Using Your Food Preps

The local Walmart (local means 1 1/2 hours away) sell Auguson Farms dehydrated and freeze dried foods for cheaper than the company sells it on their own website.  Each time I go to that town I stop by and buy something to try.  Since our house still isn't done (maybe by next spring) I don't have much space for food storage.  I probably still have a year or two of food, but it's packed into the back of the shipping container and unavailable.  But if TSHTF it's there. (I do have a 4 foot wide shelf in the front of the shipping container that is crammed with food.)  So I try this new stuff.  They sell it in #10 cans and I've bought chili and black bean burger.  The black bean burger can says it makes 38 patties and it was under $11.50.  It's cheaper to buy this can than to buy the already made burgers that are in the freezer section of the grocery store.  It's got black beans, rice, peppers, and seasoning in the ingredients.  I made 4 burgers the other day.  Boy didn't like it because they were soggy in the middle.  I think that's my fault because I made them thick.  When cooking a regular burger I'll make them thick so the center is medium rare.  You can't do that with black bean burger because the center ends up soggy.  If I made them thinner it would have been better.  The taste was good.  This mix would also be good cooked up like ground beef and used in burritos. 

The other item I bought was the chili.  It was a bit more expensive than the black bean burger but still worth getting and using in our everyday food preparation.  The black bean burger gets soaked in hot water for about 15 minutes prior to making into patties.  I soaked it for about an hour because I was busy.  The beans came out tender.  The chili has different directions.  You don't soak the beans, you just cook it in boiling water for 15 minutes or so.  That's a lot of fuel to use so next time I'm going to try soaking the chili for a while before cooking.  We cut up some hot dogs and put them into the chili just for something extra.  The chili was ok.  But I'm used to good homemade chili! Boy really liked this chili. The open can of chili has a very strong smell, that can still be smelled through the plastic lid. Once the can is opened the chili needs to be put into a thick Ziplock bag and then put back into the can prior to being stored or your entire pantry is going to smell like chili seasoning.  Or you can put it into a glass jar to keep it from smelling up the place.  

I think it is important to use this type of food in your daily eating if you plan on using it in your food storage.  I don't use dried food every day, but I'd sure hate to have to go cold turkey from fresh or canned food, or restaurant food, or however you normally eat to dried food.  Both of these items are going to be part of our storage plan and I'll buy one of each can each time I hit that Walmart.