Using Your Food Storage: Black Bean Burgers

When a Facebook friend of mine raved about the easy bean burgers she had made for dinner this week, I knew I had to get the recipe. It's kind of strange since I am such a lover of red meat, but I really like bean burgers. I don't make them very often because all my recipes are rather time consuming. My friend's version, however, is quick, easy, and just so happens to use a food storage staple, vital wheat gluten.

Vital wheat gluten is the most important ingredient you can add to 100% whole wheat bread to help it turn into a fluffy, delicate loaf instead of a dense brick. It can also be used to make faux meat ("wheat meat", a.k.a. seitan), though I've never done that before. Vital wheat gluten  has a shelf life of 7-10 years, making it a good candidate for your long term food storage.

I made this recipe on a weeknight and it was indeed as quick and easy as my friend claimed. There was a delicious contrast between the crispy exterior and creamy inside of the bean burger. A burger that is healthy, delicious, and uses items I always keep in my food storage? I'm sold!

Bean burger and sweet potato fries. Yum!

Black Bean Burgers (Recipe adapted from Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook)

1-15 oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed (OR about 1-2/3 c. cooked black beans [2/3 c. dry])
1 t. chili powder
1/2 t. cumin
Salt to taste
1/4 c. water
1 T. tomato paste (OR tomato powder reconstituted according to package directions)
1/4 c. finely chopped cilantro (OR substitute another herb to your taste)
2 cloves of garlic, minced (OR 1/4-1/2 t. garlic powder)
1/2 small onion, grated (OR 1-2 T. dried onion, rehydrated and then finely chopped)
1/2 c. vital wheat gluten
1/2 c. dry bread crumbs
Olive Oil
Buns

Mash the beans with a fork or potato masher in a mixing bowl. It's OK to have a few chunky bits. Add the chili powder, cumin, salt, water, tomato paste, cilantro, garlic, and onion and mix.

Add the gluten and bread crumbs, kneading with your hands until everything is well-mixed. Divide the mixture into six pieces and form into 1/2" thick patties.

Preheat a skillet over medium heat. Add enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan. Cook the patties in batches (don't crowd them in the skillet) until brown, about 3-5 minutes. Flip the patties and cook the other side. Serve on buns. I like mine with mayonnaise and jalapeno mustard. :)

Using Your Food Storage: Quick Red Bean Stew



Stew simmering away

 Hubby Dear had a very long, hard day at work yesterday. His job is stressful on the best of days, but he got in a heated situation with a difficult colleague and it ruined his day. (Editorial comment time: I don't understand why some women want to be treated as equals in the workplace but demand special treatment and privileges because they are a woman. Sometimes you just have to suck it up, buttercup, and do the job you were hired to do. But what do I know? I'm "only" a stay-at-home mom...) When he came home depressed and discouraged, I knew just how to cheer him up. How about a bowl of warm, savory stew seasoned with the essence of summer?

My Quick Red Bean Stew uses food storage-friendly ingredients and gets its delicious flavor from the addition of a generous dollop of basil pesto. I make and freeze pesto from my garden every summer. I cannot describe to you how wonderful it is to have the goodness of fragant basil captured for use in the dead of winter! I freeze my pesto in ice cube trays; one batch of pesto fills 5 cubes. I store the frozen cubes together in a ziplock bag and simply pull out what I need for a given recipe. I use two cubes for this recipe.



My kind of frozen assets



Unfortunately, it appears that it is not safe to can your own pesto. Bummer! I'd love to be able to make my pesto shelf-stable. The stuff you can buy at the store is OK, I guess, but it has a bunch of fillers added to it and does not taste remotely as good as homemade.

I think the stew helped to get Hubby Dear out of his funk. The chocolate ice cream he chased it down with might also have had something to do with it, but I'd like to think it was mostly the stew!

Enjoy!

Quick Red Bean Stew, based on a recipe published in Cooking Light magazine

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 1/2 cups sliced mushrooms OR about 1 1/2 c. dehydrated mushrooms, rehydrated according to package directions*
1 cup diced carrot OR about 1/3 c. dehydrated carrot dices, rehydrated according to package directions*
1 1/2 cups water
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 (15-ounce) can kidney beans, rinsed and drained OR about 2/3 c. dry kidney beans, cooked
1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
1 (14-ounce) can beef broth OR beef bouillon prepared to equal 2 cups broth, according to package directions
1 cup uncooked elbow macaroni
2 tablespoons pesto (homemade, homemade frozen, or commercially canned)
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (fresh or the sawdust variety in the green can that lasts forever)

Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms and carrot; sauté 4 minutes. Adjust sauteing time as necessary if you're using rehydrated products (you don't want your veggies super-crunchy or mushy). Stir in water and the next 4 ingredients. Bring to a boil. Stir in pasta; cook for 10 minutes or until pasta is done. Stir in pesto; if you are using frozen pesto, stir it around a little in the stew and give it some time to thaw before serving. Sprinkle each serving with cheese. Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 1 1/2 cups stew and 1 tablespoon cheese)

*Here's a helpful reference when converting your recipes to use dehydrated vegetables: https://www.usaemergencysupply.com/information_center/all_about_dehydrated_vegetables.htm

Month Seven in Review and Month Eight Preps

Month Seven:

This month of my Prepping Plan featured a few bumps, namely on the grain mill front.

I bought a lot of food storage-related items this month. I have another 100 lbs of beans, 90 lb of wheat, and lots of odds and ends like drink mix. My food storage buckets seem to have multiplied all of a sudden. I wasn't aware that I had this many.

Buckets galore but we need so many more

I also bought a couple of packs of Can Organizers, which made neat work of one of my cabinets. I learned how to can meat and found out it wasn't so scary after all. I also made a first aid kit out of an Altoids tin for my purse.

Tall, dark, and handsome

Month Eight Preps:

I feel a lot of pressure to complete my food storage ASAP because the specter of high inflation looms ever larger, so next month will also be focused on that area. If I can get rid of some of the junk in my storage room, I plan on buying a nifty Shelf Reliance shelving system. It should really help maintain FIFO (first in, first out) when it comes to my canned goods. I also plan on buying a few more items to fill my shiny new shelves.

The weird thing about these Shelf Reliance organizers is that they don't come with a shelf across the top. That's too much space to waste so I'm going to figure out what kind of wood I need to buy and get Hubby Dear to cut a piece to serve as a shelf.

I also plan on getting a P-Touch labeler so that I can create neatly printed labels for all my storage containers. I've always wanted one of those, so I'm pretty excited about that purchase. That's it for Month Eight.

Do you have any preps planned for next month?

Coming Soon: 2010 in Review and Goals for 2011

Using Your Food Storage: Pasta with Beans

Served over buttered noodles and garnished with Parmesan

I've been making this meal since Hubby Dear and I were newlyweds. This family favorite is a great meal to add to your food storage plan. It is quick, easy, and, most importantly, delicious. Hubby Dear loves this one even though it is vegetarian.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.
 
 
 
 
 




Pasta with Beans, originally published in Southern Living magazine
 
1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
1 onion, chopped (or use dried)
1 carrot, diced (or use dried)
2 garlic cloves, minced (or use dried)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley (ditto)
2 teaspoons chopped fresh or 1/4 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 teaspoons sugar (optional)
1 (16-ounce) can Cannellini or Great Northern beans, rinsed and drained
8 ounces elbow macaroni, cooked
2 tablespoons butter or margarine (I keep butter in my freezer. You can also use butter powder, reconstituted, or more olive oil.)
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

Drain tomatoes, reserving 1/4 cup liquid.

Saute onion and next 5 ingredients in hot oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until onion is tender. Add tomatoes, reserved liquid, salt, pepper, and, if desired, sugar. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes.

Stir in beans; cover and simmer 10 minutes.

Toss cooked macaroni with butter; top with bean mixture, and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.


NOTE: I extend this recipe for my family of six by adding the entire contents of the can of tomatoes, adding more carrots, and cooking an entire pound of macaroni. Adjust seasoning as necessary.

Using Your Food Storage: Refried Beans Without the Refry

Got beans?

You should if you know what's good for ya! They are cheap, healthy, filling, tasty and store for a looong time. Go beans! (Said in my best "Hillshire Farms" commercial imitation)

The cheapest, most efficient, and longest lasting way to store beans is dry packed  in either a #10 can or in a mylar bag/bucket combo. If you're anything like me, though, you find it far easier to pop open a can of beans than use your dry ones. Well, fret no longer!

The following recipe has been floating around on one of the forums I frequent and has garnered rave reviews. It is originally from All Recipes and is one of the easiest, yummiest ways to use up those dry beans you should be storing. A big plus in my book is that it uses a crockpot, one of my all-time favorite methods of cooking.

I included some helpful comments from Bethany on the bottom. (Waving hi to Bethany!) Check out Bethany's blog while you're at it. She has lots of great recipes there.

Refried Beans without the Refry

1 onion, peeled and halved
3 c. dried pinto beans
1/2 fresh jalapeno, seeded and chopped
2 T. minced garlic
5 t. salt
1 3/4 t. pepper
1/8 t. cumin
9 c. water

Combine all ingredients in crockpot; stir. Cook on high for 8 hours. Strain, reserving liquid. Remove onion halves. Mash beans, adding reserved liquid to desired consistency.

Bethany's Notes: "Use this recipe as a starting point and tweak to your liking. It freezes well. I always double it, but make sure your crockpot is big enough first. There are several options with this dish. Beans - all pinto, half pinto & half black. Jalapenos - none, one, half diced & half intact, all diced. Water - all water, half water & half chicken or veggie broth (use less salt if you add broth!!). Onion - all diced, half diced & half intact. Cumin - as directed or way more. I don't measure the water either. Instead I just make sure the beans are submerged in liquid, adding more water if/when necessary. I also freeze the extra liquid and use it when making rice. If you choose to use it in rice, then add a little more water to your rice than normal because the bean liquid is partly solid."

Using Your Food Storage: 15 Bean Soup

Fall has arrived in our part of the country and the cool, crisp weather makes me crave one thing - a comforting soup. Here's a hearty soup recipe you can make entirely from food storage. It's even better with some smoked sausage added in, but you can certainly leave it out.

According to this food storage calculator, you should store 5 lb of dry soup mix per adult per year and 1 lb per child (under age 7). I'm storing a lot of 15 Bean Soup Mix.

This soup is delicious and even my pickiest child has been known to eat it occasionally, depending on the phase of the moon. I usually leave the seasoning packet out because it contains unpronounceable ingredients, but you might consider using it if you do not add meat to your soup.


15 Bean Soup - My variation on this recipe

1 pkg 15 (or 16) bean soup mix, with or without the seasoning packet
1 onion, chopped (or dry onion)
1 T. minced garlic (or dry garlic/garlic powder)
2 t. Lawry's seasoning salt
Salt and pepper to taste
1-14 oz. can diced tomatoes
Oregano and Italian seasoning to taste
Drizzle of Olive Oil
1 lb of smoked sausage, cut into large-ish pieces or a meaty ham bone

Pick through and rinse the beans, discarding any stones, twigs, or other flotsam and jetsam. Place the beans in a 6 qt slow cooker (ie. Crock Pot) and cover with water to about 2 inches above the beans. Add in remainder of ingredients. Cook on low for 8 to 10 hours or until you have gone mad from the savory smells wafting from your kitchen. Adjust salt and pepper to your taste. If you used a ham bone, slice meat from bone and stir into beans. Serve with Tabasco sauce and/or a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese.   I make garlic bread to go along with this, but it would also be lovely with cornbread.

Month Four Preps: Long Term Storage

For our food storage this month, I decided to stock up on some of the most important things a prepper can store - staples. No, not the kind you use to attach paper together, but staples of your diet. My part of the country doesn't have places where you can buy bulk wheat or other such items, but I do have Sam's Club available to me. They stock a few items that I can package myself and thereby save some money.

I grabbed a flat-bed cart at the front of the store and awkwardly wheeled it over to the aisle with dry goods. I kid you not when I say that I nearly took out the jewelry counter with that runaway flat-bed. Next time I think I'll stick to a regular shopping cart. I loaded up with 50 lb pinto beans, 100 lb rice and 50 lb all-purpose flour.

You would think that you could avoid scrutiny when you buy items in bulk at Sam's, but I attracted several curious glances as I pushed my load up to the checkout counter. One lady asked me what I was going to make with all of this. Then the checkout girl asked Hubby Dear if all those kids were his. Not ours, his. Some people just don't have any home training! But at least I neatly avoided answering the first lady's question.

Anyway, back to the point. I bought a bunch of real-deal survival food and Hubby Dear and I spent last evening packing it for long-term storage.  

There are two main ways to store basics like these for long-term storage. 

1) #10 cans - Rodent and bug proof! As long as you keep them from rusting, they have awesome longevity. If you have access to an LDS cannery, you can put up beans, rice, wheat, etc. in these cans. The other option is to buy them from a food storage company. It's pretty pricey to get all of your food storage canned like that. 

 

2) Food-grade plastic buckets and/or mylar bags and oxygen absorbers - Some people feel that a plastic bucket is enough to store hardy items like wheat and rice. Others use only the mylar bags for storage since the bag is actually much less permeable to oxygen than the bucket. Oxygen = spoiled food.

The amounts and types of oxygen absorbers to add are also a matter of debate. James Wesley, Rawles, author of  How to Survive The End of the World As We Know It  and survival guru, even goes so far as to advocate using buckets, bags, oxygen absorbers, a dessicant, AND dry ice. I have no doubt that food packaged that way would last for a long time.

We took an approach somewhere in the middle. We obtained a bunch of 6-gallon food-grade plastic buckets and lined them with mylar bags. Then we filled each bucket  to within 1" of the top. There was still plenty of bag leftover, which was a good thing. 

We thought the flour would be the messiest item to transfer to the buckets, but surprisingly it was the rice. Oops!

Before I began sealing the bags, I made sure to label each bucket. I used these labels from Food Storage Made Easy.


It is essential that you move quickly during the next few steps. Once you open the package, your oxygen absorbers start working immediately. If you do not seal your bags stat, the absorbers can lose their mojo. I don't know much, but I do know that it's not good when O2 absorbers lose their mojo.

So, we quickly threw in the O2 absorbers

and sealed the bag up. It is helpful to have two people for this part.

You can use a fancy (and expensive!) sealer made for this purpose or just heat your iron to full blast. We placed Hubby Dear's metal level across the bucket, expressed as much air as possible from the bag, drew the sides of the bag up, and pulled it taut across the level.

I ironed the bag using the level as a stable surface to create a seal. Be careful! The mylar (and level) heats up quickly and stays surprisingly hot for a while afterwards.

I left one side of the seam open, Hubby Dear expressed more air out, and then we sealed the rest of the bag.

Check the bag to make sure it sealed all the way across, push it down in the bucket, place your lid on and seal tight. Over the next 24 hours, the O2 absorbers will get to work and remove the remaining air from your bag.

I bought three Gamma Seal lids to use on the buckets that I will be using immediately. The rest received standard lids. Gamma Lids snap on like a regular bucket lid, but then you can screw the lid on and off. Much easier than having to fiddle with a regular lid! I figure I should make things as easy as possible if I'm going to use my food storage for more than a dusty insurance policy.

So, now that I've gone to all of this trouble, how long will it last? The rice and beans could very well be good for 30 years if I keep them stored in a cool, dark place. The flour has a much shorter short shelf-life, but by packing it in mylar with oxygen absorbers, it should be good for at least two years.

Now these are some preps I can take pride in - we did it ourselves. And the Fed Ex man is pretty happy, too.