Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Large meals that store a long time

My wife and I make those up regularly.

One of my favorites is very simple,...macaroni noodles with tomatoes and ground beef with some sliced mushrooms and onions.

Keep a big pot of it in the fridge and nuke up a bowl when you're hungry. A big pot of it will keep us fed for 3 days,..and as mentioned,..it's good stuff.

What are some of your "big quantity" food recipes?

Soups, stews, enchiladas, lasagna, etc, etc. The wife would make many large meals, separate into smaller portions and then freeze. We would then load-up our little chest freezer in the camper, and during a 4 or 5 week trip.....rarely need to go to the store (only perishables) or eat out! memtb

“WARNING”: Don’t try this with New England Clam Chowder.....it really “sucks” when thawed and reheated!

I cook up chili, beef stew, and vegetable beef soup 5 gallons at a time and pressure can quart Mason jars of it. For you millennials who never bothered to learn math, that's approximately 20 quarts, and it keeps for months without refrigeration.
Jerry

every few weeks i make a 5 gallon pot of veg soup. i buy 2 each cheapest bags of frozen limas, broc, brussels and green beans. one medium head cabbage, a whole head of celery and a big pack of shrooms. throw all into a pot with 3 each cheapest qts of beef broth and tomato juice and fill up the pot rest of way with water. let cook all afternoon and then add lots of cumin, s&p, old bay, chili powder and garlic powder and simmer a while longer. i freeze it in gallon tubs and pull out one at a time and put in fridge. i've been eating this for lunch for years. it now seems to me to be a good quarantine food. i freeze it but you could just as easily pressure can it. you can add some pasta to it for dinner or some meat to it for stew. i could probably live on this.

Smoke a pork shoulder and eat pulled pork for a week on nachos, sandwiches, salads, etc. Everyone loves it...

That's a good one. I used to make my own vegetable soup using canned vegetables also.

angus calves. keep for 2 years before expiry date
the wife does can meat and vege's . toss in taters and have a good stew.
does the same with chili.

A big part of the vegetable beef soup I make is a couple of gallon-size cans of Veg-All. They're inexpensive, have a good variety of veggies, and cut down on prep time considerably. A cheap beef roast that's close to its sell-by date and discounted, cut up into bite-sized chunks provides the meat for either beef stew or chili. A local store also sells 5-lb. bags of generic frozen lima beans, and the same size bags of cut okra at dirt-cheap prices.
Jerry

I made a huge deep pan of cornbread dressing after searing a head of celery, yellow onions, chopped fresh asparagus, mushrooms. Broke up pans of cornbread and mixed it all with a pig of dressing mix. I added 8 chunked boiled eggs. 5 duck breasts boiled until tender, chunked and mixed in with the duck broth. Add chicken broth until moist enough to be messy.

Added other seasonings. Baked in oven at 350 until done. Froze plastic containers with it. Heat and serve with cream of mushroom or canned Turkey gravy over it.

It can be done by boiling half a chicken with a few squirrels or duck or goose breasts.

Delish.

I'm just now defrosting a 3 pound moose roast which I'll cube up and use for chili in the slow cooker. Beanless. Chili will then be put in jars. I suspect I'll take most of if to my parents who are in their late 70's, and who I'm trying to convince not to be leaving their house for a while.

When making soups or stews, I usually go with fresh vegetables over canned. I've used canned when that's all I had on hand and the idea to make soup was spur of the moment, but generally figure if I'm going to the effort of making soup or stew, it's worth fresh. Frozen vegetables are a good option both healthy and convenient. Exception on canned goods would be tomato products. I'll use them for soups and stews without any qualms.

Made hundreds of them things when the kids lived at home. They called them "Dad's Skillet Dumpster Delights". Here are a couple of recent dishs that last for a few days.

This is cheese tortellini stroganoff with fresh spinach in a 5qt skillet. With a side this serves four for two meals.



Wife's famous beef chili relleno casserole. Yeah don't ask. I don't know recipe and she wont write it down. You could get four or five days out of this thing its in the monster 17x11 dish

That stuff looks great.

I've got a pork tenderloin in there that would be good in that top dish.

Looks great Fats.

I have an old green couch on my front porch, smells like cat pee. 20 lb sack of spuds and a pocket knife, salt shaker.

I make a big pot of spaghetti sauce which makes enough for 7 dinners for the two of us. We eat one meal of it when made and the rest is frozen in meal size containers. Pop it in the micro wave, boil some pasta and we have a quick meal. For my 30th birthday (many moons ago) my mom gave me a cook book of all of her recipes that she used when we were growing up. She bought a blank book and hand wrote over 150 recipes. Since she was always cooking for three growing boys, it is a great source of large serving recipes. I would mention one other that I discovered in December - the Costco chicken pot pie. It's enough for 4 or 5 meals for us.

Big french cast pot full of chicken Tagine. Chicken, butternut squash, onions, olives, diced prunes and a bunch of secret Mediterranean herbs and spices. Put it over couscous cooked in chicken broth with chopped pistachios and lemon zest.

I could eat the same thing all week. Even my most skeptical cowboy friends have loved it when we make it for them.

Bb

When I'm cooking meals to last for a while, I put portions in plastic containers that I store in the freezer: Among others, such meals include:

Brunswick Stew
Meat Sauce for spaghetti
Meatballs
Pot Roast
Beef stew
I-talian beef (Chicago style for sandwiches)
Salisbury Steak
Meatloaf

I need to learn how to can this stuff so a freezer isn't needed.

My wife also goes to some thing once in a while where they charge her some cash and help her make a bunch of freezer meals. She brings home about 40 gallon freezer bags each with a meal in it.

We cook them in one of those smallish pressure pots. It doesn't take long and most are pretty good, I like the cajun chicken and some of the currys. Sometimes we make man bread to go with the curry and I cook the bread on the grill while brushing it with garlic butter.

Bb

I wasn’t hungry until I read this thread.