Prepper's Pantry: Pierogi

Pierogi are Eastern European in origin and are a type of small to medium dumpling made of a simple unleavened dough and (generally) a potato-based filling. Like with so many other ethnic foods, the variety of pierogi are nearly endless. In my family, pierogi were usually served as a side dish with sour cream.

As I did with my post on making gnocchi, I’ll try and keep the ingredient list to things most preppers are likely to have in their pantry. This recipe makes 12-16 pierogi and can easily be doubled (or more) as needed.

Ingredients

Dough

• 2 cups all-purpose flour (plus more as needed)
• 1 teaspoon kosher or canning salt
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 large egg, beaten

Filling

• ½ pound all-purpose potatoes
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
• ½ cup cottage cheese or sour cream (about 4 ounces)

A plate of pierogi ready for cooking

Recipe

Dough

1. Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl. 
2. Melt the butter and mix in 1/2 cup of water. Pour this into the flour gradually, stirring it in as you add it. (The dough at this point will be crumbly, like a biscuit dough.) 
3. Stir in the egg until combined, then move the dough to a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth, 5 to 7 minutes. 
4. Cover the dough with a dampened towel and let rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Filling

1. Peel (if you prefer), then cut the potato into approximately 1-inch cubes. 
2. Add them to a large pot of water, which should cover the potatoes by about 2 inches. 
3. Sprinkle in a little salt and bring to a boil.
4. Simmer until the potatoes are tender (about 25 minutes).
5. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, melt the butter then add the chopped onions. 
6. Season with salt and pepper if desired and sauté, stirring occasionally, until golden-brown and softened. 
7. Set aside about half the onions for garnish and add the rest to a medium bowl.
8. Drain the potatoes, then add them to the onions.
9. Add the cheese, mash, and stir to combine.
10. Season with salt and pepper if desired, and let cool.

Assembly

The assembly of pierogi can be made into an assembly line if you have enough willing hands. This is particularly useful for keeping youngsters occupied and engaged.

1. Cut the dough in half. (Keep one half moist under the damp towel while you work with the other piece)
2. Dust a work surface with flour, then roll out one portion of dough until it’s approximately 1/8-inch thick. 
3. Using a 3-inch cookie cutter or inverted pint glass, punch 12 to 16 disks of dough. 
4. Cover the disks with a damp towel to keep the dough pliable.
5. Working with one disk at a time, put a tablespoon of filling in the middle and fold the dough in half, bringing the edges together to form a  half moon shape. 
   
   

   

   L-R: Dough disk, filled, and folded and pinched pierogi

   
   
6. Pinch the two sides together at the fold. Work your way around both sides, pinching the dough over the filling and pushing in the filling as needed, make sure the filling doesn’t break the seal. If needed, moisten the dough along the edge to help the two sides adhere to each other.
7. Repeat with the remaining disks, then repeat the entire process with the other half of the dough. As mentioned above, keep the dough covered with a damp towel, as it's  harder to work with if it starts to dry out.
8. Completed pierogi can be frozen or cooked right away. The traditional methods of cooking are either frying in butter or boiling. As a healthier option, we generally bake ours in the oven.
   

Pierogi served with traditional pork chop and kapusta
(sautéed sauerkraut with onions, garlic, and bacon or pork)

Substitutions

Dehydrated or powdered potatoes can be substituted for fresh, egg beaters or similar for the eggs, dried onions (rehydrated in water) for fresh, oil instead of butter, etc. 

Other recipes mentioned using Farmer's Cheese in place of the cottage cheese or sour cream. It can be hard to find in the store, but can be made at home with whole milk and an acid, such as vinegar or lemon juice.

As with the gnocchi, the potato water can be saved for use in other dishes.

Enjoy! And stay tuned for more excursions to the Prepper's Pantry.

Erin's New GHB, part 1: the Bag Itself

Not actually Erin.

Picture by KJ Photography

As& is used with permission.

January 2020, aka "in the Before Time", I decided that my current Get Home Bag wasn't what I wanted and that I should get a new one. It's taken me a long time to get to a point where I'm mostly happy with what I have, and so I'll share it with you. 

My old GHB, detailed in this post from 2014, was a SwissGear SA9259 Backpack that has since been repurposed into the bag I grab for late-night trips to the Emergency Room with my parents. I still really like it, as you can tell by the fact I continue to use it, but it just didn't have what I wanted in a GHB. In fact, I made a list of my requirements:

• Affordable
• Durable (i.e. good reviews)
• Comfortable to wear
• MOLLE loops for modularity
• More than 30 Liters of storage
• Belt and sternum strap
• Backpack-style wide zipper opening (as opposed to a rucksack-style top-load method)
• Did not interfere with carrying a concealed pistol

As with most things in life, I never got 100% of what I wanted. However, I got pretty close and was able to modify the rest into more or less what I wanted. 

https://amzn.to/3AuyeBc

The pack itself is a 50L "assault style" backpack with removable MOLLE-strap pouches that give an additional 10L of storage to it. It has a 4.5 star rating and close to 5,000 reviews. I bought it for $35. 

It's better than okay but less than great. It does what I want it to do, and it's durable enough to withstand being banged around in a vehicle and hauled around the neighborhood, but I haven't yet tested it in field conditions. In other words, while I expect it to last for its intended purpose of getting me home after a period of 5-7 days, I wouldn't expect it to last for weeks or months of hard living like I do my Bug Out Bag. 

The biggest problems were how the bag attached to me:

• The straps were thin and narrow and I didn't trust them, so I replaced them with heavier, more durable webbing and better buckles.

https://amzn.to/3fJpFKT

• The pack's belt was practically worthless in that while it did secure the bag to my waist, it in no way bore any of the pack's weight so I acquired a battle belt and attached it to the pack. 

https://armynavyoutdoors.com/usmc-padded-tactical-sub-belt-surplus/

• Since the battle belt also had MOLLE loops, I was able to attach to it a universal holster and magazine carrier. They aren't ideal, but this was the only way I could find to have a weight-bearing belt that didn't interfere with a carried pistol. 

https://amzn.to/3s3Q1wg

https://amzn.to/3s3Q1wg

• The shoulder straps were as thin as the belt, so I added shoulder strap pads to increase comfort. 

https://amzn.to/3Am9Xxg

 This is how it looks now. As a point of interest, it interfaces well with my chest rig. 

I wish I could say that I love it, but I still have problems with the way the shoulder straps attach. If I attach them to the sides of the pack the way it originally went, then it pinches me along the side below the armpit. However, if I attach them to the battle belt, then the belt cinches upwards rather than cinching the pack downwards. Any suggestions on how I can fix this are greatly appreciated. 

Next week I'll detail what I've mounted to the outside, and why. 

American Sign Language

One of the common topics of discussion by preppers is communications. We want to be able to find out what's going on around us, so we can figure out how to react. Long-range comms are nice, and we've had a few articles about radio and such over the years, but a one-on-one exchange of information can be more important and time-sensitive. There are a few problems, though:

• Some of us are dealing with mask mandates due to the reactions of various governments and corporate “leaders” to COVID-19. Masks of any sort muffle the voice and make communications harder. For those who are hard of hearing or deaf that rely on reading lips to help understand what is being said, masks hide half of the face and make it impossible to see a person's mouth.
• I wear an N95 mask at work when dealing with certain chemicals and levels of dust that are unsafe to breathe, so I know how they hinder clear speech. Add in the various machines that make enough noise to require hearing protection, and speech becomes a poor method of communicating. Since most of us older workers didn't have hearing protection available decades ago, many of us have some hearing loss and that makes it even harder.
• English has many dialects and some people have a hard time making sense of those who speak a different dialect. I'm a Midwesterner, and while we have a fairly flat dialect without the changes in pitch common in several others, I've run into a lot of local people who have a hard time understanding Southern, British, or Creole/Cajun speakers.

There is a handy (pun intended) method of getting around these obstacles to clear communication: Sign Language.

American Sign Language (ASL) is a manual language that uses hand gestures and to a lesser degree facial expressions to communicate. Developed about 200 years ago as a way to teach the deaf and mute, ASL is a fully-formed language of its own with idioms, grammar, dialects, and unique contractions. ASL grew from native signs adopted by deaf people and a system developed in France to teach deaf and mute children. Up until the late 1600s, it was assumed that the lack of hearing meant a person was unteachable, and they were consigned to asylums or raised as imbeciles. By the 1800s, schools for the deaf started popping up around the US.

I grew up within view of a state school for the deaf that teaches children from 18 months to 18 years of age, so I learned a bit of ASL as a child. One of my school-mates had deaf parents, so he had to translate for me and I picked up the basic alphabet from him (along with all of the Helen Keller jokes). I've been teaching some of the guys at work (sorry, no women at the moment) some basic signs for when we're in places that don't allow for speech. Trying to yell over the noise and through the ear plugs gets tiring; it's just easier to sign the simple things.

It has recently become popular to teach infants some of the basic signs to give them a way to communicate with their parents before their verbal skills develop. My nephews could sign the basics like food, water, yes/no, and various toys long before they could speak. Kids are smarter than most of us think.

For preppers, there may be times where having a different method of talking to each other will be useful: not waking the off-shift crew, subtle hints during negotiations, and having a relatively uncommon language to hold private conversations in all come to mind.

There are lots of resources available for learning ASL, so start with the basics and keep learning. Here's the basic alphabet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_manual_alphabet

Amazon and your local bookstore have dozens of manuals and teaching aids, YouTube has hundreds of short instructional videos for common words and phrases, and Gallaudet University -- the first deaf college in the US, founded by the son of the man who got ASL rolling -- offers a free online course for learning ASL.

I've lost a lot of my foreign language skills due to lack of practice. All skills deteriorate without practice, so find someone to talk to once in a while to keep things fresh. You might even learn a few new “words” now and then.

Hidden Treasures

The dust has settled and the First 72 Hours have passed. Follow along as I build a long term plan via Prudent Prepping. 

My equipment has been moved out of my parents house, gone through, and items I no longer need have been sold, given away or thrown out. I'm trying to organize a small amount of gear to be kept in the care home where my Mom is, but that is still a work in progress. 

When I pulled some of my totes out of where they were stored, 

I came across some of my old Boy Scout equipment! I found my mess kit, authentic Sierra Club cup, utensils, webbing belt and canteen pouch that was (I believe) Korean War surplus, purchased from a real-deal Army Navy store in the middle 60's. 

What's missing is the canteen, the aluminum kind with the nice screw cap and the funky flat link chain retainer. I was using this well into the 1980s and water purification was done with various tablets or boiling. No fancy filters back then! I not-so-fondly remember the taste of those tabs in that metal canteen... I'd like to find it again. It may still be in a corner or a box, but I think it's long gone. I'm keeping the belt and pouch for strictly sentimental reasons, since I've got two newer sets of belts with Nalgene bottles and holders. 

I also found the balance of my fishing tackle in a tote. This will need some work to sort out the tangled mess, because I dropped this tackle box off the tailgate of my truck a long time ago, broke the lid, and instead of buying a new tackle box right away I just put the broken mess in a tote to be fixed later. Much later. Don't ask.

In the bottom of the tote I found a genuine, no-kidding Herter's sheath knife along with an early 70's Buck 110 folder. I didn't have time or a decent place to take some pictures of both knives, but I will post them soon. What's a "Herter", you ask? You could find anything you needed or didn't want in there. Just read the short article linked above to get a taste of what this catalog contained. From bear traps and fly-tying supplies to tents, you could order them from Herter's; think of them as the Sears Catalog of outdoor supplies. 

Also found inside one of my Buckets of Holding was food that I didn't know was there. I dumped everything in the pail that wasn't relatively inert, like salt, black pepper, cinnamon and sugar. Everything which could be considered 'Food' was seriously out of of date by at least 5 years! There weren't any bulged cans, leaking bottles, or obvious spoiled items, but I wasn't taking any chances. I did take the top off a peanut butter jar just to smell, and it was right on the edge of rancid, confirming my avoidance of any trail mixes containing peanuts no matter where they come from. 

I purchased my food safe pails and locking lids from a local company many years ago, but Home Depot has been carrying food grade pails and lids for some time now. However, due to inventory and shipping issues, finding them in your local store might be a problem. I will be using several of the pails to store equipment other than food, since the Purple Pack Lady can handle a fully-loaded five gallon pail weighing 40-50lbs easier than she can handle a 27 gallon tote. Those pails will be hers, with her deciding how to fill them and and where she wants to store everything. Her personal GHB is still a bit thin since she hasn't given much thought to, or gone over, the list of things I put together that are in my bag. She's still taking baby steps on the long road of prepping.

Recap And Takeaway

• I really needed to have better access to my gear before. Now that I've cleaned everything out, all my stuff has been relocated to where it can be gone through much, much easier.
• If you break something, replace or fix it right away if you can. You never know when that gear might be needed.

* * *

Just a reminder: if you plan on buying anything through Amazon, please consider using our referral link. When you do, a portion of the sale comes back here to help keep this site running!

If you have comments, suggestions or corrections, please post them so we all can learn. And remember, Some Is Always Better Than None!

NOTE: All items tested were purchased by me. No products have been loaned in exchange for a favorable review. Any items sent to me for T&E will be listed as such. Suck it Feds.

A Primer on Reloading

While metallic cartridge reloading has been covered before on Blue Collar Prepping, it’s been a while. This post isn’t going to be an in-depth discussion of all the details involved in the reloading process, but rather more of a general primer. I’ll go into more detail in future articles.

For the record, if anyone claims reloading will save you money, they’re trying to sell  you something. Reloading simply enables you to shoot more for a similar expenditure. For example, if I’m spending X amount of dollars on practice ammunition, that money would go much farther if spent on reloading supplies.

Equipment

The equipment needed to start reloading need not be either extensive or expensive.  A basic single stage press, dies, shell holder (if it doesn’t come with the dies), powder measure, and calipers are really all the items needed to begin.

A set of reloading dies with shell holder

Nor does a reloading setup have to take up much space.  Aside from the press itself, all other components fit in a small tub which can be stored in a closet when not in use.

Consumables

The consumables used in reloading are brass, bullets, primers, and powder. 

• Brass can be saved as it’s shot, and straight wall pistol brass can be reloaded many times over. Ask any friends who don't reload to save their brass for you; the calibers you don't shoot can be traded with other reloaders.
• Cast or plated bullets are less expensive then jacketed and are fine for target shooting. 
• Primers and powder can usually be sourced at a local gun show or retailer. If not, then they’ll need to be ordered online. This will be more expensive because of the required hazardous materials fee, which is generally twenty dollars per order.

To reload metallic cartridges, certain steps must be taken. Starting with a clean fired case it needs to be de-primed, resized, flared or belled, primed, powder added, bullet seated, crimped, and finally checked.

A series of cases from start to finish

 

The Reloading Sequence

I’ll review each step in turn.

Depriming is the removal of the old primer so that the case can be reused.  Depriming may be done before or after case cleaning. If done after cleaning, depriming is combined with resizing of the case. If depriming is done before cleaning, a universal depriming tool is used.  This is like a standard depriming die, except it only pushes out the old primer and doesn’t touch the case itself.

Resizing is done after the case is cleaned to prevent damage to the case and die from small particles of dirt and debris. Resizing squeezes the case back to starting size based on recognized standards.  These standards are maintained by the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute or SAAMI.

Case flaring or belling is a slight widening of the case mouth to ease insertion of a bullet.  Jacketed and lead bullets require different amounts of case flare. This step can occur before or after priming, and can also be combined with powder dispensing.

Priming is the insertion of a new primer in the case.  This can be done either on a press or with a hand tool.  Regardless, pay special attention to make sure the primer is seated properly to prevent potentially dangerous issues.

Next is dispensing powder.  Always check the chosen powder in at least two recent reloading manuals for a starting load.

A powder scale and dispenser

Bullet seating is, as the name implies, placing a bullet in the belled mouth of the case and pressing it in to the proper depth. Overall Cartridge Length (OAL) is an important measurement made with a caliper and compared with the entry for that cartridge with that bullet weight and style in the manual.

Crimping is the removal of the flare that was added in an earlier step.  Depending on the type of cartridge, either a roll crimp or a straight crimp will be used. Roll crimping curls the case over and slightly into the bullet to help hold everything in place.  This type of crimp is most commonly found in revolver cartridges. Straight crimping is more common in cartridges designed for semi-automatic pistols and irons out the crimp, so the case mouth is parallel with the bullet.

At this point the cartridge is complete and ready for firing.

Testing

Testing is recommended whenever assembling a new load for the first time, or when using once-fired brass that wasn’t shot from your firearm. This testing can take the form of measuring with calipers, using a chamber gauge, or something called the plunk test.

The plunk test consists of removing the barrel of semi-automatic pistol, holding the barrel muzzle-down, and gently dropping the loaded case into the chamber. It should seat to the proper depth with no effort and make a soft “plunk” sound as it drops into the chamber. When you invert the barrel, the loaded cartridge should drop straight out with no sticking. If it doesn’t seat to proper depth or sticks on removal, it means the cartridge is out of spec and may require die adjustments.

If the idea of reloading ammunition is of interest, but there’s concern about making a large investment in equipment up front, reloading equipment can be found used either on various firearm discussion boards or online auction sites.

Since many people are more visually oriented, I created a series of videos that cover the reloading process.

Prepping Project: Sawyer Squeeze Pouch Hanger

Not actually Erin.

Picture by KJ Photography

As& is used with permission.

Last week, I said:

I can't think of a good way to end this, so I'll just say that hopefully the next time I post, it will be more helpful than this. Maybe I'll have pictures of some of my prepping projects. 

It took me longer than I wanted, but I finally finished one of those aforementioned projects. In the grand scheme of things it's pretty minor, but I like how it turned out. If nothing else, it proves to me that I can make my ideas work, which is an ego boost I need quite badly these days. 

https://amzn.to/3C35hOt

This particular project was born from the squeeze pouches which come with Sawyer water filters. I like the idea of virtually weightless water storage units that are basically flat until filled, but drinking from them is awkward, especially the larger sizes. I have small hands, and trying to grip a 16 or 32 ounce bag of water is not at all convenient. 

After a lot of thinking, I came up with an idea that used some spare parts I had lying around and a one-hole punch, bought at Target for $1.99 plus tax. 

If you look closely at the bottom of these pouches there are indentations which look an awful lot like places you can punch out. At it turns out, you can't, but they got me thinking about putting a hole there. 

I took the hole punch and -- you'll never see this coming -- punched a hole in the bottom of the pouch! I picked the spot closest to the corner to spread the load more evenly. Then I ran some carabiners through those holes and tied a length of paracord to them. Then I filled the pouch and replaced the cap with a leftover adapter, length of hose, and bite valve. 

The end result is a hands-free, wearable drink pouch that uses gravity, not squeezing, to send water to my mouth. By tying the rope to carabiners instead of directly to the pouch I can switch between pouches as necessary. The extra rope disperses the weight across my neck for a more comfortable fit. It's sort of a poor man's CamelBak. 

My only concern is "Will the pouch hold under its weight, or will it break?" and right now I'm testing that by having a filled pouch hanging in the bathroom. If this 32 oz pouch holds, I'll try it with the 64 oz next, although that might be too heavy to hang from my neck. 

So, what do you think?

UPDATE: After hanging for 8 hours, the pouch looks great and the holes show no sign of deformation. (That said, a little duct tape reinforcement around the holes certainly wouldn't hurt.) I'm calling this test a success and will be moving on the the 64 oz pouch next. 

UPDATE 2: the 64 oz pouch held for 8 hours with only minor deformation of the punched holes. I'm calling this entire project a complete success. 

Information for David and Others

One of our authors, David Blackard, had his bank account hacked recently; his article gives some of the details. Using electronic payment rather than physical cash has become part of life, so the chances of someone intercepting or rerouting your financial information is a risk every time you pull out your credit/debit card. 

Like David, I don't use credit cards. I tried them many years ago, and the combination of high interest on the balance and my somewhat impulsive nature led to a bad couple of years worth of bills. I pay for things as I go now; it makes my life simpler, and I've learned that saving up for big purchases usually leads to better choices. 

I do however use a debit card or two for online purchases. My main card has alerts set for any purchase made, and I get an email from the bank for every purchase or bill I pay. My bank is a bit slow, so the alerts may take a few hours to show up, but it is an added layer of security.

Debit cards are accepted like credit cards, but the money isn't a loan with interest, but rather it comes out of your bank account. (For those of us over 40, it's like writing a check.) The downside to debit cards is that they are like a checkbook full of blank checks: once someone has access to your card information, they can (but most won't) write as many checks as they want until you realize that you've been compromised. Credit cards generally have protection against unauthorized charges, but debit cards usually don't. 

If you're dealing with a site that looks sketchy, don't use your main debit card for purchases and instead pick up one of the reloadable/prepaid debit cards available at most large stores and banks to limit the amount of damage to which you're exposing yourself. These aren't gift cards, bur rather real debit cards tied to a real bank account, just not your main one. When my son was a teenager, we used a reloadable card (Green Dot) to give him an allowance; it was convenient for him and did away with cash that could be lost or stolen. Keeping a card with $100 or so on it makes questionable purchases a little more secure, and it's not tied to any of your other accounts. 

David also mentioned Google Pay and Apple Pay, but didn't know much about them. I've used Goodle Pay for a while; it's not as readily accepted in rural areas, but I can use it at fast food and other chain stores. Both systems link to at least one of your debit or credit cards and use Near Field Communication (NFC) to "talk" to the cash registers. NFC is a very short-range radio signal (the range is measured in inches) so intercepting the data is difficult. 

Google and Apple also both use an anonymizing system called "tokenization" to transfer money, so your card numbers are never given to the vendor. The "token" is a string of data that leads back to the system that generated it, so it isn't encrypted but is a replacement for the card data. There is no relation between the real data and the token, so there is no way to reverse or crack it without access to the system that created the token. Google Pay requires a screen lock as a security feature -- you have to unlock your phone or re-enter the unlock before you can use it, and disabling the screen lock will delete the Google Pay information. 

You can also use either system to send or receive money to/from friends and family via email. Several apps, like Lyft and AirBnB, offer them as an option at checkout. Both companies will gather purchase information and use it as they see fit to tailor ads to you and do other things. Neither company has a stellar reputation, but they do a fair job with data security. 

I try to minimize risks where I can and my money is one of those important areas that is difficult to lock down. Cash is great, but is easy to steal and not always convenient to carry. Electronic payment systems rely on telephone and internet access, so they're not as secure and don't have 100% uptime like cash, and have become part of life now. My philosophy is that I only own that which I can hold, so the digital money is there (for now) to be used but not relied upon.