Banana Nut Bread Recipe

This is the best addictive recipe we have ever tried for Banana Nut Bread. It is easy and quick to make for breakfast or dessert.

2 bananas - mashed
1 box yellow cake mix
4 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup water
1 pkg (small) instant banana pudding mix
walnuts on top - I also mix some in
pour into an ungreased loaf pan
Bake at 350 for 35-40 min

Grocery Store vs Farmer

A nice clean grocery store is a joy to shop in. Everything is laid out in straight rows or stacked perfectly so it is appeasing to the eye. You have multiple brand choices and you see the store brand becoming the dominant brand and the cheapest. If the grocery store has their own butcher shop, you can get some great deals on meat with their store sales.

The real problem with grocery stores is not the store itself but with some of the products they sell. All can goods have BPA and preservatives I can't even pronounce. The produce looks good due to the chemicals constantly sprayed on them because they are usually harvested several days before they reach the grocery store display case. Many times I have witnessed fresh vegetables already becoming wilted and potatoes becoming a little soft and just a day or two from sprouting. We found the eggs with thin shells and light yellow, weak yokes. It made us wonder what they were feeding these chickens. What really gets me is when some vegetables, like sweet red bell peppers are severely overpriced at $2.00 per pepper.  Have you ever experienced any of this?

We started going to a local farmers market on Wednesday and Saturday. We visited each booth to look at their offerings and to talk to them to see if the products came from their farm or if they were buying at a larger farmers market and reselling (grocery store). We connected with a farmer whose farm is about 15 miles from us and he sells in bulk even cheaper than his prices at the farmers market. As an example, we purchased a bushel of sweet red peppers, picked that morning, for $25. This worked out to be about .50 per pepper where that same pepper bought individually at the farmers market would cost $1.00. So, you wonder, what in the world do we do with a bushel of peppers. You know, during the winter, that same pepper will cost $3 - $4 for a single pepper. So, we clean them, chop them up and dehydrate them. Then they are put in a half gallon Ball Jar and vacuum packed. When we need a sweet red bell pepper for soup, stew, chili or pizza we simply take what we need from our dehydrated supply and re-vacuum pack the jar. By the way, we bought 4 bushels and ended up with 3 3/4 half gallon jars.

But that's not all. We buy a bushel of Roma tomatoes for $5 and a bushel of regular tomatoes for $10. These end up as tomato sauce, tomato paste, canned tomatoes, spaghetti sauce, chili and sun dried tomatoes. Then you can dehydrate or can snap beans, peas, sweet potatoes and potatoes. We also bought the biggest blackberries we've ever seen. We juiced these and made blackberry jelly. No BPA and no preservatives.

Now, the greens are ready to be harvested and we can't wait to can and dehydrate them.

Our farmer friend turned us on to a neighbor who sold eggs from free roaming chickens. We went to their house and sure enough, chickens were roaming around the yard and field. We bought 2 dozen of the biggest most beautiful eggs you have ever seen. The shells were thick and the yokes were a dark rich yellow. And, the best part is they only cost us $2.50 per dozen. Now, we do not buy eggs from any other place.

We still shop at the grocery store but for very selected items. Like, sirloin roast when it is on sale so we can cut it into kabobs and can it or ground it into hamburger for canning meatloaf. Watch for the Whole Beef Sirloin Tip which looks like a shoulder or butt to be on sale. We bought 4 this week for $2.98 lb. I cut two up into kabobs for canning and had the store ground the other two into hamburger for canning ground beef and meatloaf. The store does not charge for this service so we end up with ground sirloin cheaper than what you can buy out of the display case on sale. However, we buy our sausage and brats from a local farm.

We grind our own flour for bread and corn for cornbread and we make our own milk from Moos Powdered Milk which can be bought at places, like, CarolinaReadiness.com

If you don't already, learn how to can and dehydrate to take advantage of the plentiful food during harvest. And remember that different produce is harvested at different times of the year. It can keep you pretty busy.

So, by being selective you can support both your local grocery store and your local farmer.

Good shopping and eat healthy.

Privatizing Cities

I was watching Fox News on Saturday Sept 8, 2012 and they began talking about our government discussing plans to privatize the cities in the United States. Can you believe this? As much as our government rails against corporations and now they want them to take over and run our cities. What's going on here?

Are our politicians so crooked now that every city is going bankrupt because of the ungodly pension plans they have agreed to and participate in. It seems the regulations should be on government and not on business. I don't know of a single corporation that went out of business because their pension plan caused them to implode like our public sector is doing. So, now they have a brilliant idea. Let the corporations run the cities and the politicians will dictate to the corporations how they will operate. Kind of like what our government is doing now. Unfortunately, every business the government has tried to run has gone bankrupt. So why should this be any different. It will just be on a larger scale.

They point out the success of cities in Europe and Hong Kong so you will feel more comfortable with the idea. Remember, this is for you. This is to Help You. Remember what Ronald Reagan said was one of the biggest Lies is when the government says 'We're the government and we're here to help'. Watch out. They may be here to manipulate and use you into doing something you would never agree to if you knew the truth but the only help you will get is to further their agenda.

When I first started my career in computers (a few years ago), the company I worked for ran the payrolls for mining towns all over the country. Are you familiar with mining towns? Well, the mining company owns everything in the town. The grocery store, gas station, clothing, shoes, movie theater, bank, furniture, car dealerships, everything. If you work for the company, you are given a line of credit and you can go to any of their stores and purchase what you need on credit. Come payday, your check stub will show deductions for everything you purchased, show the balance of how much you still owe and your check will be printed with big fat zeros. Remember, you don't need money because everything is available on credit ..... as long as you don't leave the town limits. You are virtually a slave until you die.

Also, have you ever lived in a Planned Neighborhood. The Homeowners Association controls everything that goes on in that neighborhood. Even though you paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for the house, you have very few rights about what is done to that house. And, if you don't keep up your property to their standard, you could get into some serious legal trouble.

So, how great would it be to live in a city owned and run by a corporation. How much say would you have about anything?

I don't think you will have a choice about living in a privatized city. I think it will just happen and you will hardly notice. And then, little by little your rights will be eroded until you won't recognize the city or country you are living in. Kind of like what is happening now. And to think, our politicians think this is progress.

Personally, I do not want to live in a Privitized City run by some corporation. What would be nice is to change the way we elect politicians. Do not elect anyone to public office unless they have a minimum of 25 years experience in business and have some strict guidelines so politicians cannot run amuck. Basically, require them to have a balanced budget and do not allow them to be exempt from any laws they pass.

That should do it.

December 21, 2012

My wife and I subscribe to a lot of news letters. Not just any news letters but ones that are vetted by us to be people with tremendous experience, success and political or business contacts. We pay close attention to their advice about what is coming and their recommendations on how to prepare to survive the End of America as we know it. Sometimes it seems like it is a quest for us searching for more knowledge.

We have learned a lot about our political process. Some enlightning and some disappointing. Every once in a while a revelation will be presented to us that scares us to the depth of our souls and we feel it is imperative to warn others. We believe there is much more happening than what we see on ANY news channel .... even Fox. I remember in the movie 'A Few Good Men' the statement that 'You can't handle the truth'. I feel this is true for most of the American public.

We have heard many times that the dollar would lose its status as the reserve currency but we have never heard of a date when this would happen.

A news letter we recently received described how the Petro Dollar came into existence. Basically, Richard Nixon made a deal with Saudi Arabia that if they would only accept dollars for their oil, from any nation, then the United States would guarantee their protection from all enemies. Saudi Arabia then convinced all the other Arab oil producing states to do the same. This meant that everyone had to convert their currency into dollars, at the current exchange rate, to buy oil. All the U.S. had to do was print more money to supply all these countries with dollars to buy oil or buy more cheap products from these countries to supply them with dollars.

Iran, which is the second largest oil producing state, said in January 2012 that on December 21, 2012 that the Arab States, led by Iran, would begin accepting other currencies for the purchase of oil. You haven't heard this on the news, have you? We have been told that the issue with Iran is nuclear weapons. It is estimated that it would take Iran 10 years to produce just two nuclear weapons. The U.S. has over 2,000. Pakistan, Indian and North Korea already have nuclear weapons. Would Iran risk annihilation by the U.S. just to destroy Israel?

Eliminating the Petro Dollar is a much greater weapon of mass destruction than a nuclear weapon. Now you know why Iran is such a threat and why the U.S. needs to do something to stop that from happening.

This means that we will not be selling dollars (our debt) to other countries after December 21st. This also means that our economy collapses and 2013 and a few years after, are going to be horrible years. This is much more effective than a nuclear weapon. We cannot even imagine the negative effect this will have on America and our lives. But, what it will mean is, 'The End of America' as we know it.   

Sept 20, 2012 Update

The Fed has decided to pump 40 Billion Dollars per Month into our economy till our economy recovers. What this really means is that No One is buying our debt anymore. This also means the more money the Fed prints, the more our dollar is devalued and the higher inflation will be. Everything is going to cost a lot more.

So, do you think this is bunk or does it make sense? To ignore it is like playing Russian Roulette.

If you haven't been preparing, then you had better get into high gear.

We would rather be prepared than play Russian Roulette.

Canning Pork Tenderloin

This is not an exciting subject but a lot of people do not realize you can can pork. This is very simple.

I bought two pork tenderloins at Sam's Club for $1.99 lb. One was 7.71 lbs for $15.34 and the other was 9.53 lbs for 18.96. These are the big tenderloins, not the two per package for $4.95 lb. that are already trimmed out.

I trim all of the fat off of the tenderloin and then cut nice center cut pork chops off of the tenderloin. We vacuum packed and froze 8 pork chops for 4 meals and cut up the other pork chops into kabobs.

We sterilize our jars and lids and cold pack our pork. This simply means we stuff the raw pork kabobs into the jars to within one inch of the top of the jar, seal it with the lid and put it into our pressure canner @ 15 lbs pressure (we are at 3,000 ft elevation) for 75 minutes. It cooks in its own juices and it is absolutely delicious.

That's it.

We canned 11 pints of pork kabobs and as I mentioned earlier, froze 4 meals of 8 center cut pork chops.

Now, do the math.  It cost $34.30 for the two pork tenderloins that made 15 meals @  $2.28 per meal for two people. Not bad.