Recipes that require only a few available ingredients.

[the simple life]

Thanks guys, Poppycat and Patandchickens, I guess what I was thinking of was gathering some all purpose ingredients to always have on hand that can make a meal in a pinch. I am thinking maybe beans,rice stuff like that, that I can keep on hand and doesn't go bad for a long time.

What I had heard about the food supply thing was from a thread on BYC.
I didn't mean to alarm anyone, sorry.
What the posted said was that she went shopping for groceries and there wasn't a whole lot stocked and no selection.
She asked the manager what the deal was and he told her that they are being limited on how much they can order and stock at a time.
I will try to find the thread and post it.

 

[Homesteadmom]

When dh & I were on disability after our accident we only got $85/mo in foodstamps & a income of $754/mo. So I had to be ingenius for meals the week befroe the money & stamps came in. I found myself putting that one spoonful of vegies left in a container in the freezer all mo long, along with any little bit of meat we had left over too(different container) & I would make a soup with ramen noodles out of it. Served with cackers & a sliced up fruit of some kind(canned sometimes) it made for a good filling meal. Ds#1 was 8/9 at the time & he thought it was a great meal. Or I added a can of mixed vegies if we had none left in the freezer. I started making this through out the whole month to help the rest of the food strech as we went shopping once a mo for everything but milk & fresh produce(I could not garden due to my injuries at the time). I also learned to make refried beans at that time as we got a lot of beans from the commodities box each mo. That is where I got the mixed vegies & canned fruit too. But it all helped strech the food & budget out. And we never went hungry.

 

[annmarie]

Here's my favorite, really cheap, really easy, healthy winter comfort food, and it's pretty much guaranteed that I have all the ingredients in my kitchen at all times. (It supposedly serves 4-6, but if we don't have anything else with it, my husband and I can polish it off between the 2 of us, so you may want to double it if you're feeding a family.) And by the way, this is so much tastier than it sounds!

Brown Rice and Lentil Casserole

3 cups broth (I just do bouillon cubes and water.)
3/4 cup lentils
1/2 cup brown rice
3/4 cup chopped onion
1 teaspoon italian seasoning
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 cup grated cheese (I use cheddar and its delicious!)

1.Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
2.Mix all ingredients except the cheese in a baking dish (I've used a few different sizes, usually 11 x 7).
3.Cover with foil and bake for 1 hour 10 minutes.
4.Then remove the foil, add the cheese, and bake for an additional 20 minutes.

 

[enjoy the ride]

My favorite "you can do something with almost anything food" is an omelette. Almost anything can be used as filling- My favorite is bacon, green onions, most any cheese and cream cheese. But you can use almost any left over anything to make a good omelette.
If you have onions and potatoes, you can make something too.
My suggestion re: limited foods and goood taste is grow your own herbs- I over winter some in the house too.

 

[patandchickens]

I guess what I was thinking of was gathering some all purpose ingredients to always have on hand that can make a meal in a pinch. I am thinking maybe beans,rice stuff like that, that I can keep on hand and doesn't go bad for a long time.

So, like, 'cooking with basic pantry supplies' type thing?

I would say you'd want your pantry to have: cooking oil with longest possible expiration date; dried beans and lentils (don't omit the lentils, they cook much faster than beans and that can be important if you ever find yourself cooking over a campfire or bbq or something); unbleached white flour (or whole wheat but only if that's already the only kind you use); baking soda; baking powder; packaged yeast with longest possible expiration date; whatever few spices you use most, including granulated garlic; sugar; salt; canned tuna or salmon with longest possible expiration date; dried pasta and/or rice.

Other useful things, depending on your style of cooking, would include soy sauce, cornmeal, couscous and/or bulgur (great if limited to fire or bbq as in a power outage), canned veggies, vinegar, hot pepper sauce or flakes; etc.

If I had to pick only 5 things (but expected to be able to grow/scrounge veggies and perhaps some meat and eggs), it would be cooking oil, dried lentils/beans in quantity, salt, baking powder (or yeast, I can't decide), and flour. (If I got to add two more things, it would be sugar and a hot pepper product).

With just those 5 items plus what you scrounge, you can make bread type products including loaves, rolls, dumplings, flatbreads, pitas, tortillas; stews (brown meat and/or onions in oil, then add water and more veggies and some salt and spices and simmer til done); omelets and frittatas (recipes obvious); lentil dishes (brown brownable things in oil, then add water and spices and lentils, and salt when done); any basic stir-fry type things; well-seasoned-and-stuffed roasts; and really quite a lot else, depending on the exact nature of your fresh ingredients.

Pat

 

[the simple life]

Thank you for the recipe Annemaries, sounds great.

I know what you are talking about Homesteadmom, been there, with scrounging what you could out of the pantry to put together some good meals.


Patandchickens, that is exactly the kind of info I was looking for.
My concern has been alot of things kind of rolled into one in relation to feeding the family in the event of rationing(lets hope it doesn't ever get to that) but also power outages and the like and I want to be prepared for everything.
I figure if I have the right staples on hand and I can scrounge up produce, if ( the garden is done for the year)
I would be able to make enough meals to at least survive.
The kids may never want to see a grain of rice or a bean for the rest of their lives, but they will at least survive.
I was actually looking at the camping supplies in Walmart today in case of a power outage and I may have to cook over the barbecue pit.
Which is always fun for the kids to do to say make smores or roast a weenie on a stick, but won't be so fun if I have to cook all of our meals that way and aren't prepared.
I do have some cast iron pans that I normally cook on anyway but am thinking like beanpots and things like that would be good to have on hand.
I have a generator, but it would be so expensive to run with the price of gas that I would only be able to put in on intermittantly to maybe keep the frig/freezer cold, just put it on long enough every so often to keep things from melting.
We figured out that the cost of gas right now to run the generator for say half the day or less even`12 hours would be $20.00 per day so $140.00 a week.
Ours takes 6 gallons of gas and runs fo 11 hours on that.
So its not something I would rely on in an exteneded emergency.

I appreciate the advice, I just so happend to buy some vegetable oil today to put away, but will stock up on the others you suggested.

 

[hoosier]

Annemarie, I just copied your recipe into my new collection. I can't wait to try it and it uses ingredients that I almost always have on hand. Thanks.

 

[poppycat]

I would consider a dutch oven if you are thinking of a campfire type situation. You can cook quite a few things in it, like stews and casseroles and also cornbread and biscuits. In a pinch you can use the lid like a griddle. For our camping gear I just have a dutch oven and a smallish kettle (stainless steel.)

I like Pat's list of essentials. Those might be just the things to stock.

 

[the simple life]

dutch oven, will definitely look into that. I agree she had a good list of items.
I saw a campfire stove at walmart for $10.00 today but couldn't decide if I needed it or not.

By the way, if anyone likes to use oil lamps in power outages or for any other reason.
Walmart has these glass hurricane style oil lamps that are very pretty and only cost $5.94.
They hold a decent amount of lamp oil and have a wide flat wick.
I would say they are about 10 inches tall.
They carry them in the candle section.
I bought a couple of them last month, they are good in case of emergency but could also be used for nights when you really just want to turn off all the electricity that you can but still have some lighting.
Or if you just want to add some ambience I guess.
I tried mine out and really liked them, so I bought another one today.

 

[mgibbzzz]

If you have to campfire cook you need a dutch oven, a skillet or grildle, and foil. We camp a lot and many meals are prepared and wrapped in foil. Place them in or on the coals and turn occasionally. Ds is 8 and he loves it, especially dessert. I try to keep certain things in the pantry just in case the power goes out or there is an emergency.