Covid Diary day 2: The pantry

One of things that have been going on during this pandemic is panic shopping, but if you’re a true rugged individualist you’re already prepared.  You’re not eating saltines and cans of mystery meat.

You always should have a well stocked pantry, if you do it takes the stress out of trying to feed your family and the need for panic shopping or spending a fortune on things you will never use or eat.  Also don’t buy everything acquire in a few trips and use and replace it.

So what’s in a pantry, let’s break it down into a few categories:

Spice:

  • Box of Kosher salt
  • Cracked pepper
  • Garlic powder
  • Onion powder
  • Cumin
  • Dry oregano
  • Dry basil
  • Adobo seasoning
  • Chilli powder—-this is a good start you can add depending on your tastes

Cans:

  • Crushed tomatoes–sauce, chillie, base for sauces
  • Tomato paste-cans or tubes
  • Black beans
  • Red beans
  • Rotell
  • Enchilada sauce
  • Diced peppers
  • Chipotle peppers in adobo sauce

Dry:

  • All purpose flour
  • Bread flour
  • 00 flour—-you don’t need all three, I like bread flour for making bread, all purpose is fine you can make good pizza dough and pasta dough as well.  If you want something special 00 flour makes great pizza dough and pasta dough
  • Dried red beans
  • Dried lentils—beans and lentils are cheap you can make simple meals, soups, the are filling and nutritious

Bottles:

  • Soy sauce
  • Fish sauce
  • Rice wine vinegar–great for pickling
  • Vinegars-red wine, apple cider, white vinegar
  • Good mustard
  • Horseradish
  • Hot Sauce
  • Catsup
  • Olive oil
  • Vegetable oil

Have this in your pantry and some veggies and meats and you can paint an endless array of simple healthy meals for your family,

The Covid Diarys how to be self sufficient-Bread is life

Well its probably to late to save, to late to hoard cases of spam, tuna and sardines.  I dont have a roll of hundreds in the closet but as a rugged individualist in the words of David Goggins-Fuck Corna!

It takes a crisis to buckle up and learn a few skills that can help your family get through tough times.  The one skill that I can fall back on is cooking. When you go to your local grocery store an shelfs are empty, no bread, well starts there.

If you have four ingredients in your house; flour-salt-yeast-water you can make bread.  Good bread, there is nothing more satisfying than making bread for your family–after all bread is life.  With all due respect to Jim Leahy and ripping off his recipe forget all the other crazy recipies and techniques learn this, make it over and over tweak it and than try the crazy stuff.

Ingredients:

  • 400 grams of flour–I like bread-all purpose is fine
  • 8 grams of salt
  • 1 gram of yeast
  • 300 grams of water or slightly more-I like the dough more wet than dry
  • A scale
  • Dutch oven

Weigh your ingredients it will allow for a more consistent product

Mix the flour-salt-and yeast in a bowl to combine–slowly add the water and mix with your hand or a spoon till loosley combined, again I like a bit more water to er on the wet side.  Cover with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel in a warm dry place. Let stand 16-18 hours or a bit more–dont fuck up this step, a longer rise will make and airy chewy loaf.

After your first rise flour a baking sheet, turn the dough onto the baking sheet, fold it into itself a few times forming into a ball seam side down.  Cover with a floured towel or plastic wrap and rise another two hours. After an hour and a half place the dutch oven with lid on in a 475 degree oven to preheat.

Once the dough has doubled its size, about 2 hours, remove the dutch oven, take the lid off and place the dough in the dutch oven with the lid on.  Cook for 30 minutes with the lid on, after 30 minutes remove the lid and bake an additional 30 minutes checking every 10 minutes or so. Cook longer than you think, the loaf should be chestnut brown.  Remove place on a wire rack to cool for a few hours. Open up a bottle of wine, get some good cheese or better and enjoy. Better and healthier than any store bought bread. If you need more details. Google Sullivan Street no knead bread.

The Why


Today is June 10th 2019, I was born on this day in 1961.  A dreamer who wanted to be a writer, soldier, professional baseball player among other things.  To date not many of these things have come true. As I stand on the tee somewhere on the back 9 I am dedicating myself to make some if not all of these dreams to come true in some form.

Many things have changed from the time I grew up, I was born just 20 or so years after world war 2.  A time when many if not most men could be described as rugged individualists. If toxic masculinity was around in 1944 we would all most likely been rocking the Hitler mustache and speaking German.  The greatest generation set the stage for decades of self reliance, for figuring things out on their own, having values, faith and a belief in getting things done on your own, asking for help only when needed.

My goal is to work on getting back there, getting back to a strong values and belief system for not being afraid of my faith and practicing it.  I want to get back to the roots, build something of my own, a business a house, learn to hunt, fish and forage to try and feed my family on wild game for the next year.

So join me on my journey to get back to self reliance, explore cooking, god, country, hunting and fishing to become a true rugged individualist.  Lets celebrate rugged individualists and learn how to be more self reliant and work on creating another greatest generation.

Areas to explore:

  • Fly fishing
  • Canning preservation
  • Using and eating the nasty bits
  • Hunting
  • Foraging-ocean-woods
  • Growing your own food
  • How to fix things–car
  • How to build
  • Cooking
  • How to grocery shop
  • How to tell a story
  • Resources
  • Cut your own hair
  • Learn to sew