Tigerburnie ,s comment about being cut off by heavy rainfall and flooding has motivated me to enquire what TEN items you would want to have stocked in your food cupboard or freezer to see you through a few days of being cut off from the outside world?
They can be home grown or commercially purchased and assume your cooking fuel is still available.
I,ll kick off with mine but would be very interested to see what Stravaig comes up with.
Long life milk
Olive oil or cooking oil
Dried pasta
Rice
Tins of baked beans
Our Frozen tomato sauce
Fresh onions
Tinned meat( Spam , corned beef? )
Dried herbs
Selection of stock cubes
Oh goodness, and and this doesn,t even cover breakfast! I now begin to wonder how my mother coped with rationing and feeding a family in the Second World War !
Winter storecupboard emergency planning
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Stravaig
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>Great question, Primrose. Thanks.
>
> Re fuel, we already have a camping gas stove and gas, which can be used inside. (We were anticipating power cuts when we bought it last year. And when something becomes necessary there's always a shortage because everyone wants one, so I try to plan ahead. )
>
> I already have all the food items below and more, although we're no longer expecting to face empty supermarket shelves or major power cuts. Have loads of stuff in the freezer, but it's not much help if there's no power but a full freezer takes a while for its contents to defrost so we'd still have plenty of home-made ready meals to tide us over. Maybe if we were snowed-in and had a power cut we could use a coolbox in the snow as a fridge and similar to slow down the defrosting process of anything frozen.
>
> My most important pieces of kit would therefore be the camping gas stove and plenty of gas (mentioned above). We do have a big BBQ outside, but who wants a barbie in the snow and ice? Not me. I'd also want a large wok. I can cook just about anything in a wok. I've even made a veggie haggis completly from scratch in a wok on a gas stove top on more than one occasion. (I can try to dig out my 'recipe' if anyone wants it.)
>
> Ingredient 1. Potable water so I'd buy at least 5 x 20 litre bottles of water. I don't drink that much water but it's needed for cooking a lot of things. Imagine how difficult it would be without water coming out of the tap in the kitchen. If the power cut was widespread, the water pumping machinery might not work at the places from where water is supplied. I expect they'd have gennys but I'd not chance it.
>
> Ingredient 2. I would like container - grown tatties but we never got around to planting any. As Celts we would miss our tatties. But husband can't stand the packet stuff. We always have tatties in the veg cupboard so that'd tide us over for a few days at least. Could boil the tatties on the stove top in the wok, if necessary, but presumably our pots and pans haven't been taken away. Then they could be sliced and fried or even just mashed after boiling.
>
> Ingred 3. Pasta - quick and easy to cook and as a dried good it has a long shelf life.
>
> Ingred 4. Mince - think how many dishes you can make with mince. Holland & Barret do a good dried soya mince (again long shelf life) but it needs to cooked with some TLC so it doesn't taste of minced cardboard. That leads to my next two essential ingredients.
>
> Ingred 5. Marmite - adds taste instantly to just about anything.
>
> Ingred 6. Onions - I use a lot of onions in soups, curries and just about everything else. The soy mince above needs it in my opinion.
>
> Ingred 7. Tinned stuff, especially tinned tomatoes. Kidney beans too. Can use in loads and loads of dishes. Can I add tinned tuna to my tinned shopping?
Ingred 8 Wine
Ingred 9 Stock cubes. Sure, I can make stock but the cubes are an excellent shortcut.
Ingred 10 Hmm, maybe garlic. Or some of my imported herbs and spices. Or eggs! Eggs are useful.
>
Sorry about the formatting but the forum wouldn't let me save the draft so I copied and emailed to myself. It's too awkward to try to reformat it.
Just noticed I don't have oil or butter on the list so something would have to go. Definitely not the wine. Maybe the tatties.
>
> Re fuel, we already have a camping gas stove and gas, which can be used inside. (We were anticipating power cuts when we bought it last year. And when something becomes necessary there's always a shortage because everyone wants one, so I try to plan ahead. )
>
> I already have all the food items below and more, although we're no longer expecting to face empty supermarket shelves or major power cuts. Have loads of stuff in the freezer, but it's not much help if there's no power but a full freezer takes a while for its contents to defrost so we'd still have plenty of home-made ready meals to tide us over. Maybe if we were snowed-in and had a power cut we could use a coolbox in the snow as a fridge and similar to slow down the defrosting process of anything frozen.
>
> My most important pieces of kit would therefore be the camping gas stove and plenty of gas (mentioned above). We do have a big BBQ outside, but who wants a barbie in the snow and ice? Not me. I'd also want a large wok. I can cook just about anything in a wok. I've even made a veggie haggis completly from scratch in a wok on a gas stove top on more than one occasion. (I can try to dig out my 'recipe' if anyone wants it.)
>
> Ingredient 1. Potable water so I'd buy at least 5 x 20 litre bottles of water. I don't drink that much water but it's needed for cooking a lot of things. Imagine how difficult it would be without water coming out of the tap in the kitchen. If the power cut was widespread, the water pumping machinery might not work at the places from where water is supplied. I expect they'd have gennys but I'd not chance it.
>
> Ingredient 2. I would like container - grown tatties but we never got around to planting any. As Celts we would miss our tatties. But husband can't stand the packet stuff. We always have tatties in the veg cupboard so that'd tide us over for a few days at least. Could boil the tatties on the stove top in the wok, if necessary, but presumably our pots and pans haven't been taken away. Then they could be sliced and fried or even just mashed after boiling.
>
> Ingred 3. Pasta - quick and easy to cook and as a dried good it has a long shelf life.
>
> Ingred 4. Mince - think how many dishes you can make with mince. Holland & Barret do a good dried soya mince (again long shelf life) but it needs to cooked with some TLC so it doesn't taste of minced cardboard. That leads to my next two essential ingredients.
>
> Ingred 5. Marmite - adds taste instantly to just about anything.
>
> Ingred 6. Onions - I use a lot of onions in soups, curries and just about everything else. The soy mince above needs it in my opinion.
>
> Ingred 7. Tinned stuff, especially tinned tomatoes. Kidney beans too. Can use in loads and loads of dishes. Can I add tinned tuna to my tinned shopping?
Ingred 8 Wine
Ingred 9 Stock cubes. Sure, I can make stock but the cubes are an excellent shortcut.
Ingred 10 Hmm, maybe garlic. Or some of my imported herbs and spices. Or eggs! Eggs are useful.
>
Sorry about the formatting but the forum wouldn't let me save the draft so I copied and emailed to myself. It's too awkward to try to reformat it.
Just noticed I don't have oil or butter on the list so something would have to go. Definitely not the wine. Maybe the tatties.