Who doesn’t love pre-cooked meals? And what could be better than you yourself preparing them in the first place? That way you exactly know what’s in it. Such meals safe a lot of your time and energy, yes they do. Say you cook one big pot of moose stew which could end up being as many as 21 meals for you and your chosen one…wouldn’t that be swell? Imagine getting up in the morning and discussing what’s for supper-decided, you head to your cellar, pick that mason jar and when you get home from work you just cook some noodles, potatoes or rice, heat up the stew and that’s it. Instead of cooking moose stew 21 times you just cook it once. Ok, you need to buy a pressure canner, granted, and mason jars.
Here’s a recipe for you: take 1/4-cup-sized chunks of meat (moose, caribou, elk, bison) of any cut, put them in a big pot, add water. Then add a whole onion to make sure the broth stays clear. Add salt and if you have, a celery root, parsley, carrots. Cook for about 1 1/2 hours on low heat. Then place 3-4 chunks into a quart jar, cover with the liquid, repeat with your other jars. Discard veggies. 7 quart jars fit into a canner. Get the pressure up to 10 pounds, let it cook for 90 minutes. When we take this meal on the trail we’ll put it in a food container, then at the line cabin transfer it to a pot and set it on the wood stove. For supper we mix this meat with Sauerkraut and roast potatoes. Can the leftover bouillon as well at 10 pounds pressure for 30 minutes. Use broth for on the trail (gives you an instant boost-better than Red Bull!) or your other cooking.
Rooting for a cellar
A root cellar that keeps its temperature to around refrigerator-temperature is ideal to keep all your jars, eggs, onions, lemons, apples and potatoes. Your fresh groceries last a lot longer when you can make sure your root cellar is free from frost, is dry and especially dark. Eggs will last us for 4 months. Gala apples, Yukon gold potatoes (the red ones will start sprouting) and yellow onions we can keep for 6 months. Carrots won’t do really well so we dehydrate or can them.
Around the end of Fall we will pickle eggs and have them for our lunches. You just have to make sure you won’t cut down on salt-follow the recipe.
It’s very berry time!
The Yukon bush has so much to offer-so many berries. I enjoy picking them-years ago I started ripping out some labrador tea and dwarf birch in front of the cabin – blueberries (and roses) started sprouting – heaven! Of course every Yukoner knows what to do with blueberries and low-bush cranberries…but what about high bush cranberries? You walk through the bush and all of a sudden you get a whiff of dirty socks? It’s not you, it’s the high-bush cranberries, which are in the honeysuckle family, compared to the low-bush cranberries, which are in the heath family. Make a sauce out of the high-bush and try it on pancakes.
Mossberries are great when thirsty; mix them with other berries in pies, or make a juice. Find out which berries you like best in your oatmeal.
Pick juniper berries and use as a spice for smoking or cooking wild game. Brew the berries as a tea for urinary tract problems. Eat a few dried ones before a meal to prevent flatulence. We’ve seen robins eat juniper berries when nothing else was poking through the snow yet – pick only the dark blue ones as these are the ripe ones.
If you happen to find melonberries in the Summer, enjoy 3 or 4, but not more, otherwise you might have to find yourself a hidden spot or an outhouse pretty quick.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
Albert Einstein
Should you buy a dehydrator? It makes a lot of sense (but does need a lot of energy, so we dehydrate our food when back in civilization) when loving dried fruit without anything else added. I love pineapple, kiwi, mango and apples. Dehydrate carrots, peas, leek, celery, other root vegetables – makes any soup so much better.
Once we’re back out on the trapline in August or September we have to make sure our cakes/sausages/steaks/ground meat/cheese/bread stay frozen. Either we have enough solar energy or we’ll have to run the generator for a few hours every second or 3rd day. We do use coolers too so that the freezer is not jock full; we switch ice packs back and forth from freezer to cooler.
And once we run out of a certain food, say we bought a couple family size Lays chips and they’re finished by January, well, that’s it. That’s why we enjoy them while we have them. Can’t do a quick run down town – forget Timmies, Subway, or pizza delivery. The first time back in Whitehorse though I WILL head over to Tim Horton’s and buy myself a plain butter croissant!!!
This blog post was first published as a column in Whatsupyukon.com