Beef Chili Made From Long Term Storage Items

I decided to experiment some more with my long term storage foods that I keep on hand for camping and for emergencies. I live in a fairly remote part of Maine, (by choice) and sometimes in winter the power gets knocked out when snow tips the trees over onto power lines. Not to mention that I often haul my camping gear out into the backwoods for up to a week or more at a time during warmer months.

So today I broke out some of my baggies of freeze dried stuff. Freeze dried beef dices, southwest chili mix, wild rice (manoomin), and one of my homemade 3x3” hardtack biscuits.

The recipe today is simple. 2/3 cups of freeze dried beef dices. 3/4 cups chili beans mix. 1/4 cup wild rice. Two tbsp chili powder mix. One hardtack biscuit. 1 scoop bacon grease. 1 pat of real butter. 3 cups water, no bone broth.

When I fry bacon for breakfast, or even for making bacon bits for my Caesar salads, I make sure to save the grease in a container in my fridge. It adds a touch of wonderful flavor to my cooking, not to mention valuable fats to my diet. Oh my goodness ! Did I just say “fats” ? Yes I did. Despite what you have been told, fats are a very important part of the human diet. We can’t live without them.

In this situation I cooked everything in my kitchen in my Instant Pot for 7 minutes on high pressure, with a natural pressure release. If I were doing this in my Valtcan 1.8 liter mini pressure cooker on open flames during a camping trip, I would add a tiny bit more extra water and run this for about 45 minutes cook time.

This recipe is enough to make two filling meals for men my size very easily. I’m 6’1” and I’m about 225 pounds. I couldn’t tell you exactly how many calories are in this dish. But you can add more calories to the meal by adding a single hardtack biscuit for each serving to bump up the calorie intake during cold weather.