Emergency 10 Min. Meal Bags

Whew!  The roller coaster of the performing arts can send even the Little Mouse into a tail spin!  I had made a deal with myself, that no matter how busy I got, I would keep to my weekly blog.  Good intentions but somehow this week made it past me.  ALMOST!  Today is Saturday, so I "squeeked" in under the wire.

 This week is in retrospect.  Sometimes even the most organized and well thought out plans go haywire and you find yourself reacting and just going with the flow.  The kitchen should be  place that helps you sustain yourself, not add to the stress. 
The pantry is usually well stocked with essentials and ingredients that can easily be put together.  There are times, however, that the pantry just doesn't have what you need, or what you want!  That happened to me this week.  The first part of the week was spent eating (gasp) take out.  Subs and chips in the car while running to and fro.  The second part was spent digging through the freezer and pantry looking for a 10 min meal fix.  The problem was, I had some ingredients for several various meals, but not enough for a complete one. 
I decided to make "Emergency 10 Min Meal Bags."  This will be a collection of bags that have all  the ingredients for a 10 min meal, all together.  Labeled and stocked on the pantry shelf, so that when time flies, or I need a meal in a hurry, I can grab a bag and everything I need will be right at my fingertips.  Then, when I use a bag, I'll write what I used on the grocery list and replace it the next time I grocery shop so that when the times comes to make the dish again, I'm not butt up in the pantry looking for a jar of sauce that I SWORE I had in the cupboard!!!! (Yes, that's what happened this week!) Proteins for these meals can be thawed in advance, omitted all together, or provided in canned form (tuna, chunk chicken etc.)  Premeasure the ingredients that come in larger quantities and store in ziplock bags right in the brown bag.

Emergency 10 Min Meal bags
****Means that the recipes are included in the pages section of the blog***The ingredients and amounts will be listed here so that you can make your own meal bags!

Chicken Kormi with Almonds***
2 cans of chunk chicken
1 jar of Patak's Kormi sauce
1 cup of shredded coconut
1/4 cup slivered almonds
2 cups of instant brown rice

Linguine with Clam Sauce***
1 box linguine
2 cans clams
1 box or can of chicken broth
1 bottle of clam juice
2 tsp oregano, 2 Tbsp parsley, 2 tsp garlic salt (store all of these spices together in a small snack sized ziplock bag.  Ready made spice mix!)  You can add the fresh spices and salt and pepper as you go.  You can even make the sauce and pasta ahead and store it in the fridge up to a week.  Cook your pasta, store it in a ziplock freezer bag with 2 Tbsp of olive oil drizzled on top. 

Artichoke Tuna Panini***
2 cans of tuna
1 jar of artichoke hearts(packed in oil)
1 can of black olives

Taco Soup
(This recipe is very good but you need to have ground beef to make it complete.  DON'T store the ground beef in a bag!)
1 can of Mexican style tomatos
1 can red kidney beans
1 can of corn
1 can of tomato sauce
1 can of green chiles
1 pkg. taco seasoning
3 Tbsp parsley
Bag of Tortilla chips