Michelle Snow isn’t a bag lady, but she’s prepared to live out of bags at a moment’s notice. Her big wake-up call came when Hurricane Katrina hit and she watched footage of people being rescued from their homes. The Kaysville woman didn’t take comfort in the fact that she had food storage in case of an emergency. "I come from a big food-storage family, and had old-fashioned bulk kinds of food," she said. "After Katrina, I realized that wasn’t going to work because it wasn’t transportable. Who can carry a 55-gallon drum of water?" Snow wanted food storage that was easy to carry. She also realized it needed to be quick and easy to prepare, with no need to cook meat, and come complete with water. Her solution is detailed in a book she co-authored with her husband, Trent Snow, "It’s In the Bag: A New, Easy, Affordable, and Doable Approach to Food Storage" (CFI, 2010, $14.99). He’s usually the guinea pig, but the recipes have been tasted by the whole family. "The teenagers eat this stuff," he said. "If you can get teenagers to eat your food storage, it’s good." The Snows aren’t saving their food storage for emergencies. "Once a week, we go out to dinner or we get pizza for the kids," said Michelle Snow, adding that she serves roast chicken or beef on Sundays. "But most of the time, we do eat bag meals. ... What we’re doing is, we’re eating what we store and storing what we eat, so that saves money and time, and I know it’s always fresh and good."
Traditional storage
Michelle Snow was raised to be self-reliant. She remembers her parents working out their budget on the kitchen table, while she and her brother played board games, and hearing her mother announce how much money they could spend on food storage. And she remembers filling buckets with wheat.
Snow followed in her mother’s footsteps, but after Katrina decided to see how useful it was.
"We decided to just live off it, and we completely ate it down," said Trent Snow. "By doing that, we found there were a lot of things we were storing that we didn’t like, or didn’t use, or had way too much of, and other things we didn’t have enough of."
While thinking about how to rebuild their storage, Michelle Snow started a self-reliant living group with her friend Laura Lee Anderson.
Each month, they invited an expert to speak at a neighborhood meeting. One of the speakers was Christine Van Wagenen, owner of the Wooden Spoon Cooking School and Family Life Center in American Fork, who taught a class called "Dinner: It’s in the Bag."
"A light went off," said Michelle Snow. "I converted that idea into a food storage system, and developed over 100 recipes."
Bag meals
The Snows have 422 meals in storage, each serving six to eight people. Everything needed for each meal is in its own 8-by-5-by-10-inch plastic bag. The recipe is in an attached CD sleeve.
If the meal is Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta, the bag contains a package of pasta, a bottle of water to cook it, canned chicken meat, canned tomatoes, and a can of evaporated milk. There’s also a resealable bag holding all of the necessary spices.
"I designed them so that the proportions would be based on cans you can buy," said Michelle Snow.
She reuses the resealable bags and water bottles.
"Because of the chlorine in our (tap) water, we don’t have to worry about it going bad," she said.
Emergencies
Snow’s recipes are designed with emergency use in mind.
"A lot of the recipes ... don’t need to be cooked because the meat’s already cooked," she said.
If the meal includes pasta, but the situation doesn’t allow her to cook, she can just leave it out.
"I still have protein and some other things for them to eat, so I can mix that all together and that would sustain them, and actually be quite yummy," she said.
Everyday eating
It takes creativity to come up with meals using bulk storage, and that can be tough when you’re stressed.
"Here we sat down and did all the experimenting and creativity upfront," said Trent Snow.
Time and money
Trent Snow works as an engineer at Hill Air Force Base, and Michelle Snow is working on a doctorate in public health at the University of Utah, as well as on a research project with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
They say the bag meal storage makes their lives easier.
"If mom’s late from work, I can fix one myself, or the teenagers can easily just throw it together, because they don’t have to measure," said Trent Snow.
After meals are prepared, empty bags are placed on a hook in the pantry. They refill the bags once a week, using food and measuring spoons stored in the basement.
The food is mostly commercially canned, purchased in bulk during case-lot sales. Buying in bulk allows the Snows to keep the cost of a meal to about $5.
They save more money canning fruits, vegetables and meats at home.
"Canning meat’s easy," Michelle Snow said. "Two weeks ago, they had chicken breast on sale for like $1.58 a pound. I bought 40 pounds."
It took her two hours to cook and seal it in jars.
"We only spend $35 a week on groceries, such as fresh milk, bananas, oranges and salad fixings," she said.
Spreading the word
The Snows say they wrote their book to help others prepare usable food storage for times of need.
"Even with unemployment, if you go through a cycle where you’re out of work for three months, you’ve got storage of stuff you normally eat," said Trent Snow. "It’s kind of like having extra money in the bank for a rough time."
People who know about the Snow’s food storage often half-joke that they’ll come over to eat if there’s an emergency. Michelle Snow gives them a subtle hint that they should prepare for themselves.
"I say, ‘I hope you’re there first,’ " she said with a smile.
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Michelle Snow demonstrates her bag-meal storage method, as well as how to make yogurt and soft cheese, from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. Friday at the Utah State Fair, 200 N. 1000 West, Salt Lake City. From 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 Friday at the fair, Trent Snow shows how to build a sprouter, a hands-free emergency washing station, and a homemade cheese press. Until then, here are a few recipes from their book, "It’s In the Bag: A New, Easy, Affordable, and Doable Approach to Food Storage" (CFI, $14.99).
Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta
(Original recipe from Belinda Craft)
5 cups water
8 ounces penne pasta
14.5-ounce can Italian diced tomatoes
12-ounce can evaporated milk
13-ounce can chicken meat, including broth, or 1 pint home-canned chicken breast
Resealable bag:
1 chicken bouillon cube
1 1/2 tablespoons dried basil
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
In a large pot, bring 5 cups water to boil. Add pasta to boiling water and stir gently. Return to boil and cook 6 to 7 minutes or according to desired pasta tenderness. Remove from heat and drain. In a medium saucepan, combine remaining ingredients. Cook over medium heat for 10 minutes. To serve, gently toss sun-dried tomato sauce and pasta until pasta is thoroughly coated.
Caribbean Chicken and Rice
5 cups water
Resealable bag:
2 cups rice
Resealable bag:
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
4 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons dried celery
1/4 cup dried bell peppers
1 tablespoon dried parsley
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 tablespoon chives
2 tablespoons dried onion
2 chicken bouillon cubes
Canned items:
15-ounce can black-eyed peas, drained
13-ounce can chicken meat, including broth, or 1 pint home-canned chicken breast
To cook rice: In a heavy-bottomed saucepan with a tight-fitting lid, place 3 cups water and add 2 cups rice. Boil on high heat for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside for 10 minutes, then fluff. Do not lift the lid while rice is resting. If you have a rice cooker, just add water and rice and depress the lever. Fluff rice when lever pops up.
In a medium saucepan, add spice packet to remaining water and cook over medium heat until peppers and celery are tender, about 10 minutes. Add black-eyed peas and chicken meat and heat thoroughly. To serve, pour black-eyed pea mixture over rice.
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