Customer Reviews

Pantry Cooking: Quick and Easy Food Storage Recipes

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2 star:		(1)
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As I write this review, I have a pot of 15 bean soup on the stove, recipe courtesy of this book. The soup smells and tastes delicious because I am the kind of cook who does taste as I go along.

I bought this book in the wake of news reports indicating that food prices had soared in the last year. Because I can remember paying 19 cents a pound for chicken at one point, many years ago, the price of eggs, peanut butter and such basics as sugar and flour has me reeling. Just driving to the grocery store, in winter (when walking or biking is difficult or impossible), costs gas money. As of this writing, gas price are predicted to soar and aren't exactly low.

This book offers a solution for those who feel pinched financially, a way to save money and even get by if there would be a power outage, major earthquake, blizzard or simply very tough times during a major recession.

The solution? Pantry cooking or making sure you have enough food on hand to get by without a trip to the grocery store. The author is very clever and has given readers this info:

1. A list of supplies to have on hand, enough to support one person for a year without a single trip to the grocery store. While you might not care for THAT ambitious a plan, you can adapt her method to only 2 weeks or up to 5 weeks. You don't have to commit to a year without going to the grocery store!

2. The money saving advantages of stocking up on food

3. An emphasis on whole grains and healthy foods.

4. A list of recipes, day by day, for 5 weeks, including breakfast, lunch and dinner.

5. Storage and pantry tips. No pantry? Think about the space under your bed or under rarely used dining room tables (with a tablecloth on top).

Recipes in this one will satisfy both vegetarians and those who like meat. The bean soup doesn't require an ounce of meat, although it does taste better with a ham bone thrown in (in my opinion). However, it is delicious just as it is. There is a nice global or cross-cultural diversity of recipes, from Anasazi stew to Arroz Con Pollo to Egg Foo Yung to Fettucini with Capers, Olives and Tomatoes. Try feeling deprived with that kind of versatility!

For those who wonder whether food is family friendly, I can vouch for that. The answer is yes.

However, you may want to substitute fresh ingredients for dried ones when you can and use the dried alternative only in a true emergency. We've experimented with both versions of recipes so I know that each is perfectly fine. I do add my own seasonings and variations to each recipe (most of the time) but we always try the recipe as the author originally intended it so I can also note that the recipes are tasty and you can adapt them beyond the original, as desired.

Other recipes include basics such as beef stew but also more gourmet fare like pasta with artichokes, smoked salmon cakes. There are also desserts like rice pudding, cherry cobbler, brownies and chocolate chip pudding.

Other features I like:
The Snack Pack: a backpack that is always filled with healthy and ready to eat snacks and drinks which can be tossed in the car and taken along. This is an idea I wish I'd used when my children were young. It would have prevented stops at fast food restaurants and early trips home from the park.

The 72 Hour Survival Kit- the basics for staying alive for 3 days

A list of suppliers and resources at the end of the book.

If you store the right foods in your pantry, you can make a number of delicious recipes without having to run to the store at a moments notice. The Brownie recipe calls for unsweetened chocolate, butter-flavored shortening, sugar, vanilla, dry egg, water, whole wheat flour and chopped walnuts. In many of the recipes, the flour is whole wheat. So, if you are looking for some healthy recipes, this book has plenty of them (...except, you might want to use butter in place of the less healthy butter shortening)!

The main sections:

Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
Sides and Sauces
Dessert

A section on "Important Storage Components" also contains information on a 72-Hour Survival Kit, ideas for making a snack pack to carry with you and hints on gardening.

Some of the ingredients used are easy to keep in your pantry: dry egg mix, dry onions, bread mixes, dried fruits and vegetables, dry pastas, canned ground beef (who knew? I'd never seen it before), sun-dried tomatoes, tuna, chicken bouillon, dried herbs an spices, oil, canned vegetables, cornmeal and cherry pie filling.

You will find recipes for:

Biscuits and Gravy
Mushroom Omelets
Pancakes
Macaroni and Cheese
Sloppy Joes
Chicken and Dumplings
Linguine with White Clam Sauce
Smoked Salmon Cakes
Navajo Fry Bread
Spanish Rice
Salsa
Cherry Cobbler

As someone who likes to challenge herself to see how much she can cook with whatever is in the pantry, this book did intrigue. I think it will be most useful at the end of the week or when I don't want to run to the store. Most of the ingredients are things you already keep in your pantry, so that makes it even more useful. You may also want to own this for camping trips, since you can take along dried foods that are light to carry.

I'm making the Greek Chicken Soup...except, I'm using a homemade chicken stock. There are ways to adapt the recipes, like you can use chopped onions instead of the dried onions. You just skip adding the water to the dried onions.

This book would be helpful in an emergency situation as long as
your pantry is well stocked and you have lots of bottled water on hand.

~The Rebecca Review

Pantry Cooking is quite a discovery of a book. I am a recently reformed (transformation in progress, however!) once-a-week supermarket shopper. Every time I went into that mega-store, even with a list, I ended up buying more (much more) than I ever planned to buy. One night I sat down and just reviewed all the charges I had racked up on groceries, and I was shocked. It was especially disheartening to realize that this constant shopping brought on the added problem of waste. There were way too many times that food had to be discarded.

Pantry Cooking was the teacher that arrived just when the student was ready!

I highly recommend it. Laura Robins is sure to bring about a positive effect on your recession-plagued pantry.

Most of the books I've read on storing large amounts of food long term tout the saying "store what you use & use what you store" but then tell me I need 600lbs of whole grain. Honestly, the only whole grain in my house is in the bird's food. I wouldn't know what in the world to do with 600lbs of grain and can't imagine trying to learn these skills & change my family's diet in the midst of trying times. That's where this book comes in. Instead of telling how many pounds of lentils, grains, etc. you will need for your family of 4, Ms. Robins suggests converting the meals you cook now into storable ingredients, then store everything you need to make that meal. She gives a 5 week menu (with recipes) as an example but intends for you to make your own menu. This approach is much more practical and doable because it's much closer to the food your family already likes and knows how to prepare. Great book!

This book is very well titled! Absolutely every recipe in it is for total pantry cooking, all the way down to the powered eggs, milk and shortening. I love it! Great for all that food storage I didn't know what to do with. It's also really easy to use due to the smaller size and the ringed binding.

I found several great recipes in here. I would have liked to see more pictures and more information on food storage itself, but I've tried several of the recipes so far and they were yummy. Right up my alley.

1) Five weeks worth of menus and 103 recipes.
2) All recipes are made entirely from food storage items and can be cooked on either a propane stove, campfire, or if you are lucky enough to own one, a wood cook stove.
3) Unlike other books in the food storage genre that have you buying loads of wheat, beans, and rice then calmly tell you to fix such and such in a blender,(Uh, wait a minute, there's no power!), this lady has done her homework and laid out menus and recipes for each menu item that are practical to real life emergency cooking. She also allows for the fact that no refrigeration may be available and strives to not leave you with a half used jar of mayo, for instance, to deal with. While thirty five different dinners may not be enough variety for some, the dishes inspire you to experiment and work with your ideas to add to your own repertoire of meals from storage foods.
4) This is not a high powered, over the top cookbook with full page color photos or nostalgic ramblings about life in Italy interspersed between recipes. Instead, I find the page layouts and occasional illustrations convey an air of warm and pleasing friendliness about the book. The spiral binding that allows the book to lay flat while opened also shows caring and practicality.
5) Lastly, this book is about being prepared. There's nothing like looking out your garage at a snowy morning in the midst of a week-long power outage with your hands around a hot cup of coffee and knowing you have enough canned and dry foods to last several more weeks. And nothing more rewarding than noticing a group of neighbors gathering at the end of your driveway wistfully looking your way, and having those wistful looks suddenly turn into outbursts of gratitude and smiles when your offer them some hot coffee (It seems that the smell of fresh hot coffee travels).

This is a good starter book. You can get some great ideas for planning and cooking meals using your survival pantry. Don't think this is for a typical daily cookbook. These recipes are for SURVIVAL pantries. However, all the recipes can be reworked using your own stuff and tweaking them to taste.

Most of the recipes are such as those you make over and over and have memorized. For me it is not very valuable to have a recipe for making cooked cereal. There are better books out there for cooking with food storage.

Pantry Cooking
I have to confess up front that I did not make any of the recipes yet, and I won't. All the recipes are very unappetzing to me.If you are looking for information on how to stock your pantry in case of a major disaster, or if you get to a supermarket only once a year, this is the book for you. The author recommends stocking up on large (and I do mean large!)quantities of pantry supplies which you can then stash all over your house because they won't fit in your pantry. There are many books that use convenience pantry products and the recipes are much more appetizing than these-butter flavored shortening? Canned ground beef? Ugh