You need to study nutrition. R&B do not provide all the various nutrition you need.

As to cooking it - get a cook book. If you are going out 10 years you will have a lot of time to experiment.

 

There are a lot of ways to make rice and beans. Here are a couple of threads with some recipes and suggestions. There are others also.

I make meals from all parts of the world using beans and rice as the base. I'll try to find some of the other recipes posted on the forum and add them.

http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=299235

http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=262293

 

Start with prepping salt, pepper, and some spices. Then try this with some wild eatable plants. Also hunt and fish to add squirrels, rabbits, and fish, even some venison. You can store some beef bullion cubes, or some chicken bullion to make some soups. Gravies and sauces help also. Learn to can your wild game. We can deer meat as hamburger.

 

http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?p=6180542&highlight=rice#post6180542 Mexican lentils and rice

There are some great bean recipes in this thread: http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=149982

 

Get good with the cooking and recipes now, wile its not shtf, as mel said we have a bunch of recipes on this very site, get you some cook books and experiment now wile stuff is available

There are hundreds of ways to use beans and rice and when all else fails Tabasco is your friend you can eat dirt if it has Tabasco lol

 

My favorite way to eat rice and beans is with olive oil, salt, pepper, cumin, garlic, onion, some spinach mixed in, some peppers, corn, shredded chicken, and melted cheese on top.

Or mixed in with some parsley and cream of mushroom soup and baked. Toss some chicken or pork on top.

Mmm.

There's tons you can do with it. Learn to cook if you don't already know. And it's vital to supplement your rice and beans with other stuff. Luckily companies like Honeyville and Mountain House are around and can help you with that. You may not be able to buy lots at a time, but one #10 can a month should be doable for most.

You can use rice in casseroles and soups, and as a filler (with egg as a binder) for things like chicken patty-like dishes. You can mix rice with ground beef and spices and stuff a pepper with it. Beans are good in chili and other soups/stews, and you can purée them and mix them with spices and top with cheese for refried beans. Mix them with mustard, brown sugar, salt, pepper, and a bit of ketchup or tomato purée for baked beans, with some pork or bacon on top.

There's options

 

Rice and legumes form the foundation diet for many cultures across the globe.

All of those cultures consume them differently.

From humus and pita in the eastern Mediterranean to spanish rice and refried beans in Mexico to curry lentil and basmati rice of India the permutations are endless.

The key to livening up basic foods to to embrace the ethnic cultures of the world.

That we have the internet today to easily show us how different food cultures can be learned means the only obstacle is time and effort on your part.

 

The key to livening up basic foods to to embrace the ethnic cultures of the world.

That we have the internet today to easily show us how different food cultures can be learned means the only obstacle is time and effort on your part.

^this, their are tons of things you can do with it which is the reason why i love it so damn much!

 

Technique. Even with the same ingredients:

Rice
Beans
Salt
Pepper
Oil

With different techniques you will get a totally different flavor.

For example:

1) Boiling: You boil the rice and beans and add salt pepper and oil
2) Fry: You boil the rice and beans and then you stirr fry it then add salt and pepper
3) Processing: Boil the rice and beans, then mash the beans into a paste with salt and pepper and stir it into the rice while you eat. Fry the bean paste for another flavor.
4) Soup: Boil the rice and beans, add more water and simmer with oil, salt and pepper
5) Bake: Boil the rice and beans, then bake it with oil salt and pepper.
6) Porridge: Boil the rice. Add more water and SLOW boil it until the rice expands and porridges. Cook the beans and add into the rice porridge with salt and pepper.

Learning to cook will open up so many more options for you. I gave you 6 options with 5 ingredients. There are many more a well. Add in some red hot peppers/chilli peppers and I can give you 30 other options.

 

Learning to cook will open up so many more options for you.

This is the essential point to solving the OP's problem.


I'd like to sidetrack and expand that thought a bit more too.

I mean really learning how to cook. Recipes and cookbooks are nice and all, but I've never used them for cooking. Outside of desert and bread baking recipes I've never followed any kind of instruction list to cook, going on many decades now. Cooking should be a visceral activity done by feel and second nature using whole foods, not cans or boxes or pouches or mixes. Once you learn to do that then simply watching then cook and eating another culture's food should tell you how to recreate it. Then you have another culture in your repertoire plus any fusion possibilities as well.

When the store shelves go empty will people be hoping their little supply of Knorr or Lipton side dishes holdout? Will they become upset when their stack of Dinty Moore cans gets lower? Will they feel lost when their supply of gravy and chili seasoning pouches runs out?

Learning to cook with whole foods gives a person the innate feel for cooking that allows you to rapidly assimilate a new culture's cooking style simply by watching, tasting, and asking the basic questions about the spices they use. The more cultures learned that way will ensure that plain old rice and beans will never be plain again.

 

For a Christmas side dish we decided on white rice with mushrooms and peas.

For fried rice, scramble an eggs and cook up the rice with cabbage, soy sauce, assorted garden vegetables, and the cut up egg.

For another night I made Cajun dirty rice with beans, and I stirred in chicken breast and andoulet sausage.

Leftover steak is very nice with black beans.

A favorite recipe of mine is kidney beans with hamburger and spagetti sauce: it makes a very good non-spicy chili.

Then again, chili is also fine! I have a scratch recipe that we liked in my spice cabinet, along with other basic recipes like bread. I have bread recipies memorized : the recipe box is for my family so that I am not the only one to make basic food!

Speaking of which, the Frugal Gormet has a fine recipe using ham and beans: The quality of the dish is dependant on the quality of the ham. It also requires onion, black pepper, a bit of red pepper, and if you have it them celery and bell peppers make the dish better.

And, of course there is refried beans to roll up in a tortilla.

Too many bean meals in a row ARE boring, but this boredom can be reduced!

The Chinese sweeten bean paste and put it inside dumplings and use it as a sweet, though I have not tried that!

 

Rice & Beans + Can of Soup = Unique Meal

There are so many flavors of soups out there to mix them with, it should keep you happy for a while.

 

Get more than one cookbook. Seriously. Make your relatives think you have a new hobby. Knowing more ways of cooking things will save you a lot of food boredom.

 

Goodwill should have tons of cookbooks, I know mine does. There's always Amazon too-- probably thousands on there for less than $5.

And there are youtube videos on cooking with your stored food! I watched one today on making a chicken and biscuit casserole out of dry, canned, and dehydrated ingredients.

 

Keep sauces on hand. Tiger Sauce, Hell on the Red, Pickapepper, Hines 57, and on and on. Lard on hand make refired beans. I chop up bacon and brown it mostly done and add home canned beans. In Asian shops there is a seasoning you add to rice. I know it has dried shrimps and seaweed and who knows what else, but it makes good rice.

 

I can suggest a GREAT bean cook book
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bean-by-bean-crescent-dragonwagon/1100481780?ean=9780761132417
I borrowed it from the library and spent a few weeks typing recipes from it onto the thumb drive that is my cookbook. The ones I use most often are printed and placed in plastic sleeves and a binder.
The library is also usually a treasure trove for ethnic recipes.

 

I am pretty sure appetite fatigue would set in and you'd lose a lot of weight. Also various vitamin deficiencies would set in and you'd be done for. Pick up some cans of things you like and use that for variety. Canned food will last as long as the can does. After the dust settles, barter off some of that rice for wheat or corn or whatever.

 

It's funny how we worry about this, when such a large proportion of the people on the planet eat this type of food basically every single day.

They obviously add things, like veggies, greens, or meat in very small amounts usually.

But we are really spoiled, aren't we?

I read the Lewis and Clark journal, where they griped about how they were forced again, after so long, to eat MORE elk meat, as that's all they could find.

You can go Asian, or South American, or Central American, or Tex/Mex. You can do soups, use sauces, fry, boil, bake, smash into a paste, go sweet (Milchreis, anyone?) grind into flour, crush into gruel...there's a ton of options.

But knowing how to "cook" is a big deal, and it's a skill. Ever do home made sweet and sour? Super easy. A white sauce using some roux can be country gravy, Alfredo, clam chowder, or cream of whatever soup. I hate tomatoes...but I can turn them into sauce in a heartbeat, and I like that a lot.

Turning fruit into jam, or syrup? Good way to preserve it. Pickling? Doesn't have to be sour pickles. My Grandma made pickled watermelon rind, sweet, cloves and ginger and wonderful. Wish I knew how to make sugar from sugar beets.

Start learning to "cook" if you don't know how.:thumb:

 

Hello everyone.

I have recently decided to start my long term stock pile of food. I have found that white rice and beans (navy beans, black beans and red kidney beans) seem to give the best bang for your buck cal wise and protein wise. The only problem I am running into is how make them eatable.

Right now I find them incredibly plain and tbh I seriously doubt I would be able to eat that over extended periods of time.

Do any of you guys know of good recipes that are made with long term store able spices or seasonings that could be used to make this stuff taste better?

Also when I say long term I am thinking along the lines of 10 plus years of storage before having to rotate.


Thank you.

You can add them to canned soupes or canned chili so instead of 1 small meal you can stretch it to one large hardy meal or 2 small meals

http://www.campbellsoup.com/Products/Chunky
click on the combo creator

I take 1 cann of chili/no beans add a cann of chilli beans/w chili sauce and a small cann of diced tomatoes add a little chili powder and I'm good to go with a VERY LARGE serveing of chili


spam, beans, and brown surger :thumb:
1/4 -1/2 can of spam (diced)
1 lb of beans
sugar to taste

DO NOT add salt the spam is salty enough.

 

You put your finger on an issue people never think of.

My main prep is white rice. I deal with this issue by adding flavoring agents such as curry. Bear Creek or Cugino's, canned soups, salmon and tuna, instant potatoes, etc

Rice will absorb the flavor it is cooked with. I can have rice every day and go 3-4 weeks before having the same flavor again. Rice is also very nutritious.

 

I think cookbooks have a definite place in cooking, especially for newer cooks or when you are cooking new types of food. I've cooked enough food for a small army over the years and I still collect cookbooks. Now I read the recipes more like lists of suggestions but I taught myself to cook with cookbooks years ago.

The best cookbooks for new cooks are the ones with simple explanations and common ingredients. Someone who is just learning the art of cooking does not need instructions on shaving truffles, they need tips and tricks for making everyday food taste good.

 

If you cook with the seasons and what's growing outside you can adapt your meals many ways. Same thing with canning beans, you add various spices, one way it's Mexican food, one way it's Asian, then another way it's American Southern. Grab a Joy of Cooking or other large cookbook or go on allrecipies.com and enter "beans" as the cooking ingredient. I agree plain rice and beans would get boring, but there are so many ways to flavor and preserve the beans that I think you could mix them with plain rice and have a variety of dishes.

 

Everyone has different styles of learning. And while in most other things I actually benefit from book learning, I find that I pick up new cooking visually the best. So even in myself it is clear that certain talents are learned in different ways. Ergo, you should try all learning types until you find the one that makes the fastest progress.

As for cooking shows there are two that I found far more instructive than most.

First was dear Julia Child's shows. Completely unconventional, the former lady spy chose to self teach herself formal French cooking. The process caught on film was wildly entertaining. Ever note her liberal use of booze in her cooking? Ha!

The other chef is Jaques Pepin. He doesn't waste time yapping but he doesn't breeze over the basics to leave you wondering either.

This is one of the best cooking DVD's you'll ever find.

Amazon.com: Jacques Pepin: The Essential Pepin: Jacques Pepin, n/a: Movies & TV

 

I like to make cheesy hamburger rice. Cook rice, add cheese, and hamburger. The cheese can be the power type or velvet a type or shredded.

Another think I do is cook rice and add the flavor packets from Ramon noodles. Or other type of flavor packets.

I've also done this. Cook some meat, let's say hamburger. Do not drain the grease. Add flower and salt and pepper. Then add the cooked rice. It's then serve it with the meat.

I like rice because you can do so much with it. I'm sure you can do as much with beans, but I like rice better.

 

I agree 100%

I can fix rice about 20 different ways just by changing the flavoring agents.

 

The phenomen is called " appetite fatigue" and is a recognized problem.Rice and beans will certainly give it to you.Store honey,salt,spices,oatmeal,grits,energy bars,evaporated(Pet)milk,sweetened condensed(Eagle)milk,dried fruit,tea bags,anything to give your taste buds a change...people will quit eating due to this...its one reason MRE's have caramels and skittles in each meal
Most any month or do,Wally World will have one of those Action Alley displays with a big basket of assorted spices for .88 a bottle...Onion and garlic powder,dried onion,chili powder,lemon pepper....10bucks every time you see such a deal will have you stocked in no time

 

I have a love affairs with cookbooks. I Find reading them as enjoyable as a novel. I have found utube, cooking classes at the local community collage or sites like craftsy, where you buy the video classes to be the best for learning techniques and fresh new ideas.
My very favorite utuber is Hot Thai kitchen. Great info there.

We eat a fair amount of bean and rice now, in a variety of cultural foods. There are several bean and grain cookbooks on Amazon that rock. We also believe in storing oats and wheat as well as Rice for variety. Also there are many, many different kinds of beans out there to store, each with its own flavor.

 

I don't see how anyone needs a cookbook in today's time. With the Internet, ever conceivable recipe is out there just waiting for you to peruse it. Yes, you may have to pay, but the same thing has to happen for you to acquire a cookbook. You can also print the recipe out if you want it that way. You can put all of your acquired recipes into a file, then you search for the one you want. Or you can catalog them and search for different types.

 

Some of us just like books- the look,feel,and even the smell of a real, printed on paper, you can hold it in your hand book gives an experiance that a computer just can't match.

 

When I figured out that cooking is basically "chemistry", I had a better time with cooking. From what I have seen of Alton Brown, he basis his shows on teaching the "chemistry/science" of cooking.

MIT even has free online line courses:

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/special-programs/sp-287-kitchen-chemistry-spring-2009/

Here is another interesting link:

http://cen.acs.org/articles/90/i36/Kitchen-Chemistry-Classes-Take-Off.html