Hurricane Irene is heading our way. Authorities are saying to prepare for flooding and power outages lasting serveral days. So today, I'm doing some cooking. (we can cook meat on the grill, and I have cereal, etc). What foods do you like to eat cold?
I made potatoe salad, hard boild eggs, itailan pasta salad, oriental pasta salad, and tuna salad.. Of course, we do have some fresh veggies and boxed foods (cereal, granola bars, crackers, etc). As it turned out, the hurricane hit last night, and it wasn't 1/2 as bad as predicited We have power. although most of the state is out. Very little flooding in my area, none compared to the last rain storm. Thank you for your suggestions and good wishes.
Fresh apples, oranges, bananas... they can stay at room temp several days. Also, those crackers (peanut butter & cheese, etc. - ie. like from vending machines - you can find them in any store) and granola bars. And nuts (almonds, peanuts), freeze fried fruit (like mangos from Trader Joe's).
They made such a big hype out of the hurricane. Half of it political. The problem with such a big hype is the next one that hits no one will leave and then there will be people hurt. Be smart stay inside because some fool will have left stuff on their patio which will be flying around hitting stuff. From someone who has been through many hurricanes. You have a grill excelent. Throw some water bottles in the freezer now and let them freeze. If you can fit a couple of the big gallon ones even better. If you have a cooler even much better. Unless you have a generater you will want to not open that fridge. We keep cans of soup, tuna fish, spagetteos(sp), chicken salad, ham, A non electric can opener. Packets of Mayo and ketchup like you get from Mcdonalds etc. We make ice like its going out of style and put some milk and muffins in the cooler with the ice. We have a grill and a pot that can boil water. We keep the freezer with only the frozen water. We never open the fridge. We will take the 2 frozen water gallons the next morning and put it in the cooler. This will help keep the milk and muffins for the rest of the day. We cook the soups etc on the stove with the other water bottles that are not frozen. We leave those alone in cooler. Once the other warm water bottles are gone we go into the frozen ones. By then they have pretty muched melted and the milk wont be good anymore anyway. But it did give you nice cold milk longer than anyone else and your kids had fresh good milk to drink. But you will have cold water to help keep the heat away. By the second 24 hours if you still do not have power then get the other frozen water bottle out of the freezer. Probably might not be totally frozen but should still be cold enough. Just stay inside while its going on. Most people get hurt because they go outside to watch and some flying debri hits them or a tree falls on them. I'm editing my response to say also a good idea is to freeze orange juice or fruit punch and some chocolate bars now for a treat when you do not have electric.
if you have potatoes bake them in the oven let the cool and put in fridge. then you can warm them up quick on the grill or cut them up and make a salad. any veggies you have that are raw do the same to cut grill time down to save on coal or propane. tuna is always good just need a hand opener. also if you have steel pots you can do soup on the grill. good luck I hope you dont get too much or any damage at all. I would be a little freaked out. Prayers are out there for you and your family.
You can heat and or cook just about anything on the grill. Once a tornado hit while my family and I were on vacation my Mom did all the cooking for the neighbors on her gas grill and they all loved it. Do you have a generator? When our power has been out I plug in a crock pot to the generator. You could make chicken salad that is good cold or potato salad roast is good cold on sandwiches, or turkey breast pretty much any meat would make good sandwiches or what about PBJ's. My husband will eat stuff right out of the can cold (YUCK!) but with the grill you could just put the pans on it and cook things that way. I hope you don't loose power.
Fried Chicken. Yum
potatoes...you can still cook them on the grill and you can heat them up on the grill....
sandwiches...
It's already been downgraded from a category 3 to a 2....who knows - by the time it gets to Connecticut - it might just be a tropical storm! (we can hope, right?!)
Hint: Freeze as much as you can ahead of time (like lunch meat, cooked meats, milks :P, cheese, chicken salad, etc.) and then it will defrost as the power is out.
Good to see you haven't forgotten the grill! A lot of people do.
There are tons of food that can be eaten right out of the can. It just takes some getting used to in some cases.
Tuna, open it and eat it. It doesn't have to have all the stuff in it to make Tuna salad.
Anything by chef Boy'ardee. It may not taste the best to us but kids don't really mind too much.
Pork-n-beans or beans. They are just fine without all the heating up.
Vienna sausages. Who doesn't just take them out and eat them out of the can.
Dinty Moore Beef Stew, if you have pots and pans and a way to sanitize them, water may not be safe after the storms hit the mainland. It can become contaminated and non usable.
Any soup or food that is in a can or jar can be used and can be expected to be sanitary.
It you have sanitary containers to store washing water in then do so now, old mixing bowls, I use my That's a Bowl from Tupperware and my Lots a Bowl to store water in on the counter top for hand washing and the dishrag if our water is off.
Salsa and chips. Salsa has veggies in it that kids could care less about. The chips are high is salt but during hot weather, especially if there is no A/C, it will be good for kids to take in some extra salt to help with the heat.
All the individual drink items, they have juice boxes, water bottles, even some milk products that are in boxes on the store shelves.
Bread and sandwich stuff like PB. If the jelly is in a cooler and has not stayed at room temp for any length of time then it's okay too.
Again, if the power is out there is no safety in the foods from the fridge after a few hours. You must cook anything in the freezer before it is fully thawed then you have to eat it since you have no safe way of storing it. Back in the olden times they had meats that were cooked differently, smoked, salted, dried into jerky, etc...we don't have those skills or those lifestyles anymore. So my point is don't plan on feeding your family with stuff cooked on the grill, after a day or so that food is no longer good for consumption so you need canned things you can simply open and eat with a fork or toss it in a pan on a fire and then eat.
My favorite author for emergency preparations is Peggy Layton. She has a Bachelors degree in Home Economics with a minor in Food Science and Nutrition. She has written numerous books of surviving an emergency.
Her books are easy to read and her ideas are super easy to implement into every day living. She has you keep track of what you eat for a few weeks or months so you can decide what foods you need to store for a period of a couple of weeks or months, or even a years supply.
She is not one of the "End of Times, people who think you should store up a ton of food in your closets and under your bed. Being prepared to clothe, feed, and keep you family cool or warm in the weather they may find themselves in is good teaching in my book!
Here is a link to her website:
http://peggylayton.net/
My favorite book of hers:
http://peggylayton.net/index.php?app=ccp0&ns=prodshow...
In this book it covers making a kit for each person in your home and it gives check sheets for lots of things I would have never thought of.
We have it in our local library so if you want to check it out I imagine your library might have it or they can get it through inner library loan once the storms have passed.
