Survivalize Your Favorite Recipes

I hit the jackpot today when I discovered 50 Easy Soups over on foodnetwork.com.  With winter on its’ way, there’s nothing more satisfying in cold weather than a nice big bowl of soup, but what if you don’t have access to a grocery store and have to rely on your food storage?  You might be surprised at how easy it is to “survivalize” many recipes using only what you have in your storage pantry.  Here are two examples from 50 Easy Soups.

Basic Chicken Soup Chop 1 onion, 1 celery stalk, 2 carrots, and 1 tablespoon thyme; saute in butter until tender.  Season with salt and pepper.  Add 6 cups chicken broth; simmer 20 minutes.  Add 2 cups shredded cooked chicken, 1/3 cup mixed chopped dill and parsley and some lemon juice.

SURVIVALIZED VERSION:  Use dehydrated, freeze dried or frozen onion, celery, carrots and thyme.  If using dehydrated veggies, rehydrate in a small amount of warm water.  Saute in oil if butter is unavailable; season with salt and pepper.  Add canned chicken broth and use either frozen, canned or freeze dried chicken.  Finally, add dried dill and parsley and bottled lemon juice or lemon powder.

I'm ready for winter!

This basic soup can be ever so slightly adjusted to become Chicken & Rice Soup, Italian Wedding Soup and even Asian Chicken Soup.  Yumm!  Here’s another soup recipe that has been survivalized.

Tomato Alphabet Soup Boil 3 cups chicken broth, 2 cups tomato juice, and a pinch of dried oregano.  Add 1/2 cup alphabet pasta, and season with salt and pepper.  Cook until tender.  Stir in grated parmesan.

SURVIVALIZED VERSION:  Use canned chicken broth and tomato juice.  Substitute tomato sauce thinned with a bit of water if tomato juice isn’t in your pantry.   Parmesan cheese can easily be frozen or you can substitute the nuclear-blast-proof stuff in the green can.  Voila!

I think you’ll be surprised at how easily many of your favorite recipes can be survivalized.  These recipes should become part of your SurvivalMom Binder so they’ll be easy to locate.  Be sure to make a list of ingredients you need to stock up on, and every now and then substitute the survivalized version just to see if your family notices.  I’ll bet they don’t!

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