Violence rarely arrives at a convenient time. It may begin with shouting on a nearby road, gunfire after dark, a break-in at the edge of town, or several strangers moving through the area with bad intentions. By the time everyone understands what is happening, the first decisions may already have been made. Earlier Native, pioneer, […]
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Friday, August 7, 2026
How I Build A Culture Of Gratitude In A Prepared Family
Preparedness has changed the way I look at my home. I notice how much food is on the shelves. I pay attention to the weather, the condition of the roof, the amount of fuel available, and the weak points in our plans. I watch prices, shortages, crime, and the general direction of the country. That […]
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What To Do in the First Five Minutes of Any Emergency
Most preparation happens before an emergency, some happens during the emergency, and some happens afterward. Saving a checklist of immediate actions in case of emergency, and training with it, can help move you from the 80% of survivors who stand around like deer in the headlights, to the 10% who take action to improve the […]
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Thursday, August 6, 2026
What 10 Years in a Restaurant Kitchen Taught Me About Survival
My kid just started their first job. Same restaurant I worked at when I was seventeen, a small town diner in Texas with a bell over the door and a jukebox that only ever played country. Watching them tie on that apron sent me straight back twenty years.
I spent almost ten years in that kitchen before I moved into other work, and most of what I picked up never made it into any prepper article I’ve read. Not the obvious stuff about rotating stock or prepping ingredients ahead of a rush. The weirder stuff. The things you only learn because a grease fire almost took out the line, or because the walk-in fridge died on a Saturday night and somebody had to figure out fast what to do with four hundred pounds of food that couldn’t sit out.
How S*** Saved My Life
It was a Friday, two weeks into the job, and I had the flat top loaded with chicken fried steaks. Off to the side sat a shallow pan of oil I’d left over a burner and forgotten about while I was plating. It started smoking. I remember thinking I should move it, and then a flame came straight up out of the middle of it, about a foot high.
The dish sink was three steps behind me with a sprayer hose hanging over it. I had my hand on that hose when Ramon caught my arm. He’d been cooking on that line since before I was born and I never once heard him raise his voice.
Then he took a sheet pan off the rack and laid it flat over the burning pan, which killed the flame inside it. He reached over my head for the salt tub and poured it out along the line until there was nothing left to burn. The whole thing took maybe ten seconds.
He explained it later, out back on a smoke break. He’d watched a kid do the water thing at a place he worked in the eighties. The way he told it, the fire came up off the pan and went into the vent hood and they lost the rest of the night.
Salt works because it sits on the burning surface and keeps oxygen off it without pushing any oil around. Baking soda does the same job and gives off carbon dioxide as it heats.
Salt earns its place in your stockpile twice over. It seasons and preserves food, and it can smother a grease fire before the flames reach your cabinets. History backs it up on the value side too – salt held real trading power in times when paper money stopped meaning much, and it will again after SHTF.
That makes it one of the more useful items you can keep on hand, and it’s only the first of the 17 things you should be stockpiling for survival (wait until you see #3).
A Sink of Water Could Be Better than a Vacuum Sealer
Our vacuum sealer died sometime around my third year and never got replaced, because Darlene, who owned the place, had a rule about spending money on machines that did jobs hands could do. Wade ran prep in the mornings and he was the one who showed me the workaround. He filled a bus tub with water, put marinade and fajita meat into a zip top bag, sealed it almost all the way across.
This Is Better Than a Vacuum Sealer
The water pressure pushed the air up and out through the gap he’d left at the corner. Once the bag was down to nothing but liquid and meat, he zipped that last inch shut right at the waterline and pulled it out. It looked shrink wrapped.
I’ve used that trick at home more times than any gadget I own. It works for portioning out dry goods, and it keeps freezer burn off anything you’re putting away long term. All it costs is a bag and a few inches of water, and it gets you most of the way to what a machine does.
Darlene Nearly Fired a Dishwasher For Throwing Out a Can Of Grease
We kept coffee cans by the stove, and every bit of fat that came off bacon or a beef trim got strained into them. A new dishwasher poured a full one down the drain on his second day, and I watched Darlene take him out back and explain at length what he had just wasted.
She grew up on a place outside town where nothing went in the trash. Her father kept rendered fat for the oil lamp he lit when the power went out in an ice storm, and Darlene still cooked with it every day. Fat burns clean and slow in a simple lamp with a twisted cotton wick.
Rubbed into boots and left in the sun to soak in, it keeps leather from cracking and helps it shed water. Rendered clean and mixed with a little beeswax, it makes a plain salve that works fine on hands that have split open from cold.
A jar of fat in your pantry is cooking fat and lamp fuel at the same time, and it comes out of trimmings that usually get thrown away. Once you start saving it, you stop looking at a package of bacon the same way.
Miss Ada Put Bay Leaves in Every Bin and in Our Morning Tea
Miss Ada came in on weekends to make biscuits, and she ran the dry storage room like it belonged to her. Early on we found weevils in a bag of cornmeal that had been sitting too long, and after that she went through every container on those shelves with a box of bay leaves, tucking two or three into the flour and pushing a couple down the side of each rice bin.
She also made a big pot of bay leaf tea every morning and left it out for whoever was working. Tasting is most of the job in a kitchen like that, and by mid-morning you’ve put a spoonful of a dozen different things in your stomach that were never meant to go together. You end up feeling heavy and puffed up, and it slows you down. Her tea took care of it. We’d all start the day with a cup and get on with the shift.
After I left that kitchen I kept making it at home, but mine never worked the way hers did. She called it bay leaf water, never tea, and she’d tell me there was a little secret in it she wasn’t ready to hand over. If I wanted the real thing, I’d have to come see her about it.
She did tell me in the end, and I found that amazing recipe in one of the best-selling holistic books around. You can find the bay leaf water recipe here.
The Night I Was Told to Stick My Bleeding Thumb in a Bowl of Flour
I cut my thumb open on a can lid during prep, and before I got near the first aid box, Darlene had dumped a handful of flour in a bowl and pushed my hand into it. The bleeding stopped in two minutes, and I told that story for years as proof the old tricks beat anything you buy in a box.
She wasn’t wrong about the mechanism. Dry powder pulls plasma out of the blood and clumps into a paste the platelets can build a clot against, which is close to how hemostatic gauze works with kaolin clay. What I always left out is that she also wrapped the thumb tight and made me hold it above my heart for ten minutes. The flour got credit for the pressure.
But before using this method, you need to know that flour brings its own problem. It’s milled from field wheat and never treated for pathogens, which is why the CDC keeps telling people to quit tasting raw cookie dough. Baking kills what’s in there; packing it into an open cut does the opposite, and the dough plug you pick out later reopens the wound.
So, the flour trick is worth knowing when SHTF. But not while you still have a clean cloth and a drawer you could have put gauze in. Without a doctor, there’s a high risk of infection.
Ramon Threw Out a Jar of Garlic That Looked Perfectly Fine
Travis spent a whole Tuesday peeling garlic and covering it in good olive oil, then set the jar on the dry shelf and wrote CONFIT on the lid in marker. Ramon told him it belonged in the cooler. Travis said confit keeps for months, he’d read about it, and left it right where it was. It sat there through the weekend looking beautiful. Friday afternoon Ramon walked past, picked it up without breaking stride, and poured the whole thing down the drain. Travis said that was four hours of his life. Ramon said, “You want a name for it? Call it lawsuit.”
Garlic sitting in oil at room temperature is one of the few things in a kitchen that will actually put somebody in the ground. Botulism doesn’t smell, doesn’t taste like anything, and doesn’t cloud the jar. Nothing looks wrong right up until somebody can’t swallow. Same risk sits in every low-acid batch coming out of a home canner, which is most of what preppers put up.
Curious how to keep fresh garlic for 25 years?
Click here to find out!
Darlene Made Her Own Degreaser out of Vinegar and Lemon Peels
There was always a jar going on the shelf above the sink with citrus peels sitting in white vinegar. Darlene started it to cut down what she spent restocking chemical cleaner, and it stayed because it worked as well as the bottled stuff. Peels soak for two or three weeks, then you strain the vinegar off and cut it with about an equal amount of water in a spray bottle.
The vinegar does the work on grease and hard water buildup, and the oils that come out of the peels help it cling to a surface while covering most of the vinegar smell. It won’t sanitize the way a bleach solution does, so it isn’t a substitute for that. For everyday grime on a stovetop or a counter, it holds up against nearly anything you’d buy.
The part that matters for a pantry is that you can keep making it. Commercial cleaner takes up shelf space and eventually runs out, while vinegar keeps indefinitely and citrus peels are something you were already throwing away.
What My Kid Doesn’t Know Yet About the Job They Just Started
Their first shift ended around ten that night. They came out smelling like fry oil and dish soap and complained about his feet the entire drive home, and I remembered that feeling exactly.
What I couldn’t have told him, and what nobody standing at that counter would have guessed, is how much of what he’s about to learn from people like Ramon and Miss Ada is going to matter twenty years from now, in situations that have nothing to do with a restaurant.
And because I’m proud of my kid, I wanted him walking in already knowing a few things instead of learning them the hard way – how to deal with a burn, what to do about a cut that won’t quit or how to get himself out of a zip tie (this is an interesting one).
Of course, I can teach him at home and we will, but I wanted him picking it up in a way that didn’t feel like a lecture from his father. So I got him Claude Davis’s new book, The Lost Skills of Independence. The pictures are really good, it’s easy to read and follow instructions. It also comes with extra material he can actually work through.
He loved it. He tried the burger in a jar, and for a sixteen-year-old, it wasn’t bad. I told him to take the dark psychology part carefully, but to keep whatever’s useful for him once he’s out in the world.
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The post What 10 Years in a Restaurant Kitchen Taught Me About Survival appeared first on Ask a Prepper.
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Home to Make Homemade Bone Broth
Estimated reading time: 10 minutes
It’s a Prehistoric Recipe that Has Emerged as Today’s Health Food.
Bone broth is exactly what it sounds like: A broth made from bones, although some contemporary recipes add vegetables for flavor and added nutrients. From a culinary standpoint, it’s the fundamental recipe for a stock that is often used in soups, stews, and gravies.
As more and more people looked at the nutritional profile of bone broths, they started to notice certain elements and nutrients that have been shown to have health benefits in other occurrences. Some clinical studies soon followed, and the evidence began to grow indicating that bone broth was in fact a nutritious addition to a diet and had distinctive health benefits.
But Buyer Beware
While there are indications that bone broth can provide good nutritional benefits and contribute to overall health, some of the claims made about it are a bit outlandish. It may relieve some symptoms of osteoarthritis but to date, there are no credible clinical studies that prove it can cure it.
That notwithstanding, bone broth does possess an impressive list of nutrients including:
- Calcium
- Magnesium
- Potassium
- Phosphorous
- Iodine (fish bones)
- Glucosamine
- Chondroitin
- Collagen
- Vitamin A
- Vitamin K2
- Zinc
- Iron
- Boron
- Manganese
- Selenium
- Omega-3 fatty acids
- Omega-6 fatty acids
- Protein
- Amino acids including glutamine, glycine, and arginine
That’s quite a list for a simple recipe of water and bones and that doesn’t include any of the vitamins or minerals that would occur if vegetables were added.
So What’s the Benefit?
Some benefits you may already know. Many of the vitamins and minerals that show up in standard vitamin and mineral supplements occur in bone broth. Things like Vitamin A, calcium, selenium, iron and zinc.
It’s some of the unique things like collagen, chondroitin, and some of the amino acids that start to take bone broth to another level. These compounds, micronutrients, and amino acids are resident in the bone, marrow, and connective tissue attached to some bones.
Many studies have focused on the health benefits of these nutrients and some of the findings were highly encouraging.
- According to one study by the National Institute of Health, glucosamine and Chondroitin support overall joint health.
- Another NIH study identified the collagen in bone broth as a beneficial nutrient for both bone and joint health.
- There are some indications that the glutamine in bone broth can help to protect and heal the lining of the digestive tract.
- Bone broth was also shown to be an anti-inflammatory.
- Significantly, multiple studies demonstrated a decrease in joint pain and the symptoms of osteoarthritis. It’s not a cure, but it was shown to help.
- Finally, studies were done that indicated bone broth had a calming and relaxing benefit that can aid someone suffering from insomnia.
None of the studies promised a miracle cure for anything, but given the range of credible evidence for the benefits of bone broth, it’s worth considering as a regular supplement to most diets.
The standard caution is that if you have a chronic condition and are under a doctor’s care, you should consult with your doctor first. Here’s the nutritional information for a standard 8-ounce cup of beef bone broth:
- Calories: 31
- Protein: 5 grams
- Fat: 12 grams
- Carbohydrates: 3 grams
- Fiber: 0 grams
- Sugar: 1 gram
Let’s Make Bone Broth
The recipe is fairly simple and you’ll spend most of the time occasionally peeking at a simmering pot on the stove or crockpot. There are a couple of preliminary steps that are a touch fussy, but overall it’s a very simple recipe.
Let’s Start with the Bones
Beef bones tend to show up as the most popular bone source for bone broth but our ancestors used bones from birds to buffalo to fish. You can too although fish bones are going to give the overall broth a bit of a fishy flavor but their bones are a great source of iodine.
It’s all up to you but mixing multiple bones from beef, pork and poultry probably wouldn’t be all that noticeable from a flavor standpoint.
You can often buy beef bones from your local butcher. They’re sometimes sold in the meat counter as doggy treats although many markets sell them specifically for broth and call them “soup bones.” You may even find a local butcher who will give you the bones for free, but even if you have to pay for them they’re usually very inexpensive.
Anytime you roast a chicken or turkey, save the carcass. Many of us use a turkey carcass for an after Thanksgiving turkey soup but even a Sunday evening roast chicken can make a great bone broth on Monday.
If you want the most nutrient-dense broth, pay attention to the types of bones you're using. Knuckle bones and feet are loaded with collagen and will give you that thick, gelatinous broth that's a sign of a quality batch. Marrow bones add a rich, deep flavor. Neck bones are another solid option. A combination of knuckle bones for collagen and marrow bones for flavor is hard to beat.
Use what you have available and if you like the taste, make it again.
Vegetables?
Vegetable are an option. They’re the standard addition to a stock including carrots and onions. Again, up to you. You can make it straight with just the bones or take it up a notch with some vegetables.
Some recipes call for the addition of garlic and some herbs, but be careful with those. You’re going to be simmering your bone broth for hours and hours and over time, things like garlic and herbs can overpower the broth. If you want to add some herbs or garlic, make sure you add them towards the last hour or two of simmering.
And Then Just Add Water
You’ll need at least a couple of gallons but it will reduce as you go.
Before You Start…
Roasting
There’s a roasting step that’s important before boiling and simmering begins. Roasting the bones and the vegetables (if you’re using them) caramelizes them and gives a rich, brown color to the broth. It’s not critical to the final result but the flavor and the translucent brown color are worth the extra step.
Blanching
One more optional step worth knowing about: blanching. Before you roast, you can cover the raw bones with cold water, bring them to a boil, dump the water, and rinse the bones. This draws out a lot of the impurities that would otherwise show up as scum later. It's an extra 15 minutes but it means less skimming and a cleaner finished broth.
How to Make Bone Broth
Ingredients
- 4 pounds of beef soup bones
- 3 medium onions (quartered)
- 6 medium carrots (chopped)
- 8-10 peppercorns
- 2 TBS of apple cider vinegar (you won't taste it in the finished broth and it helps to draw the nutrients from the bones)
- Cold water (enough to cover all of the ingredients in the pot with room to spare)
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
- Arrange the bones and vegetables on a roasting pan
- Roast on the upper rack of the oven for an hour or until the bones and vegetables have a brown, caramelized color on the edges.
- Drain any fat from the roasting pan.
- Use some tongs to place the bones and vegetables into a large stock pot.
- Scrape any bits from the bottom of the pan into the pot. You could also pour a ½ cup of hot water into the pan and scrape it around before pouring into the pot.
- Add water and the vinegar to the pot covering the bones by at least a couple of inches.
- Bring the uncovered pot slowly to a boil and skim the scum off the top while it comes to a boil over 30 minutes. That scum is coagulated proteins and impurities releasing from the bones. It won't hurt you if you don't skim it, but removing it gives you a cleaner, better-looking broth.
- Cover the pot and reduce the heat to simmer. You can transfer everything into a crock pot if that’s easier to manage.
- Simmer on low heat for 6 to 24 hours. The longer the better. Check the pot every now and then and skim any new scum. Add a little water if it starts to boil away.
- When done, use a slotted spoon and tongs to remove the bones and vegetables and discard them.
- Strain the broth through cheesecloth in a colander to clear out any large bits of vegetable or meat bits.
- If you want a highly translucent broth you can filter the broth again through a coffee filter in a small colander or large strainer. Totally optional.
Storage
One thing you may want to do is refrigerate your freshly made bone broth overnight. The next morning you’ll see any fat hardened and floating on the top. Skim it off and either keep your bone broth in the fridge or freeze it for later. This will give you a clear, translucent broth unclouded by fat.
You can store your bone broth for up to a week in the refrigerator. If you freeze it the broth will keep for up to 6 months. One way to freeze it is in an ice cube tray. That way you can plop some broth cubes into a soup or stew or microwave them in a coffee cup to the temperature you like.
Is It Supposed to Look Like Jello?
If you pull your broth out of the fridge and it's thick and jiggly like gelatin, that's actually a good sign. It means you extracted a solid amount of collagen from the bones. The more it gels, the better. It will liquify again as soon as you heat it up. If your broth stays liquid in the fridge, it's still nutritious, but it means there was less collagen in the bones or it needed a longer simmer time.
Ways to Use Bone Broth
Beyond soups and stews, there are plenty of ways to work bone broth into your regular cooking. Use it instead of water when cooking rice, quinoa, or other grains for an easy flavor upgrade. Add it to braised meats or use it as the base for a pan sauce.
It's also great for deglazing a pan after searing meat. And plenty of people just heat up a mug of it and drink it straight. It's a warm, savory drink that's a lot more satisfying than it sounds.
Originally published on Homestead Survival Site.
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The post Home to Make Homemade Bone Broth appeared first on Urban Survival Site.
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