List of Miscellaneous Recipes & Information Articles
NOTE: I am moving recipes from my old Cat’s Kitchen site to this site, so be patient – I have many, many to move. Meanwhile, you can go to Miscellaneous & Information on my old site.
Main categories in order, on this page:
- General Info (Other Sites)
- Preparedness & Emergency Evacuation Articles
- House & Yard Articles (Includes gardening info)
- Cat’s Food (About) Articles
General Info (Other Sites):
- USDA Safe Food Handling: Main Page – list of articles
- USDA Safe Food Handling: Freezing & Food Safety
- USDA Safe Food Handling: Safe defrosting methods for consumers
- Internal Temp. Cooking Chart for Meats & Poultry: Whatscookingamerica,net or ochef.com
- Fahrenheit/Celsius Oven Temperature Conversions
- Secondary Edible Parts of Vegetables: (aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/newsletters/hortupdate/hortupdate_archives/2005/may05/SecVeget.html)
- Sprinkler System: Settings for Hunter Underground System
- Best way to wash fruits/veggies (to minimize pesticides, etc): articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2019/12/13/best-way-to-wash-fruits-vegetables.aspx; bottom line: use white vinegar (not apple cider vinegar):
- Fill a large bowl with four parts water to one part white vinegar.
- Soak the produce in the mixture for 20 minutes.
- Rinse the fruit or vegetables in clean, running water.
- Cast Iron cookware 101: How to use, care for, Season, and more on Lodge Cast Iron site: lodgecastiron.com/discover/cleaning-and-care/cast-iron/all-about-seasoning provides links to their pages on several use and care topics.
- See also my page: Care of Cookware
Metric to English and other Conversions
- Oven Temperature Conversions (Fahrenheit/Celsius)
- Semolina Flour Conversions
- Starch Equivalents
- Yeast Converter (by Type)
- Other Sites:
- What’s Cooking America: Metric Conversion Charts for Liquid & Dry Measures
- All Recipes: Cup to Gram Conversions for Common Ingredients
Preparedness, Emergency Evacuation Articles
- FCOES_Guide-Evac-Levels-Cklist.pdf (from Flathead County Office of Emergency Services, and copied on The EssentiaList (essentialstuff.org) in 2011; includes:
- Guide to Evacuation Levels
- Emergency Evacuation Checklist
- Mercola Articles (saved as pdfs on Cat’s Kitchen at: HEALTH-NUTRITION / PODCASTS-ARTICLES / MERCOLA), because he shuts down his articles after 48 hours:
- Video from article: “Finance Guru Reveals Financial Collapse (and COVID Jab Data),” Sept 4, 2022; I include this because we need to be prepared for this collapse. Complete article saved (in above path) > FinancialCollapse_MCL_090422.pdf
- “Impending Crisis, Late 2022-2024, and How to Deal With It,” Cat’s notes on The Essentialist: essentialstuff.org/2022/07/15/cat/impending-crisis-late-2022-2024-and-how-to-deal-with-it/; Original Mercola article saved (in above path) > Doom-ImpendingPolycrises_strateg-to-deal.pdf.
- Preparing for Emergency: Needs and Things to Do: Cat’s notes on Cat’s Kitchen: Preparing for Emergency: Needs and Things to Do, Aug 15, 2022; Original Mercola article saved (in above path) > SummerfestPresentation2022_Mcl-081422.pdf
See also the following on The EssentiaList
- Heat your Home with Grass Clippings? (on The EssentiaList; I may move a copy to Cats Kitchen) [As climate change increases, sufficient electricity will be harder to get], Sept 5, 2022
- Preparedness Links
House & Yard Articles
- Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle (About)
- Recycling, Other Sites:
- Waste Not Project (Home Page), includes: Where to Recycle, and lots more info about recycling in Flathead County (Montana).
- Pacific Steel and Recycling; Kalispell location is just off E. Idaho at 105 Flathead Dr – see MapQuest
- Self Contained Compost Bin for Pet Waste
- Settings for my Hunter Underground Sprinkler System (new 2022); see also hunterindustries.com/support/ for additional information categories
Equipment & Utensils:
- Baking Stone and Pizza Peel
- Bread-Making Equipment (bowls, pans, bannetons, etc.)
- Care of Cookware
- Crock Pot: Tips for selecting and using
- Equipment for Culturing Dairy & other Milk
- My kitchen scale: use lithium batteries: CR2032 (need 2). I buy a card with 4 batteries and store extra (not yet used) in top drawer next to stove (with other tools);
Gardening Tips and Timing
This section moved from my old iWeb site.
- Raised-Bed Soil Prep:
- Instead of turning the soil, I just rake it a bit with a small hand rake after pulling all visible weeds.
- Then spread chicken manure and compost over everything. In the fall, I cover most of raised bed with leaves just before the big freeze.
- In early winter, I sprinkle wood-ash over areas when there is a fair covering of snow to allow slow addition to the soil (pretty much to all areas except where I planted garlic in fall).
- For the first 13 years, I planted several beloved veggies, garlic and herbs, but beginning with 2021, I only have the herbs in the raised bed: sage, thyme and tarragon.
- Raspberry-Bed Prep: I have 2 varieties of raspberries: Boyne, and Red Latham
- In late-summer (Sept), I prune out the old bearing canes after all the fruit is gone.
- In fall (Oct), I trim next year’s bearing canes and twine them along the wire, making them ready for winter, as follows: I twine some of the more southern canes to the north where there are fewer canes, so the south end won’t be overcrowded.
- Then I spread steer and/or sheep manure (or chicken manure if can’t find the other), followed with the pine needle-rich debris from cleaning my house’s gutters (that debris is lightly acidic, which my raspberries love).
- Fruit Tree/Bush Prep: I have 1-each: Bartlett pear, Macintosh apple, and Honeycrisp apple trees; and 1 Italian plum bush.
- My tree-guy takes care of these, pruning them in early spring, and spraying them as needed to keep bad bugs off them.
- When the fruits are ripe, a good friend comes to help me pick them (and she gets at least half of them). I store my share in my root cellar through the winter.
- Blueberries: From the beginning, I’ve wanted to add a bed of blueberries next to my raised-bed garden, but I’ve not yet done that; I’m afraid it probably won’t happen as I’m getting too old….
Cat’s Food (About) Articles
NOTE: I’m reorganizing some menus:
- ‘About’ items for different foods have been moved to Foods (About) Menu, including: Apples, Beans; Chocolate; Dairy; Fats & Oils; Fish; GMOs; Greens; Herbs & Spices; and Salt; plus there’s lots more foods on Foods (About).
- ‘Food Preservation’ items have moved to Food Preservation menu: Canning; Dehydrating; and Freezing;
- ‘Culturing’ items have moved to Culturing, Curing & Fermentation Menu: Culturing Dairy; Curing Meats; and Lacto-fermentation (of fruits & Veggies)
See also:
- Foods (About) Menu
- Cat’s Christmas Menu and Preparation Schedule Christmas is very special to me because of my family’s traditional Nordic food menu.
Baking Soda and Baking Powder
- Baking Soda vs Baking Powder, Part 1 (The basics; making your own baking powder)
- Baking Soda vs Baking Powder, Part 2 (Creating/adjusting recipes; soda equivalence)
- Other sites:
- Baker Bettie: Baking powder and baking soda
- Chemistry About: How to substitute baking powder and baking soda
- Decoding Delicious (The Difference Between Baking Soda and Baking Powder)
Bitters:
Bread:
- Bread Basics (Yeast-Leavened Breads) (includes tips, metric conversions, using different leavens)
Brining:
- Brining (About)
- Brining Chart: Salt-to-Water
- Brining Poultry
- Brining Cornish Game Hens, Grouse, Pheasant & Other Small Fowl (scroll to Brining section)
- Brining Pork
- Brining Rabbit and other Small Game
- Salt Chart for Brining
- See also Other Sites:
- All About Brining
Broth, Stock
- See Soups, Stocks and Broths Menu
- Court Bouillon (for poaching)
- Other sites:
- The Amazing Benefits of Bone Broth (3-min YouTube video with lots of good info, even though it is an ad for Organixx product)
Coconut, Using
See also Foods (About) Menu
- Coconut Milk
- Coconut (About)
- Coconut Flour
- Coconut Milk Kefir
- Coconut Milk Yogurt
- How to Open a Coconut
- Golden ‘Milk’ (Coconut milk and Turmeric)
Coffee, Espresso
- How to make French Press Coffee
- How much ground coffee beans to use; from Equal Exchange Brewing Tips and Prima Coffee (for espresso):
- French Press ratio: 2 Tbsp coarse-grind per 6 oz water
- Automatic Drip: 1+ Tbsp medium- to coarse-grind per 6 oz water
- Cone drip: 1+ Tbsp medium-grind per 6 oz water
- Espresso: 18 – 21 grams fine-grind for double-shot, or 7 – 10 grams for single shot
Cultured Dairy
Dairy:
- Ghee (Clarified butter)
- Cheese: Preserving for long term storage
- Whipped Cream
- See also Cultured Dairy (Menu)
Diet:
Dietary Supplements:
- User’s Guide to Supplement Timing (Graphic)
- IR-Hormone Imbalance – I: Hormones and Body-Weight Issues (new, April 2021)
- Supplements I use (updated May 2021 for changes made since 2019)
- Supplements & Whole Foods in my Morning Smoothie
- Probiotic & Prebiotic Supplements
- Other Sites:
- Everything you need to know about Supplements (Mercola)
Eggs:
- See also: Foods (About) Menu
- Eggs: Preserving for long term storage
- Eggs: Soft- or Hard-Boiled
- Coddled Egg
- Aerating Eggs & Sugar, such as for egg-leavened cakes
Fats: Rendering, etc.
- See also Foods (About) under “Fats” for related articles
- Rendering Lard in a Crockpot: The Process
Fiber-Rich Foods
- High Fiber Foods
- Other sites:
- High Fiber Foods Chart (Mt. Sinai Hospital)
- Top Fiber-Rich Foods List (Today’s Dietitian)
Fruits & Vegetables
- Beans, Peas (Dried): Basic, Cooked
- Beans, Peas (Dried): see also Foods (About) Menu: Legumes
- Beans, Peas (Fresh): How to Freeze
- Blueberries: How to grow them Organically (Mercola)
- Dried or unripe fruits: rehydrating or cooking
- Fennel: Roasted
- Garlic: How to Roast
- Garlic, Caramelized
- Mushrooms (see Fungi, below)
- Orange, other Citrus: How to Section, without Pith & Membranes
- Poaching fruits
- Preservation of Fruits & Veggies
- Stewed Dried Fruit
- Stewed Tomatoes, Homemade
- Tomato-Veggie Juice, Homemade & Spicy
- Unripe or dried fruits: rehydrating or cooking
- Tomatoes: Moved to Foods (About) Menu under Fruits & Veggies: Tomatoes
- Other sites:
- The Vegan Gourmet on dried beans
- Blueberries: How to grow them Organically (Mercola)
- Mercola video interview of Dr. Gundry, on plant lectins: youtube.com/watch?v=YgImyfAvVyM
Fungi (Mushrooms)
- Mushrooms (About)
- Reconstituting dried mushrooms
- Roasted mushroom base (for adding to ground meat)
- See also (other sites): Reconstituting dried mushrooms, with photos
Grains, Pseudo-Grains, Flours & Starches
- Conversions between Starches & Other Thickeners
- Lime water (for soaking corn/cornmeal to make hominy/masa)
- Quinoa (About)
- Thickening sauces using flour or starch
- See also: Rice, below
- See also: Foods (About) Menu under ‘Grains’
- See also: Foods: Grains, Flours & Starches
Grilling
Herbs
- Other Sites:
- Stevia, How to Grow (Mercola)
Lime Water
- Lime water (for soaking cornmeal to make masa)
Meats
- Brining Meats: see “Brining” above
- Poultry: see ‘Poultry’ below
- Marinades and Grilling/High-Heat Cooking Tips for Meats
Mushrooms
- See Fungi, above
Nuts & Seeds
See also: Foods (About) Menu under “Nuts & Seeds”
- See also Coconut (above)
- Blanching & Pulverizing Almonds
- Cat’s Whole Grain Mustard Spread
- Cultured Nut Milk (Coconut Milk Yogurt, etc.)
- Crispy Pine Nuts
- Nut & Seed Milk
- Toasting Nuts & Seeds
- Sweet & Spicy Roasted Nuts
Pasteurization:
- Food Safety and Pasteurization (printable pdf file)
Pest Control (Naturally)
Pets
- Cat Food: Purr-Fect Meal not yet
- Beware: Sodium Selenite in Pet Food is Toxic
Poultry:
See also: Foods (About) Menu under “Poultry”
- Brining Chicken
- Brining Poultry
- Chicken Stock or Broth
- Cornish Game Hens, Grouse, Pheasant & Other Small Fowl (About Brining, Butterflying and Cooking Basics)
- Roasting a Bird (About)
Rice
- Rice (About): White, Brown and Wild
- Steamed white rice
- Steamed brown (whole-grain) rice
- Steamed wild rice
Shellfish, Seafood
Sprouting & Soaking (How-To)
- Beans & Other Legumes: Soaking & Sprouting
- Grains: Soaking & sprouting grains (before or after grinding/rolling)
- Nuts & Seeds: Soaking & Sprouting
- Sprouting Grains, Legumes, Nuts & Seeds, for Eating
- See also:
- Sprouting, etc Menu
- Foods (About) Menu: ‘Grains’ or ‘Legumes’ or ‘Nuts & Seeds’
- Grains, Flours & Starches Menu: Grain Berries, Kernals, Seeds, Flours
Supplements:
See Dietary Supplements, above.
Sweeteners:
See also: Foods (About) Menu under “Sugar and Other Sweeteners”
- Unrefined Powdered Sugar: Make Your Own
- Vanilla sugar (included in recipe post for Cheesecake)
- See also on The EssentiaList Blog: “Sweet Cravings” articles: