Languille - Meals in a jar : quick and easy, just-add-water, homemade recipes

Julie Languille Ulysses PressTo Larry, my sweet husband, and Alex, Kaylah, and soon-to-be Matt, thank you for letting me follow my heart, and your help and patience along the way. Copyright text 2013 by Julie Languille. Copyright illustrations 2013 by Melanie Mikecz. Copyright concept and design 2013 by Ulysses Press and its licensors. All Rights Reserved. Any unauthorized duplication in whole or in part or dissemination of this edition by any means (including but not limited to photocopying, electronic bulletin boards, and the Internet) will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Published by: Ulysses Press P.O. Box 3440 Berkeley, CA 94703 www.ulyssespress.com ISBN: 978-1-61243-203-8 Library of Congress Catalog Number 2013930886 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Acquisitions Editor: Kelly Reed Managing Editor: Claire Chun Editor: Lauren Harrison Proofreader: Elyce Berrigan-Dunlop Editorial Associate: Lindsay Tamura Design and layout: what!design @ whatweb.com Illustrations: Melanie Mikecz Cover photographs: Kim Nelson Distributed by Publishers Group West IMPORTANT NOTE TO READERS: Trademarks of businesses and food brands mentioned in this book are used for informational purposes only. No sponsorship or endorsement by, or affiliation with, the trademark owners is claimed or suggested by the author or publisher.

I love walking into a full pantry, lined with neatly arranged shelves of food in jars and boxes all stacked in rows. Better than a candy store to me, the shelves of baking supplies, canned goods, and my own home-canned meats and vegetables all please me greatly, but what I like best are my own ready-made meals. I have bags, jars, and boxes of shelf-stable meals, which I consider to be my own treasure trove and insurance against hardship or hunger.

From the convenience of weeknight hustle to the moderate or dramatic circumstances of disaster, my store of shelf-stable meals means I am ready to feed my family well quickly and easily, with a minimum of fuss or effort and no trip to the grocery store for extra ingredients. I have designed a whole variety of complete meal kits, packaged sets of everything you need to make a meal for your familyjust add water. They can be packaged in Mason jars, in bags with handles to easily grab and go, or sealed into plastic bags. I have a variety of each, and this book will show you how to put together a food kit for seven days of food for your whole family, stored in complete meal kits in plastic tubs or lined up neatly in your pantry.

A ready-made meal is a jar or bag with everything you need to create a complete meal with no additional ingredients except water. Ready-made meals can be breakfasts, lunches, dinners, snacks, breads, and desserts.

There are options for how you store them, and you can choose what works best for your family and unique situation. Ready-made meals come in three varieties: pressure-canned complete meals, dry meals, and meals that are a combination of the two and are packaged together.

Dry meals are those composed of dehydrated foods that just need rehydrating and heating. These meals can be stored in Mylar bags, vacuum bags, or Mason jars and last longer if vacuum-packed and stored with an oxygen absorber. Dry meals can last for decades when stored in a cool, dry, dark location. Ingredients for dry meals include pasta, rice, beans, spices, freeze-dried meats, and other dry dehydrated or powdered ingredients.

Dry ready-made meals include soups and bean dishes.

Pressure-canned meals are those that contain any meats, liquids, or anything other than completely dry ingredients. They may be pressure canned in pint- or quart-size canning jars, or in retort pouches, which are special metalized plastic bags designed to withstand the heat and pressure of pressure canning and have been approved by the FDA as safe for heat processing food. Some brands of tuna now sell products that have been canned in retort packages, so you can see samples of retort packaging on the shelf at your local grocery store. Combined ready-made meals include both canned and dry components that are packaged together to easily grab and go. Examples of combined meals are pasta and meat sauce, where the sauce is made and canned together with the meat, and the pasta is measured out and packaged with it to make a complete meal.

Other examples include chicken canned with vegetables, which could be packaged with noodles to make chicken soup, packaged with flour and pie crust makings to be a chicken pot pie kit, or many other recipes such as a chicken-noodle bake, chicken and rice, or chicken and biscuits.

It would be so easy to just buy pre-fab freeze-dried entrees and MREs for my family, but commercially prepared, pre-packaged food simply doesnt taste as good as what we can make with wholesome ingredients. I know we can make better-tasting food that our families actually want to eat that is satisfying, nourishing, and tasty. Commercially prepared foods often contain ingredients that were grown with pesticides and chemicals and packaged with preservatives, artificial flavoring, and artificial colorings. Ready-made meals can be made with organic ingredients and locally grown meats and produce. At the end of another hectic workday, I gaze into my pantry and ponder the daily question of what to make for dinner. At the end of another hectic workday, I gaze into my pantry and ponder the daily question of what to make for dinner.

I have a few types of frozen meat (aka, protein icebergs) in the freezer I could thaw, mix with other things, and make into some form of meal, or I could mix up a pasta or casserole from the ingredients on the shelf, but you know what really beckons me? Its the easy-to-cook, all-ready-to-go, shelf-stable meals. Nothing beats the convenience of having ready-made meals to heat up or do some minor assembly for and knowing I have a sure-fire winner that my family will love, and no further effort or thinking is required from me. Score!

Filling my pantry with ready-made meals is, to me, the ultimate form of preparedness for my family. Whether faced with short-term unemployment, the occasional power outage during a storm, or a variety of other disasters, or even just a trip to the forest or lake for an impromptu camping trip, having food on the shelves that I can grab, prepare with a minimum of fuss, and nourish and hearten my family means peace of mind for me. I am also of the mind-set that we should also be prepared for longer-term challenges, for disruptions in the power grid, or the end of the world as we know it. Next page