Date: 1-7-14

Due Date: 1-7-15

Resolution: This is actually one of the first challenges I thought up to keep myself busy following the conclusion of my Southland Tales reviews. On its own… it's a fun/funny experiment and a cheap way to live for a month but It's only a month’s worth of material that fits in perfectly amongst these various other challenges.

I'm going to buy this bucket of disaster preparedness meals and live off of it until it's all gone. It may be a month it may be a week depending on how much I like what I'm eating. This is not a diet in that I will only eat the recommended amount per meal. If I'm hungry I'm going to eat to see just how efficient this bucket of food really is.

Loophole: If for whatever reason I have to leave town for work during this challenge where I am not allowed to take the bucket with me, rather than turn down the job I will take a break and pick up where I left off when I return.

Addendum: As an additional loophole since these are not individually packed meals this will be my food supply when I am home. I will not plan to go anywhere for the sole purpose of eating some other than bucket food, but if I am out… I will not not eat non-bucket food.

I figure if this was an emergency situation and I was offered a meal by someone else I would not turn them down. Don't worry, I'm sure I'll be home a lot I mainly want this clause for any birthday celebration that may go down.

Result #7: Remember When I Successfully Ate That Bucket Of Survivalist Food!

Update #1: The Arrival!!!

Date: 2-2-2014

Yesterday I came home to check my mail and I found this...

I was very excited about its arrival. Those of you who know me know that I'm always down for a good food challenge, and I couldn't wait to start this one (I once ate nothing but eggs for three months.)

If you're following my progress on other challenges you may already know that I was dog/house sitting this weekend while my friends were out of town for the annual ski trip that I always avoid for my own quirky reasons.

I wanted to wait until I was home to start the challenge so that I wouldn't have to haul this 40-pound bucket-o-food around.

So I had to wait...

Today I came home and there it was... still sealed... waiting for its grand opening... but first.. more publicity shots.

Now it's just a matter of breaking the seal to see the magic that this bucket must be filled with...

And to quote Kelly Bundy, "Viola!!!"

What the???

Is that giant bag one meal? I knew the answer, but I was so expecting to see 330 little bags of individually packed meals.

I have to admit I am a little disappointed that these are not individually packed meals because my game plan was to just reach in the bucket and grab a meal without having to make an active choice in what I'd be eating for any given meal.

Oh well, that's my fault for ordering the first bucket I saw without doing any research.

I got over it quickly and began to dig through my grub.

It looks like a drug bust.

For whatever reason I chose the Cheddar Broccoli Rice as my first meal.

Not bad considering their image is a glamour shot, and I've never been able to figure out how to make instant rice without making it come out slimy looking.

This was my first and my second meal (I forgot to take a picture of the plated finished product.)

I have to say... It's not that bad. The proportions may be small, but this is meant to be an emergency meal, not a luxurious feast. As far as taste goes; it's no better or worse than any other instant rice meal that I've ever tasted.

I look forward to trying the other meals!

Update #2: Bucket Breakfast Of Champions…

Date: 2-5-2014

I was starving when I woke up this morning. I thought there was no way that I could keep this up. For whatever reason, you'll notice that I say this a lot as I often don't sweat the small stuff, but for whatever reason… I didn't think to look at the calorie intake of each meal.

I just figured each meal would be one serving from one of the bags. It turns out I only ate 990 calories using this logic. I get to eat over twice as much as I ate yesterday! 

So today I started with a breakfast of Quick Cook Oats. 

Learning from yesterday's mistake I made a double batch. There is two bags with 30 serving in each so I'm guessing this is the way you're supposed to do it.

They don't even attempt to make their photo of oatmeal to appear glamourous in fact they avoid sharing how it will look in bowl form altogether.

Just like yesterday's rice… this oatmeal is fine... It tastes like oatmeal.

So far, of the meals I've tried, other than not eating enough yesterday, I don't think I'm going to have a problem with this challenge at all. This stuff is fine enough as it is. I'm sure it would be an amazing option if I actually had to resort to it in the case of an emergency.

Look forward to the next meal.

Update #3: Mac And Cheese…

Date: 2-6-2014

Today I had Bucket Mac and Cheese.

When I first opened the bucket I saw the big bag of Cheddar Cheese Sauce before I saw the pasta and was very confused. For whatever reason… I didn't think about Mac and Cheese and did very little research about what to expect when I ordered the bucket.

I was also still in the mind set where I thought a full meal would be one serving from one of the bags three times a day. I then started to think about whipping some of this powdered cheese up to pour on the mashed potatoes, but then I found the pasta bag and it all made sense.

Today I decided to make a double batch of Bucket Mac and Cheese for lunch.

Here's how it went.

I feel like I'm on Lost every whenever it's time to eat out of these foil bags.

The bag of pasta was just that, a bag of pasta, but look at that giant bag of Cheeto dust...

Then it was just a matter of cooking it like you would any other type of Mac and Cheese.

…and BAM!!!

So far this has been my favorite dish. I even like this Mac and Cheese better than most of the regular store brands. The cheese doesn't taste like Cheeto dust at all, it's actually creamy and pretty tasty.

Part of me is disappointed that this challenge isn't going to be more difficult. If anything I'm getting more variety and better food. I kind of want to get one of their Buckets-O-Meat!!!

Update#4: Mashed Taters And Veggies

Date: 2-12-2014

Whether they are made from scratch or made from a box, I'm always down for some mashed taters, let's see how they are out of a bucket? I'm not sure how I feel about these bucket veggies.

Let's see what happens.

And this is how I ate it:

The potatoes weren't bad, but I think next time I'm going to add less water because it came out a little runny, but the flavor was good.

I wasn't a big fan of these just add water veggies. I even let them boil longer than suggested and it seemed that very couple bights I'd still hit a piece of corn that was still dehydrated and in general they just had no flavor.

I do think this combination is the way to go if I'm going to power through and finish all these veggies. I can't see eating them as a stand alone course.

Update #5: Beef Flavored Vegetable Stew

Date: 2-27-2014

The bucket food challenge continues.

I've finished off the Mac and Cheese, one bag of Oatmeal, one bag of Mashed Potatoes, and the rest of the bags in the bucket are beginning to dwindle. 

First I'll share the cooking process of the Beef Flavored Vegetable Stew and then I'll share the backstory of my failures to figure out this meal.

This dish is actually not that bad now that I'm actually cooking it right.

For those of you who know me, you may have seen me post a question on Facebook about how to deal with cooking when instructed to boil something for ten minutes.

Up until I asked this question I was the type of person who unless instructed to lower the heat once the water starts to boil, or to bring the water to a slow boil (like a majority of this other dishes instruct) the word boil alone meant set this puppy on high and let it go.

Unfortunately… I don't have the photographic evidence, but my first attempt at cooking this dish didn't go as I suspected. The "stew" part of the dish condensed to become almost like a blood pudding. I thought this was odd but since I didn't have a reference picture I assumed this was supposed to make up for the lack of actual beef.

My second and third attempt to make this dish were actually worse and again I wish photographic evidence, but for those two attempts I managed to boil all of the water away leaving a bizarre bowl of veggie bits, that I decided to make up some bucket mashed potatoes in order to make the dish tolerable (no these weren’t the veggies that are in the photos of the mashed potatoes, those were supposed to look like that.)

So after three tries… I went to the internet where I learned to turn down the heat to finally properly prepare this dish.

Thanks internet!!!

Update #6: Hearty Potato Soup…

Date: 3-9-2014

This bucket food is winding down but I've still got a couple meals to post. Tonight's dinner Bucket Hearty Potato Soup.

This dish isn't all that bad. It's real good when I add curry powder to it.

Update #7: Chicken Flavored Vegetable Stew…

Date: 3-18-2014

This is the last meal that I have to report on.

For whatever reason, the Chicken Flavored Vegetable Stew was the least appealing meal from the get go. It's actually not that bad, but after three weeks of eating nothing but some form of powder with chunks and boiling water everything seemed bland and boring. It's a good thing I started to add curry powder to the top offenders, or I don't think I would have made it through.

Here's the steps to making the Chicken Flavored Vegetable Stew:

It turns out I used the same photo for the potato stew this is actually the chicken stew. Since they look so similar and I can't find a promotional image of the potato stew so I'm just going to leave it as is.

I have one or two days’ worth of bucket food left. I'll be closing out the resolution very soon. I'll share my overall thoughts then.

Update #8: The Conclusion…

Date: 3-21-2014

It's been a little over a month and I've finally finished this bucket of food. I was in the middle of a job hunt during this challenge and had no funds so for the most part… this was an emergency supply of food. After a while… I got a little bored with the lack of variety in the consistency of each dish but I had no problem with the tastes.

If I were to put together an emergency kit I would feel comfortable having this bucket as my main source of food. The only thing I would add is a selection of canned meats and something crunchy to add some texture to the meals.

My favorite dish was either the mac and cheese or the broccoli and cheddar rice. My least favorite dishes were the chicken flavored vegetable stew or the beef flavored stew.

Since I made it over a month with the bucket known as the ARK 330 as my main source of food so I consider the resolution a success!!!

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