A Simple & Nice Prepper Dinner

Having driven coast to coast twice in about a week, filling up a Van, Expedition, and sedan (on a trailer) in the middle, and then unloading it all when back at home, I was a bit tired today ;-)

The result was that it was 7 PM and I suddenly realized I’d not made dinner yet. An hour+ behind expected dinner time… OK… what to do? No time to defrost anything. Not a big interest in just opening cans of stuff (and not many ‘meals in a can’ to choose between anyway). But I had a LOT of prep-for-disaster foods on hand…

So I used that to make a very quick, and rather nice, dinner. So good, that I’ve decided to post about it here!

Menu:

Salmon Fettuccine with Alfredo sauce (topped with olives and optional Parmesan)
Marinated Artichoke hearts.
Dry Canned Carrots, buttered.

Beverage was bottled water, which we often have with dinner.

Making it:

The olives, marinated artichoke hearts, Salmon and Alfredo sauce were all just “open the can or jar”. All from COSTCO about a year ago.

The Fettuccine was regular box of noodles that was on hand in the pantry (along with about 30 pounds of other dry pasta choices ;-)

The carrots were dry-packed and canned by me about 9 months ago. Just put the carrot sticks in a 1 cup jar without added water and process as usual for carrots. These had the lid lifted, a plastic lid put loosely in place to prevent any spitting, and microwaved for 30 seconds. Then a pat of butter on top in the jar and run another 30 seconds. You now have very tasty hot buttered carrot sticks, better than any commercial canned.

The Artichoke hearts are just open, and put a few in a side bowl of about 4 oz size. These are the Kirkland jars of about a quart (33 oz. Net Wt. I suspect including marinade in the weight), sold in packs of 2. When I’ve used all the artichokes, the left over olive oil and spices make a great marinade for chicken.

That’s all it takes to make the 2 sides. Note that in a real “emergency”, I can still run the microwave off of my generator.

The Fettuccine is simmered in a pot for about 14 minutes. In a real emergency, Angle Hair pasta could be used to save fuel as it cooks in 3 to 4 minutes. The noodles are then drained, Alfredo sauce poured on (about an ounce per serving) and that is warmed by the residual heat of the noodles as it sits on the (now turned off) burner. The tin of salmon (a 6 ounce can, like a tuna can – also Kirkland brand; Pink Salmon from COSTCO) is opened, drained, and using a fork is broken into bite sized bits; then stirred into the noodles and sauce. Let stand a moment to warm through.

Then you just plate it all. Dish of artichokes to the plate, carrot sticks from the jar (I used a 1 cup jar, so each person gets 1/2 of that) pulled out with a fork onto the plate. Then a large dollop of the noodles/sauce/salmon goes onto the plate. Top with a few olives from a can, and sprinkle on Parmesan as desired. Serve.

The whole meal for 2 took me about 18 minutes from first “Oh God Dinner is late!” to plated. It was a very filling and very enjoyable dinner for both of us.

The balance of the olives were put in a jar in the fridge. The rest of the Alfredo sauce in the original jar was placed in the fridge too. As was the rest of the Artichokes in their marinade. In a real disaster, the olives and artichokes would keep at room temperature for a while, but the sauce would be used up within the day on a larger batch of pasta ;-) Or you could “re-can” it with a pressure canner.

By making a lot of 1 cup sized batches of dry-pack canned carrots, each jar is a service for 2 folks and there are no left overs to worry about. In a real emergency, if you don’t have any butter, a little olive oil and salt can be used to garnish / flavor enhance.

Dry noodles, of course, keep just about forever as long as they are kept dry.

The “left overs” of the main course were put in a plastic tub in the ‘fridge, but there was only about 1 cup (or maybe less…) left after both of us were quite full. In a real emergency, you would just eat it all and be stuffed ;-0

Depending on your wine inventory, one could pop the cork on some wine instead of using the bottled water… but I was already fatigued enough that a glass or two of wine and I’d not be awake now ;-)

The big takeaway from this meal, for me, was just how good it was. Not at all like what you would get from a commercial “Prep Package” that’s either freeze dried glop or a very starch heavy and cheap dish like beans & rice, or Mac & Cheese.

I tend to have several pounds of dry noodles of various kinds (shapes) in my emergency prep stores. They keep for years, but I rotate the stock during normal cooking anyway. The canned pink salmon is very much like cans of tuna (that you could also use, but the salmon is a bit nicer). It also keeps nicely for a few years. I typically have a dozen or two cans in the pantry (ditto tuna…). The marinaded artichokes and canned olives keep for years (as long as you don’t eat them all… a constant risk for me) as does the canned Alfredo sauce. A jug of grated Parmesan in the fridge has lasted a couple of years for us. (Big jug, only 2 people, not that many pasta dinners…)

Basically, all of these ingredients store on the shelf nicely for a very long time, yet can be used in regular day to day meals too.

FWIW, that’s the general pattern of how I prepared for emergency cooking. I like real meals of familiar things, that are just made with ingredients that store a long time easily, and can be cooked fast and easily. This meal took boiling one pot of water, and running the microwave oven for 1 minute (and even that could be optional, just heat the carrots in a pan over a camp stove or charcoal BBQ).

In Conclusion

I hope this gives you some ideas about easy & quick “prepper” meals, and gets folks thinking about how much better that meal sounds than “Freeze Dried Glop In A Pouch” camping food.

In a real power outage disaster, we’d be having Salmon Fettuccine Alfredo, topped with olives and grated Parmesan, with marinated artichoke hearts and buttered carrots by candle light… Life can be rough when disaster strikes, but it doesn’t have to be miserable or a hardship ;-)

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