Awhile back, I decided to dry-run my preps for a month, for all the right reasons (including eating them before they potentially went bad).
Consider this a refresher for some, and a heads-up for all.
Menu item #1:
Meat and rice.
FWIW, 1/2 cup of Minute Rice is a one-person serving. You can dial that up or down, based on (Number of Mouths To Feed).
Boil the rice in water for 5 minutes (or microwave it for 1 minute, my preferred method)†.
Your goal for the water is to have just enough for the rice to absorb, and little to no extra.
For the last minute, throw in meat (of choice). That heats it to edibility as well.
My go-tos for that:
a) Canned chicken (Costco staple).
b) Canned ham or pulled pork.
c) Canned roast beef chunks. (Former Costco staple, currently still available, at premium prices. Watch for sales.)
d) Canned Tuna
e) Canned Tiny Shrimp
f) slab of SPAM (any variety)
g) Anything else you want to try.
Nota bene:
1) All of the above rice additives are canned, pre-cooked, and in a pinch, could be safely eaten cold. But they taste a helluva lot better piping hot.
2) One standard can of a/b/c/e is enough for two meals, or one meal for two people. As with the rice, dial up or down as necessary for your number of diners. Thus one can and two rice servings is dinner for two nights, or two people. Or, breakfast and dinner the same day. Figure it out for yourself.
3) Hot is good. Seasoned is fantastic.A few dribbles of teriyaki sauce to taste makes the chicken and ham taste worlds better. Worcestershire is my fave for the roast beast. And tartar sauce for the seafood. YMMV. Point being, any sauce, ketchup, mustard, those previously listed, McIhenny's Tabasco, or whatever you will, gives some flavor to the meal that the truly hungry will find mouth-wateringly delicious. Experiment for yourself, and stock the condiments alongside the staples.
4) Any pre-cooked meat will work. Anything raw/fresh should be cooked appropriately, unless you also want to test out your disaster plan for food poisoning, diarrhea, vomiting, etc. I do not recommend that test, but you're all big kids now, so you can play by Big Boy Rules.
5) For additional goodness, per the opening illustration, you can throw in quantities of canned corn, peas, carrots, Veg-all, etc., for taste, dietary balance, and additional calories. Once again, work it out. Does it work? A billion-plus Asians can't be wrong.
Starving college kids can usually figure this out, but in case you needed a booster step, there it is. I fit food for a month for two adults into four banker's boxes, and it worked just fine as earthquake supplies for ten years*. And when I ate it at the end of that time, it was all perfectly good.
And yes, for those not new to the kitchen, noodles can substitute for rice (though they don't store as long, nor as well). It also gives you a whole universe of new sauce and menu options, including spaghetti, stroganoff, etc.
If you're in the position to grow wheat, and/or potatoes, let alone raise the chickens, pigs, and cows necessary, you're already in the MasterClass here. For those of more limited circumstance, many good options remain, provided you don't wait until five minutes too late to get started on your plans.
Weekly dinner menu (with rice):
M-beef T-beef W-chicken Th-chicken F-pulled pork S-pulled pork Su-Special
Special was a mini canned ham or SPAM Turkey, and as many of the extras as I could manage: stuffing, corn, canned potatoes - new and/or sweet - applesauce, cranberry sauce, etc. A weekly mini-Thanksgiving treat, if you will. You're going to need it.
I mainly saved the tuna (the 3-pack of mini cans) for lunches (alternated with PB&J), and did the SPAM (regular, and bacon-chunked) as part of breakfasts.
Fruit and pudding cups or cans, dried fruit (raisins, etc.) and hard candies, rounded things out.
If vermin are a problem, go with the big round popcorn can tins, or metal trash cans with tight lids.
4-8 cups of rice (I break mine down into single servings placed in WalMart craft supply ziplock bags), about 15-20 cans of food and 2-3 jars, a couple/three bottles of condiments, a quart of water, and the means to heat food 7-14 times/week, and it was meals for days. In about 2 ft² of space. For reference, a 20' Conex box holds 86 man-years of food like that, with space to spare. IOW, you could sock away multiple years worth of food, supplies, extras, propane, etc., in that amount of space, for a dozen people. (Which dozen pipe-hitters and skill-bringers would be another good thing to have handy.)
If you made it out of cinder blocks instead of a rust-prone conex, and waterproofed it, with a concrete slab floor and roof, it'd fit within (better yet, under) the tiniest back yard, and be impervious to damned near everything (including both the government, and your nosy neighbors, provided one has the wits not to tell them about it).
Something to think on right about now.
One other tip: Companies in all fifty states sell pre-stressed concrete culvert in sizes up to big-enough-for-trains, in both round and rectangular dimensions, as well as manhole entry couplings. Imagine Legos, for grown-ups. (I.E.: Dig hole. Lay gravel. Buy culvert pieces. Drop Culvert. Waterproof seams. Attach manhole segment. Backfill and bury. Walk away.)
A can of food is a meal. A box of cans is a food supply. A small stash of them is a storehouse. Being able to replace them with fresh components is a food system. Aim for systems. That's how civilizations sustain themselves.
Food is good. Calories equal survival. Period.
*It also included the afore-mentioned PB&J, instant soups, cocoa, tea, coffee, sugar, dehydrated milk and butter, etc. Basically each box was a week-sized MRE, with much better components.
† One solar panel, one deep-cycle battery, a charge controller, and a robust inverter = endless power for the microwave. Anywhere, potentially.
13 comments:
I had a bug out bag stashed behind the seat of my junked truck, getting about 80 in the summers and below zero in the winters. For ten years. The Top Ramen was still good, as were the instant potatoes and rice. The stainless steel knife had one tiny rust spot ( I must have forgotten to put a coat of oil on ) and no surprise, the batteries were dead ( I have good luck with Dollar Tree generic batteries lasting years left without leaking. Name brand, or any batt from Wal-Mart, not so much ). Just a follow up on your comment on stored noodles.
There's also the packaged chorizo sausages usually found in the Hispanic isle. They go a long way to flavoring a serving of beans & rice, and go great with either black or red beans.
Be sure to check out Mexican, Filipino, and other Asian grocery stores for various food options- a lot of those countries don't have regular electric, so there's lots of options for non-refrigerated foods. And it's often better and cheaper than regular stores.
A can of stew over pasta or rice is another quick meal option.
Don't overlook other things like Pop Tarts, Chef Boyardee, and similar.
Good Posting Aesop. Hopefully some folks will have the time and gumption to do some of your good suggestions.
As far as food could I suggest both a good Multivitamin and vitamin C to cover any lack of nutrition? Deficiency diseases like Scurvy are preventable. That and currently such vitamins are cheap for a two-year supply.
A point to think about with the concrete construction. Yes, you do need to seal those seams but most concrete isn't completely waterproof. So, a layer of roofing style tar all over including the bottom before you lower that multi-ton object onto the gravel for drainage is a good idea.
Also, when you dig that large hole and add that gravel do a perc type test because in very silty or even worse clay soils you might be creating an underground swimming hole. Thus, drainage needs to go somewhere else preferably downhill unless you have solid plans to power a pumping system. Perforated pipes like used in French drains or septic leech fields works well.
Yes to all.
BTW, a good impermeable membrane for such a root cellar is pond liner, which can be had in acre-sized sheets. One layer under, and one on top, bonded in the middle with overlap and roofing tar keeps the swimming hole on the outside. Another layer on top and spread far beyond the boundaries forces all water to go sideways before it can come downward to drain. ;)
All good ideas, and as always if you're not eating from your stored preps, and replacing them FIFO, you're doing it wrong. Way back in starving student days, a top ramen with an egg stirred in was instant egg flower soup. So, in order to practice, I cracked open one of those #10 tins of powdered eggs. It took a LONG time to use up that thing (they're good for decades in good storage, but once opened, they need to be used), and while it's certainly edible protein, I found the best was to blend pwd eggs 1:1 with fresh eggs. Much more appealing.
Related: Lead acid batteries have definite lifespans, some better than others. I had a couple of deep cycle RV batteries in climate controlled storage (never freezing or cooking) with a trickle charger connected. After a couple years, I needed to move them, so I checked in on them. 7.6 volts. Yeah, dead. And not just mostly dead, they would no longer accept a charge. So for long term storage of a lead acid battery, the best option is a virgin battery with the electrolyte stored separately. And no, I do not have that; though I have bought such for my airplane (and they've gone to AGM batteries now). If it says "Aviation", like "Medical" or "Marine" you can translate that to "Insanely Expensive".
Don't overlook the canned fishes of various persuasions. Salmon, mussels, tuna, sardines, and herring are all well known. How about stepping up to anchovies, mackerel, crab, and others? Buy quality seafood that is not on the cat food aisle. I also recommend the cookbook: "The Tinned Fish Cookbook" by Bart Van Olphen. The cookbook has tons of recipes for all sorts of goodness and he addresses the length of time canned fish is good for. I have yet to embrace octopus, but I have done some sardines and I adore crab, so that is a start. One prepper step at a time.
Grab some dried peppers, like anchos. They aren’t all hot, and add tons of flavor.
Oh, and make sure the missus is on board. Otherwise she’ll donate your stash to a food bank.
It should be pointed out that for sauces, some must be refrigerated after opening (e.g., anything creamy like ranch dressing, or anything that is too sugary like ketchup), so may not be the best options for long-term storage unless stored in sealed small amounts (e.g. ketchup packets). Some sauces do not need refrigeration at all though (vinegar, olive oil, etc.). Sauces that are heavy on vinegar and salt (e.g., Tabasco or Worcestershire) might keep their flavor longer with refrigeration but don't really need it.
One can also make one's own sauce with just olive oil, vinegar, honey, and salt-- in whatever proportions to taste-- and all of which are fairly shelf-stable.
whadda ya think about freeze dried ?
Cook, then dehydrate frozen mixed vegetables.
A 1/2 cup of dried vegetables re-hydrated, then boiled with a pack of romen noodles, with a 5 oz can of chicken meat added will feed you pretty well.
Freeze-dried is spendy, but good stuff.
I.E. everything Mountain House makes.
Looking to add a freeze-dryer or two to my list of toys.
It largely eliminates bulk and spoilage from the storage problem.
Water (access and quantity of) becomes the failure point.
Someone once noted that one of the good things about canned veggies is that they also contain potable water. The drain water from a can of veggies would work great for cooking up some rice or pasta.
One big thing to keep on hand for a survival situation is a good stock of salt. One might even want to consider how close they are to a natural supply, and how one could extract it.
Ramen foil wrapped packages are easy and inexpensive to accumulate spares for flavor. They contain too much sodium for using entire packet, so using half or third the package leaves the buyer with several unused packages. Many different flavors, made for carrying out in field. Flavoring the cooked rice becomes easier to do.
Thanks all for the recipes above - good test run Aesop.
jrg
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