Would love the recipe for that! Sounds entirely too yummy to pass up!
Exactly! I do can, I make jams and I make tomato sauce (which last year I froze instead of canning, diguring it power goes out, I could always pull it out and can it then 
)
Just in general I want to make sure I maximize easy, simple storable food. And quick maturity is definitely a important factor for many reasons in the back of my head.
As for the freezer, it keeps cool rather long if you donāt open the lid, so your battery will likely be doing just fine! I love the battery idea! What type is it, can you sgare a link?
We have two chest freezers and when we lost power during/after Hurricane Sandy (over 2 weeks!) it took quite some time for the high temp alarm to go off. And then I would just plug it into my little tiny generator for a few hours at a time to maintain and it kept everything below freezing (it might not have all been 0F by the time we were done, but it stayed well below 20F in there)
Also of they are full, all that frozen stuff helps keep the temperature down!
-Oh, and I have reusable canning lids. I donāt think pressure canning is at all a reasonable long-term food storage solution if the lids are once-use only.
I use Tattler lids:
Theyāre slightly more difficult to use than the disposable ones, but only a bit. I got used to them quickly. Iāve noticed they seem to work really well for pressure canning and not great at all for steam canning, unless I steam can my jams for double the required time ā then they seal just fine. So I do it. Steam canning my jam for double the required time doesnāt change the flavor any.
I also reuse disposable lids if theyāre still in good shape. Which is a terrible no-no, totally verboten, and who the heck cares?
Specifically, and this is important, I will do that for steam canning only. Not pressure canning. Pressure canning is riskier because botulism can live in the jars if you donāt do it perfectly, so I donāt take any risks there. With jam, especially jam I plan to eat within a year anyway, I donāt worry about it. And of course I test every lid carefully to make sure it sealed properly. Reused lids that still have an excellent-looking seal and no dents or deformations usually work just as perfectly as new ones.
Yep, I can link you! The chest freezer is 150 watts, so you need at least a 200 watt battery, and youāll want at least a 500 watt battery so that itāll have enough watt hours to run it for longer than an hour or two. I have this one:
Iām sure there are more expensive batteries that will work way better. This battery was the best intersection I could find between āhaving enough powerā and ākinda sorta approaching affordable.ā
You only need one, but I recommend two, so you can always have one charging while the other one is in use.
You can find other lithium batteries that hold just as much charge, but donāt have a female AC port in the back to plug a device in. Those are usually cheaper. You canāt run anything off them, but you can use one to recharge a battery you can run a chest freezer off, so it may be worth getting one or a few to expand how much electricity you can be storing.
This is a battery I donāt own, due to the price, but it looks very promising:
I suspect it would work way better than what I have, and would be easier to deal with. I donāt know for sure. The price tag is just too high to try it out. I love the concept, however.
The battery I have needs at least two solar panels in order to charge it, because it takes 24 watts to charge it, not just 12. That seems to be true of any battery that can run a chest freezer.
Any solar panels will probably work well, as long as theyāre at least 100 watts and have SAE cords (both are standard). I have two 200 watt solar panels, and with them linked together, they can charge that battery within about four hours on a clear summer day. On a somewhat cloudy day, it takes all day. On a very cloudy week, itāll take all week. During the winter, when the solar panels are covered in snow, forget it.
Get an MPPT solar controller. DO NOT get a PWM one. PWM solar controllers do not include overcharge protection, with is the entire point of a solar controller ā so in other words, theyāre a ripoff that is worse than useless. A PWM solar controller will destroy your very expensive battery. And I mean permanently destroy, usually within ten minutes, sometimes with a minor explosion. Every time. No PWM!
This is the MPPT solar controller I finally bought when I figured out that was the source of the problem. It works:
It will only charge lithium batteries, not lead acid ones. You need to have at least a 20 amp solar controller in order to charge a battery with enough watts to run a chest freezer.
You donāt need an inverter. Donāt buy an inverter unless you want to run an expensive electronic device directly off your solar panel(s) without overcharge protection. Hereās a hint: you donāt.
If you want your device to keep working, charge a battery that has enough wattage to run it and enough watt hours to run it for awhile. Make sure the battery has a female AC spot, so you can plug the device in. Guess how long that, in and of itself, took me to figure out?
Most solar controllers do not come with the cords that are necessary to attach them to anything, for some exasperating reason. You have to find those separately and buy them and attach them yourself. I chose these:
In order to be able to connect them, I needed wire strippers, so I got these:
You will also need a screwdriver of an appropriate size. I already had one on hand.
I attached a male DC to the spot to connect the battery, since that what needs to go into the battery in order to charge it. I attached a female DC to the spot to connect the solar panel(s), which then hooks up to this:
Which also had to be bought separately, and yes, it took me years to figure out what piece I was missing now, what piece I was missing now, what piece I was missing now, that I needed to hunt down. I finally had a working system after five years of frustration.
Okay, you should now have all the pieces you need. How to hook them together?
You stick the male DC plug in the input slot of the battery.
VERY IMPORTANT: Always always always hook the battery up to the solar controller first. Then the solar panel(s). Always unhook the solar panels first. Then the battery. If the panels are ever connected to the controller without a battery being attached, bad things could happen. And by ābad things,ā I mean āyou may have to buy another controller, and those things are expensive.ā
So, you hook up the battery first. Now itās time to hook up the solar panel. Thatās easy enough if you only have one: female to male SAE, male to female SAE, hook the DC ends together, and done!
If you have two solar panels, which will be necessary in order to charge a battery that can run a chest freezer, you need to hook the solar panels together first. Happily, this is easy: hook one panelās female SAE to the other panelās male SAE. Then treat them the same as one.
In theory, you could do this with three or four or twenty, and it would work just as well. I havenāt tried three or more, but I imagine it works. Feel free to try more, if you want to.
Okay, so, now the solar controller should automatically detect the type of battery it is, and within a few minutes, itāll start charging it! Within a few hours, it should be fully charged. And if you forget to remove the battery (always unhook the solar panels first!) for several days, it ought to still be fine.
Everythingās waterproof, so in theory, rain shouldnāt be an issue. I donāt know for sure, as weāve only gotten a few mild rains since I got the system working. If youāre concerned about heavy rainfall causing problems, maybe put the controller and battery under some sort of cover, perhaps with the panels on top.
If you buy all of those things and put them together as Iāve described, the system should work easily, and you should be able to run a chest freezer for about four hours off the battery. If you buy a second battery, you can always have one charging while the other one is running the chest freezer.
I was thorough because I wish someone had written a post like this for me when I started out trying to figure this out. It took a lot of trial and error ā expensive trial and error ā to finally figure out everything.
I canāt say Iām an expert now (ha ha ha ha . . . ha ha ha ha ha). All I can say is that the system I have is working. Finally. (Heaves a huge sigh of relief.)
I hope that helps! Iāve assembled this for you in the hopes that it will make your life easy. I wish I could have benefited from this myself. 
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Holy cow, @UnicornEmily that was thorough, thank you so very much! With how my brain seems to be (not) working currently I would have never figured out all these pieces needed! It would have easily taken me 5 years, and then i might have given up 
Now it looks like I have a whole lotta reading and learning to do
Look at nitrogenfixers you can take rootcuttings from. Like black locust or Anna Pauwlonia, they grow fast. Interplanting with fruit and nut trees will keep the food trees protected from sunblast in summer and then chop and drop the nitrogenfixer to feed and protect the soil
Sure! Itās just something I made up and I never measure and it caries depending on whatās going on in my kitchen and mind. But, goes something like this:
- Olive oil in pan. Be generous. Allow yourself to question how much oil to use on future attempts. I might use like 3 desert spoons of oil, gives a nice richness. Donāt like that much? Put less. I might suggest 1~4.
- Add ā¦ that would probably be about a level teaspoon of cumin seeds and heaped teaspoon of coriander seeds. I like them whole since they then give explosions of flavour when bitten. But you could powder them if you like. Just try not to buy pre-powdered cumin or coriander, it is intensely disappointing in terms of aroma.
- Add one large or some smaller rather finely chopped onions. Stir now and then, until slightly browned or some have browned edges. They can withstand a fair amount of heat so this can go relatively fast if youāre in a rush.
- Add ā¦ like maybe a heaped teaspoon of turmeric powder. Adjust quantity in retrospect for future attempts. I can handle quite a lot of turmeric.
- Add like maybe 2~4 large tomatoes, rather finely chopped. 1cm pieces would be ok, laziness could lead to larger chunks, thatās alright.
- Add a little water. How much depends on how runny you want the result. Could be none, could be 1 Japanese teacupās worth, or somewhere in between.
- Add like maybe a desert spoonās worth of paprika powder. Not smoked paprika, I did that once at a friendās house since thatās all they had, wow that stuff is overpowering! Regular paprika (I use not the hot one, sweet paprika). If you want smoked, work out your own quantity, itās gonna be way smaller, but that will change things in other ways too. Stir.
- All this from tomatoes onwards has been at the same time more or less, or anyway in quick succession. Now put the lid on and turn up the heat if not already, so the liquid is bubbling. The tomato will soften within like 1~3 minutes I guess. At this point you have a choice, either get the potato masher out (or a fork or something if you donāt have one), and squash the tomato. This makes it really saucy, yet not requiring the Italian method of boiling for hours to do so, hence saving lots of vitamins. You donāt have to go crazy squashing, just to mush it up a bit, to your liking. And the paprika has made it a bit thicker and richer.
- Add crushed garlic to your taste.
- Now, we want salt content. So we have choices. You may like to add just salt. If so, you can now also add herbs of your taste - I find a good dose of dried basil is lovely, like maybe a heaped teaspoon full. Fresh basil might work too, not something I usually have on hand. Other herbs could work too, try if you like. Or instead of salt, you could add some fine Japanese soy sauce (shoyu, tamari etc. - N.B. soy sauce from most other places has lots of sugar in it, seems to me), goes well but probably donāt want the herbs in that case. Or, you could use miso instead, make sure to mash it in so it mixes properly, but, in that case, you might want to adjust the sourness, like you might taste it and find it would benefit from adding a little balsamic vinegar, or mustard. You could even add either of those to the non-miso versions, if you really think it suitable.
- If you go the salt way, simmer slightly for like another minute or so, but you donāt want to be cooking it long - the crushed garlic will go a long way if you just simmer it briefly to let the flavour go all around, but keeps the powerful edge of the garlic if you donāt cook it long. And crushing it really helps that, chopped garlic wonāt spread its power so much like that. If you go the soy sauce or miso way, better to add them nearer the end, can still stir in for a minute or two but donāt really want it bubbling too much with those in, youāll loose flavour/goodness from them, so if you are including garlic, and donāt want it too raw, add that before the soy sauce or miso.
Yeah thatās about it. Could probably make the whole thing in 10 minutes.
On a different topic, for preserving, I would like to make a naturally fermented tomato sauce to keep in bottles. Tried it only once. This year if my harvest goes well, I might be experimenting! The above is for fresh use, though of course you can make a batch and keep it in the fridge for a few days.
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Iām seriously considering trying for carob. I know itās only hardy to zone 9, and Iām in zone 7, but maybe if I mulch the roots well, it can grow back from the roots every year? And itās a thornless nitrogen fixer that makes tasty pods. And itās highly drought tolerant, being a desert tree. Iād love to get it working as a nitrogen fixer here.
I figure it has a decent shot because itās closely related to honey locust, and honey locust does well here. In fact, thornless ones are common as a landscape tree, but Iāve tasted a pod from a thornless one, and it didnāt seem edible ā highly bitter.
I know the thorny ones are supposed to have tasty sweet pods, and Iād love to give those a taste, but thorns. Iām wary of black locust because of the thorns, too. Although, if there are thornless black locusts with flowers that are just as aromatic and tasty as the thorny ones, Iād seriously consider trying those.
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Hurray! Iām glad that was helpful!
I wanted to take a few hours (it did take a few hours to write all that out!) and be extremely thorough, so I could save you the years of effort it took me.
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This may be totally not feasable, but if they are in the same family/closely related could you try grafting carob onto the hardier honey locust root stock? Thorny or not. Itās done with apples all the time, grafted onto dwarf rootstock to get earlier fruit, or more cold hardy root stock, more this that or the other thing (and now they even graft tomatoes onto rootstock of another tomato that is hardier or more disease resistant)
Mmmmm yumm! Thanks so much, will have to try that soon, I am getting hungry reading about that sauce! And definitely lots of Olive oil will be used, makes everything taste better (that or butter, butter is a favorite too in our house)
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Random suggestion. With any olive oil you purchase, check to make sure the label says COOC. (I think that standards for California Olive Oil Council.) Olive oil fraud is rampant, and a lot of what you buy is either mixed with soybean oil or rancid (neither of which will be great for your health).
All of these brands will be the real thing:
https://cooc.com/certified-oils/
Most notable on the list is Kirkland Signature, which is the Costco store brand. Lots of people I know are regularly buying that one, and itās one of the few that is safe!
Oh, but looking at the list, it may only be Kirkland Signature Single Estate (Iām not sure if thereās a different between that and the big bottles people generally buy?). Either way, check the back of the bottle. On the label, there will either be a seal that says COOC or there wonāt. If there isnāt, assume itās fradulent. If there is, assume itās safe.
This is only important if you care about the olive oil health benefits. (Which most of us do!)
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Thatās a really interesting idea! I think Iād rather direct sow carob seeds and get seedlings on their own roots; no risk of suckering from a rootstock I donāt want that way. But if I try carob seedlings and they die out in winter and donāt come back in spring, planting a honey locust and grafting a carob onto it would be an excellent Plan B!
Wow, I feel sorry for you guys over there! Here in Europe the most we have to worry about is āItalian olive oilā tending to actually be Spanish olive oil imported to Italy and repackaged, with a price increase. So I just buy Spanish (or Greek) And always extra virgin!
Great minds think alike! I started buying domestoc (California) Olive oil a couple years ago after coming across a documentary that detailed how a sunflower oil shipment left from some Spanish port, and by the timenit got to Genoa Italy it was magically labeled Olive oilā¦ and I figured that it would be much harder for anyone within the continental US to pull that kind of thing off. We buy Cobram Estate oliveboil at our local bulk food store, and it has this nifty pop up spout!
Cobram Estate is the brand we buy, too! It was the only brand we could find locally that within our budget that was safe. (Grin.)
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If there was an cooking thread here, I would read it and occasionally post. I bet there are a lot more good cooking ideas around here.
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This thread is fantastic and in need of creative separating! So Mark, I gave you moderating powers. Besides cooking, there is a potential survival food topic to split from this thread that might be good to separateā¦ Anyway whoever feels motivated to create a new topic and move things to it, just do it if you can or lmk if you canāt and want to.
But yes also there is somewhat of a cooking recipe thread already
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An update thatās important to share.
About a month ago, we had our first big rainstorm since I got the solar charge controller. The controller hasnāt worked since then. At all. Iāve tried replacing the cords, just in case they had been damaged and the controller was fine ā and nope. No response. The controller itself is probably broken.
I think Iām going to have to buy a new one. 
So it clearly ISNāT waterproof, so it clearly needs some kind of rain protection. Outdoor boxes for electronics that would fit the controller cost almost as much as the controller itself (in other words, unreasonably expensive), so Iām going to go to a thrift store, see if I can find one of those plastic storage tubs thatās meant to be able to sit outside, punch holes in the side with an awl in order to run the cords out to the solar panels, and put the controller and battery in it with the lid on top.
Sadly, it seems, the saga of āhaving to get more things in order to get my system workingā still continues.
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Oh no, big bummer! Sorry to hear the whole set up is causing so much headache!
While you are putting it together, maybe gove some thought to lining it with something to preserve it from an EMP event or crazy solar storm radiation. Something I keep thinking about but havenāt done anything about yet for any essential electronicsā¦
It would only be protected from an EMP if there were no holes to get cords out, and the cords need to be connected to the outside because the solar panels need to be outside in order to work.
EMPs are a toughie to prepare for. Best Iāve got so far is keeping batteries on hand (which arenāt going to be affected by an EMP unless theyāre being used at the time) and keeping computer backups on burned discs (which arenāt going to be affected by EMPs, either).
Overall, since my computer is always turned on, and it needs to be connected to the Internet, itāll always be vulnerable to an EMP. Not much I can do about that. Best I can do is try to back up my data regularly.
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