Simple Meals From Your Prep Pantry

[Taz]

Regarding chicken or beef broth. Knorr makes wonderful bullion/broth. They have it in Chicken, beef and Tomato . If you have a Mexican market you will find them in bigger quantities. Like Qt jars. Also the chicken bullion comes in half gallon jugs. It is powder NOT liquid. I find it so much easier than bullion cubes and keep a lot of it stored in my preps.

If you want to put a little Mexican flavor into your beans, salsa, etc., also buy a jar of Adobo which is a powdered mix of Mexican spices. Or just ad a liittle cumin.

I no longer buy and can hamburger. With the price of good ground hamburger I can buy it already canned. The brand is Keystone and since I have Prime, I get it through Amazon. I also buy some of the other Keystone canned meats. And with pork and beans at $0.47 a can, I no longer make and can that either.

Love this thread. Keep it coming

Taz

[Summerthyme]

Boullion lasts for years (probably forever) kept cool and dry. I JUST finished using up my Y2k stash of chicken boullion (and still have some beef and a vegetarian "soup base" left, which is fine)

The salt content isn't good, but as long as you take it into account when making your recipe (for example, if I'm substituting 1 cup boullion for 1 cup chicken broth, I'll cut back any added salt in the recipe until I can taste it), it's no big deal. And the salt content is why it keep so well for so long.

We don't worry about salt... but then, we rarely eat processed foods, I've long since adjusted all my recipes to call for about 1/2 the salt the original said, and we're physically active farmers... we NEED salt in our diet. Also, even those with high blood pressure are likely being told wrongly that they need to limit salt. In actuality, less than 5% of those with hypertension are sodium sensitive... the rest can consume all the salt they want and it won't affect their blood pressure a bit.

Obviously, if you have congestive heart failure or kidney problems, you will need to limit your sodium intake. For the vast majority, it just isn't the problem the medical professionals thought at one time..

Summerthyme

[4Him]

One of my go-tos is what I am calling salsa. Oven-roasted tomatoes, peppers, and garlic, with whatever fresh herbs I feel like throwing in the roasting pan for the last half hour or so. This is slow-roasting--about 250 F. Olive oil and salt on the vegetables before they're roasted. I adjust the heat to make hot, medium, and sweet by adjusting the proportion of hot to sweet peppers. It is very thick and the flavor is outstanding.
I put it in pints and half pints. Use it straight as pasta sauce. Cook some hamburger and add it. Add it to the dried beans as they cook. Put it on rice or in rice. Put it in soup, stew, or pot roast. It's incredibly versatile and makes a good, quick, and easy meal all by itself.
!

I love this idea for salsa. I am going to try this when the tomatoes come off soon. Do you add onions also?

[farmermom]

I don't put onions in because they keep so well and I like them a little crunchy. One of the reasons that I can so much broth is that we butcher whole animals. I have to make sure to tell the butcher that I want ALL the bones.
My daughter saves chicken bones in the freezer after eating the chicken, and then will make a pot of broth. She also saves the chicken fat and has been using it instead of butter or oil. I used to keep broth in the freezer, but then I'd end up with Ziploc bags or freezer containers filled with some kind of liquid of indeterminate origin. When I can them, they're where I can see them and they get used. I usually keep the soup bones in the freezer until it's cold weather. Then I'll roast a large pan of them and put a big pot of broth on the wood stove.
My mother used to have a pair of pliers in the kitchen that she'd use to crack poultry bones for soup. Lets out all the marrow and makes a smaller carcass.
I'm considering making a solar box cooker for roasting the tomatoes and peppers. I have some old storm doors. If I get ambitious...

[Sherree]

Boullion lasts for years (probably forever) kept cool and dry. I JUST finished using up my Y2k stash of chicken boullion (and still have some beef and a vegetarian "soup base" left, which is fine)

The salt content isn't good, but as long as you take it into account when making your recipe (for example, if I'm substituting 1 cup boullion for 1 cup chicken broth, I'll cut back any added salt in the recipe until I can taste it), it's no big deal. And the salt content is why it keep so well for so long.

We don't worry about salt... but then, we rarely eat processed foods, I've long since adjusted all my recipes to call for about 1/2 the salt the original said, and we're physically active farmers... we NEED salt in our diet. Also, even those with high blood pressure are likely being told wrongly that they need to limit salt. In actuality, less than 5% of those with hypertension are sodium sensitive... the rest can consume all the salt they want and it won't affect their blood pressure a bit.

I store boullion cubes, because they do keep seems like forever. They are also easier for me to store in the pantry room. I need all the space I can get just to store my canned veggies from the garden. Cubes take up little space. I buy beef and chicken in large jars at Sam's Club. 4 jars of each will last me for many years. So, 8 jars of beef and chicken bouillion cubes won't take up as much room as the equivalent in canned broth.

Like you, Summerthyme, I don't worry too much about the salt content, since I don't add any more to the recipes I use them in. CaryC does have high blood pressure. As a matter of fact, I stopped using any salt at all in our food (it was my own idea), and his BP always ran too low. We go buy his doctor's advice now. A little salt, just don't overdo it.

[Sherree]

I no longer buy and can hamburger. With the price of good ground hamburger I can buy it already canned. The brand is Keystone and since I have Prime, I get it through Amazon. I also buy some of the other Keystone canned meats. And with pork and beans at $0.47 a can, I no longer make and can that either.

I have a pretty good stock of assorted meat in cans. I don't like depending on my freezers in case of a grid down situation. Tuna, Spam, Pulled Pork, Smoked ham, Chicken Breasts, etc......I'm learning to can ground beef, since we eat a lot of it. Things like roasts, pork tenderloins, pork chops, and bacon, I still keep in the freezers. If the grid goes down, or some other such event happens, I have canning jars ready to go, so will start canning those meats at that time. We have a generator to keep the freezers going, til I can get it all canned up. An outdoor fire pit and a gas turkey fryer/stand would be used to can on if it came down to it.