Did the cook-in-the-bag thing? Need any spices, cook up evenly?

Another from the gift box comes out, now that I have a day off. This one I have seen for sale all over the place in various sporting good stores, gun shops, and outdoor supply houses.



Again, made to be eating around a campfire, with minimal tools, etc. Directions seem pretty easy, but I AM a product of public school, so take nothing for granted!



Two cups of boiling water, (I swear, it's boiling - the camera caught it wrong, I sweah on my mudder's grave!) and we are off to the races. I stirred well with a spoon, this time, with superior results.



That doesn't look bad.



I am in a nice warm house with a table and utensils, so no need to eat from the bag! One for me, one for the wife unit.



Verdict - taste wise, bland, as expected, added some of the famous The Blend seasoning, (available at Costco), and things got much better. We were both impressed with the rehydration of the meat and veggies - unlike Chef Boyardee, who we FIRST compared this to, there are actual chunks of tomato in there that taste like fresh tomatoes, nor dry puree, and the meat chunks were quite tender like they had just been cooked, did not taste or texture like something that was good to eat until 2049. Heck, I ain't gonna last that long!
We both liked it, not bad at all.

BTW, it will be a little while before I start this again - my wife started her chemo, and that means some very strict diets, which we will both eat, as I won't make her watch me eat something she can't have. Thanks for everyone who is actually interested in this thread.

Prayers sent for your wife.

Thank you.

Might be worth giving this a watch, at least from this the take away is Peak Refuel or MountainHouse or just go with a stocked pantry. But, everyone has their own tastes as well.

Enjoyed this thread

Ain't over yet. My wife has mostly recovered from the first round of chemo and we had a Ready Hour meal today, the last of the #10 can of Black Bean Burger mix in patties and the Potato Cheddar Soup. Both were excellent, and she said it felt like it had settled her stomach somewhat.

Damn interesting thread. The coffee certainly looks interesting, though I feel they might work better if they had it in single serve packets.

That coffee is STRONG. Good for days with short sleep.

Good thread, thanks for sharing. I am slowly upping my long storage life food game myself but I do need to be conscious of emergency meals perfect for a low carb and low sugar diet.

If it's an actual emergency or you need lots of energy, low carbs and low sugar are the last things you should be looking for. Weight loss is the last thing you are looking for.

Now if you're a diabetic and out/low on meds, I understand why you are looking for low carbs and sugar.

My girlfriend is, so I kind of want to have sharable meals. We're like never getting married but she's the mother of our child so she needs to be around somewhat

With a history of type II in my family, I try to maintain a low carb diet as well.  I'll do what I have to do in a survival situation and have plenty of rice and grains to make that happen, but I'd love to find some lower carb options for camping or just to stash in the car, office, and GHB.

To that end, there's a company producing low carb FD meals intended for the hiking crowd.  Next Mile Meals  I'm ordering a sampler kit and some breakfast meals in the next few days, but it's likely to be a while before I use or review them.

Please send me an @ if you do, I am very interested.

I'd like to see pics before I commit...

The wife unit said I need to do some more, as she is responding very well to chemo so far, so we'll do something from the gift bag tonight.

This one is interesting, more like an MRE with included utensils and immersion heater. This was from the gift box. Thank you!





Seems simple enough...



Nice load of stuff.



3 to 5 ounces - copy, 4 ounces it is!



Immersion heater in the bag.



The instructions say seal quickly - they are NOT kidding. Steam was coming out the vent hole right as I sealed the bag! I don't know if you can see the steam plume here...



3-5 minutes...copy, 4 minutes! Ackshually...5 minutes would be better, wife said it was slightly cool.



And here it is. The wife was the one who ate it - lentils REALLY make me fart. I mean, bad enough we would have to air out the house. She was doing VERY well after the second round of chemo and said she wanted to...so here we go...



She said it was slightly bland, but a few things stuck out - the meat had the flavor and texture of fresh, not canned, (she is REALLY sensitive to the taste of anything canned longer than 5 minutes), and the veggies also tasted fresh. She said it was easily the same quality as the last time she had a meat and lentil stew in a restaurant. So, all in all an solid 9 out of 10 for her.

Well, she said we should do another one while the stabilizing drugs are letting her eat normally for a while. So, here we are.



I love rice and mushrooms...but less than 2%? Note, no directions for reduced servings.



Well, well, like NorCalLEO would say, "You look...familiar"



Whisked in 6 cups of water.



After 20 minutes cooking. I have never seen rice do this - a ton of water left on the surface.  



So, I stirred it in!



It stayed hot a LONG time. Paired with a pan fried pork chop.



Bland. I was disappointed the near absence of mushrooms. I could taste onions, but this was another candidate for The Blend seasoning. A touch of that and it was just fine. I willm probably put fresh mushrooms in it next time...and there will be one - lookit all the leftovers AFTER we ate our fill...



About 5 out of 10, I think.

One last ReadyWise from the gift box.



The jokes are as bad as you can imagine.



That looks like the same oxygen absorber again.



Two cups of boiling water, this looks like Coca Puffs in milk...sorta. You can see my high tech stirring tool to the right.



After sitting for the full fifteen minutes,, kinda looks the same...



Stir it up. That's better.



The package said 2.5 servings, which is weird, maybe two adults and one child? Well, it split up just fine between the two of us. I coulda SWORE this pic was in focus...



I would not buy this one. The meat was very chewy and tough, and the flavor was...odd. We both thought it was...off. Hard to describe, but just didn't taste quite right, even when we added our The Blend spices to it. It filled us up just fine. Score, about a 3 out of 10.

You are doing good work, friend. Thank you for the salt of the earth reviews.

I hope your wife gets better.

Thank you very much, sir. Her hair is almost gone, but the wig appointment is this week. She enjoys doing these as well, and it's great having two sets of taste buds at work.

The next chemo treatment is coming up fast, and she said lets do another one before she has to go back on the restricted diet. So, here we go.



Looks basic.



Again, there are no clear directions on how to prepare PART of the meal instead of the whole bag. Fortunately, I have work coming up and I already planned on using this for some of my work meals.



Dagnabbit, I gotta dig out the O2 doodad again...except there ISN'T one! How odd...I went through the bag spoonful by spoonful, nothing. Good thing I grabbed this one, right?



I'll be honest - that doesn't look good. In fact, last time I saw something like that was after a really long night of drinking heavily and bad Mexican food a VERY long time ago.



25 minutes later, not much improvement. Maybe a stir?



Yes a stir made everything look much better. But looks only go so far...here we are paired with a left over pulled pork "burrito".



First taste was not bad. The wife said it was good but wanted to try some soy sauce in it. Now, there is NOTHING Southwestern about soy sauce, (I live here, I should know), but it really did provide that tiny bit of oomph. The texture was great, rice came out perfect. Guys, we both had seconds. And she doesn't really LIKE rice.



And, just like I said, lots of leftovers for me to add things to it like some leftover ham I have defrosting right now, maybe chopped mushrooms and green onions, who knows. But the base menu item is quite good when cooked. I could have easily eaten this as is, so solid win, give 9 out of 10.

I don’t believe it’s been mentioned yet but uhhh how are the poops after these?

Legitimate question, and the answer is, I haven't noticed anything really different with any of them. I have more, um, "variations" with local greasy pizza and cheap beer...

@armoredman

What a cool thread! Thanks for taking the time to post this, your writing is as informative as it is entertaining. Also, best wishes to your wife. I can tell she's an awesome lady by her willingness to do this project. Sub'd for sure.

Thank you very much, I do have at least one more on deck somewhere.

Well, I found another one to show off, another soup, which we really do like.



Again, no directions on how to do half a bag, (for people who cannot do math, perhaps, or is this a subtle method of getting rid of the dumb ones in end times?), and it shows for four servings. No problem, I can save some for work.



AHA! There you are!



Four and 1/2 cups of water.



Whisked in to boiling water...still seems whisky, if you ask me.



Bubble, bubble - friends, when they say stir often, they are NOT kidding. This stuff wants to stick to the bottom of the pan like concrete. Stir often. Also, I wanted to go the 20 minutes, but at 18 it was already starting to thicken up.



"Let thicken"...any thicker and I could build stuff with it!



Served...but something is missing. The texture is perfect, but the flavor is bland. So, what to do?



AHA! I have an idea. And this time, nobody should die. Shouldn't, really. See, what goes well with potatoes? HAM!

...and what do I not have? Ham, BUT, I have the next best thing.

SPAM!!!



Yes, with some chunked SPAM and some The Blend, the soup really took off. It was so good that we both had seconds and polished it off.



Without seasonings, it's a 4 or 5, but with a little help, 10 out of 10, seriously.

Thank you for watching, I will be getting more in a few weeks, hopefully.

Edit to add, cleanup was fun - that stuff sticks like concrete! Soaking was necessary,.

A question arose in a different place and it reminded me to air it in here.
There is a difference between Mountain House, ReadyWise and Ready Hour. The first two are camping/bug out style meals you prepare in the bag and eat from the bag, something you jam a half dozen single meals in your bag for a couple of days in nature, boiling the water in an old metal canteen cup over a campfire. Nothing wrong with that, and as I've shown, some of them are quite good.
Ready Hour is emergency food that is by and large intended to be cooked in a kitchen of sorts. The directions on many of the items I've posted show that clearly. Now you could certainly use these in camping situations, such as a large cookpot over the fire to feed a family. But they don't generally "cook in the bag". You buy a case or two of these and shove them in the back of the pantry to be forgotten for 20 years, or until something happens to prevent you from going to the store for some time. You can cook many of these in a Dutch Oven over a firepit, or on a gas grill, etc. but I did it on my now famous stove for convenience.
I can honestly say that one of the biggest take aways from this is make sure you have spices. Some items are just fine by themselves, many more need a touch of something, The spice blend called simply The Blend is the best we have ever found, and a couple of those jammed in with them would be a good idea. Of course, those don't last as long as the meals, however, plain old salt is a freaking rock and will last until the Earth ends. Another takeaway is be able to do basic math in your head to reduce portions so you can save some of the unused portions, as most of these resealable packages state that they are good for 1 year after being opened. I generally cooked all of the case pouches just because I knew we'd use it up soon. Much of this stuff went to work with me as leftovers, waste not, want not. The #10 cans also state that they are good for one year...but in a real emergency they probably won't need to be fresh that long. The Black Bean Burger mix didn't last 4 months...and this was the stuff that got me into this to begin with!
I am not done yet, still have a few left to get and try, but I wanted to clarify this one, from my point of view.
Hope you all are enjoying the ride...

Another fun fact - I am not "one and done" on this stuff, especially the #10 cans - here is a panful of Potato Cheddar soup and Travelers Stew cooking up for lunch. I only added a little salt to the soup for perfection, but Travelers Stew can be a wee bit bland, so a teaspoon of Chinese Hot Chilis and a squirt of Siracha sauce with a dash of The Blend really got the taste buds going. Also got the sinuses going, too...

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Yes, I noticed about the same time you did, I need to clean under the spice rack...

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Hmmm....interesting.  Well, gotta go to work, check back in a few days...

Yep - NOT the refried beans. Starting this series with an old favorite, mac and cheese. Every single survival food/emergency food outfit has made versions of this, and some would even argue the classic dry pasta box dinners qualify, even though they do require milk and butter for the finishing touch. Full disclosure, I had a Mountain House mac and cheese dinner a few days ago, (no pics because I needed something right now before going to work, and lo and behold! That was sitting on the counter), and after following the directions, it was al dente, (crunchy), and tasted really odd. So, I went in to this with low expectations, and I was right.

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Gotta dig for that damn thing again.

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Whisk it into water that is NOT boiling...odd...

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Stir often - they are NOT kidding. This stuff tried to glue itself to my pan multiple times before it became cooked enough to stay off the supposedly non stick interior.

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The water seemed to rapidly vanish - here at 5 minutes left on the timer. of course, the water becomes the sauce, so it's expected it will diminish.

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OK, all done, let sit exactly 4 minutes.

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A part of this unbalanced lunch...mac and cheese plus water.

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And? Low taste again, made for old people. The cheese sauce was barely noticeable. I will say the pasta was perfectly cooked, no crunch but not fall apart soggy. We started off adding The Blend, as always, then added grated parmesan cheese. That did it for me, but the loving wife decided to add some red sauce to KINDA make it into an ersatz chili mac. She was happy with that.

BTW, I added up everything I have spent on this stuff, and YIKES! I am very glad i have a very understanding wife. VERY lucky. Too bad I am too honest for a sponsorship deal.

More to come later this weekend.

And here we go again...no, still not refried beans. But, it IS beans...green beans, specifically, as dark green vegetables have lots of vitamins and minerals, or something rot like that. besides, my wife IS under orders to eat green veggies while going through the chemo and she suggested this one. Side note - she has resisted the nausea side effects quite well - I didn't think I'd be doing any of these again for months. But, on to the stuff.



...where's the rest of the bag, man?

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Hmm...no, they all look like that...

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Down the throat look.

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Now I used the portion option here - each portion is 1/4 cup, so...1/2 cup ready to go. Bag resealed for the next time within one year that I need green beans.

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Cover in water.

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Say, that looks pretty good!

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Nuked for 30 seconds in the micro, (I'd rehydrated them in quite warm water), and we were good to go. Those look like normal people portions. Full disclosure - I had forgotten it was 30 minutes to rehydrate, so we ate the other parts of our dinner before the beans were ready to eat; that's why the plates are empty.
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Final? These things are GOOD. Plenty of fresh veggie crunch, tasty and flavorful. 10 out of 10 from both of us.

Thank you for taking the time to do these honest reviews!  Hope your wife is doing well.

Wishing your wife the best, prayers sent.

Thank you all, much appreciated.

Thread rocks, OP. A great thanks to you and your bride for trying this stuff and posting your thoughts and pictures. Sending prayers for both you.

I have this problem...when I get this stuff in, I want to try it all, right now. So...finally...THE REFRIED BEANS!

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Easy directions.

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Handy serving suggestion - I might try that, have almost everything on the list. Corn would be regular canned, though...

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But wait, what WILL WE USE TO OPEN THE CAN!!!!!

...drum roll...

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I know what you are saying...why the HECK did you buy that? Did I mention that if you make an order $100 or higher from My Patriot Supply, shipping is free? With the difference in cost with shipping, they literally paid me to take one of these things.

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Anyone who was in old school military knows what this is and how to use it, just an overgrown P-38/JohnWayne, but made cute for civilian market with giant, soft, bright red safety handle, and helpful, (really?), instructions. Honestly, pictures would have been better. Did I use this? Heck no, I have a number of easy to use can openers around, juts showing it off, then stuffing it down in a Ready Hour storage box - if everything does go to heck in a handbasket, who knows, I might need it.
Now, how about them beans, eh?

That looks interesting. I thought it looked like bacon bits or beef jerky crumbles. The wife said it looks just like the pre packaged dried refried bean flakes in the inmate store. I never paid that much attention, but it's certainly possible. Next time I do a cell search, I'll look.

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Added to boiling water as directed, using double measurements for the two of us...nobody, but nobody wants ME to have a double helping of beans, not unless you are either 100 miles away or have a really good gas mask.

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Stir - that's starting to look right.

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Timer went off, strictly 5 minutes per directions...and I stirred...and observed something...

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That looks...dry...

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So, I served my blushing bride a side of fresh green beans, (really, I can't tell them from the Ready Hour freeze dried ones, those are really good), a pan fried pork steak, and CS grenades, I mean, refried beans.
Final? The flavor is there, but the water needs to be a touch more, really. Dry, quite dry, but I am sure with another splash of water over that 1/3 per 1/2 cup, maybe even a full 1/2 cup of water to 1/2 cup of beans, they will come out a little better. I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt, (plus since I opened the can I have 1 year to eat it, so I'd BETTER find a way to make them right!), I will award this one about a 6 out of 10. I'll try it again soon.

Maybe if I get the chance to try that recipe on the side, who knows, that might be really good...

Again, as always, thank you for looking, this really is as much fun as it sounds like.

I've not tried the MPS refried beans, but I have used the Santiago Dehydrated version.  I found that you can adjust things by adding water pretty late in the cooking cycle and still come out ok.  

As far as storage is concerned, if you have access to a vacuum sealer with a canning jar attachment you can keep it way past the "X Time after opening" listed on the label.  I generally eat a low carb diet and keep a jar of the dehydrated beans around for occasional use.  I think I stretched my first bag out 3 years or so.  Also, repacking half into a mylar bag or canning jar with an O2 absorber has worked well for me for both dry milk substitute and whole egg powder.

I will probably try again soon, but if need be, I do have a sucker/sealer to vacuum it again.

OK, last one for a while. Ordinarily this stuff is way too expensive for my blood, but a touch of overtime and a surprise sale made me finally pull the trigger on the famous, or infamous, Beef Dices. Ordinarily they are $88 for 6 cups of freeze dried beef, and I would say thank you, but no thanks you, SPAM will work just fine. BUT...like I said, a few stars aligned and I said, what the heck. Oh, almost forgot - @SIG_gunner , you asked for this one!

This looks like the beginning of something wonderful...

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Easy stuff.

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We've all seen this one, the spaghetti is pretty darn good - oddly enough, this one had all the spices solidly in a mass at the bottom of the package. It took much stirring and crushing to get all of it to finally mix in. Still good stuff.

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While that's cooking, lets look at our freeze dried beef...

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Hmm, let's put this in a bowl so you guys can see it better.

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Boiling water, per instructions - I might have too much, I didn't know how big these might get.
OK, I'll say it - I see a lot of brown floaters in there.

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After the 5 minutes most of them went to the bottom. Still looks...well, I'll just leave that one alone. After all, I'm the one eating it!

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Mixing time! Now THAT looks like actual beef chunks.

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Ready to go, with the usual suspects standing ready to assist.

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Final? To be completely honest, not impressed, really. It tasted like beef, no problem there, but the wife and I agreed it tasted like well-done steak...and only heathens eat well done steak. Or people starving. Texture was good and taste ok, as I said, for a well-done steak, and it made the spaghetti more enjoyable, but the toughness was off-putting. In THAT combo I am calling 6 out of 10. In a true survival situation where protein is at a premium, the protein and carbs combo would be lighting energy to fire you up. The only thing I have fired up right now, is a pipe full of Captain Black, as soon as I get done writing this.

Thanks for testing the beef!

Disappointed on the taste. But like you said, in a survival situation protein is really important.

Even if the taste isn't great, I'm sure if I need it it'll be enjoyable enough.

I think I will invest at least some.

I agree with armoredman 100% on his review of the beef.

Canned meat of all types first.

Just found this thread, thanks for doing it, great info,  and prayers for your wife!