If you haven't yet seen the Prepper Cook-Off Challenge, this is my unofficial entry.
The goal of the challenge is to prepare us preppers to get creative with our stored food and expand the possibilities of what can be done with limited amounts of storable food. That and the random dice rolls are a bit comical and a lot of fun.
After throwing some dice you receive two common canned or dried food items to try and make a meal with by adding one additional storable food item of your choice plus spices and seasonings. See the Challenge post for the full contest details. There is still over a week left which is plenty of time for you to join in the challenge. Deadline is May 3 at 11:59pm UST -7.
Left: Items as found. Right: Back at my secret SHTF lair with my three items.I used the two dice bot and ended up rolling a can of fruit cocktail and a can of mushrooms. Yuck! What could I make with those two items? It was difficult, I even slept on it, but finally I decided for my third choose your own item to use coconut milk. Can you guess what I made?
My Entry
These two canned items clashed so much I decided to make two dishes instead of one. The rules simply said to create a meal, so with so few ingredients you would expect a single dish, there is no prohibition against multiple dishes.
Dish One: Cream of Mushroom Soup
Feeds: 2
Ingredients:
- 3/4 can of coconut milk (preferably AROY-D)
- 1 can of mushrooms
- 1 can fruit cocktail (Juice only. Save the fruit for another dish.)
- 1 shot glass red wine
- 1 Tbsp onion powder
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 bullion cube
- 1/2 tsp pepper
Directions:
Start by putting the can of coconut milk in the fridge for a couple of hours. Once it is cold remove the can, making sure to not shake or flip it upside down. The thicker cream will rise to the top. Open the can and skim off the thicker cream (because it is cool it is easier to skim) and set to the side in a bowl for dish #2.
Open the mushrooms and fruit cocktail and drain the juice into a pot. Add the bullion cube and stir on low heat until it is dissolved. While you are doing this put the coconut milk and half the mushrooms in a blender. Blend until smooth. Then add the other half of the mushrooms and blend until there are small chunks.
Add this to the pot with the dry spices and red wine and bring to a boil. Let simmer for about 10 minutes to get the flavor out of the spices and serve.
Dish Two: Fruit Cocktail with Whipped Topping
Feeds: 2
Ingredients:
- 1/4 can coconut milk (preferably AROY-D)
- 1 can of fruit cocktail (fruit only)
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
- pinch cinnamon
- pinch nutmeg
Directions:
As mentioned above you should have skimmed the heavy cream from the coconut milk already into a bowl off to the side. Stir in the 1/4 tsp vanilla extract and put back in the freezer for a few minutes until it is just starting to freeze. This isn't actually a whipped topping but it has a similar look and mouth feel to whipped cream.
While the topping is in the freezer empty the fruit cocktail into bowls. Remove the half frozen topping from freezer and spoon onto the fruit. Sprinkle a pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg on top of the topping and serve.
Tasting Notes
To be honest both of the dishes were surprisingly good considering the awkward food combinations and other restrictions.
I would give the soup a 6/10. It was very creamy and the red wine added a nice body. The onion, garlic and pepper seemed well balanced and provided a rich flavor. The one drawback from a flavor profile was the fruit juice aftertaste which was a bit off-putting. This dish is still pretty palatable overall though.
If I was to make this type of soup again I would probably not bother with the fruit juice. I only used it so it wouldn't go to waste and to increase the volume of fluid. I would also add more wine. The wine flavor was nice but it definitely could have been stronger. The contest has a restriction on the amount of wine/vinegar you can use in your recipes.
I also suspect that this amount of coconut milk would give most people the shits. When you consume too much fat in one sitting, especially when it is in a fluid that dilutes your stomach acid and bile, it tends to have this effect. I anticipated this and took an ox bile pill with this meal and had no ill effects. Because of the richness of the coconut milk I think you could add a second can of mushrooms and more water to dilute everything and make four servings out of it. This would also alleviate the potential for upsetting stomachs if it was shared by more people or split up into several meals rather than eating the coconut milk all at once.
Who knows maybe I will perfect the recipe and make a post about it.
The fruit cocktail I would give a 7/10 and wouldn't really try to change it. I think it was about as good as canned fruit cocktail gets. If you have never tried coconut cream this way it is pretty good. The key is to use a can of coconut milk that is very rich which AROY-D is (it also doesn't have any preservatives or thickeners added). I would have no problem eating this dish again as it was made.
I can think of worse things to be eating while waiting out the zombies....I hope everyone enjoyed this post and it inspires those already planning on participating in the Prepper Cook-Off Challenge to get creative and come up with some really unusual and tasty food. As mentioned above the contest is open for entries until May 3 at 11:59 PM UST -7 so there is still plenty of time to enter if you haven't already.
Oh I am so impressed with your apocalypse culinary skills! Very creative and unique!
I have to agree when I first read your two canned items (fruit cocktail and mushrooms) my stomach kind of recoiled and quivered. But you made a great decision on preparing two different dishes!! GREAT job!
Haha thanks, it was definitely interesting and I was a little worried before my first taste of the soup...
you are very creative @canadianrenegade, it seems that I have a lot to learn recipes from you, ok, I have a recipe of gouramy fish curry; we call it "keicheng acid"
1.Snapper 1 kg
2.8 small chillies
3.6 grains of pepper
4.1 segment of turmeric finger
5.3 pieces of red onion
6.1 small cloves of garlic
7.a little vinegar
clean the fish and cut according to taste (can be small can be big)
blend all ingredients with a little water, then put all the ingredients and fish into the pot and add 1 liter water.
(this is our family favorite food) he he he
ok, I will follow your cooking contest, I want to see who the winner is, I really do not know how to cook, so being a contest supporter feels better than to mess it up ,,, ha ha ha
A good effort there nice work. Not sure it would fill me up but better than nothing four sure 💯🐒
It wasn't a large meal but was reasonably filling due to the high fat content provided by the coconut milk.
True and if it all there is where everything is collapsing around you then you can grumble 💯🐒
Thanks for sharing! Upvoted and followed for future recipes :)
Thanks, have you thought about giving the challenge a try? There is still over a week to enter.
Havent tried cooking for quite some time. Probably should give it a go!
So, we can use the fridge? We have power in this scenario?
Yeah you can use the fridge, we did. I didn't want to make it too hard on the first challenge by throwing in a bunch of extra restrictions beyond the foods that can be used. Maybe if I have really high participation the next one can be more difficult.
You get bonus difficulty points if you don't use power and use your preps or camping equipment though. Or if you had a generator and used that to power the stove. It's up to you what appliances and equipment you use to prepare it.
If you wanted to add to your own fictional storyline why you have power. For example you had a generator and stored fuel so that is why you have power. It would let you stay in character ;)
I just finished eating my EMP meal and after reading your post... Ill be over in a few minutes! Save me a bowl of the dessert please :D
I tried to save it but unfortunately the dessert didn't make it.... :)
You're fortunate the sound of your off-grid nutribullet didn't attract any desperate scavengers, if they hadn't already been driven mad by hunger, they'd've freaked out about the red wine in the mushroom soup... surely it's white wine for mushrooms?
Damn Apocalypse.
Actually it was running the geni to power the nutribullet that I was worried would attract scavengers.....
As for the wine it is what I had open! :)
what is your proof if @lukman92 is my other account. I honestly said it was not my account and we were just friends in the community. if you see i dont vote your article does not mean i spam or something bad .. after i vote lukman92 and myself and some friends in the community, i try to check my voting power in steemd.com turns my VP is under 60%. so I think to restore my VP first before I give vote to your article .. I'm sure although 100% vp that I give to you, it does not mean anything because of the limitations of SP I have. but even so I am supportive. I'm sure you will not believe it for this reason .. but I tell you the truth, and try to see some of your articles that I resteem always I give a vote.
Thanks for replying. It looks very fishy to me.
Ayie93, lukeman92, and lumia97. Not one of those three accounts gave me an upvote, they all end in 9x and they upvoted their own comments or their friends comments. Not really an acceptable way to conduct yourself in my opinion.
I checked your other comments and you do appear to be engaging in conversation. I will reverse the flags but do not just upvote your own or friends comments for no reason.
Oh my god, this is too funny! Very tasty sounding, even with the awkward food choice from the dice!
I won't have time for this challenge, unfortunately, because we are in full swing at work and on our move out of the concrete jungle!
Another excellent post, I am really impressed with the way it looks now!
Cheers
Ps: What is that clay creature aboit from your Secret SHTF Lair photo up top...it looks like it has an interesting story?
Thank you.
You noticed the bird. I think it is a parrot that Aimee made for art class long before I met her. The head is the shape of a can opener. I will have to ask her how she came up with that idea. I included it because I thought it looked odd and would add to the mystique of the lair.
Cool bird. Nice add in, It's definitely added to the Mystique of the lair!
Very good job! I probably would have given up in the first few minutes and simply eat the mushrooms and saved the fruit for later, lol.
Haha thanks. At first I was stumped.
It's a good one..... I wish you the best of luck
You are growing your cooking skill really amazing day by day 👍
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TrufflePig, an Artificial Intelligence Bot that helps minnows and content curators using Machine Learning. If you are curious how I select content, you can find an explanation here!Have a nice day and sincerely yours,
TrufflePighello @canadianrenegade. I need to check you previous post, to understand it is about. but anyway, I like to enjoy your article first
Salam
please do not consider me spam, because my english is not good..:D
king of cook @canadianrenegade😜
Spam. You didn't even up-vote me but you up-voted yourself with your other accounts. Very bad form.