almost half fat. Recently a woman crossed the continent of Antarctica on foot, consuming pure olive oil (a liquid fat) for energy.
Make Your Own
In this pemmican recipe, we are basically disassembling and reassembling the meat. Fresh meat rots quickly; once the flesh and fat are separated and processed, each in the way that works best for it, they can be reassembled and will remain preserved for an extended period.
Pemmican is quite easy to make and a variety of ingredients can be used. Following is my step-by-step preferred method; feel free to substitute meats and fat sources. In doing so the most important guidelines to keep in mind are to be sure your meat is lean and completely dry, and to use rendered fat that will not melt (such as the fat of ungulates) while the pemmican is being stored and used.
Dry the meat.
Choose a warm, dry, sunny period and start early in the day to take full advantage of available drying time. I prefer large chunks (like thigh and shoulder) of meat that are already quite lean, like summer venison.
If such is not available, clean all visible fat and connective tissue from the meat, then slice as thinly as possible, preferably across the grain (dries faster that way) and place on a drying rack in full sunlight. If yours is a warm dry climate, you may be able to keep your slices 1/4 inch thick and get them dry in a day. If your area is humid, slice as thinly as possible.
It’s best to get the meat dry in one day, to lessen the chance of spoilage. Test for dryness by bending each piece, particularly where thick. Those needing more drying time will be rubbery; those dry enough will be brittle and crack. Take them indoors so they do not reabsorb moisture overnight. They are best kept refrigerated.
If conditions are not ideal for drying, use a supplemental fire. What you are creating here is jerky, which can be stored and consumed as-is, but it is not a complete food because it does not contain fat. Do not try to live on it! Natives will either use jerky as an ingredient in a complete meal, or will use it to make pemmican.
Grind the meat. Use a commercial grinder, or pulverize, as Natives would.
Render the fat.
Combine meat and fat, in a ratio of about two parts meat to one part fat.
Pack in airtight containers Cleaned intestine, bark, glass or plastic containers can be used.
Store in a cool, dry, dark place.
This is the end of the pemmican recipe!
A word of caution: Pemmican is a concentrated food that is best consumed sparingly, when you are active, and not for an extended period of time. Consumption of hard fat can be unhealthy for sedentary people, and protein over consumption can overload the body with uric acid (which may lead to gout) and calcium oxalate (the mineral which forms kidney stones). Ketones may also build up in the system, causing kidney damage. (A sign of protein over consumption is ketone breath, which smells like nail polish or overripe pineapple.)
Tamarack Song has been a student and teacher of the traditional outdoor skills his whole life. He is an author and director of the celebrated Teaching Drum Outdoor School.
[DWB states: If rendering fat for the first time, take it in baby steps. You will need to render one pound of fat more than you will need ..... That means that if you need six pounds of lard, you will need about seven pounds of fat.
As the fat heats and becomes liquid, the solids will sink to the bottom of the pot. Slowly pour the liquid into a clean pot and throw away the solids. Allow the fat to cool to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Then add an equal amount of lukewarm water.
Bring the fat and water to a gentle simmer and cook, covered, for 15 minutes. Set it outside overnight to chill, or put it in your refrigerator. In the morning, the fat will have risen to the top. The remaining unwanted solids will be in the bottom of the pot.
Using a spatula, remove the top layer of fat. If there is a jellylike substance on the bottom of your fat, scrape that substance off and throw it away. You only want the pure, hardened fat.
Cook It Again
Then break up the hardened fat into chunks and put it into another pot. Add an equal amount of water and one large potato cut in half. Cover the pot and simmer for 15 minutes.
Allow it to cool overnight. Then lift the fat out of the water and scrape the bottom clean. Congratulations! You now have rendered fat.... Either use it right away or store it in the freezer for future use.]
The Native People of the temperate and northern regions of America developed a high-energy fast food that is easily transportable and long-storing. We know it as pemmican, or pimikan in the Algonquin languages. The term is derived from pimii, the Cree-Chippewa word for fat. This is quite appropriate labeling, because fat, a concentrated energy source, is the most important ingredient. The second part of this article contains a pemmican recipe.
We are all generally familiar with pemmican already, as it is basically sausage. It is a mixture of dried shredded or pounded meat, usually ungulate (Bison, Elk, Deer), and lard (solid rendered fat), usually ungulate also, which is combined and compressed into cakes.
Pemmican is made by first separating the fat and meat from each other so that they can be processed individually. Meat is best preserved by drying, and fat by rendering. If there is fat in the meat, or vice versa, either could spoil. However, once each is prepared they can be mixed together and the resulting product will have good keeping quality. For travel it is tightly packed in sealed containers (similar to stuffing sausage in casing) so that it will not rancidify.
The popular understanding is that pemmican contains fruit. This is a misconception. Historically, a small amount of dried fruit (such as juneberries) was on occasion added, more for flavor than for its nutritional contribution. Indications are that it was probably no more popular than is sweet sausage in the Euro-American tradition. The practice of adding fruit to pemmican became commonplace with nonnatives, who in my estimation were probably accommodating their acculturated taste for flavor additives in their sausages.
Fat is the primary ingredient in a pemmican recipe because fat has nearly 2 1⁄2 times the energy of complex carbohydrates (which are starch, as found in grains and tubers), sugars or meat. This is important in travel and cold weather because a lot of energy is needed without overloading the system with bulky foods. Another benefit of fat is that it digests slowly, providing steady energy over a long period of time. Sugars break down rapidly, giving a quick energy peak, then a valley. Carbohydrates fare a bit better, yet nowhere near fat. Meat in excess of what is needed to rebuild muscle is broken down and converted to energy, however it requires more water than other energy foods and may carry health risks (see bottom of page).
Fat is more necessary than meat in northern diet. As a traditional North Country travel and winter ration, pemmican needed to sustain life and provide energy, sometimes on its own. Northern greenhorn explorers have died trying to live on lean meat. Some Inuit Peoples’ winter diets consist of almost half fat. Recently a woman crossed the continent of Antarctica on foot, consuming pure olive oil (a liquid fat) for energy.
Make Your Own
In this pemmican recipe, we are basically disassembling and reassembling the meat. Fresh meat rots quickly; once the flesh and fat are separated and processed, each in the way that works best for it, they can be reassembled and will remain preserved for an extended period.
Pemmican is quite easy to make and a variety of ingredients can be used. Following is my step-by-step preferred method; feel free to substitute meats and fat sources. In doing so the most important guidelines to keep in mind are to be sure your meat is lean and completely dry, and to use rendered fat that will not melt (such as the fat of ungulates) while the pemmican is being stored and used.
Dry the meat.
Choose a warm, dry, sunny period and start early in the day to take full advantage of available drying time. I prefer large chunks (like thigh and shoulder) of meat that are already quite lean, like summer venison.
If such is not available, clean all visible fat and connective tissue from the meat, then slice as thinly as possible, preferably across the grain (dries faster that way) and place on a drying rack in full sunlight. If yours is a warm dry climate, you may be able to keep your slices 1/4 inch thick and get them dry in a day. If your area is humid, slice as thinly as possible.
It’s best to get the meat dry in one day, to lessen the chance of spoilage. Test for dryness by bending each piece, particularly where thick. Those needing more drying time will be rubbery; those dry enough will be brittle and crack. Take them indoors so they do not reabsorb moisture overnight. They are best kept refrigerated.
If conditions are not ideal for drying, use a supplemental fire. What you are creating here is jerky, which can be stored and consumed as-is, but it is not a complete food because it does not contain fat. Do not try to live on it! Natives will either use jerky as an ingredient in a complete meal, or will use it to make pemmican.
Grind the meat. Use a commercial grinder, or pulverize, as Natives would.
Render the fat.
Combine meat and fat, in a ratio of about two parts meat to one part fat.
Pack in airtight containers Cleaned intestine, bark, glass or plastic containers can be used.
Store in a cool, dry, dark place.
This is the end of the pemmican recipe!
A word of caution: Pemmican is a concentrated food that is best consumed sparingly, when you are active, and not for an extended period of time. Consumption of hard fat can be unhealthy for sedentary people, and protein over consumption can overload the body with uric acid (which may lead to gout) and calcium oxalate (the mineral which forms kidney stones). Ketones may also build up in the system, causing kidney damage. (A sign of protein over consumption is ketone breath, which smells like nail polish or overripe pineapple.)
Tamarack Song has been a student and teacher of the traditional outdoor skills his whole life. He is an author and director of the celebrated Teaching Drum Outdoor School.
[DWB states: If rendering fat for the first time, take it in baby steps. You will need to render one pound of fat more than you will need ..... That means that if you need six pounds of lard, you will need about seven pounds of fat.
As the fat heats and becomes liquid, the solids will sink to the bottom of the pot. Slowly pour the liquid into a clean pot and throw away the solids. Allow the fat to cool to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Then add an equal amount of lukewarm water.
Bring the fat and water to a gentle simmer and cook, covered, for 15 minutes. Set it outside overnight to chill, or put it in your refrigerator. In the morning, the fat will have risen to the top. The remaining unwanted solids will be in the bottom of the pot.
Using a spatula, remove the top layer of fat. If there is a jellylike substance on the bottom of your fat, scrape that substance off and throw it away. You only want the pure, hardened fat.
Cook It Again
Then break up the hardened fat into chunks and put it into another pot. Add an equal amount of water and one large potato cut in half. Cover the pot and simmer for 15 minutes.
Allow it to cool overnight. Then lift the fat out of the water and scrape the bottom clean. Congratulations! You now have rendered fat.... Either use it right away or store it in the freezer for future use.]
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