Thursday, November 29, 2012

ABY #22: And two makes a pair

My 22nd ABY: Dried beans

If I could add anything to this, it would be: You know what's coming....wait for it...... rice. Hence, with my 21st ABY, we have a pair.

As mentioned in my 21st ABY, when you put rice and beans together, you get a complete protein. I have to admit when I walked away from my post last night, I was wondering if I should have mentioned rice as an ABY, (additionally better prepared...) when I was labeling it as a basic supply. I think it works, because the BYs (better prepared) series on my other blog is a series of cans--things that you could eat as is (notice that I don't say anything like would love to eat) if you had to, and as long as you could manage to get the can open--no heat or preparation required. (You might highly desire additional water in some cases...)

Rice is a different story. So are dried beans. But, oh how lovely they can be when you have the means to prepare them and a recipe that the people that you are responsible for actually like to eat. The BYs are great, and if you have power, you can add many of them to rice, etc. But what if your emergency is not a short one? What if the emergency is that trucking is delayed/your roads are unpassable/ food is unavailable due to drought/food prices rise, and you have to make your supplies stretch/name your long term emergency here? Beans are a great staple--and when you buy them dry, and in bulk, as well as rice in bulk, you get a lot more for your money than when you buy canned beans, or flavored packets of rice. However, starting from scratch does take more fuel and more water, so you have to plan accordingly.

Here is a link to my post that lists some bean recipes that I love. I was unable to link to the first recipe, so if someone does make it work, let me know. I was able to link to the second and third recipe, so if you don't have any bean and rice recipes, this gives you a place to start.  I highly, highly, highly recommend that you print out a copy of any recipes you may use, just in case, say, one of the links you were depending on doesn't work...gotta love having an emergency notebook when you need it. :)

Yeah, and I figure that I should add some more rice and bean recipes myself. If you have any that take minimal ingredients (or not--the more items in storage, the more you have to work with, after all) and are pretty tasty, please share...

No comments: