Wendy DeWitt's Handbook on Emergency Preparedness and Food Storage

I recently attended a fireside with guest speaker Wendy DeWitt aka food storage/emergency preparedness guru. She had some interesting ideas about how to store food using a vacuum sealer to seal mason jars, how to can meat, butter, even store cheese long term, cook with solar ovens, rocket stoves, etc. Lots of things to think about. Anyway, I chose to read over her handbook and try a few of her recipes to see if they were any better than mine. These are not gourmet in the least, not recommending you go out an make it tonight for dinner. These are meals you would prepare if you were using your food storage in an emergency. (I also didn't cook these things in a solar oven...)



Rice Cereal or Rice Pudding makes 4 cups.
1 ½ c rice, 4 c water, 1 tsp salt, 3 Tb sugar. Pudding: 2 “eggs” ½ c raisins, ¼ tsp nutmeg, ¼ tsp vanilla.

Place salted water and rice in canning jars or covered pots and place in solar oven. When water is hot, add warmed rice and cook for 40 to 50 minutes or until rice is done. (I had left over rice so didn't have to make mine) Add milk and sugar. For rice pudding, add 2 or more “eggs”, sugar, raisins and nutmeg to the hot rice. Stir well and return to the oven, repeating the process until rice is thick like pudding. Add vanilla and stir. Add ½ c milk if desired.

The Verdict: It tasted OK. I think my Moms Rice Pudding recipe is much better, more "pudding-er" if you will. If I was starving however, this would be yummy.


Graham Crackers

1 ½ c white flour, 3/4 c wheat flour, ½ tsp salt, 1/3 c brown sugar, 1/3 c shortening, 1/3 c honey, 3 Tb water, 2 tsp cinnamon, 2 tsp sugar.

Combine all dry ingredients except cinnamon and sugar. Cut in shortening to consistency of cornmeal. Stir the honey and water into dry ingredients. Divide in half and roll each half out onto ungreased cookie sheet to ¼” thickness. Cut into squares and prick with a fork. Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar and bake 15 - 25 min. Store in airtight container.

The Verdict: Yuck. These tasted more like Wheat Thins than graham crackers. Honestly, if I want Graham crackers in my year supply, I will just buy a year supply from the store. Nuff said. (Although again if I was starving, these would be great!)


Oatmeal Raisin Muffins makes 12 muffins or 2 mason jars.

1 ”egg”, 3 tsp baking powder, ½ c milk (1/8 c dry + ½ c water), ½ tsp salt, ½ c raisins, ¼ tsp ground nutmeg, ½ c melted shortening, ½ tsp cinnamon, 1/3 c sugar, 1 c white or wheat flour, 1 c rolled oats.

Melt the shortening. Make your “egg”. Mix “egg”, milk, raisins and shortening. Stir in remaining ingredients and stir just until moistened. Fill muffin cups ¾ full or mason jars just over half full. Bake until browned.

The Verdict: My jars sealed! I couldn't believe it. The breads are good on your shelf for about a month (I'm leaving one on my shelf to see how it is in a few weeks). This is a good thing to know in an area like Portland where we don't have continuous sunny days. Bake your breads in your solar oven on sunny days, store breads for the next few weeks of gray.


Sweet and Sour Chicken makes 7 - 8 cups.

1 pint chicken, 1 1/3 c rice, 2 2/3 c water, 1 can pineapple, 2/3 c vinegar, 1 1/3 c sugar, 4 Tb cornstarch,
4 Tb soy sauce, 1 tsp Molasses, 1 Tb. dried onion. (opt. ½ c sliced almonds, ¼ c dehyd. celery. I used real celery...)

Heat the rice and water in separate jars. When hot, combine and cook until done. (Heat bottled chicken at the same time.) Put the pineapple juice, vinegar, sugar, cornstarch, soy and molasses into a qt jar. Shake well and cook in solar oven. Cook and shake this sauce repeatedly until thickened. On the bed of cooked rice place the heated chicken, almonds, pineapple, and hydrated celery. Pour sauce over the top.

The Verdict: Very tasty! I actually thought this was a really good version of Hawaiian haystacks. In an emergency you could add all your different sprouts as your fresh "veggies" and it would be very good.