Emergency Meal Preparedness

Wow, 2 blog posts in as many days!  The idea for this post came up last night and is entirely due to The Husband.  Let me explain.  Last night, around 9:30 pm, The Husband informed me that he had a change in work schedule and would be leaving in the morning for an overnight trip.  There weren’t supposed to be any overnights this week, so this was something of a surprise.  After a few moments of , “Really?  Do you have to?” my next comment was, “Wait!  I don’t have any suppers cooked ahead for you to take along!”  The Husband’s response was that he just guessed he’d have to eat out.  Right!  I could practically see a neon sign screaming “TACO BELL” in his head.  Now, I’m not saying that I’ll always be able to cook meals ahead for his overnights, but I wasn’t going to let it happen this soon!  So I started scrounging around in the kitchen for something healthier than Taco Bell for him to take with him, which really shouldn’t be that difficult if there is anything at all in one’s pantry or fridge.  Luckily, I had cooked off a whole chicken in the crock pot on Sunday and hadn’t used it yet.  The chicken was an organic, cage-free, hormone-free, antibiotic-free chicken, so that definitely is healthier than anything on the menu at Taco Bell.  A nice single serving of chicken went into a sealed container ready for his cooler.  Then, for a vegetable, I remembered that I had a sweet potato down in the storage bin and that was quickly grabbed and placed beside the cooler.  The sweet potato was really good sized, so I figured that and the chicken should be all that he needed for supper.  Now for the two lunches.  I had made up the Quinoa Taboulleh for our lunches on Monday and there were easily two servings of that left, so there were his lunches.  A quick look around the kitchen turned up a couple of apples should he still be hungry after the salad or need a snack.  Finally, I couldn’t possibly send him off without some kind of extra treat.  I remembered that I had bought the supplies for rice crispy bars weeks ago but had never gotten around to making them.  I quickly grabbed the brown rice crispy cereal, natural style peanut butter, and honey and got to work.  Now I know that rice crispy bars don’t sound healthy, but it depends how you make them.  The recipe I use for rice crispy bars comes from the So Easy cookbook by Ellie Krieger and are marshmallow-free.  They taste just as good (if not better!) than regular rice crispy bars.  The honey sweetens them and the natural peanut butter even gives them a tiny bit of protein.  The brown rice cereal is better for you than the regular rice crispies.  The recipe also calls for dried cherries, but lacking these I threw in some raisins instead.  I quickly pressed the brown rice crispy/peanut butter/honey mix in the pan and – voila! – I was done.  The Husband had a supper and two lunches plus possible snacks for his overnight road trip!  It might not be the most exciting supper of his life, but at least it’s healthy and filling and there is even a rice crispy bar for dessert! 

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