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Last week I listed my favorite emergency books. This week I’m sharing my favorite food storage friendly cookbooks. These are books that are really helpful when it comes to knowing how to incorporate our food storage into our daily eating schedules. The books that I have listed below have helped me, through the years, to exteeeend my budget and give us a lot of variety of taste, textures and flavors.
First, on the top of my list, ANY Relief Society or women’s church organization cookbooks are golden, especially if you live in an area with really good cooks like I do! Anybody who submits their recipe for their local cookbook is only going to give their best recipes.
Better Homes and Gardens
Just because it was my first cookbook and because it has a lot of information. I got it for Christmas when I was nine years old. I baked my first cherry pie from this book. It has a really good pie dough recipe, among others.
Make-A-Mix - Authors: Karine Eliason, Nevada Harward and Madeline Westover
Publisher: Fisher Books, ISBN 1-55561-073-0 (paperback), ISBN 1-55561-107-9 (hardback)
Reason that it is my favorite: Too numerous to mention, but my absolute favorite is the taco meat mix. Wait, maybe the “Our Best Brownie” recipe is my favorite. They are the crispy on the corners, yet gooey type brownies. And yet, maybe it is the..., OK you get the idea. No kitchen should be without this book. This is an especially good book to teach children to cook from because you can help them mix the basic mix and then they can choose what recipe they want to cook, whenever they want to. This cookbook will help you fix meals faster, cheaper, and tastier than any pre-manufactured mix that you can buy - really! It is a gotta-have-book for busy mothers with busy families.
The NEW - COOKIN’ with Home Storage - Author: Vicki Tate
The reason that I like this book is because it is just so basic. If you can’t cook several things without going to the store, then your cupboards are like Mother Hubbard’s, completely devoid of anything! You can have as little as two or three ingredients and still make a delicious meal. This also has some pretty far out food information: how to make Blackbird pie, how to prepare and eat a raccoon and my favorite - the best time to gather Locust and how to prepare them so that they don’t spoil. All fun aside, this is a very good recipe, no frills, information cookbook. I wouldn’t be without it. As a bonus it also has recipes for cosmetics, homemade medicines, and household cleaning supplies.
Food Storage For The Clueless - Author: Clark L. and Kathryn H. Kidd
Publisher: Bookcraft, ISBN 1-57008-680-X
This is one of the “cannot be without” books if you want to start your food storage - big or small. First of all, their style of writing is very funny and it is a quick read (I know that it looks big, but that is because they also have a lot of really good recipes in it.) The authors will help you to figure out what kind of food storage personality you have and how to work around it to get a complete food storage - that you will use. What a concept! They tell of all of the pitfalls and things that simply don’t work. I can’t imagine not having this book in my house, I refer to it all of the time. Please, get a hold of this book and read it, it will help you to understand how to start your food storage without being overwhelmed and most important, how to continue building it, rotating it, and enjoying it.
Butchering, Processing and Preservation of Meat / A Manual for the Home and Farm
Author: Frank G. Ashbrook - Fish and Wildlife Service / United States Department of the Interior
Publisher: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, ISBN 0-442-20377-2
This book will tell you how, from start to finish, to kill, dress out, and butcher anything that walks on four legs (domestic or wild), swims, hops, or flies. Even if you don’t intend to do all that and all you want to do is go to the butcher, it will still give you the information about what part of the animal you are buying and how to properly take care of it. It will teach you how to dry, smoke, or do a variety of other things to different meats that you probably have never even considered. It has one of the best sausage recipes that I have ever tasted. We don’t even buy sausage anymore because we prefer the taste of our homemade sausage more than anything we buy (It’s a snap to make.) Actually, this book has a lot of recipes, and I can’t wait until I can try them all.
Now, go forth and cook up a storm – with your kids. They will love learning to prepare their own food and feed themselves - deliciously.
Dawn