u/Myspys_35

Thought it would be a good idea for inspiration and hopefully an increase in preparedness to share recipes using our food preps. Often we end up discussing what and how much, but rarely do we actually provide examples on how to use our preps for decent meals

So let's share what we have cooked either today or earlier, only using our shelf stable goods! Let's call shelf stable anything with a shelf life over a couple of months without refrigeration, unless someone has a better suggestion?

Getting us kicked off hopefully, my meal today:

Swedish sausage stroganoff -

• Canned sausages (ideally proper sausages with skin)
• 2x chopped onions
• 1 cup Tomato passata (aka tomato puree or sauce)
• 2 tbsp Tomato paste
• 1 pint UHT milk (shelf stable for 8 months)
• 1 tbsp Flour
• Salt and spices (ideally smoked paprika, pepper)

Panfry onions and sausages, then sprinkle flour. Mix in the rest of the ingredients and stir until simmering. Cook for 10min or whatever it takes to cook your carb

Serve with pasta, rice, bulgur, cabbage

What have you made using your shelf stable food?

Hi all,

This is probably a dumb question but Im struggling with it. What is the etiquette for asking about prices for multiple items or asking multiple vendors then only selecting one?

So I know a lot of people simply have a lanyard and Im not sure where their phone goes or if it stays in the cabin... but I cant help but carry something. I do tend to bring my phone, a kindle, lactose pills and lipbalm or other lip product. So not a lot but something

What do the lovely ladies and gents here use? I've tried a few options, don't like carrying a bigger bag on the ship, tried a Chanel WOC but the strap is a pain at sea, and essentially landed on a wristlet as my go to. The one that gets the most use is a YSL envelope one. Not a huge fan of the big logo but supringly it fits a kindle so its a winner in my world and the leather simply gets wiped off and no more fuss.

Before I buy the same thing in another color I thought I'd check in with the wise redditors on here

P.S. I use the same thing day and night as prefer to travel carry on only

May be going nuts over here. Always been a only Auth, natural diamonds, etc. type of gal but honestly the BS price increases and lowered quality changed my attitude recently. Have made two purchases and have a third on its way. The first purchase was a bit of a bust, I could tell the difference. For the second one I was more cautious and was very happy with the results. Now crossing fingers for the third

Would I be crazy to consider selling off a few of my auth. and simply replacing them with high level reps? This would mainly apply to some LV, Dior and Gucci items and not for my vintage or older pieces.

After a few too many times being a wee bit disappointed at both restaurant and store-bought Mac & Cheese I just make it myself. But when in the mood for that cheesy goodness I dont have any patience for lengthy, convoluted recipes. This particular version uses what you have on hand (with some recommendations) and takes 12 min as thats the time the pasta needs....

- Key point about cheeses: today I was lucky and had 3 top notch contestants in the fridge aka my local equivalent of gruyere, cheddar and parmesan. But essentially chuck anything in as long as you have at least something sharp / umami and creamy. It doesnt need to be fancy, although good cheeses help, but I've made it with expired parmesan, cream cheese and burger cheese. In those cases throw in some nutritional yeast to give it umph (that stuff keeps ages, is inexpensive and available even on amazon)

- For the lazy gal / guy: important point on the cheese, there is no need to buy or make grated cheese. Chunks are fine, hard left overs are fine, all you need to do in those cases is stir a bit longer to melt. Personally I prefer to buy chunks of cheese as they keep longer (and for proper hard cheeses you just slice off any potential issues).

- Slurry instead of roux: remember, we are lazy. Instead of starting off with a roux, start with a slurry aka 2 heaped table spoons of flour (or your preferred thickener) whisked into a little under 2 cups of milk (full fat is better here or add a bit of cream if you want)

- 3rd reminder - lazy gals are rarely prepared for food urges, so just use what you have on hand in terms of pasta, veg, if you want to add protein, etc.

Enough commentary, here is the recipe:

1. Start boiling water for pasta, whenever its boiling add your pasta of choice and salt
2. In a saucepan whisk 2 cups of full fat milk with 2 heaped tablespoons of flour and whisk while heating on 6-7 out of 10. Usually takes 4-5 min to thicken unless you have a very slow stove top
3. Chop up your cheeses as you have the sauce thickening (dont forget to whisk every 20-30 sec). Add your cheeses once sauce starts to thicken

*See above for cheeses (gruyere, cheddar and parmesan are lovely but anything works. Add some mozzarella if you want stringy but dont forget the actual flavor contributors. Add som nutritional yeast for depth if you have it on hand

4. Add a dash of nutmeg, white pepper (bit spicier than black but whatever you have), garlic powder and salt to taste. You can also add a dash of paprika or mustard powder if you prefer

5. Serve - or if you want it gratinated pop slightly undercooked pasta with the sauce in an oven pan and sprinkle panko and more cheese on top

Any thoughts on making it even tastier and or more lazy gal / guy?

So to be fair I do find the whole "how are you?" when they dont care annoying, but its easy to deal with.

But what the heck do you do when its a close person who does actually care when they ask "Oh but how are you feeling, can you do x" when you suggested the activity? The majority of people around me either like to ignore anything that is inconvenient or they do they whole "silence is golden". But a very close person to me, who is on the spectrum, asks what feels to me like over the top questions. E.g. they and their wife are visiting next week, I sent a suggested itinerary and they say "sounds awesome but are you sure you can do it". It all comes from a very positive place which I appreciate.

However, how do I say clearly that I wouldnt say yes or offer things I cant do? They dont get discrete "yeah its fine" so how do I say essentially - dude Im fine, I wouldnt offer options I cant do. The hilarious thing is they are pretty oblivious to some things (e.g. will plan something that requires me to be on feet for hours on end, or be awake 4h beyond my normal time) but then when I suggest "lets do x activity" they worry. Part of me wants to just be super clear, but think it could be taken negatively which I dont want...

Hi all,

Been lurking on this forum and learning tonnes - really appreciate the amazing people here

A few months ago I finally got my hands on an American pressure canner (Presto) - and now want to get into canning meat and ideally full meals. Since its not something we do normally in my area (Scandinavia) Im a bit scared of not knowing if its right or potentially dangerous. I've only had canned chicken once in my life when I lived in the US and just remember the texture being very odd to me. Since I tend to be a bit overcautious, I just dont want to end up throwing out everything just because I dont know how to tell good from bad

What would you say is the safest meat / fowl starter recipe that is either foolproof or has an easy tell for when something has gone wrong? For reference, Im comfortable with various food conservation methods incl. water canning and have tested the pressure cooker. Overall I can tell if cured or dried meats have gone bad, as well as pickled raw fish, but canning something non-acidic is pretty new to me

So Im very new to rep's, but add up a bad experience and then the absolutely ridiculous price increases and I went there. Like Im sorry, but Im not paying 50% more for the exact same bag in another classic colorway compared to 3 years ago...

I see a lot of people asking if they dare use their purchases in public so thought I'd give a real world view - that to be honest would never have considered even 5 years ago.

Last weekend I was a bit stressed dressing so just used the same bag as earlier in the day for dinner and it was the rep I had gotten. I was at dinner with 12 ladies all with designer bags, and one of the topics was of course the mess that Hermes waiting lists are - half of us are doing the game, the others dont, so its a bit of a thing when we get together. Since we are in a big city, space is limited and we all shove the bags on the bench and stuff gets handled by everyone... no one reacted beyond going, "oh is this new?" since they hadnt seen me with that particular bag before. That is all to say that if you wear whatever you want with confidence, no one will judge you!

Honestly, the core bragging right was who had managed to grow tomatoes this year.... batshit expensive apartments and houses but yeah thats how we flex. Or getting a private showing at a hard to get art gallery, etc. What people never consider? - if the brand you are wearing is real

So realizing I may have an issue.... a good third of my fridge are various pickles and that is pretty much just the essentials...

Had this realization as was struggling to find my salt cucumber pickles - very needed for today's sandwitch.

Then realized that on top of the salt pickles I had normal pickle sliced cucumbers, cornichons, spicy chili cucumber pickles, boston pickles (what we call the sweet chopped pickles) and Lebanese wild cucumber pickles).... and those are the opened ones, have other options in the cabinet. And of course other pickled incl. beets, onions, branson, carrots, etc... starting to think I have a pickle issue, but they are sooooo gooodddd!

And before anyone get's worried, I am chronically natrium deficient - so the more salt the merrier in my case

Hopefully not a too odd an ask. But after years of using corporate issued phones I am now realizing it would be good to have a private backup phone. What would be a cheap backup that can actually make calls and take e-sims (dont need much more)

As a backup I dont need fancy specs and cameras. However, I do need e-sim capability as I travel a lot and that is probably the main feature a good phone brings for me. It can literally be a brick but I do need esim, and would like decent battery time. Overall an Android gal but flexible. Really appreciate any help as a bit of a techtard

Have you ever had to check against the national database of old school stuff like Viking runes? And this is for anything that changes your house... Betting most people dont have to deal with all this haha

Now I love where I live, its amazing and I fully support all the nature reserves and the castles and all that jazz... but come onnnnn be reasonable! Basically my area is surrounded by special interest places and there are a couple burial places beneath us. So rules never stay fixed, just depend on the current political situation (not in the US)

Currently looking into what to do with my property. Its too big of a plot for me but I dont want to move as this location is awesome. I would like to split the property so of course had to check the rules and good lord ALL the stuff you need to have papers on!!!

Pretty darn sure that most people on this forum don't have to check for old runes and stay within x meters of it! FML as currently need to somehow adhere to current building standards and requirements for differently abled together with standards set 100 years ago... and lets be clear, they are not compatible at all

Overall it applies for everything, don't store or plan for anything you dont know how to both cook and preserve

A lot of people count on foraging in their SHTF planning, but a key thing to account for is to not only know how to find edible items its also knowing how to prepare them (many things are not very edible in raw form)

Something that is easy to prepare and digest at some points of the year might have unintended consequences at other times. Wild plants are not like the highly breed seeds you can raise in your garden!

This came to mind as I use ground elder as a prep for early year greens. Ground elder is awesome in cold areas - it magically sprouts edible leaves early even when there is still snow on other spots and its also invasive so most people consider it a weed. But it is edible and early greens are so important for nutrition

The thing with ground elder though is that its lovely when young, then it gets much more bitter as it matures and once it flowers its ehhhh useful for stuff like laxatives. So the yummy salad bowl early March will be tough and bitter by June... and may lead to extra bathroom visits.

Today I tried a dip I like to make with it... and damn it required effort with an electric mixer and yeah dont think I would feel all that well if I had an entire bowl of it. At this point of the year I def. need to use it sparingly and parboil first

What items are you learning to use?

What do you do when a child changes your equations / plans?

I've always prepped based on a probability / risk matrix. For the real "end of the world as you know it" scenarios my calculations have been based on my key family members not being able to survive long term without pharmaceutical manufacturing (dependent on items that have a short shelf life). Essentially I was not prepping for long term (2y+) end of the world scenarios as I assumed my family would be gone and I would choose to leave as well in that case.

Now however we have a healthy child in the family. So now just giving up is no longer an option. The issue now comes from how do I prioritize scenarios. Overall, I am ending up feeling that not prepping for long term is a risk but so is focusing on unlikely scenarios. Moving to the forest and becoming self sufficient is not a good choice in most cases but is the main one for full end of the world. However, living rural is pretty impossible when aiming to have a good income and easy access to healthcare

Any advice on how to handle the mental load? How do you prioritize?

Honestly don't understand why no designer bags even have a luggage strap?! Even ones billed for travel miss it. Same thing for lack of a laptop sleeve (but some options for men have it and it can be fixed with an insert)

I get that historically this wasnt needed, especially for certain types of travelers, but now days its normal for everyone. Especially business travelers tend to travel carry on only and prefer convenience. Honestly, if a designer brought out even one option that is a tad more practical I would buy it and Im not alone

Or does anyone have any options I have missed?