Friday, January 29, 2010

How's your 3-month supply going?

I still have work to do on my 3-month supply--where ideally you have 3 months worth of meals that you eat on a regular basis anyway. I tend to use up my 3 month supply supplies, which tends to be really good on the rotation side but not-so-good on the storage side....

But, if there were an immediate quarantine or something that required using what I have on hand, I have some supplies, and other recipes that probably wouldn't be quite as good, but edible if I had to use only what I had for awhile. (Notice, I didn't say 3 months...)

--One meal that I have worked into my rotation is shepherd's pie, which I describe in a post on my food storage blog here. Talk about eaaasssssyyyyyy. Yeah, that's the way I like it. Thing is, my family is partial to it as well, and the Dinty Moore stew seems to disappear more often than I'd like. If you try this, make sure that your family likes the brands you are using--we tried a variation on the theme years ago with stew on potatoes with a brand my husband didn't like, and we didn't try anything like it again for years.

--Ok, yay, when I went to link the post above, I realized that in that same post I just linked to, there are links about rice and beans, and bread recipes, and the Spam-fried rice recipe, all of which I would also incorporate in my 3 month plan. So if you go over there and stay awhile I understand. For this post, I just wanted to name a few easy recipes that probably wouldn't be quite as good in an emergency situation, but that would be really good for variety if resources were limited:

--Curry and rice. First, I have to say that curry is probably my favorite flavor eveeerrr. (As in, I think I like it better than chocolate. Yeah, pretty much.)

Usually it would consist of browned ground turkey or beef, can(s) of cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup, and curry powder. That's it. Just brown the meat, breaking it up as you go. After it's fully cooked, add the cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup, water to your desired consistency, and curry powder to your taste, and you are done once it is heated through. Put it over rice.

However, curry still tastes like curry without the meat, and in a pinch you could eat the sauce meatless. We tend to buy the bulk ground turkey meat, brown it, and freeze it in one-pound portions to add to meals. I really like to see little bags of meat ready to use in my freezer. Now, normally I wouldn't say to trust in something that requires refrigeration, but as I say, it can be done in a meatless fashion. And if you live somewhere like Idaho, and you need your 3 month supply during one of the many months of winter, you can stick your meat outside in your garage or other predator-free location, and it will keep. It was 4 degrees outside this morning, with a -5 windchill. Frosty....

--Meatless spaghetti and sauce. Really, I probably needn't have mentioned this one, but it makes me feel good to see more ideas on the list. If you have enough meat in your freezer (and/or garage) to add, all the better....

--Pasta + cream of (insert flavor here) soup + canned meat +vegetable. I'm purposely being vague here because I don't really do this right now, but I totally would if I was looking for something different to eat and all I had was what was on my shelves. I'm not really a tuna person, but I have a couple of cans hanging around. What I lack is a knowledge of any kind of spices would go well with this combination, but pretty much if you have a can of cream of whatever and some pasta, you will end up with something filling. Please don't hesitate to leave comments that would make this combination more appetizing...

--Chili on baked potatoes is a favorite around here. If you have olives and cheese to add, all the better, but chili on potatoes is pretty filling all by itself. I try to keep my potatoes cold enough that the eyes don't get all scary, but I am not always successful with their storage. Makes me wonder how people make them last all winter....

So how about you? I find that when I plan for the 3 month rotation (as I said, still very much a work in progress) I tend to concentrate on the dinner-type meals. However, due to the fact that there is a wonderful sale on oatmeal at Albertsons this week (see details here) I have recently acquired more supplies to go towards breakfasts.

I mention the above because I was thinking about what I would have in the way of "regular meals" if there were a quarantine or something today. When I think about 12 weeks, with 7 different meals, each used once a week, I try to think of the least expensive, fewest ingredient meals I can, because 3 months of food can be expensive to acquire. I have incorporated some meals that use longer term supplies into my rotation as well, but really, I have a lot of work to do. What about you? If you have easy 3-month meals to share, please feel free to leave a comment. You never know how many people you'll be helping.... :)

16 comments:

Badrockbilly said...

Thanks for the ideas Marie. I hope every one is thinking about being ready with three months of food on the shelf and plans for fresh garden vegetables in the spring.

Erin said...

1 jar apricot preserves
1 small bottle french salad dressing (or catalina... and recently i havent seen the small bottles, so i use part of a normal bottlle)
1 package onion soup mix (or a handful of cannery onion)
some amount of chicken...

mix first 3 ingredients together. bake chicken til almost done (optional). drain chicken (a good idea if you do the previous step). pour mixture over chicken. cook until chicken us done.

my mom usually is much more exact with the recipe and always includes the optional steps. i'm a bit more lazy and just pour the mix immediately.

this goes wonderful over rice

Marie said...

Badrockbilly--I hope so too! I was out looking for something else at a store couple of days ago and happened to see a very small display of seeds already out--unfortunately, I didn't see any marked non-hybrid, and they were very expensive, but it got me thinking about planting. Nothing like fresh vegetables...thanks for your comment!

Tuxgirl--This looks really good--I'll have to try it, and I think I might have everything on hand, since my husband particularly likes apricot jam. Thanks for sharing!

Aloha2U said...

Great post Marie, thanks for the many good ideas. Here's another
chicken recipe.

Paprika chicken:
lemon juice
paprika spice
garlic salt
garlic cloves
4 chicken breasts w/ bone

Mix first 3 ingredients in a large bowl.
mash a couple garlic cloves and toss that in to the mix.
Then add the chicken and mix everything together. When chicken looks nice and saturated with all the ingredients place everything in a pan and into the oven at about 375-400 degrees, should be ready in about 30-40 minutes.

I really don't have an exact amount for each ingredient due to the recipe being a hand-me-down family recipe, but the lemon juice you might want to make sure you have a good amount so that the paprika and spices are well blended to the point of a paste yet more on the liquid side. The garlic cloves I eventually end up tucking them under or between the skin and meat of the chicken to get that added extra flavor.

Also, you can more or less taste the amount of the mixture you want as well as having additional chicken to the recipe and just adjusting the amount of ingredients to match the amount of chicken. All you're really doing is drenching the chicken in this mixture, this goes real well with rice!

Personally I love packing on the paprika but the hubby wants it to be toned down a bit when it comes to paprika.

But with this recipe you can actually expand it into another and or modify it differently as well.

Marie said...

Aloha2U--This looks really tasty, and talk about easy...thanks very much for sharing! I love garlic...

Aloha2U said...

You're very welcome, it's a really simple recipe and very tasty, the chicken turns out really moist and yummy! It practically melts in your mouth. Let me also share with you another easy and favorite chicken recipe that hubby really loves.

Hawaiian Shoyu Chicken

ingredients:
12 chicken thighs
2 cups water
2 cups soy sauce
2-3 cloves garlic
2-3 slices or grated ginger
1 cup sugar

Combine all ingredients (except chicken) in a large pot and heat until sugar dissolves. Add more sugar if you like it sweeter, more water to lessen the saltiness. Bring contents of the pot to a medium boil ( and the taste of the sauce to your liking). Add the chicken and simmer 45 minutes (until the meat begins to fall or seperate from the bones). Serve with sticky rice and corn.

This recipe is the bomb, my mouth is watering right now as I write this. If you like you can always substitute honey in place of the sugar, I do that sometimes which gives it a honey flavor and oh so yumlish! I'm not sure if you folks have soy sauce out there but if you have an oriental or asian store they will more than likely carry soy sauce.

Marie said...

Aloha2U--Wow, that looks like another great one! We like soy sauce, and though I haven't used ginger that much, this gives me a reason to---nothing like variety...Thanks so much for taking the time to share this!

Aloha2U said...

You're very welcome! I'll see what other simple yumlish recipes I have and send them your way. Do you like spam? I have a few recipes for that too that are delish.

Marie said...

Aloha2U-Spam is a big favorite around here, and I am always looking for new ways to use it--any recipes that you have would be greatly appreciated!

Aloha2U said...

For starters local people love to add spam to saimin, cup-o-noodles is like saimin. What you do is dice the spam and throw it in your cup-o-noodles with some chopped green onions it makes the meal heartier. You could also add other types of meat to your noodles as well like chicken or pork and beef, you'll have a different tasty noodle meal every time you eat cup-o-noodles.

People here also love to add different types of vegetables to their saimin too, such as chopped watercress or slivers of scrambled egg, bean sprouts, bok choy, thin slivers of carrots anything really you can add.

Honey Baked Spam with Cloves, is another delish meal. You make it just like the ham recipe except it's with spam but instead of adding orange juice to the recipe you add pineapple juice with the chunks of pineapple using the entire can of pineapples and it's juice this is REALLY good. You just need to modify the recipe mixture size wise because the spam is much smaller than a ham.

Hawaii people love spam, a lot of the restaurants here serve spam to some degree or another and the local folks create all kinds of dishes using spam. For now I think these recipes should keep you busy and your tummy happy. But I will keep you posted on other recipes as well. Enjoy!

Marie said...

Aloha2U--Thank you so much for so much information! I hope that you and Tuxgirl don't mind if I turn your comments into a post or two--it is great to have more ideas for your three month supply. Thanks again! (I hadn't thought of adding scrambled eggs--that and the other suggestions sound delicious... )

Aloha2U said...

By all means use what you need and share it across the board, we're here to help out one another in any and every way that we can.

Aloha2U said...

Marie- if you like you can also go to the Hawaii forum where I have posted other recipe ideas including the ones here. I'll be updating recipes as time permits.

Marie said...

Aloha2U--Thank you, and I will have to check that out--can never have too many recipe ideas! :)

Lana said...

Marie, usually a hybrid is listed as a hybrid, but not the other way around. In other words, it is usually nonhybrid if it doesn't say "hybrid". Hope that helps.

Marie said...

Lana--I didn't know that, but I usually won't buy seeds unless they specifically are marked as non-hybrid. That is, unless I just decide to buy many packets, because non-hybrid seeds are sometimes very hard to find. Thanks for telling me--I always wondered, and was hoping that I wasn't passing on some non-hybrid seeds by mistake!