Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Just Add Water: Mexican Rice and Beef

Before I get into the recipe, I want to make one note:  In most of these Just Add Water recipes that include meat, I use beef.  It's what I like.  But, you can substitute any freeze fried (and perhaps dehydrated) meat you like.  MREDepot.com has freeze dried beef and chicken available.  Nitro-pak.com has beef, chicken, ground beef and pork chops, although their prices are a bit more expensive.  I'm sure other online vendors sell similar products.
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This is another of our favorites.  It makes a LOT of food, easily enough for two very hungry people to fill up.

Mexican Rice and Beef

3 C boiling water
2 C INSTANT rice, dry (not regular rice)
1 C Freeze dried beef
1/2 t salt
1/2 t Red chile flakes
1T Dehydrated onions
1T Chile powder
1T Cumin

As with the Mashed Potatoes and Beef recipe, add the boiling water directly into the vacuum seal bag.  Stir well, then seal it shut, and wait 5 minutes.

Viola! (click to enlarge)



Sorry, this is only about half of a batch - I got carried away eating it before I remembered to take a picture.  It is a bit on the hot (spicy) side, so if you have a sensitive palate, you can cut back on the red chile flakes to suit your tastes.

The stats (rice and beef only):

Calories - 860
Protein - 54g
Carbs - 176g
Fat - 8g

Accept The Challenge

If you were stuck out in the "boonies" with just your BOB or truck bag, a nice hot meal would most likely hit the spot.  And maybe keep you alive.

You can buy Mountain House meals - which are absolutely great - but they're expensive.  This rice dish cost under $4.50, including the vacuum seal bag.  You're looking at $7 - at least - for a similar 2-person Mountain House meal, plus you're getting lower portions of protein and carbs (calories are about the same).

And by making them yourself, you know exactly what is going into them, taking allergies and food dislikes out of the picture.
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Copyright 2009 Bison Risk Management Associates. All rights reserved. You are encouraged to repost this information so long as it is credited to Bison Risk Management Associates. www.BisonRMA.com
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4 comments:

  1. AnonymousJanuary 20, 2010 at 3:54 PM

    Living by myself most of the time, I eat a lot of these meals anyway. I like to mix ground beef with rice, or have chili over rice. You can keep dried rice a long, long time and it doesn't go bad. I agree about the home made variety meals as opposed to the expensive "food storage" cans you can buy.

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  2. Chief InstructorJanuary 21, 2010 at 11:01 AM

    They are so easy to make it's ridiculous. As I noted, we keep them in all of our GHBs, as they take up very little space, and are very light.

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  3. liteluvrJuly 15, 2010 at 8:54 AM

    Heya Chief.... new to the site, but I suspect I'm going to be a regular. Just wanted to drop a comment and let you know that MREDepot doesn't seem to have the dried beef or chicken anymore. None are listed under their dehydrated/dried food link, and nothing resulted from a site search.
    However, I will be dehydrating some ground beef to try this recipe with in the very near future.
    Keep up the good work!

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  4. Chief InstructorJuly 15, 2010 at 2:56 PM

    Thanks for stopping by and commenting.

    MRE Depot gets them in stock in spurts. And they tend to sell out fairly quickly. I'm on one of their mailing lists, so I get a heads-up when new stuff comes in.

    I believe other sites sell the freeze dried beef and chicken as well. I've got plenty for now, so I haven snooped around in a while.

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