Tag Archives: storage food

Thai one on

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So, the Mountain House order arrived the other day. The cans have always had a long shelf life but apparently that now extends to the pouches as well. Behold:

I will actually be dead before the food hits its Best By date. On the one had, that’s a little creepy…on the other hand, as a survivalist, it kinda gives me a warm fuzzy. Although I ordered a buncha cans  (102 of them, to be exact) I did also wanna try some of the new flavors in the pouches. And…..Chicken Pad Thai sounded kinda good.

It says two servings but…lets be grown ups….you’re gonna eat the whole thing.

In its dessicated state:

Kinda looks like breakfast cereal waiting for milk, doesn’t it?

And after 1-and-1/3 cups of boiling water, and ten minutes sealed up in its pouch:

Yup..had to wait ten minutes. Ten minutes! Say it with me:

And the verdict? Good! Although it was not nearly as spicy as I had hoped. If you can get a tiny bottle of Siracha chili paste to go in your meal kit (as opposed to the mini Tabasco) it would not be a mistake. I understand that when it comes to food like this you need to appeal to the broadest common palate…and that means underspicy is better than overspicy. But…coulda been a little hotter. Still, though….I ate it all and liked it alot. So much so, in fact, that I might have to order a couple more cases. MH has a habit of discontinuing the flavors I really like. (For example, I really, really miss the Shrimp Creole.)

So, when its been a long day of post-apocalyptic scavenging and senseless violence, and the desperate-yet-morally-challenged coeds have been rescued from the Aryan blood gangs, it’ll be nice to relax around the campfire of burning “Biden 2020” placards and enjoy some fine pseudo-Thai food.

The quest for people chow

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Do you think pets get truly bored with their food? I mean, cats and dogs can, literally, eat nothing but whatever comes out of a 40# of dry mix and seemingly be okay with it. Why can’t that be done for people? You know…Purina People Chow, or some sort of equivalent.

Futurama, of course, addresses the issue with ‘bachelor chow’, as seen here. Technically, as best I can tell, there is no such thing as People Chow but there is a very, very close approximation – MPF. But good luck getting ahold of that. It turns out that Purina does (or did), in fact, make a Primate Chow. Humans are primates, right? Sooooo…couldn’t a fella just have a couple cups of primate chow in the morning, another for lunch and another at night? Maybe not according to the guy who tried it….and vlogged it.

There is a certain appeal to the notion of simply scooping out a nutritionally satisfactory and somewhat palatable food product into a bowl and not having to screw with cooking, dishes, cleanup, and groceries. And if you can do it cheaply, all the better. But…what if you have the ability to cook and you have access to…a freeze dryer?

You get freeze dried beef bourguignon as your People Chow.

I actually like beef bourguignon quite a bit if it’s done properly and you cut back on the carrots. But what fascinates me most about this tongue-in-cheek video is that darn Harvest Right freeze dryer. I saw one up at the local feed store a few months back and decided at the time that it just didnt make financial sense since a) I already had a pretty large stock of freeze dried food in storage and therefore didn’t really have a genuine need and b) I’m a cheapskate. But….Mountain House doesn’t offer a version of beef bourguignon, or a lot of other foods I like, and it would be kinda cool to be able to freeze dry stuff that I prefer. But, dang, for the price of that unit I could buy, literally, a pallet of freeze drieds all packaged and ready to go. But….the unit would let me do more food than that initial amount. What i really need is to find four or five local LMI who’d be willing to pony up the $$$ and we could do it as a group sort of thing and eventually one person would buy out everyone else. (Or, alternatively, when everyone has made as much as they ever plan on needing, sell the thing and divide the proceeds among the original investors.)

I’ve communicated with several people who have uses this thing and almost all of them complain about the oil system that is used. There is an oil-free version but its about $1500 extra, which is darn near and extra 30-50% on top of the several thousand price tag the thing normally comes at.

I suppose until I take leave of my senses long enough to decide to purchase a freeze dryer, the closest thing to people chow is going to be those lifeboat ration bars which seem to meet pretty much most of the basic requirements – somewhat nutritional, calorie dense, long shelf life, no prep, no mess.

But, man, freeze dried General Tso’s would be totally awesome.

Let’s see if this works…..

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If you are local, or local enough that you are willing to drive into Missoula, I’m doing a small(!) group buy on some Mountain House #10 cans of freeze drieds. And, guys, I mean a small amount…about a total of 100 cans. Basically its first come first served, cash only, absolutely no ‘can you ship it to me’, ‘can I pay you and have you hold it until I can come into town next month’, and most definitely no ‘can you hold onto it for me until my VA/SS/Stimulus/Unemplyment check arrives’. If we set a time/location to transact and you can’t make it for whatever reason, the next guy gets a chance. I stopped doing these things because of the amazing amount of work that went into it for very little reward as people flaked out, stalled, hemmed, hawed, and otherwise wasted my time. Not trying to be a jerk, but in some cases I really felt taken advantage of.

Send me an email and I’ll fire you back a list with what is still available. No minimum required, you can buy one can if that’s all you want. BUT…you need to come pick up that can, with cash in hand, on the agreed day. I’ve already placed the order, and expect it to ship next week, and should be here the week after that…so let’s figure around the fourth week of the month.

Adventures in self control

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Went to Murdoch’s the other day to pick up a 16-gallon ‘blue barrel’ for rice storage and as I walked down the aisle I beheld….this:

I know it doesn’t seem like I have good impulse control, but I actually impressed myself by not just buying the bloody thing right then and there. BUT….I had a long, long talk with myself basically talking myself in and out of whether I should buy it. Fact is, it ain’t cheap at around $2800~. But I can freeze dry my favorite foods that may be unobtainable elsewhere and get myself a nice stash of FD meats without paying the crazy prices that they normally command. I actually should fab up a spreadsheet to calculate just how many pounds of chicken and beef I’d have to FD before the thing hits the break even point.

But…I already have a pretty healthy (so to speak) stash of freeze drieds. Sure, more would be nice and being able to get exactly the foods I want has a pretty nice attraction as well. And I suppose I could get a couple of the LMI to come in on it with the expectation we could all take turns using it. But..but….expensive. Although people pay more money for far stupider items….jet skis, expensive living room chairs, Manolo Blahniks, etc.

To my way of thinking its the same financial equivalent as:

  • 4 mid-tier ARs
  • 5 Glocks
  • 1.5~ oz. of gold
  • 150 oz. of silver (hey its a 100:1 ratio)
  • 1/3 of a decent used pickup
  • 13k 9mm ball ammo

What I really need is a friend who has one of these things. 80/20 ….. get 80% of the usage for 20% of the cost.

But, dang, it would be kinda fun to see what does and does not come out well.

MH pulls the blinds and turns off the porch light.

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Just for giggles, I headed over to Mountain House’s dealer website to see if there were any noticeable changes.

You might say that………

I like MH for their product, and I’ve never had problems with an order, but their customer relationship model would give HK (or Colt, for that matter) a run for it’s money. Not “We’re sorry for the inconvenience. We are working hard to get caught up and provide you with product. Thanks for your understanding.” Nope. That would be too…smart. Instead, we get “We’re busy. Go away.”

I have seen them do this before.

But…it shouldn’t matter to you because you’ve stocked up at one of the several group buys I’ve orchestrated in the past, right? Right???

The biggest change to your and my life over the ChinaFlu will not be the flu itself. It will be the millions of minor changes in lifestyle, routine, procedure, and practice that concern over the ChinaFlu will cause. In other words, our suffering won’t come from being eaten by the bear, our suffering will come from the worrying and defending against the bear.

LDS cannery trip

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Trip to the LDS cannery today. Not that I really needed anything, mind you, but rather to introduce someone to the place. As usual it was a pleasant experience although this time the guy running the place was polite but once he found out I was not one of the flock there was a noticeable-but-not-offensive coolness that presented itself. And…that’s fine. The Mormon church ain’t in business  to gear up slobs like me, they spend that money to protect their own…and that’s as it should be. It’s just that this is the first time I’ve caught a whiff of…disdain?…distaste?…for me when they ask me what ward I am from and I tell them, sorry, I’m not a member. (Which I always say politely, almost apologetically, and never mention that I’m about as unbeliever as you can get…atheist-ish and all that, y’know.)

But, to get #10 cans of foodstuffs at cost I will happily put up with a barely discernible smidgen of condescension. And, as I said, out of a couple dozen trips to that place this is the first time I’ve ever had someone generate a negative vibe about me not being part of their tribe.

Anyway……

I expected it to be busier up there, what with all of us destined to come down with the ChinaFlu, but it was quiet and virtually deserted. I suppose the faithful already have their stockpile and the infidels like me are, mostly, oblivious that the place even exists.

Still, I always like going up there because every single person in that building thinks as I do about the benefits of being prepared and it’s always nice to be around people who don’t think you’re weird.

So, believer or unwashed heathen infidel, if you’re looking to stock up on the basics, your local LDS cannery is pretty much a perfect resource to take advantage of. Yes, you can go there as a non-member….no, you don’t need to go with a member…no, they don’t try to convert you. Really, no reason not to take advantage of the opportunity.

Convenience stores

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Like every smart survivalist, I try to keep a fairly good amount (and selection) of short- to mid-term foods on hand. Mostly stuff that I normally use and therefore can rotate through within a period of time of less than a year or so. Things like salsa, spaghetti sauce, pasta, canned meats, canned vegetables, etc, etc. I was doing an inventory and thought that I needed to round off a few things and beef up the amount of others. Since it was going to be a goodly amount of stuff, I figured I’d really nerd out and price compare my usual local grocery suppliers on their websites. As it turns out, unsurprisingly, Walmart wound up being the most economic supplier for about 85% of the things I was looking for. Okay, fine..now I know where to shop. And as I was on Walmarts doing this, I noticed that I had the option to simply order the stuff up, pay online, and simply roll up to the store the next day and have everything all boxed up and ready to go. Hmm. Okay, let’s try that.

And..it worked out quite well. I simply dumped the email confirmation that Walmart sent into Excel, took thirty seconds to clean it up, and then had a nice record of quantities and price-per-ounce breakdowns for comparison shopping later. And, when I went to pick up the stuff, it really was all of about four minutes to pick it up and stuff it in the back of the vehicle.

Say what you will about Wallyworld, they do take a bunch of the friction out of stocking up.

I’d been a bit remiss in updating the food stash lately…being able to just flop into a chair and add a case of crushed tomatoes, a dozen jars of salsa, a half dozen bottles of Tabasco, etc, into one list, pay for it, and then schedule a pickup the next day….thats some living in future right there, boyo.

 

Costco Powdered Eggs review

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I’ve never heard of anyone in the military who had to eat powdered eggs and had anything positive to say about them. Perhaps the military gets a lower grade of product…or perhaps military food preparation is abysmal.. or all of the above. My experience with powdered eggs has been okay. Theyre not “Ohmigod these are awesome!” but they aren’t “What the hell is this crap?” either. On a few occasions I have fed them to people without telling them what they were and no one said anything. I find them to be acceptable, and certainly a better alternative to no eggs. Anyway….All powdered eggs seem to be extremely distasteful before cooking. You get this orange-colored thing that looks like pancake batter and smells like burnt cheese from a toaster oven. It isnt until you start cooking them that some sort of transformative process begins and they become more appealing. These eggs, branded as “WildRoots” and picked up at CostCo, were exactly like every other powdered egg product I’ve tried. Not bad, not great, but definitely a worthy addition to the food storage. As mentioned a couple posts back, my local CostCo had them on closeout, marked down from $6.97 to $2.97 which is a stupidly good deal.

For those of us who, at the moment, don’t have a backyard full of chickens but want to maintain a semblance of ‘normalcy’ when it comes to breakfast, and have some protein on hand, these would be an excellent choice. Canned bacon, dehydrated eggs, hash browns, biscuit/muffin mix, powdered milk, Tang, canned fruit, pancake mix, honey, and you’ve got a pretty decent breakfast with a shelf life of several years. After a long night of manning the barricades, chasing looters, and guarding the house, a breakfast like that would be rather welcome, I should imagine. In a slightly more realistic vein, these are an excellent choice for hunting cabins and other non-grid locations where store-bought eggs aren’t an option and you’re not around often enough to keep chickens.

They are packaged in a foil-ish paper pouch but I would vacuum seal this stuff up to be extra sure it is protected for long term. If you can’t find these at your local CostCo, here’s the nutritional and company info:

Don’t get annoyed if you can’t find them at your local CostCo. It seems that powdered eggs are powdered eggs are powdered eggs… there doesn’t seem to be much difference between ones I’ve tried. Augason Farms sells #10 cans of powdered eggs and I’d bet they are identical to this stuff. Only major difference is packaging and CostCo’s remarkable discount.

At $2.97, it’s worth buying a box just for the experimental value.