Books Available Oct 12, 2012, and dehydrating tomato slices

(To get straight to today's free prepping and self-sufficiency books, please scroll down past the first part.) LATE ADDITION book released late, see post added later in the day here.

Now that it's after the 12th, please see current free books by going to P.U.V. main page.  And WELCOME!!!

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I was so excited to find out my post on canning leczo was a featured post at the Carnival of Home Preserving at Laura Williams Musings last week!  (Well, I posted it there last week and it was featured this week.)  Thank you so much Laura, I'm really flattered!  :)
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Dehydrating Tomato Slices

With all those tomatoes that I picked the other day, I wanted to try drying some tomato slices too.  

But first I had to remove the lemon slices I'd forgotten in the dehydrator.  Oops!  About 5 trays of them filled this 2 quart jar with a little squishing.  I don't have any ideas for actually using these except for adding to fresh drinking water for flavour.  Other suggestions welcome!

These tomatoes are quite wet so will take a long time to dry.  I had found a handy dandy tomato slicer at the dollar store, but look at the nasty slices it made!  The blades were flexible and bent together as they went through the tomatoes.  And it took a long time.

Using a really sharp knife did a way better job and took almost no more time.

This is an older model Excalibur dehydrator I found in a local thrift store for $15 last year.  I had palpitations when I saw it!

I set it for 24 hours at 135 degrees.  Will have to update on the results.

LATER:  Well, it looks like 24 hours was plenty.  The slices dried paper thin and crispy, and stayed bright red.  There were a couple of dark spots on some.  I don't know if those were hot spots that kind of burned during dehydrating.  Here you can see here how they turned out.

They look almost still wet, but they are crispy hard.  My almost-20-year-old son said they were "Amazing!" plain, and added them to his sandwiches too.  My husband ate several and said the flavour was incredible, and shared some with friends just to nibble on.

The dark spots did not smell burned.  I haven't eaten them yet, but usually burn smells before it tastes, in my experience, so I think I'm safe here.  The temperature was only 135 degrees so I don't think they can really be burns.

I have the idea of eventually adding them to cream cheese for a flavoured spread, and having them handy for other tomato needs, I'm not sure which ones yet.  Most of these will be put in jars for my emergency storage, and I will be doing many more of these, as they are so VERY quick and easy to do.

This was after the 5 slices my son took, and before the 3 my husband took.  That's a 2 quart jar, so you can see the volume the 9 shelves of tomato slices now take up.  Obviously I could have jammed them all in there but they were too pretty!  Next time, when I am less proud and less attached to my pretty slices, I will jam them in.  ;)  There's  another full dehydrator going right now.

Now for today's free self-sufficiency books.  Please consider subscribing or bookmarking this site so that you can remember to check every day, as they change daily, and I put a lot of work into finding and listing them, so I hate to have them missed.

Have fun getting free books!

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NONFICTION

General self-sufficiency and survival

Backwoods Home Magazine - Sep/Oct 2011 (#131)
(It does seem that they are offering the same two back issues alternately, but for the sake of new readers I will keep listing them for the time being.)
”Back issue No. 131 contains: An explanation of how to buy and use junk silver in the event of a down economy; David Lee’s story about building his house in the backwoods of Maine; building a homemade 12-Volt DC generator; how to extend your garden’s growing season; how to tailor a gun to a female; starting a small-scale sawmill business; making bean, rice, and chicken soup; how to cook with millet; making buckboard bacon; how to keep a sharp edge on a knife; the story of Earthineer, also known as Facebook for Farmers; raising your children in the country; growing garlic; reviewing the not so patriotic Patriot Act. Plus Jackie Clay answers questions about chicken nest boxes, using potato water when making bread, the best freezer container, battling grasshoppers, harvesting rhubarb, planting garlic and wheat, storing potatoes, canning pie filling, canning egg drop soup, small-0batch canning, and soft dill pickles.”

Surviving Any Situation: The Ultimate Survival Guide
Aimed at youth.

Preparedness Report: How to Be Emergency Ready - Low Cost and Common Sense Steps You Can Take Today in Your Home

Deer Hunting Stalking And Cover Scents

Cooking With Crickets

Food and Farming/Gardening

How to Care for a Rescue Horse (Horses / equestrian / riding)
“Rescue horses have different needs. Some may be injured, or have wounds, while others may "only" be skinny. Whatever their circumstances, rescue horses need worming and feed, and these two very things, if not carried out correctly, may harm or even kill the horse. This concise and to the point how-to book also takes the reader through several pictorial case histories.”

How To Breed Goats And Manage Gestation A Simple Guide (Goat Knowledge)

Tomato Container Gardening: 7 Easy Steps To Healthy Harvests from Small Spaces

Food Drying: Food Dehydration and Safe Storage

Frugal Gourmet Ideas: Secrets to Saving Thousands in the Kitchen
I’m guessing that most people reading this blog will already have a good handle on this, but just in case…

Kites, Practical and Play
I don’t know if this is REALLY a self-sufficiency skill, but maybe someone will see a useful application. How about harnessing the pull somehow, for propulsion, or power? hmmmmm

Ideas/Theory

The Mind Crisis - How Media Broadcasts Attack And Manipulate The Public Mind?

True Accounts

Utah Beach: The Amphibious Landing and Airborne Operations on D-day, June 6, 1944
Traditionally published book also."Balkoski is in top form in this groundbreaking analysis of the other half of America's D-Day."--Dennis Showalter, author of Patton and Rommel

The Detroit Kid in the Forgotten War
The life of the author’s father in the 1930s and 40s, including the Great Depression.

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FICTION

Nature Survival and other Hardship

Off the Grid (A Jamie Keller Mystery)
"Upon arriving at the ranch, the Kellers are met with further disappointment when they discover that the 'ranch' is nothing more than an old trailer, situated off the grid. Jake is in his element, with the challenge of solar panels, batteries and generators, but the girls are far from enchanted. War, religion, world peace, inner peace, dealing with financial stress, and self sufficiency are some of the key topics in this often humorous story."

Mountain Beast
“Something had come onto Bill's property and killed his favorite hunting dog. Bill will not take this laying down, so he starts off on a hunting trip that has twists and turns around every tree.” Because I don’t know just what the beast is, I suppose this could be under headings.

Smallfish Clover
“Gripping adventure and survival story of lost children in the jungles of South America.” “after getting lost from his father inside a Peruvian market. … he waits in vain to be found …as hope dims, he finds companionship and a measure of care among a group of street orphans (and) embarks on the adventure of a lifetime. What follows is a story full of tragedy as well as hope, one that quickly transforms Smallfish from an imaginative adolescent to a young man compelled to face maturity head on.” (from reviews)

Politics, Terrorism, and Intrigue/Conspiracy

RESURRECTION
Biological warfare. This is a regular published book by a well-respected author.

The Seventh Pillar (The PROJECT)
”A fanatical terrorist believes the Islamic Messiah has commanded him to begin the Apocalypse and bring about the End of Days. A secret cult of assassins emerges from the dust of history to murder key figures in the US and British government, fanning the fires of suspicion and war”… the climax “will determine the future of Western civilization.”

Immoral Consensus
“'How did such large quantities of explosives, chemical and biological agents get into Europe so easily?' Rushing to Paris, a city paralysed by brutal terrorist attack that has left many thousands dead, fashion photographer David Beckett …is propelled into an investigation that takes him through Europe to the troubled Middle East. Caught up in the mother of all conspiracy theories, he is pushed into a deadly race between the authorities, the terrorists and undercover agents, all of them convinced that he knows some dangerous truth; a truth David must somehow uncover before he is silenced forever.”

Collapse, Post-Apocalypse, Speculative Futures

The Auction
"In the near future, America has incurred so much debt to China, Saudi Arabia, and other nations, that these nations do the only thing left available to them to collect on what they're owed: Auction off every man woman and child in the U.S."

Generation Apocalypse (The 1000 Souls)
“He had just turned ten when the world ended. At first it was fun, because some of the teachers stopped showing up at school. The principal, tall and angry, kept stuffing the students into the gym to watch movies, promising each day that the next would be normal. Instead, fewer and fewer of Tevy's friends came to school, and one day neither did the principal…Kayla had worried about homesickness when she showed up at Atherley College, but by the second week she was more concerned about where she could buy a gun. Her roommate, Ashley, had gone missing, and there was talk of a serial killer hunting around campus. The police said they shouldn't worry...Tevy and Kayla are a generation lost in the apocalypse of their era, surviving the fall of civilization, yet they bravely struggle to save Chicago and rebuild the world of their childhood before it's too late.”

The Apocalypse Blog Book 0: Before the End
“This is a picture of the girl that once was, before the bomb went off and changed everything. The is the prequel to the adventure that altered the world. After betrayal by her best friend, Faith MacIntyre starts a new blog, trying to turn the page to a brighter future. She makes war with terribly normal foes: an ex-boyfriend who broke her heart; a retail job in Christmas crowds; an intimate mistake with an old friend. She doesn't know that the end of the world is coming. She doesn't know about the fight for sanity and survival that will be thrust upon her.…Soon, this blog will be all she has left of her current life.”
The rest of the books are here: Apocalypse Blog series (not currently free)

A Long Lonely Road (The Beginning)
By the author of several collapse type books that have been listed free here before. (TJ Reeder books ) “This is the story of a man in his later years who finds himself a very long way from home and hearth when the SHTF. It’s a tale of the drive to get home come hell or high water. I’m writing it about the way I myself would get home after an event. I can only hope I would do as well in real life. I have the will and the drive and know how but maybe the ol body is low on fuel. Time will tell.”

More Sci-Fi-or-Fantasy-ish

Dimensional Shift: Omnibus
“A catastrophic infection of land based plant life motivates a wealthy investor and his colleagues to make the ultimate push for survival. He, his daughter, and a brilliant young team of scientists do the unthinkable. They take the first step off planet Earth. The story is a fresh look at science fiction set in the very near future. Stone creates unique technologies, an alternative history, and a weaves together a compelling number of disassociated threads to craft a very readable dystopian saga.” Books 1, 2 and 3 have been listed here free before. This is the combo.

The Zen Gene
“Tyler Worthy, a sixteen-year-old genius, uses scientific data from the internet to hack the human genome. He re-purposes a common virus to distribute his creation. The resulting hi-bred virus has the potential to become a world-wide pandemic that will radically alter the human genome. He begins by infecting a single soldier heading to the Middle East with a self-limiting version of the virus designed to infect only a few isolated soldiers. He wants to prove its effectiveness before he sets the unlimited version loose on the world.…if he succeeds....no one on the planet will be free from the virus.... or its side effects.”

The River
“STEM CELL RESEARCH, CLONING, AND WORLD DOMINATION--WITH A TWIST... The South Nahanni River area of Canada's Northwest Territories has a history of mysterious deaths, disappearances and headless corpses, but it may also hold the key to humanity’s survival―or its destruction.”

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Shared at all these great places:
 

http://toomanyjarsinmykitchen.com/2012/10/11/fill-those-jars-friday-october-12-2012/

http://deborahjeansdandelionhouse.blogspot.ca/2012/10/farmgirl-friday-blog-hop-78-and.html

http://simplelivingdianebalch.blogspot.ca/2012/10/foodie-friday-pancetta-in-butter-sauce.html
http://www.spain-in-iowa.com/2012/10/simple-lives-thursday-118
and http://grannysvitalvittles.com/scratch-cookin-tuesday-10162012/
http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2012/11/clever-chicks-blog-hop-7-country-craft.html
http://www.simplejoyfulliving.com/2012/11/backyard-farming-connection-hop-7.html