Encouragement for Christian Sisters

 Greetings sisters! We often get questions as to how we do things in our van and tiny off grid house so I thought I'd share this one with you...what I use to cook with.  I may have shared in passing if a previous post but this one will be linked in brother Jim's van dwelling tip page. The picture below is a one burner propane stove or as I call it, a cooker. It uses 3 lb propane cans, of which you can see connected to it. You simply turn the knob and light it with a match or striker and it's ready to go.  In order to save money and not use the propane cans up too fast, I make sure my cooking is minimal and use the 'heat and wait' method as I call it.  For instance, instead of boiling a big pot of water for pasta then cooking it another 12-15 minutes, burning up a lot of propane, I simplify it.  I put the pasta in the pan, cover it with water, cover the pot, bring it to a boil then turn it off and wait.  I do that with stir fry veggies, eggs etc.  Some things I will

Greetings sisters in Christ! I thought I'd share a bit of insight of my keeper of the home activities...we had a picnic:-)  Yep, when we left the sinful city we were in, we ventured into the wilderness for almost 2 whole days of no driving, no street preaching, no sign holding but lots of online ministry in the quiet of God's creation. While we were there we had a picnic.  A simple one at that:-) Here's a video of our camp spot.   Which by the way is the first time we've paid to camp in 2 years.  $12 per night and we got all the water we needed so of course I washed every speck of clothing I could find:-)  And brother Jim got to have a fire, he was joyous about that! It was the only place we could find without having to drive more hours after being out witnessing and it was on the way to our next destination.   We enjoyed a bit of quiet time by the water and brother Jim made a teaching video, you can find that HERE on his teaching blog.   After some

Hello sisters in Christ! I pray your day is joyous in the Lord and you are striving on in obedience in love of the Father. Today I want to share with you about making soup stock in the solar cooker (sun oven, solar oven, whatever you call it:-)  You can see mine  HERE  and what we do with it. It gets up to almost 250 degrees on a sunny day as long as I rotate it accordingly so I can do quite a bit with that sort of temperature. One day I decided to make chicken soup stock in it and it turned out great!  I just put the bones in a black cast iron dutch oven, covered them with water and let the sun cook it all day.  The result was an awesomely rich broth.  Once it was done I picked out the bones and added a handful of dehydrated veggies and a package of noodles and let it sit for an hour.   Turns out most of the stock got soaked up by the dry foods :-) but it made a great meal. I also experimented with something today, pan cookies.  I've made bread in p

Greetings sisters in Christ!   Rejoice with me in this day the Lord has given us to glorify His name! We have been very busy, praise God, and are getting a lot of work done around here.  We are so thankful for the opportunity. Bother Jim cut me a bunch of cedar chunks to split for my cedar bin because cedar is great for blasting the wood stove when I cook on it. He taught me how to use the big ax with minimal effort.  (He had the minimal effort :-)   I can only do a small amount at a time but it won't be long and it will be full.  One day at a time, a little here and a little there and it all adds up.  I learn a lot of patience as I get older and struggle through trials but it makes me appreciate it all the more. So in a previous post I mentioned how years ago  we made a solar cooker (sun oven, whatever you want to call it) from recycled materials and guess what?  We did it again!  I had mentioned it to brother Jim and one day he brought out a round piece of glass th

Greetings sisters in Christ, We woke to a rainy day which is a blessing to take a break from physical labor outside. Brother Jim filled this wood bin for us yesterday: ...and this one will be filled soon, with wood cedar chunks. That will be my job to fill as brother Jim cuts 3" round disks, I'll take the hand ax and chop them.  I was chopping small fire sized pieces of cedar so that I can dip them in wax this winter for fire starters.  I like to use cedar to boost the fire either when we're first starting it to get the heat going, or to flare it up for quicker cooking.  We have LOTS of cedar that we got when we had our carving business so I should be able to cook for many years on it. I'm actually doing this post about wood stoves so I can add it to my post I've been working on with multiple links about preparing for troubled times.  It just gives ideas on how a person could prepare for troubled times before they potentially hit. Not only d

Greetings sisters in Christ! Are you standing strong in the Word and looking for that blessed hope? Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ Titus 2:13 Not long ago I did a post about thermal cooking, you can read that HERE .  In that post I said I'd share about how to cook rice in it, after I figured out a good ratio, so here it is:-) At this point I've only done it in a big batch because I wanted left overs and boy did I have a lot left over!!! (We ate off it for several days:-) I used 2 1/2 cups of long grain white rice and 4 cups of water.  (I also added a tablespoon of dried onions and a drizzle of oil.)  I brought it to a boil, poured it into the thermal cooker, wrapped it up and walked away for 2 hours.  When I opened it, all the rice was fully cooked, not mushy and all I had to do was fluff it with a fork.  It was rather tightly packed but no big deal.  The cooking time is normally 1 1/2 - 2 t