Make your own MRE's...it's easy!!!!!

I can just see it now, a friend opens up your closet and all this half used food comes tumbling out.

He's gonna have you committed.

I canned quite a few different foods last year. Definitely canned whole tomates, green beans, relish, beets, tomato juice. I picked a ton of crab apples from the two trees we have in our yard and tried crab apple jelly for the first time, it is very tasty. Canning is a lot of work, but well worth the effort. The awesome thing is the pressure cooker/canner came with a recipe book and it had a bunch of great canning ideas. I love turnip and it usually takes a good hour to cook on he stove (boiling it), I cooked it in the pressure cooker and it only took three minutes after it reached the desired pressure, I was amazed!! I tried pickled green tomatoes, but they came out soggy, any tips on how to keep them crunchy?

That's my favorite part about a pressure cooker. It cooks SUPER steroids fast!

SPUD, man, give up your source, where did you get those spools???


.

lmfho

+1 !!

Please?

Actually, you CAN create your own versions of MRE's by repackaging components that are readily available.

You simply take a box dinner such as Hamburger/Tuna/Chicken Helper, three cans of Tuna or Chicken Breast [these even come with zipoff tops so you don't even need a can-opener] and a small bottle of water and store them all together in a larger box/bag. INSTANT MRE.

True, you still have to heat the whole thing up, but while a common MRE will only feed one person, this combo will feed up to FOUR and the price will always be LESS than an MRE purchased from one of those survival companies [based upon number of servings]. For example: you can pick up Hamburger Helper onsale for around a buck - the same thing holds true for canned Chicken breast. Tuna is even cheaper - I just bought 30 cans onsale for .39 each! That means I can whip up a dinner for four for around 60-cents/person. The cans of Roast Beef are larger and cost more [around $2.99 for a 12oz can] but you only need to use one per recipe. If the boxed-dinner calls for MILK [and most of them do], drop a can of evaporated milk [around .85 cents] to the box and you'll be fine. Just be sure to add an equal amount of water to the canned milk or reduce the amount of water in the overall recipe - remember: the milk is concentrated! - want it even CHEAPER? Use powdered milk and spoon it into little zip-lock bags or small containers.

Don't like Hamburger Helper much? Try Rice-A-Roni or any other packaged convenience food. The only thing they are lacking is MEAT and WATER - and if you are savvy about your shopping you can find excellent combinations that will not only be tasty, but nourishing and quick to prepare in an emergency.

One thing to keep in mind when assembling these packs are not only the CALORIES but also the nutritional levels you'll acheive. Go for high-calorie components with well-balanced vitimin/mineral content because these can be crucial to survival in the long-term. Here's another really EASY emergency food...

ENSURE and similar dietary supplement drinks are really good for emergency needs, but are pretty expensive - they hover around $1.50 for an 8oz can! A six-pack can easily hover around TEN BUCKS! SO: make your own!! Here's how...

Buy a box of INSTANT BREAKFAST [I prefer the Chocolate Malt flavor] - these will average around $3.25 for a box of six envelopes - that's less than .60/serving. Add a single-serving package of INSTANT COCOA MIX - this provides the milk you need. Put these two envelopes into a small jar with a screw-on lid. When you need it, add a cup of water, shake it up and you're ready to go! Don't want to use the cocoa mix? Substitute powdered milk [plain water will not work and will taste AWFUL!] and you'll end up with the same thing... but the little cocoa packs are really convenient and pretty cheap [onsale: .15/each for a box of ten]. I prepare these by stapling the Instant Breakfast and the Cocoa mix together at the top of their envelopes so they are already ganged up and ready to go.

BOTTOMLINE: use your ingenuity when putting these "MRE's" together and you'll not only save money but in ALOT of cases they'll also taste better than their commercial cousins!

Bumpin' for Spudman


/

you're gonna die

Man, when was the last time you cleaned that stove?

The stove is for decoration only.
Maybe that's why we are eating pizza, eh?
That's aluminum foil under the burners....It's not in my job description, either! ;)

I bought the bags from a guy that bought out a store that closed. You can probably find similar on ebay. They are a little tricky to figure how to make them work. I'll post a picture of how I do the bag...and you have to have a manual override seal button on your machine.

Last Edited by SPUD on 04/18/2010 01:50 PM

My wife and I did some water bath canning with vegetables from our garden last summer. We canned cucumber pickles, pickled okra, tomato sauce, and salsa. The problem is, we are too paranoid to open and eat any of it. I wouldn't have thought anything about it since my grandmothers and mom canned and we ate that stuff all the time, but my wife brings up botulism and worries that it's in our canned items, and now we are both too paranoid to eat any of it.

The jars look good, clean and fresh, but botulism doesn't show up in the jars anyway. For those who have a lot of experience canning....are our worries legitimate or silly?

Yeah, I have a manual option on my machine, and I buy the name brand rolls that cost a f-in fortune for, say, five feet. Your commercial roll is where it's at.

Thx.

If you are using a bag that isn't really MADE for the machine...here is how I do it.
Dont lay it flat from seam to seam. kinda fold over the seams.
I over did it a little on the picture so you get the idea....not that it matters really.
Let it vacuum it down to your liking...then hit the seal button. You'll get good at it quick. Look at your seam after sealed and seal it again if it doesn't look exactly as you might hope. Check out your sealed stuff for several days to make sure none had small leaks, which needs to be done even with intended factory bags.

[link to i889.photobucket.com]

[link to i889.photobucket.com]

Last Edited by SPUD on 04/18/2010 02:21 PM

Hopefully some one will answer, I want to hear this also.
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Around 4:30 am a person posted talking about inherent acid in some things...like tomatoes and apples. The rest HAD to be pressure cooked if they weren't high in acid content.

Last Edited by SPUD on 04/18/2010 02:03 PM

You have to start eating them soon after canning. if you eat the products you can tell early enough if you got them right. the first and last out should be marked and eaten early, if those where good the rest should be.

I think it looks clean to me. Remind me to never have you GLPers over to my place.

From what I have read, the only way you are going to know if there is botulism in your food is after you've eaten it and you have botulism poisoning. It doesn't create any visible signs in the jars. If you have mold or bacteria in the jars it's going to be visibly obvious as well as have a bad odor. Botulism doesn't have any signs like that.

Bumping because this is really really really important information (LOL!)

you forgot to put a beer in with the smokes

spud the long grain rice will poke through after a while but I found if you dubble bag it it will last a LONG time so will wheat