Womanhood Wednesday...

I had a great Wednesday that I can't wait to share with all of you..Heather (my daughter in-law) is what I would call a preparedness expert.

She has everything you need for an emergency situation..She is prepared with food, water and clothing..the other day she shared with me two new things that she had added to her already unbelievable stash...Canned butter and a solar oven..

First off I have never heard that you "could" can butter..Seriously that is my main staple..I use butter on everything...Have some toast with my butter, have some veggies with my butter..(you get the point) If we had to live off our food storage, I know butter would make it all taste better..

So we canned butter and this is how we did it... But before I show you what we did ...Look at what I found at Macey's grocery store...Canned BUTTER..It was $5.99 for 12oz. It was regularly $7.99...Do I have your attention?

You can buy butter on sale at costco and Sam's club for $1.67 a lb...

I sterilized my "wide mouth" jars in the dishwasher..After washing them I kept them in a 170 degree oven till I needed them..The lids were in boiling water till needed.

The first thing we did was put 4 rings in the bottom of a big pan. We set 4 large canning jars inside on top of the rings so it wouldn't burn the butter. We cut up 1 lb. of butter and put it in each jar..There was enough water in the bottom of the pan to boil and melt the butter...Stir constantly until the butter has melted. Then you pour into pt. jrs. or 1/2 pt. jars..(1 lb. of butter will fill up a pt. jar and a little bit in another jar.

Take the boiling lids and set them on top of the jars. Immediately you put the rings on and screw on as tight as you can. Set aside.. Shake rattle and roll... Every 10 min. Shake the jars so it doesn't seperate... The butter seals immediately..You don't have to process in a hot water bath....

Keep doing this until slightly cooled then put in fridge. Keep shaking the jars every 10 min. until the butter has become soild. You don't want seperated butter.

When done, take out of the fridge. They have a shelf life of about 3-5 yrs...Heather said take off the rings...If you notice later on the seal is broken and it pops up and down you need to use it or it might be bad.. By keeping the rings on you can't tell if the seal is broken because it keeps it sealed. Are you with me?

The Global Solar oven...

The other thing that we did was cook a meal in a solar oven..(again I didn't know that this even existed)...

This was Heathers oven..Mine hadn't come yet in the mail..I bought mine on e-bay for $199.00.

I know what your thinking..You can't even afford a can of tuna. How are you going to afford a solar oven? If and when we ever need to rely on our storage, we will have to cook it somehow. Without electricity or gas how are we going to do it? This is something worth saving for.. How cool is this? It has a leg in back which makes it tilt the way you want...The metal flaps stay open and that's what reflects the sun.. Its best to use between 11:00 and 3:00 p.m...It works just as well in the winter. All you need is the sun..

It has a thermometer..Notice the reading..Nothing.When we took our casserole out is was almost 350 degrees..You can cook bread, cakes and any kind of meat..Whatever you cook in an oven you can cook in this..It's used in over 126 countries...I just can't say enough of how cool this thing was..It comes with one pan.That's what we cooked our casserole in. You can use other dark pans.

I took a family fav. that we use in our crock pot and I put it in the pan.

I put the chicken in the bottom of the pan

Put a slice of Swiss cheese on top of the chicken


Mix 3 cans of cream of mushroom soup with 3/4 c. milk ..Pour over the chicken and cheese..Sprinkle Chicken flavored stove top stuffing over the top..Melt one sq. of butter and drizzle over the top..(Yes, I said butter....) We put the lid on, popped it in the oven at 10:15. At 11:30 we checked on it and it was done...

We had the casserole for lunch...It was soooo good. The oven absolutely works.

It was a fun day with Heather...Thank you soo much for teaching me how to do something with butter besides eating it...

These are just ideas...When the time is right..You might want to try them...