Apr132012
Action Step: Collect Casseroles!
Print 
PDF
image by SweetOnVeg
One of the easiest and survival-friendly of all recipes is the classic casserole. Why? It’s a one-dish meal that usually combines everything you would want in a well-rounded meal: veggies, grains, protein, and, often, a dairy product or two. In tough times, it would be even tougher to beat a hot and hearty casserole after a stressful day of fighting zombies or clearing out the back 40.
This week’s Action Step may take some work: collect at least 10 casserole recipes that meet these criteria:
- your family will eat them
- every ingredient can be stored long-term
- preparation is quick and easy
This collection of recipes should then be printed out and stored in either your Survival Mom binder or another collection of recipes that can be easily accessed. It’s very important that these recipes are easy to make because in a worst case scenario, it’s possible that fuel and/or energy may be hard to come by or very expensive.
If you are either growing or raising food, that’s all well and good, but as you know, all it takes is a freeze, a flood, a pack of really determined snails or deer, and an entire crop can be wiped out. That’s why having stored ingredients is so important, even if some of them are used as a back-up if the chickens go on a laying strike or a late freeze kills off all your veggies.
To get you started, check out these recipes that I found online.
- Sausage Casserole – Everything can be either home dehydrated (potatoes and onions) or purchased (sausage, either freeze-dried or TVP). Butter can either be canned or you can combine butter powder with a small amount of water.
- Mexican Casserole – Only the corn tortillas can’t be stored without being refrigerated, and you can learn how to make them from scratch. The beef can either be home or commercially canned or you can use freeze-dried ground beef.
- Beef and Macaroni Bake – Again, everything can be stored on the shelf, long-term, in one form or another.
- Chicken Asparagus Casserole – Honeyville carries freeze-dried asparagus. Rehydrate it, pat dry, and continue with the recipe!
Here’s an extra tip. If you need to stretch your casserole dish to serve more people or you want to make it more filling, add 1/2 or more or rice, cooked wheat berries, or even small pasta, such as macaroni.
Post your food storage-friendly casserole recipes here or provide a link to what you find online. Add a loaf of bread and maybe some salad greens, and you’ve got a filling, comforting and nutritious meal. Best of all, you can do all the planning and buying now and be ready to serve it years down the road!
© 2012, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.
(5) Readers Comments
Leave a Reply
A Review of the Diva Cup: Not for the faint of heart. (Men, avert your eyes.)
I did the same thing! LOL
A Review of the Diva Cup: Not for the faint of heart. (Men, avert your eyes.)
Here, Here! Made the switch a few months ago and never looking back.
Advice for new Survival Moms from those who have been around a while
RE: TP storing enough toilet paper for a short term emergency makes s
Half Acre Heaven
I make a “quick and dirty” dirty rice with brown rice, onion soup mix, black bean soup mix, and sausage. The brown rice could easily be subbed out for instant rice, and the sausage could be replaced with tvp or freeze dried. My family loves it and since I cook my brown rice in large batches and freeze in recipe ready portions it only takes a few minutes of prep. If you’d like you can read a little more about it at http://halfacreheaven.com/spring/ It’s really just mentioned in a post about busy spring life, but there are some basic cooking instructions.
SingleMom
I began depending on casseroles once I had a family to go along with the day job. Whether you’re dealing with diapers or math homework, the last thing you want to do after work is cook an elaborate meal and then spend an hour cleaning up the kitchen.
Use your imagination. Experiment with family favorites (substitute chicken in your “tuna” casserole or add zucchini to your spaghetti). Ignore the people who say that you can’t make a decent meal using powdered or dried products.
All it takes is pasta, rice, or potatoes. Add any meat and any vegetable. Choose your sauce: tomato, cheese, or milk-based. Add herbs and spices. If you’re not experienced in the kitchen, you can buy pre-made mixtures of Italian seasoning, taco flavoring, and Chinese. Bake it in the oven (fix it and forget about it) or cook it on the stove (stir frequently). You now have a hot, filling dinner that only dirtied one pan.
Robbin
We use a lot of minute rice because I get the BIG box at Sams Club and we have celiac disease to deal with. I take a casserole dish and spray with cooking spray. Mix 2 cups of quick rice, 2 cups of milk, half cup water, 2 chicken bullion cubes, a spoonful of butter and broccoli (about 2 handfuls if using frozen or fresh – you could use dehydrated too) and a half a cup of shredded cheese. Pour in casserole dish, bake at 350 for about 30mins covered. Then pull it out, stir and sprinkle with another half cup of cheese. Bake at 400 for about 10 – 15 mins to brown and serve. Yum! Would be good if you added chicken into it. You could use dehydrated cheese powder and dehydrated chicken in place of fresh.
Dani Schaeffer
We now spend Sunday’s pre-cooking lots of dishes for the week so that we can just come home from work and school, warm them up for 30 minutes or so, and dinner is done!
I’m not sure if quiche could be considered a casserole, but it’s one of my favorite dishes, and it’s easy peasy to make. I’ll usually make two of them on Sunday, and then another one sometime during the week.
KoryN
That’s a good idea for a survival food. Like she said, easy to make and the ingredient are both readily available and easy to store. This is making me hungry.