When you think of the state of Pennsylvania, many don’t think about PA as being one of those states that faces a lot of weather related emergencies…but we get them, just like everyone else! Matter of fact, in the past 3 years we have gotten hit by 2 hurricanes (Sandy & Irene), several tropical storms, an earthquake, a tornado (last year) and several snow & ice storms!
When an emergency hits…are you prepared? I can tell you that 3 years ago, we were not! However, we have learned our lesson and keep ourselves totally stocked up on all kinds of emergency items! Just last year, we had no electrical power for almost a week thanks to Hurricane Sandy.
Keeping all of that in mind, I would like to introduce you to the online store called Harmony House Foods where you can shop for all kinds of dehydrated and freeze-dried fruits and vegetables! These products are fabulous for those who live in areas where mother nature can be cruel at times. They are also great for those of you who go camping, backpacking, hiking or for those of you who live/vacation out in the wilderness.
We were really interested in these types of foods because when our electrical power is out, we can still cook non-perishable foods using our outdoor gas grill. We keep a big box full of outdoor cooking necessities and now we are prepared for any emergency that may come our way.
When you shop at Harmony House Foods you will find freeze-dried & dehydrated fruits and vegetables like: broccoli flowerets, cabbage, celery, carrots, corn, sweet potatoes, sweet peas, mushrooms, green beans, apples, apricots, bananas, pineapple chunks, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries and many more! Seriously, their selection is one of the largest I have ever seen!
They sent me a complimentary Deluxe Sampler Box to review for all of you. This sampler box contains 30 zip-close pouches of dehydrated foods! In with our box was a handy-dandy sheet that tells you how to rehydrate the foods (it’s a chart) and it tells you how much the rehydrated food will yield in regards to servings. I love that chart because it includes all of the instructions & is really easy to understand. (photo above shows just a few of them that I received in my sampler box!).
Inside our Sampler Box was the following items: Broccoli Flowerets, Green Cabbage, Diced Carrots, Sliced Celery, Whole Sweet Corn, Green Beans, Jalapeno Dices, Tangy Green & White Leeks, Chopped Onions, Green Sweet Peas, Red & Green Mixed Bell Peppers, Diced Potatoes, Spinach Flakes, Tomato Dices, Tomato Powder, Lentils, Split Peas, Red Beans, Black Beans, Navy Beans, Garbanzo Beans, Great Northern Beans, Dark Kidney Beans, Pinto Beans, Beefish Bits (Meatless), Chickenish Bits (Meatless), Hamish Bits (Meatless), Taco Bits (Meatless), Chickenish Chunks (Meatless), Beefish Chunks (Meatless).
As you can see…those vegetable choices could feed a family for at least a week in an emergency situation. For those of you who camp & hike outdoors, these foods are perfect for you too! It is much easier to pack & carry around dehydrated & freeze-dried foods, than to lug around boxes and canned goods!
To rehydrate these foods, you simply add 1 part vegetables with 2 parts water. Simmer for 10-15 minutes or you can soak them in water for 1-2 hours. It is not necessary to rehydrate vegetables prior to using them in a recipe that requires cooking time. How cool is that? I think that is totally cool!
We selected just 3 of them to try out for the review. We want to keep the rest on hand for the Summertime when bad weather hits us. We used the corn, green beans and mushrooms in a beef vegetable soup recipe that I always make. We didn’t rehydrate them since they were tossed in with the rest of the soups ingredients and them simmered on the stove top for 2 hours over low heat. Once done, we sat down for our dinner and guess what? None of us could tell that the veggies were once dehydrated! They tasted delicious and very fresh.
I am very pleased with this Deluxe Sampler Box that we received from Harmony House Foods and I highly suggest that every family get one to keep for an emergency. If you don’t have an emergency, you can always cook them up when you need them…just like regular everyday food. If you are an outdoorsy type of person, they are perfect for you too! Kudos to Harmony House Foods for having an outstanding product!
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Disclaimer: Shelly has personally reviewed the product listed above. Shelly has not received any monetary compensation for her review. Shelly did receive a free product to try out so she could evaluate and use it for her review. Her thoughts & opinions in this review are unbiased & honest and your opinions may differ. This giveaway is not affiliated with Facebook or Google+ in any way. Thanks!
These sound great! I bought a dehydrator but then didn’t use it, too much work! Better to buy, esp with the cost of electricity to run a dehydrator for up to 16 hours to dry food.
I like this. We are instructed to have a 1-year supply of of emergency food storage (and to keep rotating it, of course!) I think I’ll order from them, it’s a nice change from what I usually get. Thanks for the info!
These look great for camping! thanks.
so excited to hear about this, so i just went to their site.then thought i’d check to see if amazon had some of their stuff (for the free shipping)and they did! they only had selected items, but i’m ok to start there. thanks so much for the info!
YUM! These look so good. I like having dehydrated food on hand in case we need it.
Wow seems like they have a lot of different dehydrated and dried foods. Nice package that they sent to you for you to do your review on too. These are great to have all the time. thanks so much for the information
Great when we have power outages in my area of the poconos
I love all their selection of dried veggies and fruits.
This would be great to have for emergencies. We could have used this when we had no power for nine days after a tornado knocked out power through the whole county two years ago! Ramen gets old quick!
These look like really great healthy products that are packaged really nice. The food items look fresh and there is not much work in preparing the different food items. Good products to have on hand in emergencies an while camping.
Living on Long Island we have had the same weather related power outages and they were not enjoyable. Since then I have collected a lot of different items in case of another outage, but I do not have any dehydrated foods. Thanks for this review and I shall be looking at the Harmony House foods site.