I have a burning desire to always put food up. No matter if it is canning, freezing, dehydrating, or simply layering into canning jars for the pantry, it is one of the foremost things I worry/think about, when I have time to muse. I have found that many of the old cookbooks address meals in a jar much more than modern ones do. The more modern varieties are usually desserts (not that there is anything wrong with a dessert), but savory main dish ingredients should be considered for a full pantry.
I found this cool idea for a meal in a jar, from YouTube channel: Linda’s Pantry. It sounds delicious!
I especially appreciate her direction, because it uses dried foods that many of us keep in our pantry, but may not know how to combine into a new meal.
Another good idea is to mix your own flavored rice together, and store it in jars. Since the flavoring can sometimes settle out of the rice, you could keep it in single meal sized jars. These do not have to be canning jars, and are wonderful for those glass jars that you always have piling up. Here is my recipe (this is straight from my Canning and Preserving For Dummies Book)
Rice Mix
1 cup long-grain rice
2 tsp bouillon granules
3 teaspoons dried herbs
1/4 tsp salt
Combine all ingredients and cap tightly until needed. For my family, I double this for one meal. As long as you use the entire jar for one meal, you will have an even ratio of rice to flavor.
No bouillon? How about powdering the dehydrated veggies of your choice: I use tomato, onion, green pepper, nettle , mixed in equal parts with Nutritional yeast, and substitute it for the bouillon. You may find that you have to adjust the salt, because of course a purchased bouillon is very salty.
