Instant Meals--Thai Peanut Noodles with Chicken and Vegetables and Curry Rice with Chicken and Vegetables

I'm not a huge fan of those freeze-dried meals or MREs for a couple of reasons.  The price tag is pretty hefty just for one person, but for a large family on a single income it becomes a little prohibitive.  And then there are all the additives and preservatives and stuff we'd rather not eat, especially when they upset our stomach.  This isn't to say we don't have some.  We most definitely do, thanks to the nice sponsors of the Survivalblog writing contest and having won the contest a few times.  Otherwise, I don't think we'd have anything like that.  It's just beyond our budget.

However, it's really important to have some instant meals on hand to at least be able to have a good meal when everyone in the family is sick or in the immediate aftermath of a disaster when you're still collecting your wits.  And it's a pretty good idea to have some of these meals in your emergency kit.  Like many people, we keep our emergency kits at the front of the garage so they're ready to load in the truck at a moment's notice.  Unfortunately, for about three months of the year it gets pretty warm out there, and having to frequently rotate out commercially prepared meals becomes just too expensive.

Fortunately, making your own freeze dried meals is totally do-able.  Once you've got all your ingredients it's really quick, and much cheaper, because you aren't paying for all those ridiculously expensive additives and preservatives that you don't want anyway.

My friend Renee shared her inspiration for making some great instant meals for her family to reduce costs of traveling to archery tournaments all over the country.  I spent yesterday afternoon making several of these to try out on my family for dinner to see which they liked best.  There's actually a lot to see over at The Yummy Life, and all of it looks pretty darn good.

Thai Peanut Noodles with Chicken and Vegetables

Place the following in a quart size freezer Ziploc bag:

• 1 cup pasta broken into 2" pieces
• 1/4 cup freeze dried chopped chicken
• 1/4 cup chopped roasted peanuts
• 1/4 cup freeze dried veggies
• 2 tablespoons powdered peanut butter
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chicken bouillon 
• 1/2 teaspoon dried cilantro
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper
• pinch of cayenne

Label and date the bag and add cooking directions.

To cook in the bag, add 1 cup of boiling water.  Put bag in cozy or wrap in towels to conserve heat.  Let cook for nine minutes, turning halfway through to mix ingredients and continue cooking.

Notes:  For the pasta, choose one that cooks on the stove in less than 4 minutes; we used Asian rice noodles.  Angel hair pasta is a good choice; however, it is pretty pokey and may put holes in your freezer bag, causing a leak if you choose to cook in it. Put angel hair in a separate baggie first to help prevent it from poking holes in your cooking bag.

Any freeze dried veggies will do--we went with corn and peas.

Curry Rice with Chicken and Cashews

Place the following in a quart-size freezer Ziploc bag:

• 2/3 cup instant rice
• 1/4 cup freeze-dried chopped chicken
• 1/4 cup chopped roasted cashews
• 1/4 cup freeze dried vegetables
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chicken bouillon
• 1 teaspoon curry
• 1 teaspoon dried onion flakes
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper

Label and date the bag and add cooking directions.

To cook in the bag, add 1 1/2 cups of boiling water.  Put bag in cozy or wrap in towels to conserve heat.  Let cook for nine minutes, turning halfway through to mix ingredients and continue cooking.

Notes: Any freeze dried veggies will do--we went with corn and peas.


I absolutely love these meals, and the family is pretty happy with them, too.  No, I wouldn't eat them every day; I like cooking and baking and the aroma in the house.  You don't get that with an instant meal.  But something else is pretty great about these--they can be customized.  Professor suffers from gastroparesis and other abdominal issues and can't eat a lot of things (which is really, really sad, because he was always my very best eater).  So I can customize his meal by making a smaller portion and omitting the offending nuts and corn.  QOTPE wants her nuts unchopped and packaged separately.  In stressful times, we really need to do what we can to make our people happy, and though never a fan of catering to children's palates, in this case I don't have to chop the nuts, so it saves me time.

Links to related posts:
DIY Instant rice
DIY Chicken bouillon


© 2019, PrepSchoolDaily.blogspot.com  

Magic Mix Entrees--Beef Stroganoff and Cheeseburger Mac 'n' Cheese

A couple of weeks ago, one blog reader asked for more Magic Mix recipes.  I immediately tried out making a banana cream pie and posted that.  It was pretty darn good.  I'm still thinking about it and considering the purchase of more freeze-dried bananas.

As fun as dessert is, though, dinner dishes are probably a bit more important for survival.  So first up for your consideration is a recipe for beef stroganoff.

I adapted the following recipe from one I found at Store This Not That.  The original called for a can of cream of mushroom soup and a can of mushrooms and cooking in a slow cooker.  I modified it to using Magic Mix for the sauce and preparing it on the stove.

Beef Stroganoff
Serves 4-6

1/4 cup dried minced onion, rehydrated in 1/2 cup warm water
1 cup Magic Mix
1 can (4.5 oz) mushrooms, undrained, plus 1/4 cup water (OR 1/4 cup dehydrated mushrooms rehydrated in 1 cup water)
dash onion salt
1-2 drops Kitchen Bouquet, optional
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1 lb cooked beef equivalent (canned, fresh, or dehydrated and rehydrated)
1 cup sour cream
Hot cooked noodles or rice


After the onions have rehydrated, prepare the cream sauce by combining the Magic Mix, liquid from the mushrooms, and water in a saucepan over low heat.  Cook until thickened and then stir in onion salt, Kitchen Bouquet, garlic salt, onions, and beef.  Just before serving, stir in sour cream and heat through.  Spoon over hot noodles or rice.

Now, for our evaluation.

Honestly, I didn't really care for the result.  However, I have to admit that I really like beef stroganoff, and I am particularly fond of my own recipe for it.  I prefer my stroganoff sauce to be primarily with butter, sour cream, and bouillon, and not the starchiness of the Magic Mix.  However, the kids all really enjoyed it.  They didn't like it better than mine, but they all ate the leftovers for the next two days, and that NEVER happens unless they really liked it the first time for dinner.  So, the recipe is a keeper for me, even though it's not my first choice for stroganoff if I have options.  (I would really like to try this recipe with dehydrated sour cream to see if it can truly be all from food storage, but I didn't want to sacrifice opening a can of dehydrated sour cream.  Sorry.)

Cheeseburger Mac 'n' Cheese is another recipe from Store This Not That which I adapted to use entirely food storage ingredients.  The original recipe called for a bag of frozen mixed vegetables in addition to everything else.  Everyone agreed that the veggies would be better eaten alone, and on top of that, none of us are planning on having bags of frozen veggies available post-collapse, though we do have dehydrated options as well as some Veg-All.

Cheeseburger Mac 'n' Cheese
Serves 6
2 cups uncooked elbow macaroni
1 lb ground beef
1/4 cup dried onion, rehydrated in 1/2 cup warm water
3/4 cup Magic Mix
1 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup ketchup
2 1/2 teaspoons prepared mustard

Cook the macaroni in boiling water until tender and then drain.  While the noodles cook, brown the hamburger and onions in a skillet.  Combine the Magic Mix and water in the macaroni pot over medium-low heat, stirring frequently until thickened.  Stir in cheese, salt, ketchup, and mustard.  Add in the cooked hamburger and noodles and heat through. 

I have to admit, I was very skeptical about trying this recipe.  I'm not a fan of cheeseburgers, and the idea of making cheeseburger macaroni just didn't sound appetizing.  But I thought we should give it a try.

First off, it does indeed taste like a cheeseburger.  It cooked up pretty quickly, just like store-bought Hamburger Helper, which makes it nice for a busy day.  Every ingredient is a food storage item for us.  And with the exception of the Queen of the Picky Eaters, who objects vehemently to onions, everyone in the family liked it.  Even QOTPE admitted that she liked it, once she picked out the onions.

Links to related posts on Magic Mix:
Magic Mix
Cream Soups and Recipe Replacements
Magic Mix Gravy 
Banana Cream Pie

© 2019, PrepSchoolDaily.blogspot.com    

28 august 2021

Basic Food Storage--Powdered Milk--Magic Mix

Magic Mix is probably the best thing that ever happened to powdered milk.  Or perhaps I should say, to people who have to use powdered milk and their families.  It's used by everyone everywhere in the food storage world. In a nutshell, Magic Mix is simply dry milk, butter, and flour combined in a large batch and stored in the refrigerator until needed.  Mixed with water and cooked, it makes a simple white sauce, the basis for so many other sauces in cooking.

Here we have the recipe for the basic mix. 

Magic Mix

2 1/3 cups dry milk
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup flour

Combine all in a large bowl with a pastry blender or wire whisk.  Mix until crumbly, like cornmeal.  Store in the refrigerator.

And here is the White Sauce.  I've never even used it alone.  But I figure it's there for a reason.

White Sauce
Yields:  8 oz

2/3 cup Magic Mix
1 cup water

In a saucepan combine Magic Mix and water.  Stir rapidly over medium heat until it starts to bubble.


The real magic starts when you begin adding in other ingredients.

Vegetable Cheese Sauce

1 1/2 cups water
3/4 cup Magic Mix
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Combine water and Magic Mix in a pot over medium high heat.  Stir constantly with a whisk until it bubbles and thickens.  Stir in shredded cheese until melted in sauce.  Serve warm over vegetables.  (I personally like this best over veggies and spiral pasta.  It looks like you put a lot of effort into making a tasty side dish, when actually, you didn't.)


This pudding is seriously good.  I'm thinking I'm going to have to make it for dessert tonight.

Chocolate Pudding
Serves:  4

1/2 cup sugar
1 cup Magic Mix
3 tablespoons cocoa
2 cups water
1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine Magic Mix, sugar, and cocoa in saucepan and mix well.  Add water, stir over medium heat until pudding bubbles.  Add vanilla and beat.  Cover and cool.

The recipes above are just starting to  scratch the surface of possibilities for using Magic Mix in your daily cooking.  Coming soon will be a post on how to use Magic Mix to make your own condensed cream soups, you know, like cream of chicken, cream of mushroom, cream of celery, etc.

Links to related posts:
Cream Soups and Recipe Replacements
Magic Mix Gravy 
Banana Cream Pie
Beef Stroganoff and Cheeseburger Mac
Nutritional Analysis of Dry Milks
Emergency Baby Formula 

© 2019, PrepSchoolDaily.blogspot.com 
24 may 2020