Warning: My camera is still missing so this is another pictureless blog post. I guess I'll have to submit to the inevitable and buy a new camera.
If you've just joined me for this experiment, I'll explain. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints "have been counseled for many years to be prepared for adversity. Preparation, both spiritual and temporal, can dispel fear...individual members and families should prepare to be self-reliant in times of personal or widespread emergency." In each congregation, members are asked to be in charge of certain things to spread the work and talent around. Then nobody is overwhelmed with too much to do. Right now, my volunteer calling is to help women understand and accept the counsel to be prepared for adversity by providing them concrete tools to do so.
Although I'm expert at extended home storage and have written a few books on the subject, right off the bat I plan to teach is evacuation/stay at home without electricity kits. This is not my forte. Some kits out there give menus for three days that would leave a 2-year-old hungry not to mention cold and unhappy. While they are better than nothing, they are inadequate at best. I prayed and thought about this idea and found Vegan Unplugged: A Pantry Cuisine Cookbook and Survival Guide featuring the Five-Day Meal Box. I'm going through this book and trying the recipes made strictly from nonperishable pantry ingredients to teach the women of my congregation an alternative to cup-a-soup and Jolly Ranchers.
Right now some are probably rolling their eyes and proclaiming that not everyone is vegan. True-True! The recipes I have tried can be modified slightly by adding a can of chicken, beef cubes, or tuna if one so desires. The point is this food is tasty and nutritious whether or not one is vegan. When fresh food is unavailable, this idea will keep body and spirit together quite happily.
I'm excited to get several of these recipes under my belt so I might assemble my 5-day meal box for our next road trip. Food out of the home is difficult for anyone with food allergies, which makes me doubly motivated to gain this skill.
Last Resort Lasagne from Vegan Unplugged was very tasty but makes way more than any 4 people could eat. I'd say it serves 6-8 easily. My husband ate seconds and gave it an 8. My son said he would eat it again if he was hungry. However, it doesn't taste like lasagne to him. He gave it a 6.5. The 'cheese' was a filling made with nutritional yeast, white beans, and extra firm silken tofu, which was delicious IMO. I used brown rice lasagne but could also have used firm polenta. But....and it's a big but....I have never found a jarred marinara sauce yet that was palatable. So I couldn't make this with a one burner stove, conserving fuel. I like the idea of making lasagne this quickly in a skillet, but it could also be baked in a conventional or sun oven. It might be doable as a bug out meal, combining sauce made on a butane stove with the final product baked in a sun oven. Either way it is a good thing to have on had for an at home sort of 'don't feel like cooking' pantry diving dinner. Learning how to cook all over again without gluten, refined sugars, oil, dairy, eggs, or meat is sort of fun---well---most of the time.
