Zombie Meals In A Jar

If you want to get super technical, I guess the appropriate term is "Meal Ready to Eat" or "Dehydrated Meal" - but my friend Heidi told me they reminded her of Zombies for a few reasons:
1) They are dehydrated and freeze dried, Just like a zombie.
2) You can reanimate them with water late at night when your family is hungry after a long day away from home.
3) They have shelf life of 5 to 7 years and are going to be available to you when the zombie invasion does happen...or you know, when you are late coming home from all the things you do and you need the husband or children to make their own dinner.  (I call this the MOM zombie invasion...super busy moms tend to look like zombies by the end of their days.)

I've learned a lot about freeze dried meal preparation in the last few months.  For instance, freeze dried foods of today taste a whole heck of a lot better than they did in the past.  I'm still pretty wary of the TVP meats, however (freeze dried meats such as hamburger, chicken and ham) but that is a personal preference. I've known several who use and love them.  I also found that there are places you can purchase the ingredients for the meals locally, as well as online, however - did you know that Wal-Mart also carries a line of dehydrated and freeze dried food?

Anyway, I've found several different recipes on the web for creating freeze dried meals in a jar (aka Zombie meals) and while most of them are pretty tasty (and yes, I've added them to my food storage as well) I wanted some meals that closely resembled the things my family likes to eat on a regular basis, so of course I set out to create a few of my own.

Over the next few posts, I'll share some recipes, instructions on how to do this, and creative ways to store them. I'm actually pretty excited about this project.  I've been meaning to ramp up my food storage for a while.  In fact, I've had cans and cans of dried wheat, rice, noodles, carrots, peas, etc. that I've been saving, but in an true emergency, I'm not sure I would of known what to do with them.  This solves that problem.  With these meals in our food storage, I'll no longer have to worry about trying to get my kids to consume an entire 10# can of dried carrots  or apple slices.

Stay tuned!

Tamara