Sunday, March 20, 2011

HH6 Cooking Club Monthly Challenge

I recently joined The Household 6 Cooking Club will will feature monthly cooking challenges.  It's a group of military spouses that love to cook!  So for our March Challenge:


The Mission: 
MREs - If you were assigned to come up with one concept dish for a new MRE, what would it be?


The Details:
It's a concept dish so we don't need to make sure that it will dehydrate well.


So what is an MRE you ask?  


The official definition: The Meal, Ready-to-Eat — commonly known as the MRE — is a self-contained, individual field ration in lightweight packaging bought by the United States military for its service members for use in combat or other field conditions where organized food facilities are not available.


The Army wife definition: something I more than likely would NOT eat!  I hear my husband talk about them, tell me what the good components are, and fully explain how bad they can be.


My husband is currently deployed and when he called the other day I asked him what his ideal MRE would contain if he had the choice and there were no issues on how to package it, dehydrate it,  and here is his list:


  1. chicken fried steak with white gravy
  2. California blend veggies 
  3. potato wedges
  4. Texas Pete mini bottle (because it tastes good on EVERYTHING)
  5. sweet tea with lemon
  6. Gobstoppers (because no meal is complete without them)
  7. Snack to take with you for later to put in one of your many velcro pouches: trail mix and gum.
But this is my challenge!  So imagining my self in a field exercise (yeah right!), with my sidekick Minnie, and what we would be hungry for

  • Chicken souvlaki wrapped in a homemade pita with fresh lettuce, tomatoes, onions & yogurt sauce  (Recipes: Chicken Souvlaki & Pita Bread)
  • Side of Greek Salad with feta and homemade dressing (Recipe: Greek House Dressing)
  • Hummus with some more of that fab pita (Recipe: Hummus)

  • Coconut Cream Pie (because it's my fav!) I use the recipe on the back of the Argo Cornstarch box. 


  • Minnie's Snack: Peanut Butter & Pumpkin Dog Treats (she is allergic to wheat, corn, beef, lamb and a whole slew of other allergies so I use rice flour in place of the wheat flour in this recipe):  Minnie's Dog Treats.  I make them smaller to fit into her Kong Bone so they last more than 1.2 seconds.  My husband has mentioned how malnourished the dogs are overseas - they should make pouches of dog treats for the soldiers to carry with them.  They could be packaged with the MRE's!


So the March Mission is complete!

I'm off to make lemon pound cake to ship over to my hubby!

Hugs!
~Katie










9 comments:

  1. Dwayne loves him some gobstoppers!

    ReplyDelete
  2. My husband has said for a long time MRE's need more candy. Love the hummus idea too.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I never pay attention to those boxes. I'm going to check out the recipe.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Awesome! I asked my husband the same question and he said my stuffed shells I make as an entree with corn on the cob & garlic cheddar potatoes and lemon poppy seed poundcake. Also veggie crackers with jalapeno cheese haha.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Haha -I'm with your hubby about the chicken fried steak. Yum!
    Although you can't go wrong with some good Greek food either!

    ReplyDelete