# Preparing meals



## lazydaisy67 (Nov 24, 2011)

Ok, let me know if I'm just way off base here. I'm thinking and planning meals. Plans are for a day with no power, and in the summer time. I'm going to lots of sites and looking at food storage recipes and some of them are just ridiculous! Seems like diets will have to become much more simple as well as rationed for a variety of reasons. Since soups and heavy meat dishes sound kind of "hot" for the summer I thought pasta salads sounded about as easy and efficient as anything. As long as you have some way to boil water, which I do, you can add veggies and a can of tuna and have the basic nutritional needs met, right? You can add canned fruit to rice salads as well. I seem to be losing my focus here and pick up stuff that I 'think' will be great to have and then look at in on my shelves and wonder how the heck I'm going to incorporate it into practical meals 
Baking is another thing all together and my DH and I plan to build ourselves an earth oven this spring. Hopefully we will be able to find the materials to build a lean-to of some sort over it so I can bake outside in the winter too!


----------



## 4639J (Oct 29, 2010)

I think it makes a lot of sence to plan meals. It makes it much easier to assure your food storage has all needed ingredients and it leads your buying so you don't wind up with 100 cans of mushrooms. Do a YouTube search for Wendy Dewitt and look over her videos for more ideas on making life easier.


----------



## Emerald (Jun 14, 2010)

A great thing to have is any kind of cast iron.. I have an oval flat griddle that is way old and with a few bricks and a small fire I can make tortillas in the summer outside when we lose power.. both corn and flour do great and if you want to start smaller I saw what they were calling a fajita griddle at wally world and Meijer stores.Would work great but only one tortilla at a time. not too expensive.. I personally want a nice cast iron comal.. great for tortillas on one side and meat/veg on the other.
I have made tortillas in just my big cast iron frying pan but be careful. I have burned my wrist reaching in to flip them.. but it was what we had camping.

I have an Earth oven and we use it quite a bit in the summer for pizza and pita and even to slide my cast iron dutch oven in with soups.. it still needs another layer on it for better insulation and heat retention but we love it.

A good meal for in the summer and no power is fresh cold soup. and you can make it from canned storage stuff. It is just chopped tomatoes(or a can of them or your own canned tomatoes) and add onion/peppers(green or hot) cucumber/shredded carrots even zucchini.. and then spice it up with a bit of garlic and cumin and basil or again what ever you like fresh. We call it salsa soup.. easy to make in the hot summer and refreshing..

During the hot of the day tho.. just take a siesta and do more of the eating in the morning and late evening just before dark.. 
Think more like when you go camping and how you cook then and what you serve.


----------



## Davarm (Oct 22, 2011)

If you are wanting meals for hot days without power and you DO have a way to boil water you have more possibilities than you may think. I have cooked up and dehydrated many things that now only require boiling water to be added, mostly bean and/or rice dishes, both are easily made.

One of my favorite dehydrated meals is navy bean soup made with navy beans, celery, carrots, onions and even meat. I usually make twice as much as we need for a normal meal then pour the left over onto the fruit leather tray of my dehydrator and beans usually dry pretty fast. To go with it, a simple rice dish made with dried rice(easily made) and a few dried vegetables and that with the soup is a good meal that will stick with you.

Im a fan of the KISS principle when it comes to meals from prep items. I just scratch my head when I see someones prep recipe that has a list of ingredients as long as your arm, many of which you would not even find in a PRE SHTF kitchen much less POST one.


----------



## lazydaisy67 (Nov 24, 2011)

Ok, thanks for the affirmation, guys. I also found a lot of bean salad recipes that sounded pretty easy. I'm looking for things I can store on my own a little at a time that aren't costly and I just thought pasta and beans were at the top of the list. I've heard putting a bean with a carb is a complete protein, like in Ezekiel bread, but would a pasta salad be the same?
I cannot believe some of the recipes I found out there too. Things that needed to be 'blended until smooth'. What the heck you gonna be blending with? I think some people are planning for a completely different kind of :shtf: than I am. I'm trying to get my mind to think in 1800's mode, which I don't think a lot of people are doing. 
Having said that, I take it as a personal challenge to plan "meals" as opposed to sustenance. For centuries eating, the kitchen, gatherings, etc. have been a crucial part of society. I really believe that meals are an important part of life not only for nutrition, but also for mental health.


----------



## Davarm (Oct 22, 2011)

Beans and pasta will work for the complete protein, along with beans and rice, beans and corn and Im sure that there are many others also.

My mindset is not necessarily in the 1800's mode, just pre electricity and gasoline. I am betting on not having reliable or abundant electricity and not having an steady supply(or not any at all) of gas or diesel and planning accordingly.


----------



## Emerald (Jun 14, 2010)

I totally forgot to add that you can add a can of cooked beans/green beans or even if you wanted to cook a bit of pasta to the cold soups.
I too have read some pretty out there recipes for preppers.. but that being said.. they do have all kinds of hand operated food preparing/processors in Lehmans catalog. I was thinking that the blender and the food processor may be worth getting as I really like to cook and quite a few of my recipes do use the food processor.. and while yes I can do them without.. it might be nice not to have to..


----------



## AlabamaGal (Dec 27, 2011)

There is a lot to be said for quick and easy nutritious meals, but once you have those down don't be afraid to learn more difficult cooking skills with prepared foods. Our gr-grandmothers did not serve 5 minute meals all the time or even most of the time.

This should keep you busy for a while:
http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/

Don't get too fixated on the notion of a "complete protein." Biologically, you body only needs sufficient quantities of the essential amino acids that it can't make itself -- you don't need to eat them in the same meal or even the same day or two. You do want to be sure they are all represented in your food storage if you plan to eat primarily out of it for an extended time, preferrably with as wide a range of ingredients as possible.

I love my cast iron, too. It's the perfect cookware for almost anything.


----------



## mdprepper (Jan 22, 2010)

AlabamaGal said:


> This should keep you busy for a while:
> http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/


Thanks for the link. Now I know how I will spend my weekend!:flower:


----------



## neldarez (Apr 10, 2011)

Davarm said:


> If you are wanting meals for hot days without power and you DO have a way to boil water you have more possibilities than you may think. I have cooked up and dehydrated many things that now only require boiling water to be added, mostly bean and/or rice dishes, both are easily made.
> 
> One of my favorite dehydrated meals is navy bean soup made with navy beans, celery, carrots, onions and even meat. I usually make twice as much as we need for a normal meal then pour the left over onto the fruit leather tray of my dehydrator and beans usually dry pretty fast. To go with it, a simple rice dish made with dried rice(easily made) and a few dried vegetables and that with the soup is a good meal that will stick with you.
> 
> Im a fan of the KISS principle when it comes to meals from prep items. I just scratch my head when I see someones prep recipe that has a list of ingredients as long as your arm, many of which you would not even find in a PRE SHTF kitchen much less POST one.


really? Just pour left over stews, thick soups and deydrate? Then you do what? Vac. seal in bag? wow, who would have thought. You can do this with meat in it too? wow, you are a wealth of info!:flower:


----------



## Davarm (Oct 22, 2011)

neldarez said:


> really? Just pour left over stews, thick soups and deydrate? Then you do what? Vac. seal in bag? wow, who would have thought. You can do this with meat in it too? wow, you are a wealth of info!:flower:


The thing you have to watch is the amount and kind of fats that are in the dish you want to dehydrate. Animal fats or "greases" dont do real well, they kinda make a mess if their is alot in the dish. In bean dishes, butter(real not margarine) will do pretty well but adding it after rehydration makes it easier.

Soups with meats do ok, as long as it is lean, I do add lean hamburger to some of the bean soups I dehydrate.

I pour he soups onto fruit leather trays and dry them, if I am making bean soups I let them cook long enough to form a fairly thick broth, its easier to control when poured onto the trays.

I vacuum seal individual meals and the bulk rice and beans in separate bag lined buckets and when full I add an O2 absorber and seal the bag and bucket.

Thank you for he compliment, If I can pass back just a fraction of what I have learned here, I will be happy. Glad I can help.


----------



## kappydell (Nov 27, 2011)

neldarez said:


> really? Just pour left over stews, thick soups and deydrate? Then you do what? Vac. seal in bag? wow, who would have thought. You can do this with meat in it too? wow, you are a wealth of info!:flower:


Yup, it makes WONDERFUL cup of soup. I have done split pea soup (back when my husband hated it and i liked it....now my roommate likes it too....), chili with meat and all, even spaghetti sauce with meat will dry down to crumbly dry. Backpackers dry everything from salsa to sour cream and yogurt down to powders, and they save time when cooking and space when packing. One of my favorite ideas from them is to dry cooked beans (pintos, limas, etc) after you cook them up. The re-dried beans rehydrate much faster and easier when you are hungry in camp! I also dehydrated browned, rinsed under boiling water to get the fat out, ground beef. Boy does that make cooking fast and simple! Just soak in hot water about 15 min or so. The only catch is that these dried convenience foods sometimes do not store as long as plain or commercial foods of only 1 ingredients. But they do last 6 months or so - perfect for summer use or camping!


----------



## Davarm (Oct 22, 2011)

AlabamaGal said:


> Don't get too fixated on the notion of a "complete protein." Biologically, you body only needs sufficient quantities of the essential amino acids that it can't make itself -- you don't need to eat them in the same meal or even the same day or two. You do want to be sure they are all represented in your food storage if you plan to eat primarily out of it for an extended time, preferrably with as wide a range of ingredients as possible.


It sounds like you are saying that your body can store amino acids at least for short periods, Is that correct? If so do you know how long they can be stored for?

I am not trying to blindside you, I am trying to learn something. Knowing this could really impact meals I prepare on a daily basis along with those I am planning for when TSHTF.

Cast Iron is what we use mostly in the kitchen, my daughters have brought home some lighter stainless steel pans home. They are thin and wirey and could run between the raindrops so they sometimes have a little trouble hefting the heavy cast iron.


----------



## AlabamaGal (Dec 27, 2011)

Davarm said:


> It sounds like you are saying that your body can store amino acids at least for short periods, Is that correct? If so do you know how long they can be stored for?
> 
> I am not trying to blindside you, I am trying to learn something. Knowing this could really impact meals I prepare on a daily basis along with those I am planning for when TSHTF.


Your body does not store amino acids, it must use them right away to either build and repair tissue or is converted to glucose to use as energy. Excess proteins, like everything else, are broken down and stored as fat.

Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. Your body breaks aparts proteins you eat into amino acids and them recombines them into the 50,000+ proteins it needs to function. Your body is also constantly breaking down old tissue to be repaired and recycling the amino acids in it, and some amino acids your body can make.

But your body doesn't need all of the amino acids at once. It's like having a box of Legos. You don't need one of every shape in front of you before you can build anything. The myth of protein combining (invented by Francis Moore Lappe, who has since renounced her creation) is like saying your body has to get the exact right ratio of all the vitamins you need with every meal. You don't. Eventually you need them all, but not all at once.

It's pretty hard not to get enough of all the amino acids you need in sufficient quantities if you eat a varied and reasonably healthy diet. Virtually all things we eat as food contain all the essential amino acids or are missing only one or, even less often, two. Many vegetables and fruits contain all the essential amino acids.

So for the purposes of prepping, you want to be sure your storage and overall food plan has a variety of foods in it and isn't just twinkies and ramen noodles. No need to sweat the details; our bodies handle the situation for us.

It's one of those "everyone knows" ideas that just won't die, but the science points in the other direction.


----------



## Onebigelf (Sep 17, 2011)

I just scored my great-grandmother's gynormous cast iron "witches caldron". It's gotta be 5 gallons or more.

Anyway. LOTS of what I have "put up" is pressure canned one pot meals in quart mason jars. Every time I cook something like that I make a large enough batch to can 7 quarts (what my canner holds) plus dinner and usually enough left-overs for lunch the next day. In cases of 12 jars mixed, each case is a dozen meals that I only have to heat for 15 minutes. Most are things intended to be served over rice or noodles or mashed potatoes. 

John


----------



## DJgang (Apr 10, 2011)

Onebigelf said:


> I just scored my great-grandmother's gynormous cast iron "witches caldron". It's gotta be 5 gallons or more.
> 
> Anyway. LOTS of what I have "put up" is pressure canned one pot meals in quart mason jars. Every time I cook something like that I make a large enough batch to can 7 quarts (what my canner holds) plus dinner and usually enough left-overs for lunch the next day. In cases of 12 jars mixed, each case is a dozen meals that I only have to heat for 15 minutes. Most are things intended to be served over rice or noodles or mashed potatoes.
> 
> John


Wow. My grandmas is being used as flowerpot. My mom has it.

Mind sharing some of those meals with us? I've made up meals, but I am storing all the ingredients rather than precooking, then canning. That may be the way to go.


----------



## neldarez (Apr 10, 2011)

Onebigelf said:


> I just scored my great-grandmother's gynormous cast iron "witches caldron". It's gotta be 5 gallons or more.
> 
> Anyway. LOTS of what I have "put up" is pressure canned one pot meals in quart mason jars. Every time I cook something like that I make a large enough batch to can 7 quarts (what my canner holds) plus dinner and usually enough left-overs for lunch the next day. In cases of 12 jars mixed, each case is a dozen meals that I only have to heat for 15 minutes. Most are things intended to be served over rice or noodles or mashed potatoes.
> 
> John


Could you explain what you mean by canning the meals?


----------



## Davarm (Oct 22, 2011)

Onebigelf said:


> I just scored my great-grandmother's gynormous cast iron "witches caldron". It's gotta be 5 gallons or more.


My grandmother has 2 in her shed, Got my eyes on them.

They are probably the ones I remember seeing my great grandmother stirring in her backyard as a kid.


----------



## Davarm (Oct 22, 2011)

AlabamaGal said:


> Your body does not store amino acids, it must use them right away to either build and repair tissue or is converted to glucose to use as energy. Excess proteins, like everything else, are broken down and stored as fat.
> 
> Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. Your body breaks aparts proteins you eat into amino acids and them recombines them into the 50,000+ proteins it needs to function. Your body is also constantly breaking down old tissue to be repaired and recycling the amino acids in it, and some amino acids your body can make.
> 
> ...


Geezzze, I need an aspirin.


----------



## Onebigelf (Sep 17, 2011)

Onebigelf said:


> I just scored my great-grandmother's gynormous cast iron "witches caldron". It's gotta be 5 gallons or more.
> 
> Anyway. LOTS of what I have "put up" is *pressure canned* one pot meals in quart mason jars. Every time I cook something like that I make a large enough batch to can 7 quarts (what my canner holds) plus dinner and usually enough left-overs for lunch the next day. In cases of 12 jars mixed, each case is a dozen meals that I only have to heat for 15 minutes. Most are things intended to be served over rice or noodles or mashed potatoes.
> 
> John


Chili, of a variety of versions. White Chicken, Black Bean (including one with chorizo that I particularly like), Cincinnati, Red, and Texas.

A variety of Creole and Cajun recipes. Red Bean with Tasso (rice to be added later), Creole Chicken, Jambalya (everything except the rice- a little "wet", the add the rice later), Chicken Ettouffe (also Alligator), a variety of gumbos.

Moroccan, Middle-Eastern and Indian. Chicken with lemon and olives, and lots of curries. We like curry. Tandoori chicken, Keema, Chicken Makhani, Chicken Paprikash (also Venison Paprikash), Chicken Vindaloo, and chicken Marrakesh.

More traditional stews and such. Burgandy beef stew, corned beef and cabbage (served over mashed potatoes), kielbasa and black beans, German Gulaschsuppe (grandma's recipe), lentil soup with sausage, ...

I could keep going, but you get the picture I'm sure. 90 minutes at 15psi will can just about anything safely. The only real limitations are things that will cook to mush, seafood (nothing bigger than pints) and dairy (either plan on adding the cream when you reheat, or, better yet unless you have cows or goats, don't can recipes that need cream). Beans particularly take a long time to cook. SHTF I don't want to have to be cooking dried beans. Rice is a staple and stores well, but I don't want to be bored to death on a diet of rice. So, I'm not gonna be bored. We eat from our stored stuff every couple of weeks (OK, the wife does. She dips in when I'm out of town and she doesn't feel like cooking or when she misses me. ) We also eat from the stored stuff from time to time when we camp. Even so, I've got enough quarts to feed us 2 meals a day for over 8 months and still gaining ground. It's all recipes we like, eat regularly, and it's definitely not dull.

I discovered that the chinese and indian groceries have Basmatti and Jasmine rice in bulk, not just long grain white. We like the better rice, so that's what I store. Potato buds store well and most of the German and Irish stuff goes really well over mashed potatoes. Both the ethnic groceries are also MUCH cheaper for spices. Turmeric, for instance, is used in a lot of the middle-eastern stuff. A small jar at Publix is almost $5. It's $2/lb at the indian grocery.

Alot of this stuff it's not much more expensive to make a large pot than a small. We use a lot of chicken. I tend to substitute chicken for seafood in recipes that I'm going to can just because I'm not all that comfortable with canning the seafood. Lots of people do it, but I'm more comfy with chicken and it's way cheaper. I buy leg quarters when the 10 lb bags go on sale at the local grocery for .29-.39/lb. I'll buy 40lb cases and stick them in the big freezer until I can use'em up. I also use venison when I can get it and I can both of them all by themselves as well (as opposed to use in something).

John


----------



## Onebigelf (Sep 17, 2011)

Oh, and PS? Mine was being used as a flower pot, too. Breast cancer got mom last month and I rescued the pot. I'm scouring the inside out, but it's still sound and in pretty good shape. I guess from being seasoned for decades by Granny Shuman. Anyway, it just needed a good wire brushing and now it needs to be re-seasoned.

John


----------



## DJgang (Apr 10, 2011)

I wonder if I could talk mom out of hers. Hum....


----------



## AlabamaGal (Dec 27, 2011)

Davarm said:


> Geezzze, I need an aspirin.


Sorry, I was trying be more specific than "'cause I said so," but I've never been good at short and concise answers.


----------



## Davarm (Oct 22, 2011)

AlabamaGal said:


> Sorry, I was trying be more specific than "'cause I said so," but I've never been good at short and concise answers.


Dont apologize, I asked the question, and you answered it. I guess what I was getting at is that you apparently are very familiar with your subject and that you did a thorough job of explaining it with your answer.

Thank you, the information is much appreciated.


----------



## HoppeEL4 (Dec 29, 2010)

Onebigelf, I get Basamait rice for $1.65 a pound at our local grocery store that specializes in bulk. Wow, I feel lucky with this price now.


----------

