What did you do to prepare today?

I've always wanted to do some home preserving and our current glut of eggs from our chickens gave me the spur to get on and do pickled eggs.

First thing I learnt after reading up online is that due to some idiots in "Murica" no one recommends keeping pickled eggs anymore. The fact that I am a local legend for eating black 3 year old pickled eggs that a neighbor makes isn't taken into account. Anyway as far as the internet is concerned I'm out on a limb and risking my life if I don't keep my pickled eggs in the fridge and eat them within three weeks. I intend to keep them at least that long before I start on them.

My initial plans were dashed when my wife told me I couldn't use any of here preserving jars which she uses for cold dying of fabric. Probably safer that way as all sorts of stuff some of it unmentionable goes into her natural dyes.

I had therefore to get myself some kilner jars, we didn't have jam jars of suitable size. As usual I over did it and got two 2.5 litre wide mouthed kilner jars. As it turns out 1 liter wide mouthed kilner jars would have been easier.

Next near thing in dashing my plans was a lack of eggs. Having had about 60 the other day I found after freezing a load (just crack them into a plastic bag and can be kept frozen for 6 months) and given them away I only had 21 eggs. This was bad because on placing 21 eggs (uncooked as a test) into a 2.5 litre kilner jar I found they came less than 2/3rds the way up the jar. A necessary raid of the hen house yielded another 9 eggs. 30 uncooked eggs just overfilled the kilner jar but I wasn't confident I had enough but went ahead anyway. While still in testing mode I found that I needed a litre of liquid in the jar to fill the space between the eggs.

Now pickled eggs are easy aren't they. Are they fcuk, maybe easy doing a few at a time but I wasn't satisfied with that and was taking on 30. In hindsight it was a good job we didn't have the 60 eggs I thought we had.

Further plans were dashed when I was told in no uncertain terms that I was not allowed to boil up vinegar in the kitchen. We have plenty of big cast iron cookware and getting 30 eggs hard boiled was easy enough and I pulled one of my many stoves out to brew up the vineger in the shed.

I could go on but suffice it to say peeling fresh hard boiled eggs is a pain in the butt and takes a lot longer to do than you'd think, from start to finish including cleaning up the whole exercise took the guts of 2 hours.

I also had problems getting vinegar, found a 2 for one offer in Dealz so used Sarsons malt vinegar and eventually found pickling spices in the local health food shop.

Recipe I used for those who haven't fallen asleep yet. I've no idea how good it is maybe a disaster but posted here for completeness. I'll try and remember to let you know in a couple of weeks time.

Container 2.5l wide mouthed kilner jar (€6.50 in Shaws)
Eggs 30 - free
Vinegar 4 bottles Sarsons Malt vinegar Deals €2.98
Sugar - 2 heaped table spoons
Salt - 3 heaped tea spoons
Pickling spices - 25 grams (half a 50 gram €1.39 bag so 70 cents worth used)

Boil eggs for 10 mins then shell - that sounds so easy! In the future I'll allow 10% extra eggs to allow for those that crack in the hot water. With starting from cold I only lost one.

Boil up vinegar, spices, salt and sugar for 10 minutes and allow to cool - that was the easy bit.

Place eggs in sterilised kilner jar cover with spiced vinegar mix and seal.

To sterilise the kilner jar I put it in an oven at 110 degrees C for ages (when everything else is going on).

I don't think that Malt Vinegar is ideal, I suspect it will give the eggs a very acid flavour but I had to start somewhere and with other delays to the "project" I just decided to plow ahead and just see what happens. I am hoping that the eggs will last longer in the stronger vinegar, many of the recipes I found dilute the vinegar 50/50 with water but go on to state things like "keeps for up to 3 weeks in the fridge".

25 x 20L cans of agri diesel put away now for the generator and work machines. It all adds up I suppose. How are others preparing for possible fuel supply issues? I'm going to keep working on the agri diesel reserve, with some road diesel and Aspen petrol when funds allow.

We also have about 14m3 of firewood dried and ready to use for heating and cooking with and more to be added as time goes on.

paulmclaughlin wrote: »

You know fuel goes bad eventually right? You can add fuel stabiliser to make them last up to a year but it's not exactly cheap!

Yes, I know the effects of improper storage of diesel. The cans I have are all cleaned and filled to the brim using winter grade diesel, dated with fill date and will be rotated through an old (40 year old) tractor we use around the yard and for running the firewood saw and splitter. I can prefilter them through a dual stage filter if required and everything I have that uses diesel is fitted with a sediment bowl before the primary filter anyway. I keep a diesel biocide and 'dry fuel' additive ready to use if any problems, so I'm all covered on that front.

Petrol machinery is a lot more susceptible to problems with oxidation (meaning cars will run like crap on fuel only a few months old) but Aspen fuels are well known to give a useable shelf life of years (3+) if left sealed in the can, rather than the 12 months or so they guarantee. Rotating as required and keeping some extra as a buffer, there should be no problems. Remember also that older carburetor fueled equipment will never be as picky as a fuel injected car or bike.

Another thought about this fuel storage lark, it makes some sense to me to set fuel aside for specific uses. For example if BreadnBuddha doesn't have a diesel car then any diesel he keeps is not going to be used for anything other than tractor and generator. As I mentioned the chainsaw is the one item I'd really want to keep running long term so that makes me think that Aspen 2S (Aspen fuel that has oil for 2 strokes already added) is an even better idea because it won't end up in the car which sometimes happens if I run short of petrol in the car and or cash to fill it up

Can't even remember the number of it, a Sthil something only a 14 inch bar but good enough for me, thinking about it now it must be nearly 25 years old. I'd go and see exactly what it is but I did my back in on Sunday and can't move anywhere atm, next stop after this nice and comfortable computer chair is bed.

I'm not too fussy about saw brands provide the saw meets a basic standard, I've used, Danarm (that shows my age), Oliomac (they were crap), Partner, Sachs Dolmar, Solo, Stihl, Husqvarna and Johnsreds. Overall unless I was paying big money I'd stick with Sthil but if I was working again all day with a chainsaw and had the money I'd go with Husqvarna.

For firewood cutting in the barn I've even toyed with the idea of an electric chainsaw, but they are imo more dangerous than the petrol saws because the torque gets applied so quickly.

Following on from my success with pickled eggs (haven't poisoned anyone yet) . I got stuck into my Lidl special offer lemons to preserve them. tbh I don't know what to expect but gave them a go anyway.

I had 8 nets of 3 so 24 lemons and some spare from my wifes shopping just in case.

The basic recipie is to cut up the lemons so they look a bit like a star fish, cut down from one end 4 times from one end but not all the way then opening them up covering in a lot of salt then stuffing them into a jar until full and using lemon juice to fill up the jar so there is no air space.

But what I actually did was to wash 24 lemons then boil them in brine for about a minute then dry them off. Really I wanted to get them clean and any wax off them, might also soften them up a bit.

Filled a bowl with about a kilo of salt (lidl course grade two 500g packs), then cut each lemon up one at a time (but keeping them as a single unit) removed obvious pips and rubbed them all over in the salt and stuffed more salt in the center. Next they went in the jar which has a starter layer about 5mm deep of salt in the bottom. The cut lemon was put peel down and slightly open then the next salted lemon went in same way peel down until I got the top of the jar, pushing the last two lemons in hard created enough juice to cover all the salted fruit without having to add extra juice.


I filled two 1.5 litre kilner jars they took 7 lemons each and then I had enough left over to nearly fill a 2.5l kilner jar which took 13 to fill it up.

Next stage I'm going to leave them for a month and one jar I want to drain the juice probably rinse excess salt if there is any and see what happens if I fill the jar back up with the lemons and olive oil.

I know I used a full kilo of salt but tbh I'm not sure I used enough as it just about vanishes?



Excluding the cost of the jars the contents of the three with lemons cost a bit less that €5.

Making salt could be a good post shtf business, but I'm not sure Ireland is going to be an ideal place to start up. Its just too damp here most of the time and I don't think you could get any return even for home production. Even with normal fuel availability and prices I doubt you can make 500g of salt for the 29 cents a box costs in Lidl. With a bit more sun I can see the possibility of making salt just by evaporating sea water. I have a sort of solar panel idea where you just drip sea water very slowly down sections of black plastic guttering on the days we get some sun.

Now I'm looking for the next thing to preserve? This year I'm just on the look out for those special offers that are so below cost you couldn't hope to grow the stuff for less. Shallots, courgettes, cucumbers, hot peppers, and even peaches are on the radar. Next year I'll definitely grow shallots, baby beetroot and courgettes just for pickling (didn't this year).

After looking at it for weeks when I've been passing I finally bought myself a leatherman Z-REX rescue tool.



Good deal at €20 including sheath as the shop has been selling off some of its stuff that doesn't sell very well (last one nothing else there of any interest).

Can't decide the best place to keep it. Being quite lite and not very thick I've slipped it under the ticket holder on drivers side sun visor in the car.

aaakev wrote: »

Iv had a knife in the sun visor for as long as I can remember, its a folder with half serrated blade and a window breaking point on the end of the handle. Never had cause to use it thankfully

I always used to keep a knife there, not one with any glass breaking feature but I stopped carrying it as I didn't want to have any trouble for having an offensive weapon handy.

Edit> I also drive in the UK where I know the police get apoplectic about that sort of thing.

I'm just a glass half empty pessimist.

Rosslare Pembroke, keep getting pulled on the way back by the same customs person. Single male travelling alone always guaranteed a look when there are only a few other cars going on the ferry.