Don't be afraid of your food storage...just Dutch it!

This is the name of a new cookbook that I bought this week at Winco.  It's a cute little cookbook (www.justdutchit.com) that goes over the basics of how to buy a dutch oven, how to cook in it using charcoal for your heat source, and how to make some tasty foods using your stored foods. 

It's kind of funny that yesterday I decided to put up a picture rather than just have one of those blank silhouettes when you follow someone or in the spot on the website where it talks a little about me.  I took a picture of some of my food storage...you didn't really think I was going to put a picture of me did you?  I got one comment stating that I needed to include freeze-dried and other long term foods.  (I know the person put a plug in for their local ShelfReliance, which is fine with me.)  I do have lots of staples in my long term storage.  I haven't bought a lot of freeze-dried foods, more just plain foods that are dried or whole grain.  The main reason is money.  If I had lots and lots of money I'd buy cans and cans of freeze-dried strawberries!  Perhaps when I update my photo I'll show a picture of all my buckets of food rather than the ready to eat cans of food.

Back to the book.  It does have a list of basic food items that are needed to make the "good" recipes.  You see, each recipe has good, better, best, with suggestions for how to make it with your stored foods, and how to upgrade it to make it better, and then upgrade it again to make it best.  Each recipe also has a little note which may give additional suggestions or a background of how they got the recipe. 

Here's an example, although I'm not going to give amounts or directions, just ingredients.  In a SHTF scenario I may run out of oil but the rest of the ingredients I will have in my supplies for years.
Potato Corn Chowder - Good Ingredients:
dried or freeze dried corn or 1 can
dried potato slices
water
dried onion
garlic powder
salt
pepper
powdered milk
oil
whole wheat flour
Better Ingredients: substitute a can of evaporated milk for powdered, use white flour instead of whole wheat
Best Ingredients: use butter instead of oil

The recipe explains how to cook it in a dutch oven with charcoal.  You could also make these recipes on the stove top or in the oven depending on what your power supply is.