This Month's Food Storage Purchase

I'm late reporting on my food storage purchase for this month.  It's a tight month financially, so my purchase was smaller than normal.  I got a #10 can of Provident Pantry (R) Freeze Dried Banana Slices, a #10 can of Mountain House (R) Freeze Dried Spaghetti with Meat Sauce, and a #10 can of Scrambled Egg Mix.

I've gone though 1 can of the Scrambled Egg Mix already, so I know I'll eat this.  I know I like the scrambled eggs.  But one of these days I'm going to have to try making french bread with it.  And it should also be good for dipping sliced green tomatoes into before dredging them in the seasoned flour I use when I make fried green tomatoes.  I've been eating lots of those lately.

The freeze-dried bananas are very good.  They have a nice, crispy crunch.  And they taste just like bananas (who would have thought?).  I'm sure I could re-hydrate them and make an excellent banana cream pie.  And they would be good to take on a bike ride--they wouldn't squish like fresh bananas.  Personally, I like the freeze-dried peaches better, but that's because I like peaches better.  Firenzi also gives his stamp of approval.

I've eaten a lot of Mountain House Freeze Dried Spaghetti with Meat Sauce the last three winters when the power's been out for days.  OK, it isn't as good as fresh-made spaghetti.  But it's still very good.  And it's easier to fix. I've always had it in the 2-person pouch before, so it's nice to get it in the #10 can so I can re-hydrate just as much as I want**.

I scooped some of the spaghetti into quart-size freezer bags and wrote directions on the bag for re-hydrating.  I'll be able to re-hydrate them just like a freezer-bag meal:  dump in the almost-boiling water, put in a cozy for 10 minutes, and supper's ready!  These are going into my BOB.  I'll get some MREs for my BOB, too.  It's nice to have a variety of things.  And I'll put a couple bags of spaghetti in my desk at work for those days when I forget to bring a lunch (it happens occasionally).  A bag of freeze-dried spaghetti will be cheaper than going to Subway for a sandwich.  And I won't be hungry a half hour later.  Hmmm, I wonder whether I could make some homemade texas toast and dehydrate it.  It would be good with the spaghetti.

Oh, I almost forgot.  The last thing I got this month is a metallized liner, like for using in food-storage buckets.  You can seal these with an iron (you know...for ironing clothes, which almost no one does any more).  I thought I could cut it up and make individual packets of seasonings for freezer-bag meals.  You can put the seasonings into a zip-lock snack bag, but that seems like overkill for, say, a tablespoon of Mrs. Dash and a teaspoon of Johnny's Seasoning Salt.  If I make packets out of the metallized liners, I can then seal them with my iron.  It should work.

**The web page says that after you open the #10 can of the Mountain House freeze-dried meals, you should eat it within a couple weeks.  I could never understand that.  Most freeze-dried foods last longer than that if you seal them back up again.  It prevented me from bying MH freeze-dried foods in a can, because I knew I wouldn't be able to eat the whole can in a couple weeks.  So I e-mailed Emergency Essentials and asked them why the MH food would last only a couple weeks.  They said that estimate was based on the assumption that someone was taking the food hiking, so it would be in a backpack in the blazing sun and subject to moisture.  They said it should last as long as any other freeze-dried food if stored properly in a cool dark place.  So that's really good to know.