I hear it all the time—people want to preserve their own food, but they’ve gotten bad advice from the so-called experts who make the whole process of food preservation seem like some occult ritual that only the select few can be initiated into. Bird feathers and balderdash, all of it. Preserving food isn’t rocket science, and it doesn’t require any extreme preparation. I should know. I’m a Wisconsin Master Food Preserver. Here are five of the myths I hear most often.

1. If you don’t pickle cucumbers the same day you pick them, they won’t turn out right. Give me a break. Pick your cucumbers when they’re the size you like them. If you don’t have enough to do a couple of jars, wash and store them in the refrigerator until the next picking. When it’s time to start the pickling process, let the cukes sit at room temperature for a few hours, and then proceed.
2. You have to add lemon juice or vinegar to your tomatoes. Who told you that? People have been canning tomatoes without lemon juice or vinegar for nearly two-hundred years. While there are always new trends in home-canning, all you really need for tomatoes is a little salt and a covered hot-water bath.
3. Dehydrating food requires a lot of preparation. Not true. In fact, drying is most often the easiest, fastest, and least messy of the processing methods. Corn, onions, celery, apples, and a host of other fruits and vegetables can go from garden to dehydrator with nothing more than a quick rinse and a little chopping.
4. You can’t do anything with zucchini. Sure you can. Grate your giant zucchini and freeze it. Wait until winter and make a chocolate zucchini cake or bread. Nothing brings back summer memories in the dead of winter like a warm slice of zucchini cake.
5. It takes too much time to process my own food. Like anything else you do, you’ll get better the more you do it. You’ll learn how to tweak recipes and add your own flavor to the food you preserve. Practice makes perfect, and with a little practice, you’ll be able to whip out dozens of jars of jam and salsa in no time at all.

Don’t let the experts scare you. Sometime preserving your own food isn’t pretty. Sometimes you’ll mess it up. (Like the time I destroyed a crock pot when I forgot to turn off the apple butter, but didn’t discover my mistake for 2 days.) But after you’ve done it a couple of times, you’ll be your own expert—which is the only expert you should listen to.

We get the same question over and over again at here Countryside—how do I become self-reliant? Readers write in to tell us how hard they’ve tried to build a sustainable, self-reliant lifestyle, only to fall short of their goals and give up. To a person, they make the exact same mistakes, repeating the failures of the teaming masses time after time. Here are the five biggest obstacles that trip folks up.

1. The Hollywood Habit. Someone told me they paid upwards of $10 a head to see the latest mind-numbing “hit” from Hollywood. I can’t imagine parting with my hard-earned money to see anything Hollywood puts out. Ever. All commercial entertainment in this country comes with an agenda. Why pay a bunch of millionaire ideologues for the privilege of being dumbed down? Instead, learn to appreciate the value free activities offer.
2. Going Out to Eat. Why? Anyone who has any respect for themselves at all will avoid commercial eateries at all cost. The food, if that’s a term you’re comfortable using, is contaminated with chemicals and has been handled by hordes of people, many of whom have questionable hygiene routines. Why would you pay good money for nasty food? Instead, learn to cook for yourself. You won’t catch me dropping money at places like Red Lobster or McDonald’s. I don’t do chemical-laden food that comes from China and Mexico. Ick.
3. Buying pre-packaged food. I can’t tell you how many of my “green” friends throw their money away by buying pre-packaged organic food. Sure it’s trendy, and for many of these folks it gives them an opportunity for moral self-licensing, but packaging is still packaging, processing is still processing, and politically correct food is way more expensive than it needs to be. Instead, buy in bulk, grow what you can of your own, and learn to eat sustainably—you’ll find it’s cheaper, and much better tasting. Packaging of any sort makes the food taste funny.
4. Sending your kids to public school. The average family spends $600 per child to get ready for the school year. Add to that all the “fundraisers” that nickle and dime tax-paying parents to death, and the number triples or quadruples. Instead of buying cheap, foreign made clothes and supplies at the big box store, and throwing money down the fundraiser black hole, consider homeschooling or parochial school. These options allow you, the parent, to make sure you’re not paying a public employee to indoctrinate your children. Not only do public schools cost and arm and a leg, they co-opt your values and supplant them with the liberal sectarian doctrine that passes as morality in this country. And in the end, there’s no guarantee your child won’t be killed, bullied, raped, or otherwise assaulted in a public school.
5. Discount stores. Stay out of them. Rarely if ever do they offer any real value. What can you get for a dollar? Nothing that is well-built or useful. Instead, find a couple of second-hand stores and shop there. Besides being much less expensive, buying previously owned items is the one thing everyone can do to save the environment. Recycle and reuse. You’ll get a better value, and you’ll feel better about yourself knowing that soon, you’ll be debt-free.

It can be hard to change your lifestyle from going along with the crowd, dropping a ton of cash on movies and video games, and trying to live like everyone else. When the going gets tough, and it will, remember, your neighbors are in debt up to their teeth. They keep running around the debt wheel, spending money like crazy for the privilege of fitting in. Ask yourself, who wants to fit in with a bunch of people who don’t have the good sense to get out of debt and stay out? Don’t try to keep up with the Jones. They’re going nowhere, and fast.

If I see one more cooking show that tells me how I can save money on my grocery bill by buying all sorts of “handy” ingredients that no one has ever heard of, I’ll explode. If you want to save money on your grocery bill, if you want to be more sustainable and “green,” then learn to use your leftovers. Just because something has been reheated two or three times, doesn’t mean it’s not usable. Every time we throw away food, we throw away our money—every time.

This morning, as I was deciding what to make for breakfast, I found myself face-to-face with three over-cooked bratwurst. First served up hot off the grill, then baked at 350° for about an hour (I forgot about them). Still, when there were three left, I decided to put them back in the fridge, where they would stare at me from under the bunched up plastic wrap.

Not only were the three black brats harshing my Sunday morning mellow, Wayne had left part of a Mason jar of beer next to the blackened brats. Great. Black brats and flat red beer. What can you do with that combination? Hey, this is Wisconsin, and I’m the world’s biggest cheapskate—I can work wonders with anything, as long as there’s cheese. And in our house, there’s always cheese. Using the leftover leftovers, I whipped up a frittata (baked omlette) that was gobbled up.

Here’s the recipe:

• One dozen eggs
• Three leftover bratwurst, chopped
• One medium onion, chopped
• Half a tomato, chopped
• Half a green pepper, chopped
• Two tablespoons flat beer
• A cup of grated cheese

Preheat oven to 400°. In a large cast iron frying pan, combine the onion, green pepper, and tomato with a little olive or other oil. Cook until the onions become translucent. Add chopped bratwurst and stir until incorporated into the mixture. Turn off heat.

Beat eggs, a little water, and the beer until very fluffy. Add to pan. Top with cheese. Place pan in the hot oven and cook at 400° for ten minutes, then turn the oven down to 350° and continue to bake until the middle of the frittata has puffed to full height, about 20 minutes. When it’s done, the middle will feel solid.

Just like that, old bratwurst are new again, and I used every last ounce of the meat that we purchased. That little action is just as important as any other in the scheme of things. When you help yourself, you help the planet. Zero-sum for breakfast. Only in Wisconsin.