Becoming self-reliant by making the most of what we have,
then helping others lift themselves
"We are truly happy only when we are engaged in unselfish service. Without self-reliance one cannot exercise these innate desires to serve. How can we give if there is nothing there? Food for the hungry cannot come from empty shelves. Money to assist the needy cannot come from an empty purse. Support and understanding cannot come from the emotionally starved. Teaching cannot come from the unlearned. And most important of all, spiritual guidance cannot come from the spiritually weak."- Marion G. Romney
( Scroll down for recipes.)
How to Prune and Fertilize Trees and Shrubs (includes fruit trees)
Click on the photo to get instructions and links to great videos. Pruning and fertilizing right will make a big difference in the health and size of your trees or shrubs!
Also see
Will Frost Damage Wipe Out My Tree Fruit?
Selecting and Using Inorganic Fertilizers
Fertilizing Fruit Trees
Understanding Fertilizer, Knowing Your Backyard Weeds, and free cooking e-books
Also see
Will Frost Damage Wipe Out My Tree Fruit?
Selecting and Using Inorganic Fertilizers
Fertilizing Fruit Trees
Understanding Fertilizer, Knowing Your Backyard Weeds, and free cooking e-books
Free documents and files with recipes and information
A suggestion from me- when you find anything useful to you, or think it might be later, consider printing it out and putting it in a 3-ring binder, or, at the very least, saving it to your own computer or drive. The Internet is a wonderful source of knowledge, but nothing beats having a hard copy. You can read those in power outages or anything else, which is when you might need the info the most! Everything except for two (the gluten-free storage list and steam juicer recipes) are my own documents; there is no copyright on them. Use them freely. On my "Favorite Resources" page there are links to others' files and e-books.
A Year's Supply: quantities and cost- find out just how affordable this can be!
Autumn Harvest Bread- a pumpkin-pecan yeast bread, only barely sweet. It's also in The Great Pumpkin Cookbook, below.
Basic Breadmaking -the all-purpose recipe I use for everything from sandwich loaves to caramel-nut rolls.
Classic Candymaking Includes recipes for buttercream fondant, toffee, truffles, and more than two dozen flavors of fudge. (Yes, I've made almost of all of them, too, getting ready for a class. Gained five pounds...)
Starter Cookbook: free, designed especially for high school or college students, or anyone who wants to know how to cook from scratch with what's on hand. It's a compilation of the core recipes and 'formulas' I've learned over the years. It's in 4x6 card format, to cut out and slip into sleeves of a small photo album. It fits exactly in a 72-sleeve book. If you have a bigger book, add some blank cards for photos or recipe notes and experiments. This is the complete set of pages, including a table of contents and an index. Categories include Cakes and Frostings, Cookies, Desserts, Fruits and Vegetables, Main Dishes, soups, and sides, Miscellaneous, Pies, Quick Breads, and Yeast Breads. It takes about 2-4 hours to cut out the cards and assemble them into a book, more if you want it decorated. For a cookbook with these recipes at its heart, with more information and recipes, it's available in a ready-to-use cookbook, The Chameleon Cook: Cooking Well With What You Have.
Cooking Without Recipes series:
Quickbreads - Includes pancakes, muffins, rolled biscuits, drop biscuits, cake doughnuts, fritters, waffles, onion rings and popcorn shrimp (yes!), and more.
Ever wonder why Bisquick is so popular? It's made of a few basic ingredients that are at the core of dozens, if not hundreds, of recipes. If you know what ratios to use, you can throw together any kind of quickbread, without a recipe in front of you, with all the flexibility you need for what ingredients are on hand.
Custard Pies- eggs, sugar, liquid, and sometimes butter are the core ingredients here. Includes pumpkin, Lemon Chess, cranberry, pecan, and praline-pumpkin pies.
(more to come in this series)
Crash Course In Pies - recipes and instructions for several types of crust, toppings, and basic cream pies and many flavors to try.
Creamy Blender Frosting-Chocolate (dark, medium, and milk chocolate versions), Caramel, Butterscotch, Hazelnut-chocolate, Peanut Butter, and Coconut-Chocolate frostings
Conversion Charts for dehydrated foods so you can still use your favorite recipes when using dehydrated foods. This chart includes items sold at the Home Storage Centers (potato flakes, dried carrots, onions, refried beans, wheat) as well as tomato powder.
French Bread and variations -a basic overnight dough, no sugar or oil; crunchy on the outside and silken/chewy inside.
Frostings- Basic buttercreme frosting and variations, including butterscotch, chocolate, coconut, cream cheese, and caramel frosting. Also includes ideas of what to do with any leftover frosting.
Gardening 101- includes choosing a garden spot, preparing your soil, fertilizing, choosing seeds, when to plant them, helpful links, and an area-specific freeze chart for SLC, Utah (USDA Zone 5)
Gingerbread Houses -recipes and tips for baking, assembling, and decorating. What I've learned doing competition-level houses, to save you time and stress making little ones, with your little ones!
Gluten-free food storage list - recommended grains and quantities for a year's supply
Memorable Holiday Pies - the best Raspberry Chiffon in the world! creamy pumpkin, and cream pies with variations. Includes banana cream, coconut cream, and much more. Also has different crust options.
No-Stove Treats Cookbook - This is in a larger print because I compiled it for an aunt who loves to make treats, but had just been put in an assisted-living center, with no stove. She does, however, have a microwave! Recipes include fudge, pecan logs, chocolate popcorn, modelling candy clay, and much more.
New! Powdered Milk- using it without having to drink it. Two pages of recipes and storing information. Includes how to make cottage cheese in 10 minutes, homemade yogurt, yogurt cheese (use like cream cheese), sweetened condensed milk, and a super-easy no-bake cheesecake. For even more great recipes, download the Bee Prepared Pantry Cookbook or the Wooden Spoon class booklet (see here for corrections & notes for the Wooden Spoon booklet.)
Pumpkin class handout two pages; preparing pumpkin, along with recipes for pumpkin pie, muffins, chili, and yeast bread
Quick & Cheap Meals two pages. This was written with poor college students and missionaries in mind, so the recipes tend to be scaled down to 1-2 servings. Where recipes are bigger, they include ideas to make multiple meals from one batch.
Soup Mixes Great to have on hand, to give as gifts, or to take to a neighbor who could use a meal.
Southwestern Wheat Bread- a partly-whole-wheat bread with the flavors of onion, chilies, olives, garlic, and jalapenos. You can make it with just a hint of heat, or make it fiery. This took 2nd place at a recent bread competition. (First place was just some really light whole-wheat bread.)
Steam Juicer e-book (http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/steam-juicers/Mehu-Liisa-Recipes.pdf )
Tender and Moist Meatloaf and Meatballs -a basic, delicious recipe, with lots of tips and flavor options
The Anything-Goes Muffin a basic recipe, with instructions on making your own versions!
The Great Pumpkin Cookbook preparing, cooking with, and preserving pumpkin. 28 pages of recipes and instructions.
The Mixing Bowl Homemaking Skill Improvement Project
Tres Leches Cake -Creamy, custard-y, and caramel-y. The best version I've tried.
My gluten-free, dairy-free version right here.
Using dehydrated carrots,onion, and refried beans including conversion charts to use with your own recipes
Using dried apples, quick/regular oats, and rice Conversion charts and recipes
Using potato flakes and potato pearls Conversion charts and recipes
Using Wheat Without A Grinder (mill) handout from a class I taught, with info and recipes
Wheat Flour Basics - white? red? hard? soft? learn what the differences are between the kinds of wheat, and why they matter
White Sauces and Pudding: sweet and savory variations This is such an easy-to-adapt recipe!
Zucchini Recipes -zucchini pizza crust, zucchini cream pie, curried zucchini bisque, and zucchini "apple pie"
Zucchini bread and variations- lemon, and chocolate
A suggestion from me- when you find anything useful to you, or think it might be later, consider printing it out and putting it in a 3-ring binder, or, at the very least, saving it to your own computer or drive. The Internet is a wonderful source of knowledge, but nothing beats having a hard copy. You can read those in power outages or anything else, which is when you might need the info the most! Everything except for two (the gluten-free storage list and steam juicer recipes) are my own documents; there is no copyright on them. Use them freely. On my "Favorite Resources" page there are links to others' files and e-books.
A Year's Supply: quantities and cost- find out just how affordable this can be!
Autumn Harvest Bread- a pumpkin-pecan yeast bread, only barely sweet. It's also in The Great Pumpkin Cookbook, below.
Basic Breadmaking -the all-purpose recipe I use for everything from sandwich loaves to caramel-nut rolls.
Classic Candymaking Includes recipes for buttercream fondant, toffee, truffles, and more than two dozen flavors of fudge. (Yes, I've made almost of all of them, too, getting ready for a class. Gained five pounds...)
Starter Cookbook: free, designed especially for high school or college students, or anyone who wants to know how to cook from scratch with what's on hand. It's a compilation of the core recipes and 'formulas' I've learned over the years. It's in 4x6 card format, to cut out and slip into sleeves of a small photo album. It fits exactly in a 72-sleeve book. If you have a bigger book, add some blank cards for photos or recipe notes and experiments. This is the complete set of pages, including a table of contents and an index. Categories include Cakes and Frostings, Cookies, Desserts, Fruits and Vegetables, Main Dishes, soups, and sides, Miscellaneous, Pies, Quick Breads, and Yeast Breads. It takes about 2-4 hours to cut out the cards and assemble them into a book, more if you want it decorated. For a cookbook with these recipes at its heart, with more information and recipes, it's available in a ready-to-use cookbook, The Chameleon Cook: Cooking Well With What You Have.
Cooking Without Recipes series:
Quickbreads - Includes pancakes, muffins, rolled biscuits, drop biscuits, cake doughnuts, fritters, waffles, onion rings and popcorn shrimp (yes!), and more.
Ever wonder why Bisquick is so popular? It's made of a few basic ingredients that are at the core of dozens, if not hundreds, of recipes. If you know what ratios to use, you can throw together any kind of quickbread, without a recipe in front of you, with all the flexibility you need for what ingredients are on hand.
Custard Pies- eggs, sugar, liquid, and sometimes butter are the core ingredients here. Includes pumpkin, Lemon Chess, cranberry, pecan, and praline-pumpkin pies.
(more to come in this series)
Crash Course In Pies - recipes and instructions for several types of crust, toppings, and basic cream pies and many flavors to try.
Creamy Blender Frosting-Chocolate (dark, medium, and milk chocolate versions), Caramel, Butterscotch, Hazelnut-chocolate, Peanut Butter, and Coconut-Chocolate frostings
Conversion Charts for dehydrated foods so you can still use your favorite recipes when using dehydrated foods. This chart includes items sold at the Home Storage Centers (potato flakes, dried carrots, onions, refried beans, wheat) as well as tomato powder.
French Bread and variations -a basic overnight dough, no sugar or oil; crunchy on the outside and silken/chewy inside.
Frostings- Basic buttercreme frosting and variations, including butterscotch, chocolate, coconut, cream cheese, and caramel frosting. Also includes ideas of what to do with any leftover frosting.
Gardening 101- includes choosing a garden spot, preparing your soil, fertilizing, choosing seeds, when to plant them, helpful links, and an area-specific freeze chart for SLC, Utah (USDA Zone 5)
Gingerbread Houses -recipes and tips for baking, assembling, and decorating. What I've learned doing competition-level houses, to save you time and stress making little ones, with your little ones!
Gluten-free food storage list - recommended grains and quantities for a year's supply
Memorable Holiday Pies - the best Raspberry Chiffon in the world! creamy pumpkin, and cream pies with variations. Includes banana cream, coconut cream, and much more. Also has different crust options.
No-Stove Treats Cookbook - This is in a larger print because I compiled it for an aunt who loves to make treats, but had just been put in an assisted-living center, with no stove. She does, however, have a microwave! Recipes include fudge, pecan logs, chocolate popcorn, modelling candy clay, and much more.
New! Powdered Milk- using it without having to drink it. Two pages of recipes and storing information. Includes how to make cottage cheese in 10 minutes, homemade yogurt, yogurt cheese (use like cream cheese), sweetened condensed milk, and a super-easy no-bake cheesecake. For even more great recipes, download the Bee Prepared Pantry Cookbook or the Wooden Spoon class booklet (see here for corrections & notes for the Wooden Spoon booklet.)
Pumpkin class handout two pages; preparing pumpkin, along with recipes for pumpkin pie, muffins, chili, and yeast bread
Quick & Cheap Meals two pages. This was written with poor college students and missionaries in mind, so the recipes tend to be scaled down to 1-2 servings. Where recipes are bigger, they include ideas to make multiple meals from one batch.
Soup Mixes Great to have on hand, to give as gifts, or to take to a neighbor who could use a meal.
Southwestern Wheat Bread- a partly-whole-wheat bread with the flavors of onion, chilies, olives, garlic, and jalapenos. You can make it with just a hint of heat, or make it fiery. This took 2nd place at a recent bread competition. (First place was just some really light whole-wheat bread.)
Steam Juicer e-book (http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/steam-juicers/Mehu-Liisa-Recipes.pdf )
Tender and Moist Meatloaf and Meatballs -a basic, delicious recipe, with lots of tips and flavor options
The Anything-Goes Muffin a basic recipe, with instructions on making your own versions!
The Great Pumpkin Cookbook preparing, cooking with, and preserving pumpkin. 28 pages of recipes and instructions.
The Mixing Bowl Homemaking Skill Improvement Project
Tres Leches Cake -Creamy, custard-y, and caramel-y. The best version I've tried.
My gluten-free, dairy-free version right here.
Using dehydrated carrots,onion, and refried beans including conversion charts to use with your own recipes
Using dried apples, quick/regular oats, and rice Conversion charts and recipes
Using potato flakes and potato pearls Conversion charts and recipes
Using Wheat Without A Grinder (mill) handout from a class I taught, with info and recipes
Wheat Flour Basics - white? red? hard? soft? learn what the differences are between the kinds of wheat, and why they matter
White Sauces and Pudding: sweet and savory variations This is such an easy-to-adapt recipe!
Zucchini Recipes -zucchini pizza crust, zucchini cream pie, curried zucchini bisque, and zucchini "apple pie"
Zucchini bread and variations- lemon, and chocolate
Wheat.
White, red, hard, soft... what's the difference, and does it matter? Click on the photo to read more.
Oatmeal Packets
4 cups rolled oats (quick-cooking, or if old-fashioned, give it a few whirls in a food processor)
2/3 cup brown sugar
3 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
1 cup dried apples, chopped- or any dried fruits/nuts- raisins, Craisins, snipped dates or dried apricots, chopped almonds or pecans, whatever you want!
1/2 cup dried milk, optional
For four large servings (6-8 small), use four cups boiling water and add 2 1/2 cups oatmeal mix. For one large serving, use 1 c. water with 2/3 c. mix. For one small serving, use 1/2 c. water with 1/3 c. mix. You can preportion these into snack-size baggies (then reuse baggies!) if you like, or just keep a measuring cup handy. Adjust water and/or mix to make it as thin or thick as you like. I like to combine cold water with the mix, then microwave it to cook- usually 1 to 1 1/2 minutes does the trick.
For children who aren't yet accustomed to sugary oatmeal, use 1/2 cup brown sugar. For those sugar-addicted husbands, you may need to add more.
Make the batch and adjust it to your family's tastes, and then triple the batch and store in a zip-lock bag. It is so quick and handy to have it all made up. If you prefer more of the 'instant' oatmeal, put 1 1/2 c. of the oats in a blender or food processor; grind to make oat powder, then mix together with the unground-up oats and everything else.
4 cups rolled oats (quick-cooking, or if old-fashioned, give it a few whirls in a food processor)
2/3 cup brown sugar
3 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
1 cup dried apples, chopped- or any dried fruits/nuts- raisins, Craisins, snipped dates or dried apricots, chopped almonds or pecans, whatever you want!
1/2 cup dried milk, optional
For four large servings (6-8 small), use four cups boiling water and add 2 1/2 cups oatmeal mix. For one large serving, use 1 c. water with 2/3 c. mix. For one small serving, use 1/2 c. water with 1/3 c. mix. You can preportion these into snack-size baggies (then reuse baggies!) if you like, or just keep a measuring cup handy. Adjust water and/or mix to make it as thin or thick as you like. I like to combine cold water with the mix, then microwave it to cook- usually 1 to 1 1/2 minutes does the trick.
For children who aren't yet accustomed to sugary oatmeal, use 1/2 cup brown sugar. For those sugar-addicted husbands, you may need to add more.
Make the batch and adjust it to your family's tastes, and then triple the batch and store in a zip-lock bag. It is so quick and handy to have it all made up. If you prefer more of the 'instant' oatmeal, put 1 1/2 c. of the oats in a blender or food processor; grind to make oat powder, then mix together with the unground-up oats and everything else.