Kitchen Survival Recipe Guide

The outdoor kitchen is very much like the indoor kitchen a hundred years ago. If you cook on an outdoor grill or go camping, you pretty much know how it is already.

No refrigeration, everything depends on fire.

So long as you have fire, you can cook. A metal plate or grate and a pot, you’ve got the basis of a Roman kitchen.

Be smart and prepare some zip lock bags with family favorite spices, salt and pepper. This will go a long way toward making emergency meals tasty rather then barely acceptable. This lite weight addition to the bug-out-bag will prove useful, especially if you can escape harm by claiming to be a cook. Cooks are usually non combatants useful to any group including pirates, plus you get to eat!

Do yourself a favor and get a good book on outdoor food preparation, cooking and recipes.

You open the cookbook and see a recipe title or a photo that tempts your taste buds. Then you start to read the recipe, 1. First steal a chicken, realize the preparation is more difficult than you first thought, and put the book back on the shelf.

Sound Familiar?

Well here’s a simple guide to help get you started:

1. Abbreviations for Measuring

Tsp. = teaspoon
Tbsp. = tablespoon, which equals 3 teaspoons
C = cup.

Tip: Get a set of measuring spoons. The set will usually have 1/4 tsp., 1/3 tsp., 1/2 tsp., 1 teaspoon and 1 tablespoon.

Dry measure cups look like little saucepans and can be leveled off with a knife or other straight-edged tool. They come in sets like the measuring spoons. Liquid measuring cups have ounce marking lines so you can measure however many ounces you need.

Tip: Some recipes require exact measurements to turn out right so learn to measure correctly.

2. Common Ingredients

Make sure you know what you need.

Tips:

– Baking powder and baking soda are not the same.

– Ask the produce manager at the market about fruits and vegetables, the meat manager about cuts of meat.

– When trying something new, buy ONE. You can always go back for more if it turns out well.

3. Common Terminology

– Bake: Dry heat in the oven. Set oven control to the desired temperature while you’re preparing the dish to be baked. Once the light that says it’s heating turns off, the oven is at the proper temperature. Then put in the food–for best results, center it in the oven.

– Boil: Heat a liquid until it bubbles. The faster the bubbles rise and the more bubbles you get, the hotter the liquid. Some recipes call for a gentle boil–barely bubbling–or a rolling boil–just short of boiling over. Watch so it doesn’t boil over.

– Braise: A moist cooking method using a little liquid that barely bubbles on the top of the stove or in the oven. This is a good way to tenderize cheaper cuts of meat. The pan should be heavy and shallow with a tight-fitting lid to keep the liquid from boiling away. There’s a lot that can be done for flavoring in your choice of liquid and of vegetables to cook with the meat.

– Broil: Turn the oven to its highest setting. Put the food on broiler pan–a 2 piece pan that allows the grease to drain away from the food. In an electric oven on the broil setting only the upper element heats, and you can regulate how fast the food cooks by how close to the element you place it. Watch your cooking time–it’s easy to overcook food in the broiler.

– Brown: Cook until the food gets light brown. Usually used for frying or baking. Ground beef should usually be browned (use a frying pan) and have the grease drained before adding it to a casserole or meat sauce.

– Fold: A gentle mixing method that moves the spoon down to the bottom of the bowl and then sweeps up, folding what was on the bottom up over the top. This is used to mix delicate ingredients such as whipped cream or beaten egg whites. These ingredients just had air whipped into them, so you don’t want to reverse that process by mixing too vigorously.

– Simmer: Heat to just the start of a boil and keep it at that point for as long as the recipe requires. The recipe will usually call for either constant stirring or stirring at certain intervals.

Now you are ready to do the shopping and prepare that roasted beast recipe that you’ve always wanted to try!

Happy cooking…

Outdoor Cooking Gear for Survival

You never know when you’re going to encounter a survival situation. Sometimes when the weather gets bad, the grid shuts down. Then you’re left without basic necessities such as electricity.

For many, this means they don’t have a way to heat their home or prepare food. That’s why you need to be prepared in the event something happens. Preparation can make the difference between surviving and not.

You need to be able to depend on yourself if you’re faced with a short or long-term survival situation of any kind. One of the things you’re going to need to know is how to cook your food without electricity and what tools you’re going to use to do that with.

Grills and Smokers

Not all grills and smokers are intended for use with survival purposes. You don’t want to find out that you have the wrong item during a time when you desperately need it. That’s why you need to educate yourself now on which food cooking sources are the best to have stored away for emergency use.

Forget buying one that has a lot of fancy add-ons. You need a grill that’s rated for safety, has a track record of durability and will fit any change in lifestyle that you may have to face in the event of a survival situation.

For example, when life is going along the way it should, you have access to things like charcoal. But when things go south, you may not have that luxury. So you need to have a cooking method that won’t rely on any extras that might be hard to find.

If you already have a supply of charcoal in storage, then a charcoal grill is fine. But you’re going to need to have an alternative for when that runs out. Plus, charcoal isn’t exactly cheap.

Some bags go for just under $20 a bag. If you want to stock up on charcoal for survival grilling, make sure you shop during sales. You can check out places like Lowes and Home Depot around Labor Day and other popular grilling holidays and get great deals.

You also need to take care in how you store charcoal as it can self ignite starting a fire. It has to be kept dry, not wet and allowed to dry out as this is what leads to it starting to smulder, think fire in a coal bunker. Keep the area clean so any fire has no means to expand its territory.

Grills don’t have to use the convenience of charcoal, either. You can burn wood or other materials inside of a grill, which is one reason why this durable cooking tool is a popular survival cooking option.

Also, look for grills that use propane. One of the reasons you want to do this is because propane cooks evenly. Another is that it’s healthier to breathe around a propane grill, and you need to keep health in mind during a survival situation.

Plus, you can get a lot of cooking and heating uses in just one canister of propane. You can get a gas grill but in the event that you’re in a survival situation, you may not have any access to gas if the stations shut down and no deliveries are coming.

Instead of grills, you can also use a smoker. If you’re not familiar with this type of cooking resource, you’ll find that they’re also commonly referred to as a “pellet grill.” That’s because they cook by using wood pellets.

It’s the heat generated by the pellets that will cook whatever food you’re having. You get better flavor as well as better temperature regulation over a charcoal grill with a smoker.

The downside is that a smoker isn’t cheap.

You can expect to lay out a pretty penny when you buy one. However, it’s a survival investment that will pay off in the event you lose your normal food cooking resource.

The upside is that a smoker can be used as a heat source and the pellets used in one don’t burn as fast as charcoal does.

Fire Pit and Cast Iron Cooking

When you’re in a survival situation and need an alternative cooking method, you can use a fire pit. But you’ll want to have some experience with this before you need it to help make a stressful situation easier on yourself.

Fire pits can vary in structure. You can create one from a hole that you’ve dug. Or you can buy a readymade fire pit and set it up in your backyard. The purpose of creating a fire pit is to be able to safely use fire.

Simple fire pits use wood to feed the fire, and this can be a relatively inexpensive way to cook your food. Even in a survival situation, there will always be trees around. If you want to build a fire pit, you’ll need to dig a hole and surround that hole with something like bricks or stone to help keep the fire contained.

To cook on top of the fire, you just need a grate. Other fire pits aren’t as simple, but they can be more convenient to use. Propane fire pits can be taken with you if you have to bug out.

You just need to buy one that’s portable. These types of fire pits come in a variety of sizes and the cost will vary, too. There are also gel fire pits in various sizes. These cook with a simple mixture of fuel and are designed to be used whether you’re in or outdoors.

Unlike other types of fire pits, you don’t get the thick smoke from burning fuel, which is one of the reasons this type is so popular. You can buy the fuel cannisters in bulk so you can be prepared well in advance.

Cast iron cooking is a skill that you may need in a survival situation. Plus, cast iron is extremely durable and can withstand higher temperatures than most of the pots and pans available that aren’t made of that material.

You’ll want to have some basic cast iron dishes that can help you be able to cook during a survival situation. The first one is a skillet. There’s a lot of different types of foods you can cook with this.

You can make things like casseroles or use it to fry freshly caught fish. Get a cast iron griddle, too. This can be used to cook things like eggs and sausage or bacon. You can also make grilled cheese or fry up some burgers.

This is perfect if the electricity goes out and you want to cook up the food in your fridge that will spoil soon. A cast iron Dutch oven is a must have for surviving because you can make a lot of food at once.

For example, you can use it to cook beef stew or make a soup. These cast iron pots can go into an oven, too. The handy thing about cast iron cooking is that you can use them to cook using a grill but you don’t necessarily have to have that.

You can put cast iron right over a fire. These dishes are made to cook food evenly and if they’re properly cared for, can last for generations. When cooking with cast iron pots or skillets, the thing you need to be careful about is making sure that you maintain a steady temperature. When you have fast temperature changes with cast iron, it can cause it to crack due to thermal shock.

Solar Cookers

Each survival situation is going to be different. You might have one where the electricity goes out and you don’t have a way to cook something hot for 24 hours. But sometimes, there are long lasting threats to your normal life.

You can have a grid go down on a major scale. Or a hurricane or tornado could upend your city and life just won’t get back to normal for months. That’s tough but not being able to have cooked food can make a hard situation even more difficult.

Having a way to cook – such as with a gas grill – can ensure that you have a way to eat warm food. But, the problem is that you can’t always have access to fuel. You don’t necessarily have to have fuel in order to cook.

You can use a solar cooker instead. A solar cooker uses the sun’s energy to cook food. It doesn’t take a lot to make that happen, either. All you need is a sunny day. By using a solar cooker, you can make a wide range of dishes.

Plus, you can keep water hot so that your family can wash up. When you use a solar cooker and there is a shortage of cooking fuel, you won’t have to worry. You’ll still be able to get a meal.

Plus, these cookers are cheaper in the long run because you’re not having to buy extras like the fuel. You also won’t have to find a safe way to store fuel since these cookers don’t use any.

It’s difficult to overcook food using a solar oven so you can get great tasting meals consistently. You can make a solar cooker yourself. Creating one as a DIY can be easy or difficult depending on how handy you are.

You can also buy one. How much it costs will depend on what type you buy. If you buy a solar bag, you can find that for less than $50 – but bags don’t always hold in the heat the same way.

The kinds that you can buy are usually made with better construction and can cook foods faster. Plus, some of them also have built in ways to read the temperature so you’ll know what your food is cooking at.

If your solar cooker does not have a thermometer, then you’ll need to buy one because otherwise, you’re guessing the internal temp of your foods and that’s just not safe with certain dishes.

There are some other things you’ll need to remember when cooking with a solar cooker. You’ll need to be sure that any of the pots or pans you use are dark. That’s because light colored dishes don’t get as hot as dark ones do.

Use lids to help keep the solar heat trapped. You’ll also want to be sure that you use metal when you’re baking something. These will have a more even cooking rate from end to end.

Plus, they also hold in heat. If your first few attempts at cooking with solar power don’t work out the way you’d hoped, don’t give up. It may take a few tries – but it’ll be worth it in the end.

Outdoor Stoves and Ovens

If you have time, you can build an outdoor oven yourself. But this is an option for people who prepare in advance. Sometimes though, in a sticky situation, you may not have had that option or that foresight.

You can still have a way to cook your food by buying an outdoor stove or oven. These can range from the super simple options, such as a small holder for pots that screws onto a propane tank to one with an elaborate setup.

You can find one or two burner gas stoves. These usually have foldable legs and are portable. The larger the cook space, the more people you can cook for in a shorter amount of time.

So keep that in mind when you’re choosing the size. If you’re the only one to cook for, then you’re better off with a single burner propane stove. These are high heat stoves and can be used with a variety of different cooking gear – including a wok.

A folding stove that burns solid fuel is lightweight and portable, but still strong enough to be able to hold something like a cast iron pot or skillet. Lightweight cooking gear is important in the event that you have to bug out of your current situation or you’re planning on moving areas frequently.

You’ll want to consider buying an outdoor oven so that you’re prepared when there’s a situation where you don’t have your normal cooking methods available. Some people hesitate because they think that outdoor ovens are expensive.

They’re not. Others hesitate because they think that these ovens are heavy but they’re not that either. You can find them for less than 40 pounds. These types of ovens can use a propane tank and you can bake things in them just like you would the oven in your home.

A few of the outdoor ovens don’t have the top burners and while that can save you a little on the cost, you’re really better off buying the models that also have the top burners because this way, you get both stove top cooking as well as in the oven cooking.

This will make it easier to be able to cook the same way you did with your usual cooking methods. You can find these ovens with one rack or with two. For a decent one, you can expect to pay between $200 to $300.

But there are ones that are a lot more expensive. While those might be great for outdoor entertaining, when there’s an emergency situation, you don’t need something that costs a lot.

Keep in mind that some of the outdoor ovens are labeled as pizza ovens. This makes some people hesitant to buy them because they think the use is limited. But whatever you would normally cook in a regular oven, you can also cook in an outdoor pizza oven.

Safety Tips and Accessories to Consider

In your normal day-to-day routine when everything is as it should be, you know all about staying safe and keeping your family safe. You know the accessories that you need. But all that changes when your circumstances change.

When you’re living in a survival situation, the rules can be very different and that means you need to update safety precautions for your children. Because the cooking methods may have changed, you’ll need to teach them about the new cooking safety precautions.

They need to be warned about being too close to a fire if you’re using flames to cook with. It’s basically just updating your children’s knowledge when your living circumstances change.

If you’re cooking with cast iron dishes, there’s one thing you need to be aware of. Unlike plastic or coated handles, the handles of cast iron dishes get hot – hot enough to cause a blister burn.

So when you’re removing cast iron off a fire, be careful. Protect your hands with oven mitts that are rated for higher temperature levels. You can also buy a silicone handle for a cast iron skillet.

This slides right over the handle and is made to withstand nearly around 475 degrees in temperature. For your survival situation, you’re going to want to stock up on supplies like lighter fluid and gel heat sources if that’s what you’re using.

If you do plan on using wood or charcoal, stock up now. You can buy packs of starter fuel for camp stoves that will last a couple of hours per container. So you need to buy according to how many hours of cooking you think you’ll be doing or until you think your situation may end and life returns to normal.

If you want to invest in specific cookware that can be used for cooking outdoor on grills and ovens, you can find those as complete sets and some of those have heat resistant handles which make them better suited for cooking in nontraditional ways.

You might want to invest in a cheap meat thermometer so that you’ll be aware if any meat is undercooked. You don’t want anyone getting sick due to a mistake on the part of whomever is doing the cooking.

If you’re going to be catching your food in a water source, you’ll want to get a grilling basket for fish and other things. This can be placed over an open flame or grill and it will cook the enclosed fish to perfection for you without it falling apart.

Another good thing to own in case your outdoor lights aren’t working is a set of barbeque grill lights. These can attach onto your grill and shine a light on the food using bright LEDs.

Last, but not least, make sure you get the proper cleaning tools so that you can consistently cook on your outdoor method of choice without facing the possibility of anyone getting sick or attracting bugs and critters to your cooking area.