One of the problems with reviewing a cookbook is that to do it properly you have to try at least a few of its recipes. That’s why I’m late to the party reviewing The Prepper’s Cookbook by Tess Pennington whose ReadyNutrition.com is rightly beloved among preparedness devotees.
When her publisher, Ulysses Press, sent the cookbook … oh, back in April, I think … it sure looked like a great (and even fun) resource. But I had to try a few dishes to be sure.
Having done that, I can say it cooks as good as it looks.
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The full title of this trade paperback is The Prepper’s Cookbook: 300 Recipes to Turn Your Emergency Food into Nutritious, Delicious, Life-Saving Meals. But that doesn’t quite do it justice (even though it’s true).
The #1 thing I appreciate about Tess’s recipes is that they take into consideration the full scale of storage and homegrown foods. This isn’t just a book about how to make edible sense out of your #10 cans of the ever-mysterious fruit galaxy. Recipes utilize freeze-dried and dehydrated items, storebought canned foods, bulk grains and beans, home-canned produce, dried herbs and spices, protein powders, and fresh food from your garden. (I say your garden because I so infamously can’t manage to grow one; I was able to cook up some decent food, regardless.)
In short, if you have a well-rounded storage pantry, here’s the well-rounded book to help you make the best of it.
While there are indeed 300 (or 300-ish; I didn’t count) recipes, there’s really more than that — including basic storage advice, brief canning info, lists of ingredients you can substitute or create for yourself if you don’t have something a conventional recipe calls for, and even a section on making beverages such as old-fashioned root beer, almond milk, rice milk, and Amish tea.
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I set out to try several recipes without allowing myself to go to the store for any ingredients.
The first recipe I made up was Mandarin Orange Chicken (page 129), which is similar to something I often make with “regular” ingredients. This being a book about using storage foods, Tess calls for canned, not fresh, chicken. I used the canned breast meat that Costco sells at such super-bargain prices and that is a regular (though small) part of my food storage.
About the only ingredient in the recipe that might not already be in an otherwise well-prepared kitchen was fresh or dried bell pepper. Thanks to long-time reader MSJ, I have many small packets of edible, storable miscellany, including mixed dried bell peppers (and a small packet goes a long way). So in they went.
Verdict: Tess’s Mandarin Orange Chicken would have been scrumptious with fresh chicken. Canned, which falls apart when cooked, gave the dish a less-than-ideal texture. But it still tasted very good. And hey, we’re not likely to be worried about texture while whipping up dishes to help our family members have the strength to fend off zombies.
Tess’s 3-Can Black Bean Soup (page 101) was even better (and let me use up some canned items I might otherwise never get around to eating)
Best of all was dessert — Chocolate PB (Peanut Butter) Balls (page 189). Which don’t require a zombie attack to make them worth eating. (Sticky little suckers, but who cares if you have to lick something tasty off your fingers?) I added some chopped raw cashews and almonds, which made them even better and at least nodded in the direction of primal nutrition.
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The book is well-written and well-organized. It covers the gamut of dishes, from salads to drinks and even includes a chapter called “Kid-Approved Snacks.”
There are certainly a fair number of books already out there on storing foods (especially, of course, the great — really great — granny of them all, Putting Food By).* And there are wonderful, useful, all-round classics like the late Carla Emery’s Encyclopedia of Country Living, which is being kept alive with new editions long after its amazingly quirky, innovative author has departed the world.** But many are either highly specialized or simply overwhelming, while some newer books aimed at the growing prepper market are either too simplistic or from less-reliable sources.
Pennington has “street cred” in preparedness, especially regarding food. And her Prepper’s Cookbook has the advantage of being both simple enough for new-minted preppers (a great gift for a friend or relative who’s just getting into preparedness) and comprehensive enough to be useful to the most experienced.
While I’d never give up giant tomes like Putting Food By or The Encyclopedia of Country Living, I’d call Pennington’s new book the best all-round book I’ve seen for actually cooking with storage foods.
Nice job, Tess.
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* Oddly, on the day I made these links, the paperback version of PFB was cheaper than the Kindle version. Amazon changes prices frequently on some items, so who knows?
** I count myself lucky to have both a recent edition and one of the early copied-and-printed at home editions that Emery sold by subscription and peddled around the country from the tailgate of a vehicle full of kids way back when.
I used to have one of Carla’s very early home printed books, but foolishly let someone borrow it and never saw it again. 🙁 I’m using my second copy of the regular published book now… the first of those joining the home printed book somewhere out there in never returned loaned book land. I’m a sucker sometimes. sigh
Just bought two paperback copies of the Prepper’s Cookbook. I’ll keep one and use the other for a gift. I’ve been doing that lately instead of loaning out my own books. No more expensive than replacing things that never come home, and I’m actually a bit more discriminating about who I give them to.
You almost convinced me to buy a copy of The Prepper’s Cookbook.
But, who am I kidding. I’m a curmudgeon who eats only three meals–Sautéed eggs, salads, and stir frys.
My prepping consists of home-canned meats, 6 kinds of fats and oils, 4 kinds of vinegar, and spices that I can’t grow here in Florida. I grow everything else.
Too bad, it sounds really good.
My typical history is after living in a place for years, I don’t have to clean the oven when I move. In fact, my current one is wonderfully pristine. I do, however, know all the hole-in-the-wall restaurants in my area and on sight can tell a good one from a bad one almost without fail.
Once at work, I believe during Secretaries’ Week, a co-worker gave me a recipe for a saltine cracker, peanut butter, and marshmallow (thank God for spellchecker) sandwich. Put a glob of pb on each cracker and put them in the oven. Bring them out and put half a marshmallow on every other cracker, then back in the oven. Bring them out again and mate each cracker with marshmallow to one without. The only other thing I remember is the oven temp was in triple digits (300 degrees?) and the time for each stage was divisible by ten (20 min?). A woman in my apartment building basically did them for me in her kitchen while I stood there trying to be pleasantly unskilled.
They went over great. Another of my co-workers said, “I feel so bad; I didn’t do anything.” I immediately and astutely recognized my life’s only chance to use the line, “[T]hat’s all right. Don’t think of me, slaving over a hot stove.” So I did.
I guess I’ll try the book. You gotta start somewhere.