Prepping with a criminal record changes almost every calculation a homesteader makes, and most guides on self-reliance never mention it. The prepping community talks constantly about rifles, bulk ammunition, fertilizer for the garden, and stockpiles of fuel, but almost nobody addresses what happens when the person doing the stockpiling has a felony conviction in their ... Read more...
from Prepper's Will
Tuesday, July 7, 2026
Portable Toilet – The Prepper’s Complete Guide to Off-Grid Sanitation
Water and food get all the attention in prepper circles. Sanitation gets almost none, right up until the power is out, the pipes are dry, and there’s nowhere left to go. A portable toilet is not a nice-to-have accessory for weekend camping trips. It is core survival gear, on the same list as your water filter and your first aid kit. This guide breaks down exactly what to buy, what to build, and how to run a sanitation setup that keeps your household healthy when the toilet stops flushing.
Why Sanitation Is a Survival Priority, Not an Afterthought
Most disaster casualties in the first weeks after a major event are not caused by the earthquake, the storm, or the grid failure itself. They come from what happens after: contaminated water, unmanaged human waste, and disease outbreaks in communities that lost their toilets along with everything else. Federal guidance on emergency sanitation points to exactly this pattern. Emergency responders plan for one latrine per 50 people as an immediate stopgap, tightening to one per 20 as conditions stabilize. Translate that ratio to your own household and it becomes obvious how fast an unmanaged bathroom situation turns into a health crisis.
City water systems and sewer lines run on the same infrastructure as everything else that fails during a blackout, a flood, or a hard freeze. Sewage backs up. Pipes crack. Even if your toilet still physically flushes, sending waste into a broken line can send it right back into your yard or your neighbor’s basement. Once you understand that your toilet is a piece of infrastructure just like your stove or your water heater, stocking a backup for it stops feeling optional.
Types of Portable Toilets Every Prepper Should Know
Not every portable toilet is built for the same job. Pick the wrong category and you will either overpay for features you don’t need or end up under-equipped when it matters. Here are the four categories worth knowing.
- Bucket-style toilets: A 5-gallon bucket with a snap-on seat and lid. Cheap, stackable, and the backbone of most prepper sanitation kits. Works with disposable waste bags or a twin-bucket dry system.
- Flush portable toilets: Self-contained units with a separate fresh water tank and waste tank, similar to what you’d find in an RV. More comfortable and better at containing odor, but heavier and dependent on stored water.
- Bag-based systems (WAG bags): Single-use bags preloaded with a gelling powder that solidifies and deodorizes waste on contact. Lightweight, no cleanup, and approved for wilderness pack-out use.
- Folding/collapsible toilets: Frame-based seats that fold flat for storage and pop up over a waste bag. Good middle ground between a bucket and a full flush unit for bug-out kits and vehicles.
Every one of these has a place in a well-stocked sanitation plan. Most preppers end up running two: a bucket or flush unit for home use, and a folding or bag-based system in the bug-out bag or vehicle kit.
Best Portable Toilets for Preppers
These are proven, widely available models that show up again and again in prepper and off-grid gear reviews. All are current listings on Amazon at the time of writing.
Reliance Products Luggable Loo (Best Budget Bucket Toilet)
Why it earns a spot: The Luggable Loo is the standard by which every bucket toilet is judged. It’s a snap-on seat and lid built to fit a standard 5-gallon bucket, weighs 3 pounds, and has been a staple of disaster kits for decades. Pair it with a bucket you already own, or buy the bundled version that includes the bucket.
Best for: Home sanitation kits, hunting camps, and anyone who wants a reliable backup without spending much money.
Camco 5.3-Gallon Portable Toilet (41541)
Why it earns a spot: This is a self-contained flush toilet with a detachable waste tank, a sealing slide valve to lock in odor, and a bellows-style flush that uses a fraction of a gallon per use. It’s the closest thing to a real bathroom experience you’ll get without plumbing, and the 5.3-gallon waste tank means a family can go several days between empties.
Best for: Extended power outages, RVs, and households that want comfort and real odor control over raw simplicity.
Cleanwaste GO Anywhere Portable Folding Toilet
Why it earns a spot: Folds down to briefcase size, sets up in seconds on three locking legs, and pairs with Cleanwaste’s WAG Bag system, which uses a gelling powder to solidify and deodorize waste for safe, contained disposal. Supports up to 500 pounds even though it weighs about 7 pounds itself.
Best for: Bug-out bags, vehicle kits, and anyone with limited storage space who still wants a seated toilet instead of a bucket.
Thetford Porta Potti (RV-Style Flush Toilet)
Why it earns a spot: The Porta Potti line is the gold standard in the RV and marine world, with separate fresh and waste tanks, a rotating pour-out spout that prevents backsplash during emptying, and tank level indicators so you’re never guessing. It’s a bigger investment than a bucket system, but it holds up to daily use for weeks at a time.
Best for: Long-term off-grid living, retreat cabins, and households that plan to shelter in place for extended periods.
Reliance Double Doodie Toilet Waste Bags
Why it earns a spot: These are the bags that make bucket-style toilets livable. Each bag is a double-wall design, with an inner bag that gels liquid waste and an outer zip-lock bag that seals in odor and prevents leaks during transport to a disposal point. They’re built specifically to work with the Luggable Loo and similar bucket toilets.
Best for: Stocking alongside any bucket toilet as a consumable supply, the same way you’d stock ammunition or water filters.
Building a DIY Twin-Bucket Toilet System
If you want a zero-cost or low-cost backup, the twin-bucket system is the classic prepper build, and it’s endorsed in university extension emergency sanitation guidance as a legitimate short-term solution for households riding out a disaster.
Here’s how it works. Take two 5-gallon buckets and label one for urine and one for solid waste. Urine is essentially sterile and can often be diluted and disposed of directly into soil away from your living area, while solid waste carries the real disease risk and needs to be handled more carefully. Keeping them separate cuts down on both odor and the volume of waste you have to manage as a unit.
For the solid waste bucket, line it with a heavy-duty contractor bag, and after each use, cover the waste with a scoop of sawdust, wood ash, or unscented cat litter. This carbon layer knocks down odor immediately and keeps flies from finding it, which matters more than most people expect since flies are one of the main ways fecal pathogens spread from a waste site to your food and water. When the bag is roughly two-thirds full, seal it tight, move it to a covered outdoor storage bin away from the house, and start a fresh liner.
Waste Disposal: What to Do When the Trucks Stop Running
Sanitation gear only solves half the problem. The other half is what you do with the waste once it’s contained. CDC guidance on emergency sanitation and wastewater is blunt about this: damaged septic and sewer systems during a disaster are a direct line to contaminated drinking water and a spike in disease if waste isn’t handled correctly. Never dump waste into storm drains, ditches, streams, or any body of water. It doesn’t disappear, it just relocates downstream to somebody’s drinking supply.
If your home is on a septic system and it isn’t visibly backing up or leaking, it may still be safe to use sparingly. If you have any doubt, or if you know sewer lines in your area are damaged, treat your household toilet as unusable and switch to your backup system entirely. For flush-style portable toilets, once the waste tank is full, the standard options are a designated RV dump station, a home toilet if your own plumbing is confirmed functional, or burial in a pit at least a foot deep and well away from any water source, gardens, or foot traffic.
If a household toilet backs up or you’re dealing with an overflow, EPA’s guidance on resolving septic system problems recommends a cleanup solution of roughly nine parts water to one part household bleach for anything the waste has touched, followed by a full 24 hours of drying time before that area is used again. Keep bleach in your sanitation kit for exactly this reason, separate from whatever you’re using for water purification.
Odor and Disease Control
A portable toilet setup lives or dies on odor control. Get it wrong and nobody in the house will use it consistently, which defeats the entire point. A few habits make the biggest difference: keep the lid closed between uses, add a cover material or gelling agent to solid waste immediately, and never let a bag or bucket sit unsealed longer than necessary before it moves to outdoor storage.
Handwashing matters as much as the toilet itself. CDC’s guidelines for personal hygiene during an emergency are direct on this point: washing with soap and water for at least 20 seconds after every bathroom trip is one of the single most effective barriers against the fecal-oral spread of disease, and it works even when hand sanitizer is your only option in a pinch. Stock enough soap and water, or hand sanitizer as a backup, to make handwashing a non-negotiable step every time the toilet is used, not an afterthought.
Placement and OPSEC Considerations
Where you put your toilet matters for reasons beyond comfort. Set it up away from your water storage, food prep area, and sleeping quarters, both for hygiene and because a strong odor travels and can flag that your location is occupied. If you’re operating in a grid-down situation where drawing attention is a real concern, avoid a visible outhouse structure near the property line and keep waste disposal activity to low-visibility hours.
Indoors, a bathroom with a non-functioning toilet is still your best setup location. It has privacy, a door, and existing ventilation. Remove the water from the bowl, place your bucket or bag system next to or inside the existing fixture, and you’ve preserved the routine your household already knows without wasting a room.
Building Your Portable Toilet Kit Checklist
Here’s the full list to build a sanitation kit that will actually hold up:
- A primary toilet unit (bucket-style, flush, or folding) sized for your household
- A backup unit for the bug-out bag or vehicle
- A 60 to 90 day supply of waste bags or gelling powder per person
- Two dedicated 5-gallon buckets for a DIY twin-bucket backup
- Cover material: sawdust, wood ash, or unscented cat litter
- Heavy-duty contractor bags for waste storage and transport
- Household bleach for cleanup and disinfection
- Soap, water, and hand sanitizer dedicated to the sanitation station
- Rubber gloves for anyone handling full bags or tanks
- A privacy shelter or screen if the toilet has to be set up outdoors
Before the Next Emergency, Learn the Amish Way
When modern systems fail, the Amish rely on practical skills—not convenience. The Amish Ways reveals time-tested methods for food preservation, water security, off-grid living, and self-reliance that have helped communities thrive for generations. If you’re serious about emergency preparedness, this guide belongs in your survival library.
The Bottom Line
A generator and a stockpile of food will keep you comfortable. A working sanitation plan is what keeps you and your family from getting sick while you wait things out. Buy a real toilet system before you need one, stock the consumables that make it usable, and know exactly where the waste goes once the bag or tank is full. That’s the whole job, and it’s one of the cheapest, most overlooked pieces of prepping there is.
Featured image prompt: A clean 5-gallon bucket portable toilet with a black snap-on lid and seat sitting on a wood cabin floor next to a roll of toilet paper, a small bag of cat litter, and a folded contractor bag, soft natural light from a nearby window.
Meta description: A prepper’s full guide to portable toilets, covering the best bucket, bag, and flush systems, how to build a twin-bucket setup, and how to dispose of waste safely when the grid goes down.
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The post Portable Toilet – The Prepper’s Complete Guide to Off-Grid Sanitation appeared first on Ask a Prepper.
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Monday, July 6, 2026
11 Hollywood Prepping Myths that Actually Work
Movies butcher survival far more often than they get it right. The hero sprints ahead of a fireball, pops a dislocated shoulder back in mid-conversation, and walks off a fall that would shatter a real spine. Every now and then, though, a screenwriter borrows a trick straight out of a field manual and it holds up under scrutiny.
I spent a long time scoffing at these scenes before I started checking them against military survival guides and emergency medicine. More than a few earned my respect.
Cauterizing a Wound Can Seal a Bleeder in No Time
Rambo pouring gunpowder into the gash on his waist and torching it in Rambo III looks like pure macho nonsense. Braveheart does a tamer version, with the clansmen dulling the pain with whisky before pressing a red hot poker to Campbell’s arrow wound.
But the fact is, the principle behind both is real. Cauterization uses heat to seal off ruptured blood vessels, the same thing a surgeon does with an electrocautery pen in a sterile operating room.
In the field it sits at the very bottom of the options list, used only after direct pressure and a tourniquet have failed and rescue is hours out. It hurts beyond description and it invites infection.
But there are other, more realistic ways to seal a wound in the wild than what Hollywood shows you. Instead of taking movie scenes at face value, I would have a look here and listen to what REAL doctors and survivors actually have to say. This is the kind of information that could save your life in a real crisis.
A Tourniquet Can Save Your Life in Minutes
For years, the screen treated the tourniquet as a desperate last act that costs you the limb. 127 Hours showed Aron Ralston improvising one before freeing himself from the boulder, and the combat medics in Saving Private Ryan reach for them under fire.
Battlefield medicine rewrote the old fear. A tourniquet cinched a few inches above a major arm or leg wound and tightened until the flow stops can stay on safely for roughly two hours with no lasting harm to the limb. Bleeding out happens in minutes, so stopping the loss comes first.
From my own experience, a commercial CAT tourniquet belongs in your kit and in your vehicle. After reading this, order a few, then check that you also have the other 6 life-saving items your first aid kit and bug-out car need. When SHTF hits, you’ll be glad you did.
Climbing Inside a Warm Carcass Really Can Hold Off Hypothermia
The most famous version is Han Solo slicing open his dead tauntaun on Hoth and stuffing a freezing Luke inside in The Empire Strikes Back. The Revenant does the grim live-action take when Hugh Glass guts a horse and crawls into it during a blizzard.
This can be life saving because the body of a freshly dead large animal holds residual heat, and the hide plus the mass around you cuts the wind and slows your own heat loss long enough to survive a brutal night.
5 Ways to Survive Hypothermia in the Wild
Of course, it is a stopgap, not a sleeping bag, since a carcass cools steadily once the animal stops generating warmth. In genuine cold, exposure kills faster than hunger or thirst, which is exactly why the trick keeps showing up.
The Item that Reaches a Search Plane Long Before Your Voice Can
Rescue Dawn drives this one home through failure. Dieter, having escaped the POW camp, watches a rescue helicopter pass overhead and cannot get its attention, the kind of moment that sends viewers straight to buy a mirror. A signal mirror throws a tight beam of reflected sunlight that trained search crews can spot from many miles out, far past the range of a shout or a flashlight.
You aim it by holding two fingers in a V toward the target and walking the bright dot of light across them until it lands on the aircraft. It weighs almost nothing, never needs a battery, and outperforms most electronic signaling gear in daylight.
You Can Spin Up Fire from a Stick and a Baseboard with Enough Effort
Tom Hanks screaming “I have made fire!” in Cast Away is funny right up until you try a friction fire yourself. The bow drill and hand drill are legitimate primitive methods. You spin a hardwood spindle fast against a softer wood baseboard, the friction grinds off hot dust, and that dust collects in a notch until it forms a glowing ember you transfer into a tinder bundle and coax into flame. It is exhausting and it punishes sloppy technique, which the movie actually captured.
Of course, you don’t have to wash up on a deserted island to end up needing this. If the only fire starter you own is a ferro rod, you are betting your life on having it in your pocket at the exact moment things fall apart. And odds are … you will be standing there with nothing but sticks and your two hands instead.
Add rain or a storm to that and a simple fire turns into the thing standing between you and hypothermia. That’s why I strongly recommend you to learn these 5 different ways to make fire… even in the rain or snow.
Siphoning Fuel Keeps a Vehicle and Generator Alive in a Long Blackout
The entire Mad Max world runs on the idea that gasoline becomes more valuable than gold, and the characters are constantly pulling it from one tank into another. Done the dumb way, you suck on a hose, swallow fuel, and chemically scorch your lungs.
Done right, you use the air displacement method, where you seal a second tube into the tank and blow air in to push fuel out the first tube, so your mouth never touches the gas. A cheap shaker siphon does the same job even safer.
The catch is that modern vehicles fight you on this. Newer cars have anti-siphon screens and rollover valves built into the filler neck that block a hose cold, so the technique you need depends entirely on what you are pulling from. If you have never done it, start with the basics in how to siphon gas from a modern car, then learn the workaround for a car with an anti-siphon device since that is the wall most people hit first. Fuel does not only live in cars either, and the methods shift again when you are drawing from a boat tank or a motorcycle, both of which are worth knowing before the day you actually need the gas.
Building a Fix from Spare Parts
Apollo 13 gave us the purest version of this when ground control dumps a pile of random onboard junk on a table and tells the engineers to build a carbon dioxide scrubber to keep the crew breathing, using nothing but what is already on the spacecraft. That happened, more or less as shown.
The survival takeaway is the mindset rather than the gadget. The person who can look at duct tape, a tarp, and a busted appliance and see a working solution will outlast the person waiting for the right tool to appear. Improvisation is a muscle, and you build it by fixing things badly long before your life depends on fixing one well.
High Proof Liquor Disinfects a Wound When the First Aid Kit Runs Dry
Westerns lean on this constantly, and modern films keep it alive too. The preacher in Cowboys & Aliens splashes whiskey over a wound before stitching it, and Braveheart uses it to clean before the poker comes out.
Alcohol kills bacteria by breaking down their cell membranes, which is the same reason hospital antiseptics are alcohol based. Concentration is everything, though. Something in the 60 to 90 percent range disinfects effectively, while a watery 40 percent spirit does very little beyond stinging.
Clean water and soap come first when you have them. When you do not, a bottle of high proof liquor is a reasonable backup, and worth a spot in the supplies for that reason alone.
Foraging Turns a Forest into a Pantry
Into the Wild follows Christopher McCandless into the Alaskan backcountry living off roots, berries, and whatever he can identify, and the film pins his death on a wild plant, showing him paging through his guidebook in horror after eating seeds he believed were safe.
Foraging is one of the highest-payoff survival skills and also one of the easiest to die from, because dozens of edible plants have a deadly lookalike growing right beside them.
I always assumed I would just recognize the safe stuff when the time came. Then I tried to actually identify plants on my own land and realized I could not tell a useful one from something that would put me in the ground.
What finally fixed that was sitting down with Nicole Apelian’s Forager’s Guide to Wild Foods – it breaks the edible plants down region by region, with the toxic twins flagged right next to them. It’s the one book I keep within arm’s reach of the back door now, first thing I’d grab if I had to walk out with nothing else.
See the survival medicinal plants hiding in your state this summer:
Navigating by the North Star Gets You Out When the Compass Is Gone
The Green Berets leans on this when Wayne’s team loses every landmark in the jungle and reads the night sky instead. Old war films keep coming back to it because Special Forces training actually teaches it.
Find the Big Dipper, follow the two outer stars of its cup up to Polaris, and you’ve got true north within a degree or two. Clouds roll in and you lose it, so pair it with a shadow stick or compass as backup. But on a clear night, the sky has been getting people home long before GPS did.
Growing Your Own Food in Dead Dirt Outlasts Any Stockpile You Hoard
The Martian gave Mark Watney the line that stuck, that he was going to have to science his way out, and the way he did it was farming. Stranded with a finite stash of rations, he works out that the only path to lasting alive is producing calories, not counting them down.
So he grows potatoes inside the habitat, and the trick that makes it work is using his own collected human waste to fertilize the lifeless Martian regolith into something a crop can root in. As you might already know, that part is real soil science. Human waste is dense in nitrogen and organic matter, which is why night soil fed farms across Asia for centuries before modern fertilizer existed, though it has to be composted first or the pathogens in it will make you sick.
That potato scene is exactly what made me try one of the most interesting methods out there: growing potatoes from thin air. At first, I expected it to fail, but watching real food rise out of ground I thought should have been worthless rewired how I think about survival.
So, after discovering how to grow potatoes this way, I realized that reading about a skill does nothing for you the moment everything goes sideways. What carries you through is having already grown the food with your own hands, so learn these unhinged agricultural methods now, while a wasted crop costs you nothing but a season.
See how I did it:
Eating Insects Feeds You when Hunting Comes Up Empty
Timon and Pumbaa selling Simba on grubs in The Lion King played it for laughs, and Snowpiercer turned the same idea dark with protein bars secretly made from ground insects. The nutrition is no joke.
Crickets, grasshoppers, and beetle larvae pack dense protein and fat, and they are vastly easier to gather than any animal you would have to chase down. Cook them to kill parasites, strip the wings and legs off the larger ones, and skip anything brightly colored or foul smelling, since those traits often flag a toxin. A handful of roasted crickets returns more usable calories than a full day spent stalking a rabbit you might never get.
Why These Hollywood Movies Are Worth a Watch
None of this makes Rambo a field manual or turns Cast Away into a survival course. Most of what happens on screen still gets you killed if you try it verbatim. But the handful of scenes that hold up are worth knowing precisely because they came from somewhere real, whether that’s a Special Forces manual, a battlefield medic’s training, or an emergency room protocol.
So, after watching these movies, make sure you know what you have to do when the time comes. It’s easy to imagine pulling off a tourniquet or a signal mirror trick when you’re watching it from the couch, but in an actual survival situation, you need the real tricks from real experts. That’s why you need to learn how to become a grid phantom and start your ultimate survival plan now.
Find out more on gridphantom.com.
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The post 11 Hollywood Prepping Myths that Actually Work appeared first on Ask a Prepper.
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Cooking From Scratch 101
Cooking from scratch can sometimes be overwhelming for those learning to cook. There’s more to cooking from scratch than grilling a hamburger on the grill. It can be using a recipe, following what your mom or dad taught you, or just cooking the way that comes naturally, based on your diet and what’s in your pantry. I remember watching my mom cook some of her recipes without a cookbook. It’s because she made that particular recipe just about every week or two.
When I was growing up, my family didn’t eat gourmet meals, but we learned to cook from scratch using basic ingredients from our well-stocked pantry, refrigerator, and freezer. Oh my goodness, I’m so glad my mom taught me to cook from scratch when I was just a kid! I know I’ve saved thousands of dollars throughout my life simply because I know how to prepare real food from the items I store at home. I wanted to update this blog post to share my ideas with many of my new readers who wish to learn how to cook from scratch.
In case you missed this post, 10 Rules for Organizing Your Pantry
Why Cooking From Scratch Matters for Your Family’s Preparedness
When you know how to cook from scratch, you’re no longer dependent on a box, a bag, or a store shelf. This is one of the most practical skills you can build for your family’s food storage plan. If the grocery store shelves are ever empty, or if you simply want to save money and eat healthier, knowing how to turn basic pantry staples like flour, salt, sugar, oil, and dry beans into real meals is priceless.
Scratch cooking doesn’t have to be complicated. It starts with a few basic skills you can practice one at a time.
Learn to make a basic loaf of bread using just flour, water, salt, and yeast. Once you can do this, you’ll never worry about running out of bread again.
Learn to cook dry beans and rice from scratch. These two ingredients alone can form the base of hundreds of meals and store for years when stored properly.
Learn to make your own broth from bones or vegetable scraps. This is a wonderful way to stretch your food budget and add flavor and nutrition to soups and stews.
Learn to make a basic white sauce (or roux) using flour, butter, and milk. Once you know this one recipe, you can make gravies, casseroles, and creamy soups.
Learn to bake with your food storage staples. Practice using powdered milk, dehydrated eggs, and shelf-stable fats in your favorite recipes so you’re comfortable using them if fresh ingredients aren’t available.
The best part about scratch cooking is that it builds confidence. Once you know you can make a meal out of what you already have on hand, you worry less about supply chain problems or empty shelves. You become the kind of family that’s ready for whatever comes.
I’m not a professional chef or a nutritionist; I’m just a woman who loves to cook and share what I’ve learned over the years. Please use your own judgment and consult a professional if you have specific dietary or health needs.
Cooking From Scratch Storage Items:
These are a few essentials I must have in my home at all times. Please keep in mind that when something I use frequently goes on sale, I stock up my freezer, fridge, and pantry.
Also, today’s post isn’t about any particular diet, such as the Keto Diet, Atkins, Veganism, The China Study, or any other popular approach to eating. Today is about saving money and knowing that cooking from scratch is beneficial for your health. In other words, good wholesome food is what I strive for when scratch cooking.
Many of the items listed below I would consider staples since we should all have them on hand for our homemade meals. Another benefit of cooking from scratch is that you can use substitutes in a recipe based on what’s available in the fridge or pantry.
The Freezer:
- Butter: In quarters, I only buy salted butter; that’s how I roll.
- Bacon: thick, center-cut bacon.
- Frozen peas, chopped onions, and bell peppers: I never throw out veggies from the fridge anymore because I monitor what’s in my veggie drawer, use them for other purposes while they are still decent, use leftovers, or freeze them before they go bad.
- Meat: I buy discounted meat in the meat section every six months. I stock up BIG time. On Monday morning, grocery stores typically put out fresh meat and unload the meat that didn’t sell over the weekend. If you time it just right, the butcher brings out rack after rack. If the price is right, grab a basket and start throwing them in. I also enjoy the rotisserie chicken from Costco, available either as a whole chicken or cut up.
- Flour tortillas: I buy them from Costco and divide them into six in each bag (gallon bags). They freeze well for future meals. Be sure to take them out in time to thaw for use at the planned mealtime.
- Corn tortillas: They freeze well. Divide them into bags based on how many tortillas you’ll use for a casserole or just for tacos. I freeze 12 in each quart-size bag.
- Broccoli: I make chicken and broccoli a couple of times a month, so I like to keep a few large bags in the freezer for casseroles or salads. Again, take them out in time for meal prep.
- SAF Yeast, Dough Enhancer, and Wheat Gluten: I purchase enough for a couple of years and store them in the freezer. I need these to make my bread, dinner rolls, cinnamon rolls, and French Bread several times a month. They come in pretty small packages, so the storage space isn’t an issue.
Stocking The Pantry:
- White bread flour or all-purpose white flour
- White sugar, brown sugar, and powdered sugar
- Honey
- Lemon juice
- Salt
- Oil: vegetable oil, olive oil, and coconut oil
- Baking Soda
- Baking Powder
- Oatmeal
- Mayonnaise and Miracle Whip
- Mustard, Barbecue sauce, and Ketchup
- Beans
- Unsweetened cocoa
- Popcorn
- Vanilla
- Spices and herbs such as chili pepper, Cayenne pepper, sage, and sweet basil. We all have our favorites.
- Canned chicken
- Canned tuna
- Maple Syrup
- Peanut butter
- Jam
- Salsa
- Spaghetti sauce
- Tomato sauce
- Tomato paste
- Diced tomatoes
- Chicken and beef bouillon (Better Than Bouillon brand)
- Cream of chicken soup
- Cream of tomato soup
- Chicken noodle soup (just enough for emergencies)
- White rice
- Pasta
- Gelatin
- Canned fruits
- Canned vegetables
- Corn syrup and Sweetened Condensed Milk (to make caramel corn)
- Vinegar: white, apple cider, and Balsamic
- Potatoes
- Broth
In case you missed this post, 33 Essential Spices I Recommend Stocking Up On.
The Refrigerator – Dairy and Other Items:
- Eggs
- Milk
- Butter
- Cream, sour cream, cottage cheese, and cream cheese
- Cheese: blocks of cheddar, shredded cheddar, and shredded Mozzarella
- Fresh fruits and vegetables, when in season
- Celery Stalks
Kitchen Tools We All Should Have:
- Bosch Bread Mixer, KitchenAid 6-Quart Mixer, or Zojirushi Bread Maker
- Whisks
- Spatulas
- Griddles, waffle maker
- Pressure cooker – Instant Pot
- Soup Pot
- Frying Pans
- Dutch Ovens
- Cookie Sheets
- Muffin Tins
- Food Processor
- Slow Cooker – Crock Pot
- Can Openers – more than one, just in case. Always have at least one manual can opener in case the power goes out.
I’m always on the lookout for new recipes that allow me to prepare meals from scratch. Consider making this white sauce; you’ll love it.
Cooking From Scratch Recipes
White Sauce
Servings 8 people
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter
- 1 cup flour
- 1/2 gallon of milk
- Salt and Pepper to taste
- Sugar optional
Instructions
- Melt the butter, add the flour, and quickly start whisking it. This makes a roux.
- Once it's smooth and thoroughly mixed, add the milk and keep on whisking until smooth.
- This is good for making mac and cheese, Cream Chipped Beef and even gravy.
Some Meals You Should Try With My White Sauce:
- Mac and cheese: add about 2 cups of grated cheese, then stir until it’s melted and creamy. Add some cooked and drained macaroni, and stir until smooth.
- Creamed Tuna on Toast or Biscuits: Add a can of tuna (drained) to the white sauce. Serve with peas.
- Chicken à la King: Add some leftover chopped chicken (2 cups) to the white sauce, 4 ounces of chopped pimentos, and some mushrooms. Serve over cooked rice.
- Creamed Chipped Beef on toast or biscuits: Add two 4.5-ounce jars of rinsed, chopped dried beef to the white sauce. Add a little sugar (optional), salt, and pepper to taste.
- Mushroom soup: Add sliced mushrooms to the white sauce, thinning it with milk if it becomes too thick—season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Cream of potato soup: Add cubed cooked potatoes to make it creamy. Thin the soup with a bit of milk if it’s too thick.
- Sausage gravy:
Fry and crumble a small package of sausage, then drain it and add it to the white sauce. Serve over hot biscuits.
Yes, we can make fabulous meals at home with these delicious recipes. When cooking from scratch, you can batch cook based on the number of people being served. Menus can be adjusted pretty easily, and I shop each week based on my menu planning. There’s something special about making our own meals and not just serving packaged foods from the store. If you like shrimp, give this shrimp cocktail sauce a try the next time you entertain.
Shrimp Cocktail Sauce
Shrimp Cocktail Sauce
Servings 6 people
Ingredients
- 1-1/2-2 cups Ketchup
- 3 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon dry mustard
Instructions
- Combine the ingredients and mix until creamy. Refrigerate after mixing. Serve with shrimp and celery sticks.
Tartar Sauce
Tartar Sauce
Servings 4 people
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons dill pickle relish
- 1 tablespoon minced onion
- 1 tablespoon parsley
- Dash of Worcestershire Sauce
Instructions
- Combine the ingredients together and mix until smooth. Serve with fish sticks or grilled fish of your choice.
Caramel Sauce
Caramel Sauce
Servings 4 people
Ingredients
- 2 cups brown sugar
- 1 cup butter
- 1/2 cup corn syrup
- 1/2 cup water
Instructions
- Combine the ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer about 2 minutes. Pour over cakes, banana bread, and puddings.
How To Make Gravy
Linda’s Homemade Gravy
Servings 10 people
Ingredients
- 1 cup Turkey, Chicken, or Beef Drippings
- 1-2 cups of Flour
- 1 quart Water or Milk (I use water more than milk)
- Salt & pepper
- Sugar
Instructions
- I use the pan in which the turkey, chicken, or beef was baked, along with the "drippings," and bring the liquid to a boil. If you have very little juice or drippings, add some water in small amounts.
- Now, I cannot provide exact measurements because they depend on the size of the turkey, chicken, or roast you purchased and the amount of drippings available. Over time, with experience, you'll learn.
- I take about 1-2 cups of flour put it in a quart jar with cold water and shake it like crazy.
- I slowly add this mixture to the hot boiling turkey, chicken, or beef drippings. Use a whisk and stir constantly.
- I have a quart pitcher with cold water to add to this pan as the gravy thickens. I add water until it's the consistency I prefer. Not too runny, but not too thick.
- I add salt, pepper, and sugar to taste. Yep, it's the sugar that brings out the best flavor. Of course, it's optional.
- If you have some lumps, no worries, bring out the hand mixer. The flavor is fabulous and so easy to make.
Final Word
Cooking from scratch is a skill that pays off every single day, not just in an emergency. Start small, practice often, and before long, you’ll feel confident making meals from the ground up. Your family will taste the difference, and you’ll feel the peace of mind that comes from knowing you can always put a good meal on the table.
I hope my post today helps someone learn the joy of cooking from scratch. A real effort has been made to document everything that I could visualize in my freezer, pantry, and refrigerator. I may have forgotten an item or two, but I’ll add them as I recall them.
Let’s teach the world to eat at home again. Teaching people to cook, set the table, learn table manners, and clean up as a family can’t be done through a fast-food drive-thru. Part of the fun and challenge is creating a menu plan and using a list when grocery shopping.
It saves you money and prompts you to look ahead at the week’s meals and how best to prepare them. Please let me know if there are any items you use that I may have missed, and I’ll add them to
It’s about teaching the next generation the skills we learned as children. Thanks for being prepared for the unexpected. No one can take care of your family as well as you can. May God bless this world, Linda
Copyright Images: AdobeStock_199304079by Magdal3na, Biscuits and Gravy AdobeStock_287776384 by Stephanie Frey,Shrimp Cocktail Depositphotos_5462656_S by Kisbear,Tartar Sauce in a Bowl Depositphotos_72119495_S by MovingMoment,Caramel Sauce Depositphotos_43225117_S by Koss13, Sliced Meat with Gravy Depositphotos_13419958_S by Rjlerich
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