You probably don’t have a good vacuum chamber at home, but you almost certainly have a refrigerator. If you don’t mind waiting a week you can experiment with freeze drying at home using your freezer.
WHO SHOULD HAVE A FOOD STORAGE PROGRAM?
We never know what emergency may befall us during which we may not be able to obtain food or drink. The emergency may be loss of job or inability to work due to accident or illness. This may result in a situation where financial resources to purchase food would not be available or may be decreased appreciably. Natural catastrophe such as flood, earthquake or storms may result in temporary inability to distribute food to supermarkets. Under these conditions even having money to purchase food does not mean it can be obtained. Even in the United States each of the above conditions occurs occasionally. Because of the possibility of such emergencies the Civil Defense recommends storing food and drink adequate for your family’s needs for a two-week period. Certain church organizations have recommended their members “Have on hand a year’s supply of food, fuel, clothing and where possible money.”
WHY HAVE A FOOD STORAGE PROGRAM?
A food storage program is essential to provide for ourselves and our family members in an emergency. The biggest motivator most adults have is to avoid hearing a hungry child cry. Even the most “macho” man is distraught if he cannot provide food or beverage to prevent a child from suffering.
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The following is a list of vegetable and herbs which grow well together and protect one another from insect attack. Many herbs are natural insect repellents that can keep your garden bug free and reduce or eliminate the need for potentially harmful pesticides.
By using Companion Planting, many gardeners are discovering that they can discourage garden pests without harming helpful insects such as bees and ladybugs. Some herbs, through their odors or root secretions, will deter pests naturally. An added bonus is; these same herbs, planted as companions in your garden, will season the fruits and vegetables of your labor.
Some herbs even improve the flavor or growth rate of their companion vegetables. Companion planting is the ultimate way to bring the balance of nature into your garden. Just do your best to match the suitable herb with the suitable plant and the rest will follow.
Freezer Bag Meals
Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 1
Supplies Needed …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 1
Basic Cooking ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 2
Beef Dishes ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 4
Chicken Dishes……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 5
Meatless Dishes ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 8
Seafood Dishes …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 12
Introduction
Spend any amount of time in the outdoors and you have probably found that mealtime is full of trade-offs. Do you choose foods that fuel your body or foods that satisfy your taste buds? Do you spend the extra time to prepare a real meal or grab a protein bar on the go? Freezer Bag Cooking minimizes these trade-offs by changing the concepts of traditional outdoor food. It offers simplicity, convenience and variety. The cooking gear needed is minimal, lightweight and can be bought, found or even made. Meals are prepared at home and put into zip top freezer bags. When ready to eat, the meal is prepared in and eaten out of the freezer bag. Mealtime becomes fast, effortless and cleanup is as easy as licking your utensil and sealing the zip top bag. Also, with meals portioned into individual freezer bags, making meals for multi-day trips, families or a group is painless.
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Butter is a useful item for cooking that doesn’t do so well without electricity, but it will lend itself to being canned.
1. Use any butter that is on sale. Lesser quality butter requires more shaking (see #5
below), but the results are the same as with the expensive brands.
MRE HISTORY
MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) were born on Earth, but grew up on Apollo flights to the moon, in Skylab floating workshops and on every U.S. Space Shuttle flight from Enterprise to Atlantis. In the 1970s retort pouches (the popular name for thermo stabilized, laminated food pouches named after the retort cooker) were put to their first real test by the U.S. Space Program. The Program was looking for delicious, easy to prepare, “normal” food that wouldn’t increase human stress the way that freezes dried food and “toothpaste tube food” did. More than any other technology, retort pouches have satisfied the Program’s needs. And so, over 20 years ago, retort pouches found a home at NASA, where all their unusual characteristics were much appreciated and they have been successfully feeding astronauts in flight and on the moon ever since.
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Did you know that a flood, fire, national disaster, or the loss of power from high winds, snow, or ice could jeopardize the safety of your food? Knowing how to determine if food is safe and how to keep food safe will help minimize the potential loss of food and reduce the risk of foodborne illness. This fact sheet will help you make the right decisions for keeping your family safe during an emergency.
One of the first types of livestock which many homesteaders undertake raising is the chicken. There is certainly no other species of animal more suited nor more beneficial to the homestead than the chicken. Meat, eggs, fertilizer, waste disposal, and pest control are among the qualities of the home flock. Chickens are generally grouped into three types: meat birds, layers, and dual purpose breeds. When we started out in the poultry business, so to speak, we knew that we wanted dual purpose breeds— ones that would be good eating birds and good layers of brown eggs. Selecting the types of chickens you are going to order is not as easy as it sounds. Out of all the feathered makes and models available, we settled on a dozen each of Silver-laced Wyandottes, Rhode Island Reds, and Buff Orpingtons. We knew that we wanted birds of the heavy breeds, for we were planning to butcher about two-thirds of them, then keep the rest as a small laying flock. We ordered straight run birds. That means that the birds are not sexed, but boxed and shipped just as they come from the incubators. Since we would be butchering most of the birds, anyway, we felt that there should be plenty of layers to pick from for the laying flock. They’re cheaper when ordered this way, too, You have a few other choices in acquiring your birds. In the spring, many feed mills or farmer’s co-ops offer low priced chicks when you buy 50 or 100 pounds of chick starter feed. The selection of breeds is generally somewhat limited with these offers, but they can be a good way to get your starter flock. Be sure, however, that before you take advantage of these deals to find out whether you are get- ting meat birds or laying breeds.
The luster of the waxing moon illuminated our winter playground like a baseball diamond under the lights. Dinner, which had been in the works since we pitched camp, could wait while we had fun. We poured the hot chocolate into a Thermos, wrapped the pot of cooked rice in fleece and stuffed it into a sleeping bag to stay warm, then grabbed our skis. As we showed off our best telemark turns, the main course defrosted in my pocket.
We returned to camp exhilarated and downright starving. Sips of the still-steaming hot chocolate melted the ice off my handlebar mustache while I finished making dinner. From the “oven”-my coat pocket-came a beautiful chunk of sushi-grade ahi tuna. I sliced it quickly and whipped up sushi rolls and instant hot-and-sour soup. A sushi bar in the middle of Washington’s Mt. Baker Wilderness-who’d have thought?
That’s what I love about winter camping. You can eat food, lots of food, that would spoil in summer. Think about it: You’re hiking in a big freezer, so take advantage of it. Pack in zesty ground beef to spice up bean burritos. Breakfast comes complete with sausage links. You can even carry along a smoked turkey breast, instant stuffing, and gravy that tastes as good as Thanksgiving dinner.
Actually, you need this variety so you’ll consume enough calories to power you through days of carrying a heavy pack in cold conditions. Here are some menu suggestions.
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Category : Food
Want to join us for a trip to the mountains? We’re leaving tomorrow after work,” the voice at the other end of the phone says. No doubt they want me along for my sterling company. I look at the clock-7 p.m., just enough time to organize my gear before hitting the hay. “Oh, one other thing. Sally can’t go, and she’d volunteered to bring the food. Can you handle it?”
I swallow hard. The truth is they only want me for my grub. “Sure,” I answer with confidence. “No problem.” And it’s not, because my cupboard is stocked with the 25 backcountry essentials. At a moment’s notice I can scramble together meals for a weekend on the trail, all lightweight, good-tasting, and anything but monotonous. No need to hurriedly inventory what’s on hand, frantically dash to the supermarket to fill in the holes, then stay up into the wee hours measuring and bagging ingredients.
Why just 25 ingredients, especially when there’s a universe full of foods suitable for backpacking? Because through years of practice, I’ve noticed that many of the same ingredients keep showing up in most of my backcountry creations. By narrowing the list and designing recipes around these 25 ingredients, I’ve simplified my life without sacrificing taste or variety.
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