Stockpile recipes

[Cheshire]

If you stockpile food and work to rotate through it on a regular basis what are your favorite recipes?

[Violet2]

IME there are few special stockpile recipes.

What you need to do is make a list of all the food your routinely eat or cook.

Then figure out how often you eat/cook it.

Break out the ingredients and buy quantities based on how often you eat items.

To economically stockpile, it's also good to do meal planning and have a menu for the week or month.

V

[velochic]

I agree with Violet. I can (that is pressure can) meat and meals (stews, soups, pot pie fillings, etc.), so what I come up with may not help others. I do have a list of meals that are *pantry* meals that we rotate through. I have to go pick up the kiddo at school soon, but will try to remember to come back to this thread and post some of my "recipes".

I do want to plug two cookbooks I have that I really like for pantry cooking... Make a Mix has recipes for "convenience" food such as soup, muffin, brownie, bread, taco, etc. mixes. More-with-Less is published by the Mormons and is great for pantry cooking.

Back later.

[smeisnotapirate]

YouTube "Depression Cooking." Lots of simple ones there - try them out, and if you like them, rotate them in.

I try to use more canned goods and winter produce - canned tomatoes, canned fruit, etc, and potatoes, onions, carrots - things that will store for a while.

My spaghetti sauce rocks for it and it's made from scratch. Onion, garlic, chicken boullion (or broth, but don't make it too watery) canned tomatoes, and whatever your fav spices are. And a dash of ground chili pepper. With a box of spaghetti, it's a great meal.

There's a bread recipe from Mother Earth News that is great, too, but you have to work the amount out to suit your family.

I like having cans of produce and fruit (not in syrup or oil, just their own juices) - if worse comes to worst, you have a nutritious whole-foods fruit/veg salad.

I don't know if you can really go wrong as long as you buy stuff you'd use anyways. Look at your fav recipes and see how you can adjust them to be "stockpile recipes."

[mnnice]

Originally Posted by velochic

I do want to plug two cookbooks I have that I really like for pantry cooking... Make a Mix has recipes for "convenience" food such as soup, muffin, brownie, bread, taco, etc. mixes. More-with-Less is published by the Mormons and is great for pantry cooking.

Back later.

OT

More-with-less is a nugget from my childhood. t's actually published by the Mennonites not the LDS. They published another good cookbook much more recently called Simply in Season (it not so much a stockpile book, but more "I have zuchinni coming out of my ears what can I do with it" kind of book)

[FillingMyQuiver]

Originally Posted by velochic

I agree with Violet. I can (that is pressure can) meat and meals (stews, soups, pot pie fillings, etc.), so what I come up with may not help others. I do have a list of meals that are *pantry* meals that we rotate through. I have to go pick up the kiddo at school soon, but will try to remember to come back to this thread and post some of my "recipes".
Back later.

Okay velochic, I definitely need to pick your brain. I would love to know some of your canning recipes for stews, soups, and pot pie fillings as having meat in our pantry storage and not just our freezer would help DH's morale if TSHTF.

Also, and maybe this isn't the thread, but I was wondering what kind of wood stove you have and exactly HOW you cook on/ in it. We just bought this house last year and there's a wood stove. We're having it worked on to bring it up to our safety standards (it's just barely safe, but w/ 4 children, we want it more than "just"). We would like to be able to cook on/in it, especially if the economy is going to get as bad as some predict.

Any words of wisdom or guidance towards helpful books?

[amyamanda]

I like flexible meals that can make use of whatever ingredients or spices you have on hand. Soup. Rice-and-stuff/fried rice. Frittata. Fruit crisp. Lentil stew. Beans. Plain muffins, with additions like fruit or nuts or spices or whatever. There are so many infinite ways to vary these things. For me, having our meal repertoire consist of flexible dishes like these helps me use m pantry more efficiently.

I agree with the suggestion to make your pantry fit what you usually make, but you might also want to think about how to make use of the things that are easy to store in a pantry. I save the dishes that need fresh or unusual herbs/veggies/fruits for gardening season. Winter is for root veggies, dried fruit, etc. Knowing what is in season helps me figure out what makes sense to eat from our pantry and what makes sense to harvest/forage/buy locally instead. (Slightly OT, there, but nevertheless).

[velochic]

Originally Posted by FillingMyQuiver

Okay velochic, I definitely need to pick your brain. I would love to know some of your canning recipes for stews, soups, and pot pie fillings as having meat in our pantry storage and not just our freezer would help DH's morale if TSHTF.

Also, and maybe this isn't the thread, but I was wondering what kind of wood stove you have and exactly HOW you cook on/ in it. We just bought this house last year and there's a wood stove. We're having it worked on to bring it up to our safety standards (it's just barely safe, but w/ 4 children, we want it more than "just"). We would like to be able to cook on/in it, especially if the economy is going to get as bad as some predict.

Any words of wisdom or guidance towards helpful books?

I just can my leftovers. The one thing you have to be careful about is that if you are going to can a meal, make sure it doesn't have cream or milk based gravies and that you don't add garlic (fresh). There are no guidelines for those. So, I make my chili (ground beef, beans, green pepper, onion, spices, tomatoes) then I just can what is left over. Meat is almost always the ingredient that requires the most processing time, so for pints, I pressure can at 11lbs. for 75 minutes. If I can meat by itself, I do cook it first. I don't add it raw as some people do. Again, for me, near sea level, it's 11lbs. at 75 mins for pints and 90 mins for quarts.

As for the stove, we have a Sierra insert like the one in this picture (only a little bit older, all cast iron, and has a larger surface area on top). I never cook anything that could splatter, like fried food (well, I don't really fry anything, anyway), but mostly put beans, soups, etc. on that need a long time to cook. Inside the stove, I push the wood to the other end, then place my food closest to the stove door. I turn it often. Again, nothing that could spill over. I like to bake foods that are nested in foil, like fish, hobo bundles, baked potatoes. It's not a cook stove, but I like to use the energy it's already generating. We don't burn it constantly and it takes about 2 hours to get a good layer of coals to heat food well. HTH!

ETA: Because it's cast iron, I have to black my stove and when I cook on it a lot, it requires blacking more often and also, I only use cast iron on top of it.

[smeisnotapirate]

Why no canning fresh garlic? If my spaghetti sauce has fresh garlic in it, would that be ok?

[velochic]

Originally Posted by smeisnotapirate

Why no canning fresh garlic? If my spaghetti sauce has fresh garlic in it, would that be ok?

I'm not quite sure, and I'll have to look it up. My granny told me to only ever can pickled garlic (GAG!). I've always used granulated garlic when I thought I would can stuff. I know I've read it on the USDA website, too.

[amyamanda]

I believe garlic is known to harbor botulism, so maybe that is why? I know canning is supposed to kill random botulism spores...but pressure canning at least is supposed to be able to kill those.

My guess is that you're not supposed to add anything to tomato sauce when you're water-bath canning (i.e., add spices/garlic/etc later, after canning and opening) but that it would be fine if pressure canning. Just a guess, though, and I'd look it up to be sure.

[Leta]

We only stockpile staples. We have frozen and canned grains, baking supplies, fruit, veggies, dry dairy, and meat, along with some cleaning/personal care items.

We don't have any stockpile recipes, because we only stockpile things we regularly eat and use.

[jentilla]

Since you asked for stockpiling receipes. Here's two I like:
Mexican Casserole
taco shells
refried beans
salsa
canned or frozen corn
canned chicken or frozen ground beef

Layer and bake. You can even cook this in a solar oven. I like to to it with sour cream or cheese is you have it on hand.

Mexican Pasta

Any rotini or tubular noodle
can of black beans
salsa
can of tomatoes
1 cp of frozen or fresh spinach
cheese and sour cream if available
cook pasta mix in beans to warm, drain, mix in spinach, tomatoes or salsa to warm then cream with cheese and sour cream, eat

[Juvysen]

:

[not now]

Try this. Probably not healthy by MDC standards but she can do a lot with her storage.

She has an amazing basement/shelves. Not as many recipes though.