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Forum: Test Run This Weekend

22 September 2006

Carrey in VA – at 15:37

Well tonight is the night. Hubby is going to turn the power off in about an hour. We will be testing how long the freezer will stay at an acceptable temp. we will also be practicing cooking over a wood fire. I’m going to break out my new coleman oven and try that tonight. I’ve made up a batch of white bread and oatmeal bread that will be good for breakfast in the morning.

While kneading the dough I was thinking that I always have quite a bit of flour left on the counter after kneading bread or biscuits. Normally I don’t worry about it except when I’m also making gravy (I use this leftover flour to do the thickening) But if we are baking bread or biscuits everyother day, that could be a big waste. A tub with a lid would be good to put this leftover flour in to save it till then next time I need to knead dough.

I’m also going to practice my water and fuel saving idea for washing dishes. Heating water when the woodstove isn’t going is a huge waste of fuel. So my first thought is, now I know why folks always had bread with thier meals. You use your last couple bites of bread to clean your plate, saves on water and cleaning. On top of trying to always have bread with meals, I’m going to save EVERYTHING that could be used to wipe off the dishes before washing. That will really help to keep what water we have for washing dishes clean. And to make up for the lack of hot wash water, I’m gonna rinse in bleach water. THen that bleach water could be used next time with the addition of soap as the wash water. Any nasty wash water will be used to flush the toliets.

If anyone else is feeling froggy and wants to to a trial run this weekend please post here with your thoughts and ideas. I’ll be back Sunday evening or Monday morning to post how things went and how my new goodies worked.

23 September 2006

Blue – at 22:55
 Yuck.

24 September 2006

blackbird – at 00:28

Good for you, Carrey. Looking forward to hearing the results of your test and what you learned from it!

tjclaw1 – at 00:31

Carrey, if anything is left on the plates, use a spatula to clean it off as good as you can.

pamcat – at 07:18

My mother in law made homemade biscuits every day, She kept that left over flour in a separate container and when she needed it she would sift it through a mesh strainer to use again. good luck

FrenchieGirlat 07:33

tjclaw1 – at 00:31 — Carrey, if anything is left on the plates, use a spatula to clean it off as good as you can.

If it’s really good food, there won’t be anything left on my plate, ‘coz I’d lick the plate… never mind my good manners!

anonymous – at 07:48

I had a test run some months ago, when I had a cold. Stayed in the sickroom for one week with internet. It worked. But it wouldn’t have worked for two weeks ;-)

silversage – at 22:06

Carrey in VA – at 15:37

Soooo, how did it go??

25 September 2006

Carrey in VA – at 07:59

Friday evening the power went out. The kiddo’s grumbled about the TV for about an hour. Then I reminded them that they got smores as dessert. The kiddos brought some fallen limbs out of the yard and the oldest used a bow saw to cut them in to manageable peices. So that is what we cooked on in the bbq pit.

The Coleman oven was heavier than I expected it to be. And it takes a really hot fire to get it hot inside. We never got it over 325, but about 250 was enough to bake a loaf of bread in a cake pan in about 30 minutes. It never gave me the “hollow” sound to let me know it was done though which was weird, I suppose thats because it was baked at a lower temp that normal. The Oatmeal bread turned out really well and with a bit of butter, honey or both would make a nice breakfast.

The dishwashing did better this time, didn’t use as much water, and it didn’t take as long. Wiping them off really helped, next time I’ll use the spatula idea THANKS. I think next time I’ll fill a spray bottle with soapy water and spray the dishes, scrub, and then rinse in the bleach water. We’ll see how that works.

Saturday we had oatmeal for breakfast, cooked over the coleman stove. Lunch was sandwiches, which would have been on the bread baked in the oven the night before, but we still had some storebought in the house. Supper we made pizza, again baked in the coleman oven over the wood fire. These worked out PERFECTLY. I also baked a pan of applesauce brownies that worked really well, and is a good SIP recipe.

Sunday morning I fried sausage and pancakes. The pancakes came in a 10 lb bag from Sam’s Club, and were much better than I expected them to be. They had cold leftover pizza for lunch cause they couldn’t figure out how to heat it up without a microwave. LOL poor kids.

The freezer alarm went off 27 hours after it was unplugged. 10 minutes after plugging it back in, the alarm stopped. I don’t know what the trip temp is for the alarm, but it looks like we would have to run the genny every day for at least an hour. Thats too much for my taste, so at the first hint that the power is going to be a big problem all that meat is going in the canner. Then all I would worry about keeping cold is a tiny dorm fridge for milk and cheese. I might cut some foam to cover the freezer in to try and keep the cold in better, but I don’t see it helping that much.

If I can all the meat that will leave the genny and gas for recharging batteries, and running the well pump every 5 or 6 days so we can fill the water jugs.

Hubby got some soda syrup, bag in a box, boxes from the hospital cafeteria. He rigged up a way to rince them out and fill them up. We put on on top of the fridge with a hose coming down off of it. Just turn the valve and you got water. If you know someone with access to these empty boxes ask for them. They are really very nice to have. The sit nicely on a shelf and you don’t have to worry about if they are food grade or not.

Dennis in Colorado – at 08:13

Good report, Carrey. Thanks.

01 October 2006

Blue – at 09:48
 Yeh?!

 (How Long!!)

Good effort-I’m not dissin’- just bumping the project!…there’s another one to bump somewhere!

cactus – at 10:14
  As for washing dishes.

I found a product that helps with the amount of water needed.

Dawn Direct Foam.

All you need is a wet sponge, pump the foam onto sponge,and wipe dish, rinse. You`re done.

If it`s something really greasy, you can put the foam directly on item.

As I am using “fine china”..ie Chinet or Dixieware..most of the time, I only need to wash a coffee cup or 2, an occassional pan, etc, this has really reduced the amount of water used. Have stocked up on this product fot Sip times.

Eduk8or – at 10:49

In regards to Dawn Direct Foam…. there are soap dispensing products on the market that you can put regular liquid handsoap in and out comes foam… I wonder if these would work with dish soap??

I can’t imagine that this new product from Dawn is cheaper than the original! ;-) And I can buy the original in bulk from Sams! But it’s great to hear that it works well with less water.. thanks for the report cacuts!

Carrey in VA – at 10:57

Cactus and eduk8or,

I think I read somewhere that if you dilute normal dish soap by half it will foam in those fancy bottles. I wonder how much more soap you use doing dishes this way though? Might have to stock up on extra soap to compensate for the extra use.

07 October 2006

Kathy in FL – at 16:04

This is “kind of” a prep test that I forgot to mention.

A couple of Saturdays ago the family and I went on a picnic. It wasn’t excruciatingly hot … in fact by Florida standards it was fairly nice with a lower humidity to offset the late September heat.

We were there about 4 hours and only did some light walking and not very strenuous playing. We also had a meal.

I took 3 gallons of water, one gallon of tea, and a 2 liter of another drink. There are seven of us and one of that seven is a 2 year old.

In less than 4 hours we cleaned out all our drinkables.

If we were home, it might not have happened but just the very light … very light … exercising we did with the minor heat was enough to drastically increase our fluid intake.

So, when they say that 1 gallon per person per day is a minimal need … they ain’t kidding!

Closed - Bronco Bill05 December 2006, 21:21

Closed to maintain Forum speed

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