A Possible Replacement for Bouillon Cubes in Your Food Storage

I hate bouillon cubes. First of all, I can never open the stupid foil papers they are wrapped in. When I finally get the cube out and pop it in my soup or whatever I'm cooking, I'll usually find stubborn pieces of foil floating to the top. Even worse, the ingredients in most bouillons are scary. Here's the list of ingredients in the Tone's Chicken Bouillon I have in my food storage:


Salt, sugar, partially hydrogenated palm oil, monosodium glutamate (MSG), cornstarch, and less than 2% of onion powder, chicken fat and meat, garlic powder, turmeric (color), disodium inosinate, spices, TBHQ (preservative).  MADE ON EQUIPMENT THAT ALSO PROCESSES WHEAT, MILK, EGGS, SOY, SHRIMP, AND FISH.


Does that make you hungry? No? It practically gives me an anaphylactic reaction to think about eating all that junk, and I don't even have any food allergies! Not exactly the feeling I want to have when I'm preparing food for my children.

Yet it can't be denied that bouillon is one of the cheapest, most versatile seasonings that you can have on hand. If I was living on a diet of beans and rice, I wouldn't care how much sodium or MSG was in that bouillon cube; I would be thankful for its punch of flavor.

There are other alternatives to the humble bouillon cube, of course. You could store cans of chicken broth. The problem with that is cans of broth take up much more room and are more expensive per unit. You could also buy some of the premium chicken bouillons that are out there. I have had people tell me good things about Shirley J's Chicken Bouillon. It does have only about 1/2 the sodium of standard bouillons, but it also contains hydrolyzed soy protein which is a source of MSG. What to do?

I went ahead and stocked up on cheap bouillon cubes during my Food Storage Blitz Month, but I haven't felt good about that decision. Then a friend shared this YouTube video with me. It seems there is a quick and easy alternative to canned bouillons and broths that is very food storage friendly!

Here's the recipe shared in the video: 


Veggie Chicken Broth Mix
1-1/2 c. nutritional yeast
3 T. onion powder
2-1/2 t. garlic powder
1 T. salt
1 t. celery seed
2-1/2 T. Italian Seasoning
2 T. dry parsley

Mix in ingredients in blender and then store broth mix in an air-tight container. Add 1 T. of mix per cup of water and use as chicken or veggie broth in recipes.


So what is nutritional yeast anyway? 

Nutritional yeast is the same kind kind of yeast that you use to make bread, but it has been subjected to a process that renders it inert. It adds a lot of nutrition and flavor to food. You might be able to find nutritional yeast in your local health food store, but if you are like me and live in a place where you can't dependably buy high-class food like boneless, skinless chicken breasts, you can order it on Amazon.com here. The rest of the ingredients are items I always have in my pantry. 

Nutritional yeast has a shelf life of about 2 years if you store it in an air-tight container in a cool location - approximately the same shelf life as a bouillon cube! 


And how does it taste? 


My friend reports that it is delicious! She used broth made from this mix in French onion soup and her family raved about it. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm going to order some nutritional yeast, whip up a batch of broth mix, and report back. 




What place does broth/bouillon have in your food storage? Are you bothered by food additives or could you not care less? 

Sun Oven, Part III: Using the Sun as a Crock Pot

This is the third part of my Sun Oven series. Part One is here and Part Two is there. I wasn't quite ready to post about my attempt at cooking soup in the Sun Oven. As you'll read, I had some more issues to work out and I wanted to play around with it a bit more. The problem is that the weather hasn't been very cooperative.

Great weather for watching football on the TV, not
so great for using a Sun Oven! 

The test of whether there is enough sunlight to cook in the Sun Oven is if it casts a shadow. That's not going to happen when the weather has been like this for a week. I'm going to post my initial experience today and revisit the topic soon.
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After the chocolate chip cookie debacle, I'll admit that I was feeling pretty deflated. What's the good of cooking with the sun if the end product tastes like the tire off an SUV? Nevertheless, I pressed on. I announced to the family at breakfast the next day that I would be making dinner in the Sun Oven. Hubby Dear shot me a skeptical look and mumbled under his breath, "I guess I'll be picking up dinner tonight."

The recipe I selected is a simple potato soup recipe that I have been making in the Crock Pot for years. It only takes about 3-1/2 hours to cook in the Crock Pot, so I felt sure that if I started it around noon in the Sun Oven, it would surely be ready by dinner time.

First, the setup:

Cooling rack in place in the bottom of the chamber

Any pot big enough to hold a batch of soup for my family will not fit on the leveling shelf.  I removed the shelf and placed a small cooling rack in the bottom of the Sun Oven. It is imperative that there is air circulation all around the pot so that it cooks evenly, hence the cooling rack.

Pot covered with a dish towel

I chopped the vegetables and assembled all the ingredients for the soup and placed them in a stainless steel pot and covered it with the lid. Since stainless steel is reflective, I covered the whole ensemble with the darkest dish towel I could find and took it outdoors.

It didn't take long for me to notice a problem.

The wind pummeled the reflectors

See the reflector on the left? It's not supposed to be bending like that. Our notorious country winds kept flipping the reflectors around. I didn't know what to do about that, so I just left the reflectors alone and readjusted the position of the Sun Oven throughout the afternoon to maximize the sunlight.

I was a bit disappointed that our local Jehovah's Witnesses didn't stop by that afternoon. The last group that stopped by asked me who I thought was in control of the universe. I was ready if they had visited while my Sun Oven was out. I was going to say excitedly, "You know who is in control? Really? Can you take me to your leader? We're establishing communication with our mother ship!" Maybe that would have weirded them out enough to keep them away for a while. As a rule, I try to be kind to proselytizers. We're just overrun with Jehovah's Witnesses who won't take no for an answer.

 In the midst of my musings about Jehovah's Witnesses, I did notice that the thermometer didn't seem to be climbing as high as I expected it to. The oven hovered around 225 degrees.

I finally took the pot out around 5:30 PM and brought it inside to check the results.

More disappointment. The potatoes and other vegetables were still mostly raw. The soup smelled good, but it was far from edible. At this rate, it would take another 10 hours to cook the soup in the Sun Oven! Since my family wanted to eat dinner sometime before dawn, I went ahead and finished cooking the soup on my stove.

I'm still not entirely sure what happened, but I think the wind might have been the issue. Since the reflectors were moving about frequently, there had to be a drop in the amount of sunlight that was getting directed into the cooking chamber. I found a solution to the wind problem on the Sun Oven website, but since my Sun Oven is only on loan, I didn't feel like I should be drilling holes into it!

When we have a sunny, calm day, I'll try again. This shouldn't be so hard!

Sun Oven owners: any input on why my soup didn't cook?  

Using Your Food Storage: Beef and Barley Soup

The recipe that I'm going to share with you today is one of my family's favorite winter meals. The ingredients are so simple that it might seem boring, but I promise you that this recipe is transcendent. This soup has such a wonderfully beefy flavor. And if you serve it alongside a slice of bread made from wheat you ground yourself? It's divine!

One of the main ingredients in this soup is barley, which is a great addition to your food storage. If the only barley you've ever had is the mushy stuff in canned vegetable beef soup, you're in for a treat! Barley has a mild nutty flavor and a pleasant chewiness. If you don't have any barley on hand or have some sort of weird aversion to it, I have also made this recipe using egg noodles. I just throw them to cook in with the soup about 15 minutes before the soup is done.

I have listed the food storage substitutions for the fresh ingredients below. If you use all food storage ingredients, especially canned beef, I have written revised directions. You don't need to brown the already cooked canned beef and you can allow the dehydrated vegetables to rehydrate in the soup while you cook it.

Beef and Barley Soup, adapted from a recipe published in Cooking Light magazine

2 lb beef stew meat, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces (OR canned beef [home-canned or store-bought])
2 t. vegetable oil
2 c. chopped leek  (OR 2 c. chopped onion OR about 1/2 c. dry onion)
2 c chopped carrot (OR about 1 c. dry carrots)
4 garlic cloves, minced (OR 2 t. freeze-dried garlic OR garlic powder)
6 c. water
1-1/2 t. salt (Omit salt if using beef bouillon. Reduce according to taste if you're not using reduced sodium broth.)
1 t. dried thyme
1/2 t. freshly ground black pepper
4 bay leaves
2-14 oz. cans less-sodium beef broth (OR beef bouillon prepared to yield 4 cups broth)
1 c. uncooked pearl barley

Heat a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add half of beef; cook 5 minutes, browning on all sides. Remove from pan. Repeat procedure with remaining beef.

Heat oil in pan over medium-high heat. Add leek, carrot, and garlic; saute 4 minutes or until lightly browned. Return beef to pan. Add water and next 5 ingredients and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 1 hour. Add barley; cook 30 minutes or until beef and barley are tender. Discard bay leaves and serve.

Food Storage Items Only Directions:

Omit browning beef and sauteing vegetables. Place liquid ingredients, an additional cup to 1-1/2 cup water, seasonings (omit salt), and vegetables in Dutch oven and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 45 minutes to an hour. Drain liquid from canned beef and cut beef into 1" chunks, if necessary. Add beef and barley to the soup. Cook 30 minutes or until barley is tender. Taste broth for salt and add additional salt if necessary. Discard bay leaves and serve.

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.