Augason Farms Creamy Chicken Flavored Rice
I consider myself a prepper in training. I can remember back in the early 2000’s wanting to be prepared for winter time in Northern Maine. The year after that my awareness for the need to be prepared for other situations grew. It was a sixth sense of sorts that is hard to explain. Wanting to keep my family safe, I thought about potential situations that I could face and need to be prepared for. Each fall time, without fail, I would feel the need to prepare for the winter ahead.
Planning for the winter ahead included, stocking up the extra freezer I had in the basement with half of a beef from the local butcher. Furnishing the basement with shelves to put extra canned goods to keep was another. I had a camp stove with some small cans of propane to prepare food. Having extra coolers to keep my food cold and safe outside in a snowbank was also an option for food storage if needed.
Knowing there was a big hole in my plans because I had no secondary source of heat I needed another plan. Without heat, I would have to go to relatives if that was needed. In retrospect, I would have put in a wood stove in the event of a power outage. I had plenty of wood on my 12 acres and would have kept seasoned wood in the basement for emergencies.
Many people in Maine put in secondary sources of heat in their homes but both relied on electricity which made no sense to me. Others had generators which was probably what I would have gone with if I had not sold and moved. I ofter saw generators used to keep the heat on if nothing else during a power outage in winter. My next home will have a wood stove for sure!
Anyway, back to the creamy chicken rice, my point is that being accurately prepared takes a lot more than just buying stuff. Figuring out what works for you in your environment while considering the needs of those around you and other possible needs BEFORE you need them is crucial. I thought Mr. Rourke was silly for wanting to try some of the freeze dried food. Why would we want to waste good food that can be stored long-term? Well, I am glad that in this instance he was correct.
I learned a few things that I will consider when buying more freeze dried food.
- The first thing I learned was how much water you need to make the meals that come in this kit. The creamy chicken flavored rice needed 5 cups of water and a couple of the other meals needed 8 cups and 10 cups.
- Another thing I learned when making this side dish was that it could have easily been made into a main dish by adding a can of chicken and/or a can of veggies. The container says it is 8 servings so adding more would either feed more or let you have a bigger portion.
- Also worth noting was that a little garlic salt really made a difference in the taste.
- The last thing I learned was that although this kit was for 1 person for 72 hours unless I planned on eating just chicken flavored rice all day I would need a way of storing the prepared food. You could just make half but you would still need a way of storing the packet of dried ingredients for another day. Containers and plastic storage bags would make things easier when trying to store the leftovers.
The Creamy Chicken Flavored Rice was very simple to make. I did have to stand there and stir quite often to prevent clumping but other than that you only need a few things. You will need a pot, measuring cup, 5 cups of water, and a whisk.
Here is the container of food, how it looked when we opened it, and all the individual bags that come in it.
Here is the nutrition information of all the packages in the 72-hour food supply. We chose to have the Creamy Chicken Flavored Rice. It has 240 calories for 1/3 cup and says it is 8 servings.
The only thing we had to do was boil five cups of boiling water and add the contents.
As stated previously I had to tend to the dish by stirring occasionally to prevent any clumping.
The final product was very good alone, however, we did add some garlic salt and pepper for a little more flavor. The consistency was a little thicker than what you would expect from a rice dish, but again very good.
Anyone have any experience with freeze dried or dehydrated food that you could share? I would love to hear about them!
To purchase the Auguson Farm 72-Hr Emergency Food Kit mentioned in this article follow THIS LINK. Current price is less than $25 with Free Shipping.
Maine Prepper Girl
I hate to say it, but that’s not freeze dried food. I have a couple of those I found at clearance at Walmart for $19.99 a couple years ago. Even opened one up during a weekend camping trip. It’s just basic ‘food’ you can find on any shelf that’s been packaged with a puff of nitrogen gas for ‘extended shelf life’ like from Korr, Bear Creek Soups and instant oatmeal. The real freeze dried meals only take about 10 minutes of hot water to reconstitute and eat AND have at least a 20yr shelf life. I find it funny companies that have only been around a handful of years say their food can last up to 25 years when only Mountain House can actually claim how long their foods have lasted since they’ve been around since the 60’s. The thing that really drives me crazy about these types of meals is that it claims to have X amount of servings. Okay, that might be true but when was the last time you only ate a single serving 1/3 cup of a item? The average person consumes 2-3 servings of a single item for a meal, people really need to see that 1/3 cup of a item per person just won’t cut it in the real world. Thanks for the post, not many places actually prepare and taste the food they buy or get free from a vendor.
Cooked food dehydrated in my experience only requires a few minutes rehydration. Some thig like white rice you can cook and dehydrate, or freeze dry… If you have to “cook” the food, it probably wasn’t previously cooked..
I think the LDS foods have a long enough track record to claim the 25 year freeze dried label as well. Much less expensive that Mountain House.. if a resealable #10 can works for you.. or you can repackage in mylar and seal.
Yup.. meal extenders are a thing… based on how active you are and must be .. Most folks fins 2 meals a day works to cut down food prep since you’ll be busy during the day, depending on the labor of course, as well as whether you have enough people that one can do food prep etc.. just depends.
If you freeze-dry at home with a Harvest Right, most folks I know just over prepare meals they like and freeze dry what’s not consumed.. In some cases things like garden produce might be freeze-dried uncooked, so can meat. (I can’t say I have tried all of it though). It isn’t cheap though. Harvest Right has a sale once a year FYI.
Nothing wrong with the Auguson product of course.. like all of them I’ve tried I have my Favorites, just like anything.
Ol’ Remus at WoodPileReport advocated Spam© canned meats.
Shelf-life — measured in decades (metrical equivalent = 637 hectares).
Straight from the can, the product is a retcher.
Diced and crisped in the skillet before adding eggs for a scramble, it can be palatable.
Diced and crisped, the product adds a nice salty protein to salad fixings.
That was as far as my experiments got.
*****
Prior to this phase of this Economic Lock-Down, our church had Sunday afternoon get-togethers for folks to use our freeze-driers.
These were great opportunities to learn and mentor.
Fortunately, Oregon unelected governess Kate ‘Moonbeam’ Brown issued a dictate so nobody can catch the latest yellow flu with its 99.7-percent survival rate… no church no more!
JH, thank you for the correction! As I said I’m very new at this and still learning. I corrected the title. I’ll have to look into the real freeze dried food as I think that would be easier. I think it would be good to have a variety. Also the serving size was for 1/3 dried so it would be more cooked as it thickened up quite a bit and was filling. This is why we practice! Thanks again!
After finally convinsing my wife that we NEEDED a Harvest Right Freeze Dryer, we’ve kept it going almost constantly since we bought it exactly 1 year ago. Yes, the cost is initially high, but the reasons for getting one were: 1) My wife is a great cook, 2) We were having trouble pronouncing all the preservatives on the Freeze Dried Packages, 3) Buying a 1 year supply of commercial Freeze Dried food for just one person was the same cost as buying a Harvest Right (and as mentioned before, we know what food is being made and what the ingredients are in it), 4) We get to make and therefore, eat what our family likes and is used to, 5) I did a cost analysis of what it cost us to make, for example, a 5 oz. batch of Beef Stew (home made, of course) compared to buying, let’s say the equivalent of the Mountain House. To calculate the cost of making it ourselves, I factored in the Food, Energy, 8″x10″ Ziplock Mylar Bag, 1 – 100cc Oxy-Absorber and 1 – gram Dessicant. The cheapest I found the Mountain House pouch was at Costco in a box of multiple meals. That came to approximately: $5 per meal. My cost for doing it myself came to: $1.36. So far we’ve made close to 600 of these meals and according to my calculations (saying that all meals cost about the same both to make and commercially buy) it has cost us approx. $816 to make and would have cost us approx. $3000 to buy; saving us approx. $2184 (which happens to be close to the cost of a Harvest Right Freeze Dryer). So, it looks like we’ve paid for the machine and we have food we like and know is nutritious. I understand that it’s a high price initially but, as mentioned in another comment, you can get together with family/friends and purchase one and rotate the usage. I have a strong feeling that a lot of the food we will be making/preparing during the foreshadowed crisis will be soups and stew. That way we can feed larger groups of Family/Friends/Those in need. That is why my wife and I are Freeze Drying a number of Vegetables and Cubed Meat (Chicken, Ham, Pork Loin, etc.) We’re also acquiring and packaging things such as “13 Bean Soup” Mixes and the equivilent. That way we can just boil water in a Stock Pot, Add the Soup Mix, Tear open packages of Freeze Dried Meat and Vegetables and add seasonings and we’ll have our very own “Soup Kitchen” just like during the depression. I really like my Freeze Dryer and am ecstatic to be using it to prepare my family, and others, with food to help in times of need and crisis. Food we like and know will be nutritious. It gives us the freedom to make the foods we like and know we’ll need. During this Christmas holiday we’ve been using it to Freeze Dry Skittles and other fun treats to give away.
Just my 2 1/2 cents worth,
Myke