Sponsor Highlight – Mother Earth Products

Recently we had a new sponsor join the Prepper Journal and I have only now been able to get around to announcing them properly.  Mother Earth Products contacted us a few weeks ago about advertising on our site. I wanted to try their products first and see the quality for myself before I recommended them to our readers. Mother Earth Products quickly sent some samples that I requested and they were really good so we added them to our site.

What I really wanted to do was a larger test with a broader spectrum of products. Our idea was to take an entire days worth of meals, cook them with recipes we had or were found on the Mother Earth Products website and augment the dehydrated food with either items in our garden or pantry. Then we wanted to include the recipes we used so you could see how to plan a meal with dehydrated foods also. What we came up with was even more impressive to me and I now feel even better about this company and would recommend them to anyone.

Before I go into the meals, let me describe my interactions with the company. From the moment I was contacted; the owner of Mother Earth Products, Mr. Theodore Pope has always been very quick to respond and has on more than one occasion gone well above what I would expect. When I have a question, he answers me directly and usually within hours. I have the feeling that my business and experience with his company is very important and that is the type of service all of his customers enjoy. When requested, my samples on both occasions arrived within days, nicely packaged and delivered by Fed-Ex. Their website has an easy ordering system; just find what you want, click add and there you go.

The foods are packaged in sealed bags with an additional zip-loc closure built-in so if you don’t use the whole product, no worries! Just zip up what is left and use the rest another time. I had to do this myself with my oatmeal this morning. I wanted to add some of the Apricots I received and there was a little too much for one bowl, so I will have the rest tomorrow. Additionally, and this might be a silly point to some, but I can reuse these bags for other purposes when I am done.

Now about dehydrated foods. Why do we purchase these foods? There are lots of reasons to purchase dehydrated or freeze dried foods, but it usually revolves around the need to store food for long periods. Freeze drying is the best way to maintain Cell structure, which results in excellent retention of flavor, color, shape, and nutritional value. One of the greatest benefits of this process is the time reduced in your prep time, from cooking to eating a delicious meal. Most products are ready within 5-10 minutes and freeze-dried foods usually have a 7-10 year shelf life. Its insurance for your family that you can forget about for a long time. So, on to the meals.

My wife created a simple menu from various items from Mother Earth Products and we got the whole family involved. For Breakfast this morning, I had oatmeal. Oatmeal is just one of those simple meals to fix. You only need hot water really. I usually add a little salt, fresh cream and some honey to make it taste a little delicious, but this morning I added Apricots from Mother Earth. I added the apricots in with the plain oats and cooked this like normal. They came out fresh and and added a really nice taste to my morning bowl. Our dog who always gets to lick the bowl when I am done loved it too! We also had blueberry muffins made with the dehydrated blueberries. They were both delicious.

All of the meals below were prepared and we ate the entire day off of both our stored food and Mother Earth Products. The kids liked everything and even went back for seconds on more than one occasion. Not too shabby for dehydrated food is it?

Breakfast

Blueberry Muffins

Directions:

1. Add 1 cup of hot water to blueberries and allow to sit for 1 hour.
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.
3. Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.
4. To Make Crumb Topping: Mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1/4 cup butter, and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon. Mix with fork, and sprinkle over muffins before baking.
5. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.

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Lunch

Beef Goulash

Ingredients:

• 32 oz beef stock
• ¼ cup Mother Earth freeze dried onions
• ¼ cup Mother Earth freeze dried celery
• 1 cup Mother Earth diced potatoes
• ½ cup Mother Earth beef bits
• ½ cup Mother Earth sweet potatoes
• ¼ cup Mother Earth freeze dried leeks
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

This was the simplest meal of the whole bunch, just combine everything in a skillet and simmer for 30-45 minutes.

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Dinner

6 Servings

Mexican Chicken and Rice

6 servings

Ingredients:

• 2 cups Mother Earth chicken chunks
• 2 cups water
• ¼ cup Mother Earth freeze dried green pepper
• ¼ Mother Earth cup of freeze dried green pepper
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 1 cup Mother Earth corn
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1 cup Mother Earth diced tomatoes
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon chili powder, optional
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1-1/2 cups cooked rice
• 1/2 to 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Directions

1. Combine 2 cups Mother Earth chicken, ¼ cup of freeze dried green pepper, ¼ cup of freeze dried onion, ¼ cup of freeze dried jalapenos, 1 cup of freeze dried tomatoes, and 1 cup of freeze dried sweet corn with 2 cups of water and 1 cup chicken broth in skillet and simmer for thirty minutes.
2. While mixture is cooking, cook rice according to directions.
3. Add oil to chicken mixture
4. Stir in the rice; cover and remove from the heat.
5. Let stand for 5minutes. Fluff with a fork. Sprinkle with cheese. Cover and lets tand for 2 minutes or until cheese is melted. Yield: 6 servings.

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Dessert -My personal Favorite

Berry Cobbler

Ingredients:

•  2 cups of Mother Earth freeze dried berries (blackberry, cherry, blueberry, or raspberry)
• 1 cup sugar, or to taste
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits, plus some for the pan
• 1 /2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 /2 teaspoon baking powder
• Pinch salt
• 1 egg
• 1 /2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Add 2 cups hot water to berries and sit for 1 hour.  Heat the oven to 375°F. Once berries have soaked up water, toss the fruit with half the sugar and spread it in a lightly greased 8-inch square or 9-inch round baking pan.
2. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and remaining 1/2 cup sugar in a food processor and pulse once or twice. Add the butter and process for 10 seconds, until the mixture is well blended. By hand, beat in the egg and vanilla.
3. Drop this mixture onto the fruit by tablespoon-fuls; do not spread it out. Bake until golden yellow and just starting to brown, 35 to 45 minutes. Serve immediately.

To conclude, we tried a pretty good variety of the products that Mother Earth offers. Based upon my dealings with them, their attention to customer service, the quality of their products and the results we were able to achieve I think they are a winner. My entire family liked all of these meals, which isn’t something to sneeze at when you consider a big factor of happiness when the grid-goes down is whether or not they are going to like what you have stored away.

Please consider Mother Earth Products if you are looking to put away some long-term storage food that your family will enjoy.