Meals in a Jar - BOOK REVIEW

I recently had the opportunity to review the book Meals in a Jar: Quick and Easy, Just-Add-Water, Homemade Recipes by Julie Languille. The book describes "Ready-made meals" as a jar or bag with everything you need to create a complete meal with no additional ingredients. The book strives to focus on meals that combine taste, quality, convenience with preparedness and cost-efficiency.

In reading through this book, one quickly realizes that the meals listed could replace the standard MRE with the simple addition of water. The one caveat that I would mention is that the meals listed take a lot of advance planning and preparation (and in some cases a lot of food) especially since some of the ingredients listed in some of the recipes would need to be ordered online.

One thing that stands out when reading this book is the breadth of meals that are covered. There are over one-hundred meals from breakfast to dessert and everything in between that are not only good for practical preppers, but are also good for people who enjoy outdoor activities such as camping, hunting, fishing or hiking excursions.

In reading through this book, I immediately recall the simpler times when grandmothers would give the gift of meals in a jar as wonderful, tasty treats. Along that vein, the meals described in this book would make great gifts for new moms, holiday gifts as well as housewarmings. In addition to those events, ready made meals are great for when you need a quick prep meal for times when life gets busy with kids' sports, music and academic activities.

Although most of the recipes call for items that you may not have on-hand, they are easily found on the web. Once you have the ingredients and equipment needed, you should be ready to go. I should mention that the author uses plastic bags, called retort pouches which is similar to what the military uses for certain MREs.

All-in-all, this was a good book. If you are looking for a book that helps you create dried and dehydrated ingredient meals to store in mason jars then this book is for you.