So we had split-pea soup w/ham and potatoes the other day and that made me and the wife think about using the ingredients as part of our long-term / rotated food. (Food that we use that has a decent shelf life of 2-3 years. Not 'dried' or 5+yr long-term food that never gets eaten until it's "needed".)

1/2 bag of your average size bag of peas made enough soup for me to have 2 bowls for dinner, 1 for lunch the next day, and 2 total for the wife. That's 5 BIG bowls of potatoes, peas, and ham.. still remaining 1/2bag of peas. We used canned potatoes to see how they tasted too.

The reason I purchased the potatoes in the first place was to add carbs to our long-term / rotated meals to go with the VERY HIGH protein TUNA(another item we long-term store/rotate)

Well, the split-peas and the potatoes make for a HIGH carb. meal, and can store for 2-3+ years so rotating them over time is no problem not to mention the low-cost of them.

Add a few cans of spam to replace the fresh ham and you can make it taste a little different... add some TUNA (maybe?) and you have a HIGH protein and CARB meal.

Sorry if I rambled
-Todd

Oh, and I guess it should be said that you can easily make split-pea soup with a big pot or your average cooking pots`n`pans over a nice fire, bbq, etc. Not to mention the potatoes are precooked and you can eat spam seperate w/no cooking too. So 2/3 of the ingredients can be eaten w/no cooking

It sounds like you've a good plan going.

I rotated all of my stored/bottled water today!

Hoping others find it useful too

For bottled water I user 5g jugs for my hot cereal in the AM for instant-hot and always keep 3 of those on-hand, and also we use 1G .89/g Crystal Guiser (sp?) from Winco for the rest of our drinking water. We go through roughly 6 gallons a week between the two of us (for good/drinking) and always have approx. 20g 1g jugs, and the 3 spare 5g jugs in the garage. We live within walking distance to the Sacramento River (well Folsom Lake & the Outlet[Lake Natomas]) so we are lucky enough to be by running water

-Todd

Hi Todd,

I'm down the river from you living in Midtown Sac. I just moved here about a month ago. Could you post the recipe for the soup you were discussing? I think I have all the ingredients in my food storage minus the SPAM. I've always been about half scared of the SPAM stuff but hey...it would indeed be a good protein source that would take the redundancy out of my tuna stock.

On another topic: Are you out of the flood plain up there near the lake? From the city flood planning maps I've seen I'm a bit too close to the water line down here If the American river levee breaks on downtown. I think I'll need a kayak to get out the city in that circumstance.

Cheers,
Nemo.

When the dam broke in the past the house was not flooded but a 2 minute walk and you could see the rushing water ~250ft down the cliff. You wont find me living on the other side of Folsom in the "flood zone" that's for sure. We are actually planning to move up the hill more, Diamond Springs maybe someplace we can be more 'off the grid' w/some land.

I`ll get that recipe to you tomorrow AM or evening.

Another thing to substitute the spam could be bacon you get at costco already cooked that doesn't require freezing.. if they still sell that. I haven't looked at the protein levels of bacon or spam so they both may be to low to justify their usage for that reason.

Split-Peats (Flavorite from Winco), Salt, Pepper, Water, Slow Cooker, and then any meat you want to add.. spam, ham,bacon, etc. That was it.

Thanks Todd.

I'll give it a whirl

Cheers,
Nemo

Your potatoes last for 2-3 years? Mine don't keep for more than a couple of months before they grow eyes and shrivel, or go rotten. What am I doing wrong?

I think you missed the word canned

Ah, thanks. I have a few tins of potatoes for emergencies, but I prefer fresh for day to day eating. I eat a lot of tinned carrots, though.

I have found the texture and taste of tinned potatoes varies. At least if you are eating them boiled - I've not tried soup. Where-as with the carrots I can't tell the difference between the cheap brands and the expensive ones.

(My local supermarket has a special "economy" brand which is very cheap but has packaging that makes it look like 3rd world food. Really, if you have any money or self respect you tend to go for the more expensive line in the nice, attractive packaging. The supermarket is set up to discourage you from buying the cheap stuff. However, as far as carrots go it seems to be the same contents.)

In the last few months I've been getting into tinned pineapples and pears, too. Pineapple seems to come in several varieties: chunks or rings, and in syrup or juice; with different nutritional trade-offs. It seems rings in juice is best for you. I can see that syrup means more sugar, but I don't know what's wrong with chunks. In general, tinned fruit can be better for your than fresh, at least if "fresh" means something that's sat around in a supermarket or in your home for too long.

We get canned frut & vegetables and eat them with fresh ones. Carrots, green beans, pineapples, peaches, etc.

I've never eaten the potatoes from a can by themselves only in the soup, and for that they worked awesome