The Prepared Kitchen Wishlist – with budget alternatives

Get the most out of your prepared kitchen wishlist, making sure you have the tools for food storage and preservation, even if it is on the larger side of your budget!

Preparedness Kitchen Tool Wislhlist | Gift Guide

When you look at creating more and more of your food storage from scratch, you realize the simple kitchen tools you used to use may no longer be adequate. Here’s a wishlist of a preparedness kitchen tool list, and some budget alternatives for each.

THE PREPARED KITCHEN WISHLIST

Some of these tools have some big price tags, but are worth the investment for a home who is more prepared for emergencies and self reliance than the rest. However, I’ll give you an alternative to the price tag wherever possible, too!

DEHYDRATOR

Kitchen wishlist for a prepared kitchen - Mom with a PREP
Whether you want to preserve the garden bounty you’ve worked so hard on this year, or you want to take advantage of all the produce sales at the grocery store, a dehydrator is going to make your job so much easier! Without the learning curve of canning, or the price tag of a freeze dryer, a dehydrator is a great way to preserve food for both long and short term.

• Need some dehydrating ideas to get you started? I’ve got 101+ of them!

⇒ BUDGET ALTERNATIVE – The Nesco FD-80 – my other choice for the best dehydrator on the market.

WATER FILTER SYSTEM

Kitchen wishlist for a prepared kitchen - Mom with a PREP

A Berkey Water Filter system is a great way to have drinking water in any emergency. The Berkey Water Filter can remove hundreds of contaminants such as viruses, bacteria, cysts, parasites, pesticides, chlorine, fluoride, VOC’s and more from the water and purify more than any other gravity filters available! You don’t want to neglect storing water at all, but having a table top water filter makes immediate water so much easier !

⇒ BUDGET ALTERNATIVE : Is the Berkey’s price tag a little steep for you? You can build your own gravity fed water filter system or go with a ZeroWater filter system that is a fraction of the price.

PRESSURE CANNER

Kitchen wishlist for a prepared kitchen - Mom with a PREP - All American Canner

Taking canning up a notch from just doing jams and jellies to whole meals, a presser canner is a necessity. And going with as big of a canner as you can get is best so that you can make the most of your time canning as much as possible, especially during the summer when produce is coming out both ears and from behind you!

• READ MORE: 101 Canning Recipes

⇒BUDGET ALTERNATIVE: An alternative is to go with the Presto Pressure Canner instead. All the ability of the All American, at a fraction of the price.

Emergency Preparedness Gift Guides - Prepared Home Gift Guides

SOLAR COOKER

Kitchen wishlist for a prepared kitchen - Mom with a PREP - All American Sun Oven

The All American Sun Oven – or any other solar cooker like the GoSport Sun Tube gives you the ability to cook without having a kitchen. And it isn’t limited to just the summer. As long as you have several hours with full sun, you’re good to go, even down to 40F. Solar cookers make a great off-grid cooking alternative that you can take on the go with you for camping OR for having as an emergency backup.

⇒ BUDGET ALTERNATIVE: Make your own solar cooker or use something like the Presto which is a powerless slow cooker. You can also make your own ‘Wonder Oven’ using these instructions.

GRAIN MILL

Kitchen wishlist for a prepared kitchen - Mom with a PREP - Wondermill grain mill

If you store grains in bulk, you want to have a great grain mill to grind them. Storing from as whole  state as possible (not the flour, but the actual grain) allows you to extend your deep pantry even further in time as flours tend to go rancid much more quickly than their whole grain counterparts. Just be warned, most grain mills can be fairly loud, so you might also want to buy some ear protection, too!

⇒ BUDGET ALTERNATIVE – A Victoria Grain Mill is mounted onto your tabletop and uses a crank to grind grains – and a lot less noisy than the motorized versions 😉

• Read my series on the Wondermill Grain Mill

ELECTRIC PRESSURE COOKER

Kitchen wishlist for a prepared kitchen - Mom with a PREP - Instant Pot

The Instant Pot is all the rage now – and with good reason. When pressure cooking took hours and some protection in days past, the new electric varieties allow you to make yogurt, nutritious bone broths, and cook a roast you forgot to pull out of the freezer in mere minutes. The ability to not have to stand over your stove while your pressure cooker works frees up time for other endeavors in making wholesome food for your family to put up, or to catch up on This is Us episodes — take your pick!

⇒ BUDGET ALTERNATIVE: A slow cooker is a kitchen’s best friend. Sure, you can’t have dinner ready in an hour like the Instant Pot, but you can still make yogurt, and healthy bone broths, and still have time for This is Us, you just have to plan out your day a little better 😉

BLENDER

A blender is useful for more than just whirling up some ice for a frosty adult beverage! We make food storage pancakes, dehydrated fruit and vegetable powders, fruit leathers, make pestos, smoothies and even garden pest repellents (See how we make garlic pepper tea to ward off pests in the garden).  The mac-daddy of them all for home use is the Vitamix.

But if the bit of this blender is a little more than you can manage – you can try the Ninja Kitchen System for a powerful product that’s a mid-range price. It’s what I use in my prepared kitchen (because I’m still saving up my secret money for a Vitamix!)

⇒ BUDGET ALTERNATIVE – There are a couple of alternatives for this machine. You can go with something as basic as a whisk to some egg beaters like your grandmother used to have in the kitchen, or graduate to this hand-crank blender from Emergency Essentials. There are blenders in the $20-80 range that will work, too. But unless you have an awesome food processor, you need a blender that can do a little more than just whip up some pancake mix. In a prepared kitchen, there’s no telling what you’ll be mixing for your family’s meals, your food storage, or even your garden!

FREEZER DRYER

The granddaddy of them all – the Harvest Right Freeze Dryer It’s on my wish list of things I really really really want to have, but just haven’t worked it into the budget, yet. The only good alternative I have to offer for it is a smaller unit? Or try one of the various “freezer dry your own food”, but I’ve never tried any of them, so I am hesitant to even recommend them.

Emergency preparedness for elders is an often forgotten subject - have you prepared to help Grandma in a crisis? Not only do we need to prepare for our families at home, but we need to make sure that Grandma is taken care of, too! Do you have a plan for elderly loved ones that may live alone or in nursing homes?Preparedness Kitchen Tool Wislhlist | Gift Guide

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Katy Willis is a writer, lifelong homesteader, and master herbalist, master gardener, and canine nutritionist. Katy is a preparedness expert and modern homesteader practicing everyday preparedness, sustainability, and a holistic lifestyle.

She knows how important it is to be prepared for whatever life throws at you, because you just never know what's coming. And preparedness helps you give your family the best chance to thrive in any situation.

Katy is passionate about living naturally, growing food, keeping livestock, foraging, and making and using herbal remedies. Katy is an experienced herbalist and a member of the CMA (Complementary Medical Association).

Her preparedness skills go beyond just being "ready", she's ready to survive the initial disaster, and thrive afterward, too. She grows 100% organic food on roughly 15 acres and raises goats, chickens, and ducks. She also lovingly tends her orchard, where she grows many different fruit trees. And, because she likes to know exactly what she's feeding her family, she's a seasoned from-scratch cook and gluten-free baker.

Katy teaches foraging and environmental education classes, too, including self-sufficient living, modern homesteading, seed saving, and organic vegetable gardening.

Katy helps others learn forgotten skills, including basic survival skills and self-reliance.

She's been published on sites such as MSN, Angi, Home Advisor, Family Handyman, Wealth of Geeks, Readers Digest, and more.

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