# "Mountain House" meals



## Marlee_c (Oct 27, 2008)

I just picked me up a vacuum sealer this weekend, and am loving it! My question is, has anyone experimented with putting together home-made "Mountain House" style meals? Mixing up the ingredients in dry form, and maybe canning the sauces, or something in order to put it together?

If you have, I'd love to hear some of your ideas!
Thanks!


----------



## lisat (Oct 22, 2008)

That is a great idea! I am going to order dried foods from Honeyville Grain next week. In times of emergency that would be one last thing you have to think about, how to put all your stored foods into a meal. I think I will plan for one week of recipes. I will add vegetable soup and chicken soup base to my canning list. Thanks for the inspiration.


----------



## JeepHammer (Oct 10, 2008)

I do something like this for hiking or hunting trips that will keep me out overnight...

Put some beans or rice in a 'Zip Lock' baggie and roll it up.
About two fingers is usually plenty, squeeze all the air out, seal it up and roll it up, 
Drop it in the bottom of your 'Vacuum' bag or another 'Zip Lock' bag...
Then put in a few small packages (like from the fast food joints) of salt, pepper, chili seasonings, soy sauce, bullion cubes or what ever,
And stuff a couple of helpings of Jerky in the same zip lock bag.

Weights virtually nothing, makes for a really hardy soup and rib sticking meal all in one bag and MUCH smaller, lighter and more compact than something like an MRE!

Peppered or flavored jerky makes for interesting combinations so you don't get bored...
Ramen noodles and Teriyaki jerky,
Peppered Jerky & Rice,
Standard Jerky & pinto beans,
Foil tear open package of tuna and Ramen noodles or rice (or both!)

I use the vac-packer when I'm going to be in wet areas so everything doesn't get soggy before I get to it!
-------------------

My vac packer is real good for some things you probably haven't done yet if you just got yours...

Like making up little bundles of socks, underwear, handkerchief so I have clean stuff every day without scrounging for it.
Nothing like knowing there is dry underwear NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS!
Doesn't seem like much until you talk to someone that has spent time in the bush, then it make PERFECT sense!

I also vacuum pack lighters, matches, small fishing gear kit, hooks, sinkers, some line, ect.
Makes for a VERY compact and corrosion/decay free way to keep my 'Emergency' items handy and ready for use.

I also vacuum pack my maps and things like hunting licenses, lists of emergency phone numbers, contact information, ect.
Always good to have GPS coordinates, radio frequencies, signaling information, names, phone numbers, contact persons/info handy and safe from moisture, finger prints, ect.

Around the house, vacuum pack the instructions and reorder/warranty information for your house hold appliances so you can keep them pristine, but be able to zip tie them to the backs of the appliances so they are handy when you need them.

I copy then vacuum pack information I'm going to use in the garage, like engine rebuild specifications, or part numbers for axle rebuild or transmission rebuild parts.
Keep the info handy but keeps the gobs of greasy fingerprints off them so they STAY legible!


----------



## CVORNurse (Oct 19, 2008)

lisat said:


> That is a great idea! I am going to order dried foods from Honeyville Grain next week. In times of emergency that would be one last thing you have to think about, how to put all your stored foods into a meal. I think I will plan for one week of recipes. I will add vegetable soup and chicken soup base to my canning list. Thanks for the inspiration.


lisa, you may like your soup canned, but once upon a time I canned some homemade veggie beef soup and did not like the way it turned out, so maybe experiment with a few before you commit a bunch of time to it.Everything turned a horrible darker color and all of the fluid was absorbed( or maybe even cooked out during the canning- this was almost 20 yrs ago and I have lost a lot of brain cells, according to my teens, since then). Now, if your ingredient list is different you may have good results. Maybe plan to make a small batch and can and taste it.


----------



## lisat (Oct 22, 2008)

CVORNurse said:


> lisa, you may like your soup canned, but once upon a time I canned some homemade veggie beef soup and did not like the way it turned out, so maybe experiment with a few before you commit a bunch of time to it.Everything turned a horrible darker color and all of the fluid was absorbed( or maybe even cooked out during the canning- this was almost 20 yrs ago and I have lost a lot of brain cells, according to my teens, since then). Now, if your ingredient list is different you may have good results. Maybe plan to make a small batch and can and taste it.


Thank you I will remember that. I will experiment this winter and let you know how it turns out.


----------



## saintsfanbrian (Oct 30, 2008)

I just recently got the Ziploc vaccuum sealer thing. That is a wonderful low tec way to vaccuum save items. Maybe for Christmas I will get the grand dad but the idea of having ready to cook meals all packaged up appeals to me. Especially with two little ones that are picky.


----------



## Washkeeton (Oct 18, 2008)

JeepHammer said:


> I do something like this for hiking or hunting trips that will keep me out overnight...
> 
> Put some beans or rice in a 'Zip Lock' baggie and roll it up.
> About two fingers is usually plenty, squeeze all the air out, seal it up and roll it up,
> ...


I like this idea but if your doing an over night how do you get dry pintos to cook in a short amount of time? I end up soaking them over night then cooking them all the next day... do you have a better method? Thanks


----------



## outlander (Oct 27, 2008)

Thats what I was wondering....beans take a long time to cook.You say it weighs less than a MRE but dont you have to carry a pot to cook the beans in?


----------



## mchugh (Nov 10, 2008)

*Put ingredients together*

I'm sure there are other books but I came across this in the town library some time ago:

"More Make A Mix Cookery"
Publisher was Helen Fisher (HP Books in AZ)
Don't really know if it's still in print or if the publisher is still around. It's a 1980 book.

It's about putting together stuff to actually "put together" a meal later (days, weeks, months) with less fuss. Some were pretty tasty recipies also.

Regards


----------



## bunkie (Apr 12, 2011)

catching up here and am enjoying reading this whole thread.



outlander said:


> Thats what I was wondering....beans take a long time to cook.You say it weighs less than a MRE but dont you have to carry a pot to cook the beans in?


i was thinking maybe one could soak and cook the beans till they were almost done, then dry them so on the trip you could finish cooking them?


----------



## Emerald (Jun 14, 2010)

bunkie said:


> catching up here and am enjoying reading this whole thread.
> 
> i was thinking maybe one could soak and cook the beans till they were almost done, then dry them so on the trip you could finish cooking them?


You can take beans cook them all the way thru and then either dry them whole or mash them slightly and dry them and it takes much less time to re cook them.
We have done it with rice before to take on hiking trips.

By the way -- Welcome to the forum!:flower::flower:


----------



## colt45on (Jun 29, 2011)

Marlee_c said:


> I just picked me up a vacuum sealer this weekend, and am loving it! My question is, has anyone experimented with putting together home-made "Mountain House" style meals? Mixing up the ingredients in dry form, and maybe canning the sauces, or something in order to put it together?
> 
> If you have, I'd love to hear some of your ideas!
> Thanks!


I recently stumbled across a website that, in my opinion, eliminated the need to create my own storage food. Emergency Dehydrated Food, emergency food, disaster food, preparedness food, storage food, and survival food. has full meals already dehydrated and vacuum sealed for, get this, $0.10 PER MEAL! It isn't worth my time to make my own when you can get it that cheap. I haven't tasted all of the meals yet, but the ones I have tasted are really good BTW.


----------



## The_Blob (Dec 24, 2008)

colt45on said:


> I recently stumbled across a website that, in my opinion, eliminated the need to create my own storage food. Emergency Dehydrated Food, emergency food, disaster food, preparedness food, storage food, and survival food. has full meals already dehydrated and vacuum sealed for, get this, $0.10 PER MEAL! It isn't worth my time to make my own when you can get it that cheap. I haven't tasted all of the meals yet, but the ones I have tasted are really good BTW.


what's the catch?


----------



## tsrwivey (Dec 31, 2010)

colt45on said:


> I recently stumbled across a website that, in my opinion, eliminated the need to create my own storage food. Emergency Dehydrated Food, emergency food, disaster food, preparedness food, storage food, and survival food. has full meals already dehydrated and vacuum sealed for, get this, $0.10 PER MEAL! It isn't worth my time to make my own when you can get it that cheap. I haven't tasted all of the meals yet, but the ones I have tasted are really good BTW.


Man, you should get commission from those folks as much as you advertise for them!


----------



## rhrobert (Apr 27, 2009)

colt45on said:


> I recently stumbled across a website that, in my opinion, eliminated the need to create my own storage food. Emergency Dehydrated Food, emergency food, disaster food, preparedness food, storage food, and survival food. has full meals already dehydrated and vacuum sealed for, get this, $0.10 PER MEAL! It isn't worth my time to make my own when you can get it that cheap. I haven't tasted all of the meals yet, but the ones I have tasted are really good BTW.


Screw you spammer...."stumbled" across this site. You are a liar, and a piss poor one. You own the domain, it's your site. I frigging hate dishonest people like you. You just registered that site in April and have already changed nameservers 3 times on it

Domain Name: EMERGENCYDEHYDRATEDFOOD.COM
Created on: 13-Apr-11
Expires on: 13-Apr-12
Last Updated on: 13-May-11

Registrant:
Colton Carthel

10616 Boston Ave.
Lubbock, Texas 79423

Administrative Contact:
Carthel, Colton [email protected]
10616 Boston Ave.
Lubbock, Texas 79423
United States
806.382.3542

Technical Contact:
Carthel, Colton [email protected]
10616 Boston Ave.
Lubbock, Texas 79423
United States
806.382.3542
United States


----------



## efbjr (Oct 20, 2008)

*Tremendous resource...*



Marlee_c said:


> I just picked me up a vacuum sealer this weekend, and am loving it! My question is, has anyone experimented with putting together home-made "Mountain House" style meals? Mixing up the ingredients in dry form, and maybe canning the sauces, or something in order to put it together?
> 
> If you have, I'd love to hear some of your ideas!
> Thanks!


Over on the backpacking sites Sarah Svien Kirconnell (aka by the trail name "Sarbar") has a website which is almost identical to what you are trying to accomplish. She preps her food and stores it in freezer bags, which are used to cook/reconstitute the meals, but the process is readily adaptable to vacuum sealing.

Check out her site...you won't be disappointed! :2thumb:

Welcome to TrailCooking.com and FreezerBagCooking.com | Trail Cooking


----------



## Kai22 (Apr 30, 2011)

Marlee_c said:


> I just picked me up a vacuum sealer this weekend, and am loving it! My question is, has anyone experimented with putting together home-made "Mountain House" style meals? Mixing up the ingredients in dry form, and maybe canning the sauces, or something in order to put it together?
> 
> If you have, I'd love to hear some of your ideas!
> Thanks!


I got a vacuum sealer about three weeks ago and have been using it like crazy! How did I ever live without this thing? I am actually doing my first experiment making homemade Mountain House style meals as we speak! I have a hash brown/egg/soy sausage meal dehydrating right now.

I found a book called Backpack Gourmet. It's obviously geared towards prepping for a backpacking trip, but it has tons of recipes to prepare the complete meal, then dehydrate the whole thing all at once and vacuum seal it up. I'm a little nervous though, so I think I'll be vacuum sealing and then storing in my freezer. I just don't know how long things that have been dehydrated and vacuumed sealed will last.


----------



## rhrobert (Apr 27, 2009)

On youtube, there was a guy that holds preparedness seminars, and made up 4 0r 5 different meal in a bags, that included recipes...they were soups, but some were thick enough to eat with a fork.
I'm trying to find it, if someone knows what I'm talking about and has a link, shout it out. I have it on one of my hard drives, but finding is gonna be a pain...guess I need to organize better

Very simple, and very good meals.

Found it:


----------



## Kai22 (Apr 30, 2011)

Kai22 said:


> I got a vacuum sealer about three weeks ago and have been using it like crazy! How did I ever live without this thing? I am actually doing my first experiment making homemade Mountain House style meals as we speak! I have a hash brown/egg/soy sausage meal dehydrating right now.
> 
> I found a book called Backpack Gourmet. It's obviously geared towards prepping for a backpacking trip, but it has tons of recipes to prepare the complete meal, then dehydrate the whole thing all at once and vacuum seal it up. I'm a little nervous though, so I think I'll be vacuum sealing and then storing in my freezer. I just don't know how long things that have been dehydrated and vacuumed sealed will last.


So my dehydrated breakfast meal worked out great! It completely dehydrated, and I sealed it up into two serving packets! As I stated before..I'm a bit paranoid, so it's stored in the freezer, but DH doesn't seem to think that's necessary. The small portion that I kept out to rehydrate worked out fine and didn't taste bad at all! The only weird thing was my potatoes turned dark. But, after I shredded them up they sat for a bit before I cooked them (due to a shredding of my fingers on the food processor blade :congrat. I think the darkening had to do more with that than the dehydrating process.


----------



## gypsysue (Mar 27, 2010)

Kai, that's awesome what you're doing, making those dehydrated meals! Keep us posted on future efforts!

Your potatoes won't turn dark if you crush a vitamin C tablet, dissolve it in water, and dip your potatoes in it before you dry them. 

Earlier on this thread there was some discussion on pinto beans. Like Emerald said, you can cook beans until they're done, dry them, and have instant dried beans. You can make your own minute rice the same way. Cook it as directed, then dry it. Both foods might make good additions to homemade Mountain House-style meals.


----------



## Kai22 (Apr 30, 2011)

gypsysue said:


> Kai, that's awesome what you're doing, making those dehydrated meals! Keep us posted on future efforts!
> 
> Your potatoes won't turn dark if you crush a vitamin C tablet, dissolve it in water, and dip your potatoes in it before you dry them.
> 
> Earlier on this thread there was some discussion on pinto beans. Like Emerald said, you can cook beans until they're done, dry them, and have instant dried beans. You can make your own minute rice the same way. Cook it as directed, then dry it. Both foods might make good additions to homemade Mountain House-style meals.


Oh, I'm definitely going to do the beans and rice. Great ideas, thank you!!

I didn't realize you could use crushed up vitamin C..much cheaper than fruit fresh - thank you!


----------



## Emerald (Jun 14, 2010)

I often will use these three things interchangeably to keep my potatoes from turning dark before I get them steamed... Lemon or lime juice/vinegar/ascorbic acid powder(which is just powdered vitamin C which I use in my wine making) The Ascorbic acid powder is/was much cheaper to buy in the powdered form than any of the tablets for vitamin taking.( at least it is for me. You get more and don't have to worry about any "orange" flavoring.)
Potatoes must be cooked/blanched/steamed until almost cooked thru or they turn a very unappetizing black. Wax potatoes seem to dry better than russets but they both do dry... it is just that the russets don't hold their shape as well when they are re-hydrated.. but the russets seem to dry and powder better for my version of "instant Mashed potatoes". I have used a potato ricer on extra baked potatoes and pushed the hot potato right onto my fruit leather trays and then right into the dehydrator and they dry into very fine crumbles that also make a good "mashed" potato.

So here is the short rundown on how I use the "acid" I put some in the soaking water after I peel the taters, and then after they get steamed I also put them back into the "aciduated" ice water to get them cold before I put them in the dehydrator. I've been told by a friend that salted water helps too in the case of no acid but I haven't tried it yet.


----------



## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

Emerald said:


> The Ascorbic acid powder is/was much cheaper to buy in the powdered form than any of the tablets for vitamin taking.


This whole post is excellent, Emerald. :congrat:

The information in this post alone should be archived somehow. My wife now buys ascorbic acid powder, it can be used for a lot of things.


----------



## Emerald (Jun 14, 2010)

LincTex said:


> This whole post is excellent, Emerald. :congrat:
> 
> The information in this post alone should be archived somehow. My wife now buys ascorbic acid powder, it can be used for a lot of things.


You're welcome. Potatoes are my favorite thing to dry.. they almost never go wrong. I have over dried some on too high a heat and they got dark golden brown but they didn't really taste funny in the casseroles. Just looked really dark.


----------



## kappydell (Nov 27, 2011)

bunkie said:


> catching up here and am enjoying reading this whole thread.
> 
> i was thinking maybe one could soak and cook the beans till they were almost done, then dry them so on the trip you could finish cooking them?


Back packers have been doing it for years. You cook the beans all the way, then dry them until hard. They get very light. To reconstitute simmer in water about 10-15 min until they soften up again. Cutting the cook time is a plus. I have dehydrated chili, and split pea soup until they were powdery and the contents were dry as a bone, and they rehydrated up many months later to tasty as the day I put them in. Just think, home-made cup-o-soup that is practically free if you make a big batch and dry the excess. They also are a lot tastier and more nourishing that the commercial wimpy stuff.


----------



## tsrwivey (Dec 31, 2010)

gypsysue said:


> Earlier on this thread there was some discussion on pinto beans. Like Emerald said, you can cook beans until they're done, dry them, and have instant dried beans.


You can also grind up dried pintos with a hand grinder, season to taste, & cook in a pan for 10-15 minutes to make refried beans. They're really good plus your arms get a nice workout doing the grinding.  I would imagine you could grind up any other dried legume the same way, eliminating the need to precook & then deheydrate.


----------



## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

tsrwivey said:


> You can also grind up dried pintos with a hand grinder....eliminating the need to precook & then dehydrate.


Really? I thought those beans were cooked first?!?


----------



## ilovetigger (Aug 10, 2011)

mchugh said:


> I'm sure there are other books but I came across this in the town library some time ago:
> 
> "More Make A Mix Cookery"
> Publisher was Helen Fisher (HP Books in AZ)
> ...


It is still available and several more. There are also websites for putting together "Meals in a Jar". I have done this before as Christmas gifts for family and hope to do it now for myself for preps. Another place to order dry soup mixes that are GOOD is "Motown Soups". They are put together by the homeless and sold to support the shelter and other charitable works.


----------

