Hi my name is Ellen Serfustini.
I work with Utah State University extension
in Carbon County and today I'd like
to show you a slightly different twist on a food storage
program.
You never know when an emergency is
going to arise, whether it be, what's for dinner,
or whether it be a disaster, like you've lost a job
or you've been laid off.
There's too much month at the end of the money.
These ideas that I'm going to show you today,
will be very beneficial at the emergency times
when you need them.
I think sometimes, we focus on storing bulk items in our food
storage, like wheat or beans.
And then we wonder what we're going to do with all of them
when we get hungry.
By storing what I call boxed meals in your food storage,
you have all the ingredients together in one box
or one container, that you can use
to make a quick delicious meal.
Now, lots of times, they tell us that during those times,
it's the comfort foods that you need.
So a good idea is to go through your recipes
and find your family favorites.
And I'm going to show you or tell you
how to do a boxed meal here.
So the first thing you do is you want to go through your family
favorite recipes.
See what recipes will adapt themselves very well to these.
If you pick skillet meals, or casseroles, or soups,
they lend themselves very well to this type of food storage
program.
Your boxed meals are already ready to go
on the shelf for when you have that emergency.
So all you need to do is grab the box.
And you can see that I have several different containers
up here.
It doesn't even have to be a box.
But you grab it off the shelf and you can make that delicious
meal in hardly no time at all.
So go through your recipes, see which ones will
adapt themselves really well.
You want to look for the ingredients,
the fresh ingredients, and you're
going to change them to a form that
can be stored on the shelf for maybe two to 12 months.
For example, I had a casserole recipe
that my family dearly loves and it calls for ham.
Obviously, you can't store the ham in a box
and so, you could go to something
like spam, which I did for a boxed meal
and it works very well in this particular recipe.
You can also go with canned ham in this recipe.
Now, not all recipes are going to adapt themselves
well to these canned products, but look
for the recipes that will.
When it calls for a fresh tomato,
you can use canned tomatoes.
If it calls for green peppers--
I found that one a little challenging,
but in some recipes, I have used canned chilies
and it works out very well.
My family isn't really fond of green peppers
and so, sometimes I omit the ingredient
and they don't know the difference.
So things like fresh vegetables, you can get canned.
If it calls for potatoes, you have a choice.
You can either use potato flakes, or the potato pearls,
or you can use canned potatoes.
In a casserole, lots of times they'll call for noodles.
You can substitute, practically, any kind of noodles in here.
And what we do is put them--
pre-measure them and put them in just a zippered storage bag
and they're ready to go.
It's all measured.
OK, once you've gone through your recipes,
then make a shopping list.
What do you need?
Go to the grocery store or go look at your food storage
that you already have on hand.
What can you use?
But get your ingredients all assembled and ready to go.
Then what you want to do is in these recipes
that you're using, look for what spices, or herbs, or seasonings
are used.
And in this particular one, there happens to be--
this is my family's favorite, ham and noodle casserole.
There happens to be salt and pepper and dried onions.
And the recipe actually called for chopped onions,
but we want it in a form that's easy to store on the shelf.
So I've pre-measured in here.
We have the dried onions and the salt and pepper.
So all I need to do is add it to the recipe.
The next thing you want to do is assemble your ingredients
in a box or a container.
Up here, I've got several examples.
This is just a plain old shoe box, nothing really fancy,
but it's about the right size and it works very well.
I picked up some boxes that I thought work really well
and I'd use them over and over again.
This is when I got at a paper store.
I've included on the front just a little
plastic sleeve that holds the recipe
and gives directions for what's in the box.
This particular one is a taco soup and everything
is in there, except the ground beef.
If you did not have the ground beef on hand
when you went to make this, it's still a good soup
to use without the ground beef.
But directions and everything-- right there in that box.
The next thing, make sure that your box is labeled.
And so, therefore, I have it right here on the front.
Saks, I reuse your gift bags that you
get when the corners get a little frayed or whatever.
They're great to use for holding your boxed meals.
On the front, I've put the little plastic sleeve also.
But you want to make sure that in all of these,
you include the recipe and the directions
on how to make what's in the box.
Otherwise, if it's not you, you're going to be lost.
OK, then another thing to remember
is that you want to put an expiration date on there.
Sometimes, there's ingredients in the box
that are going to expire before the other ingredients.
In this particular one, we have bread crumbs.
Bread crumbs only last about three months
on your storage shelf.
They're going to expire way before.
The cream of chicken soup-- that's in here.
So I would put probably a three-month expiration date
on here so my bread crumbs wouldn't be stale
when I went to use them.
So you've got it labeled with the recipe,
you've got the expiration date labeled,
and you're ready to go.
And one good fun thing to do is to get together
with your neighbors or friends, six or seven of them.
And you make six or seven of the same boxed meal
and then your neighbors make their favorite boxed meal.
And you get together and you have a SWAT party,
so that you end up with several different kinds of boxed meals
to put on your shelf.
You're wondering probably why I have these over here.
They certainly aren't boxes.
But as a side note, these boxed meals
lend themselves very well to wedding gifts, shower gifts.
You just kind of have to wrap them a little bit different.
In this particular one, it's a spaghetti dinner.
And I've included some checkered napkins, a candle holder,
and a candle in there, kind of a romantic spaghetti
dinner, which makes a very good shower gift or wedding gift.
Sometimes, there might be a crisis in the neighborhood,
when somebody goes to the hospital,
it's always good to take a meal over.
And if you've got one in a cute box,
then you can just take it to your neighbor or friend
and their family can whip it up really fast and easy.
I know that when my kids came home from college,
they would raid my shelves of the boxed meals
because they were tired of eating
ramen noodles the whole time.
And so, it was great to get the boxed meals for something
different to eat, and it's fast, and it's easy.
Everything is there.
It's pre-measured, so that all you have to do
is follow the recipe.
You don't have to measure anything.
You hardly have anything to clean up
and it's prepared, most of them, within a half hour.
So that is a really good use form also.
Another one, when the classes I taught, people would say,
oh, those would be so good for my elderly parents
because they don't do a lot of preparation, cooking wise,
and they wanted to have some meals on hand
so they didn't have to shop.
And they didn't have to do a lot of preparation.
So it comes in handy there also.
But whatever the emergency is, it
is great to have these on hand for when the money is short,
when the time is short, and you can use these
for those types of things.
Lots of fun and lots of--
I don't know, self-worth with, yes, I made that meal.
Good for teenagers, too, with limited preparation skills.
When you're going out for a night on a town
and want to leave your kids with the babysitter and so
the babysitter can easily fix the meal.
I give you a challenge to go home and make some boxed meals.
Get your family favorites out and see what you can do.
Be creative.
Sometimes you have to omit things or trade things around,
but it's fun and kind of exciting
to see what you can do.
If you have any questions, you are
free to call me at my office.
Again, my name is Ellen Serfustini with the USU
extension and I hope that you can
find some really creative, fun things to do with boxed meals.
Thank you.