For my second shoebox supper attempt, I chose to make Bbq'd Spam. I use the Turkey Spam but certainly you might choose any flavor Spam which suits you. I'd seen this idea in one of the vintage magazines ads and thought it looked rather good. I mean if a recipe from 70 years ago still looks tasty, hadn't I ought to try it?
Menu: Bbq'd Spam and Beans, Coleslaw and Cornbread
I opted to do coleslaw because it's hot outdoors and I felt the cool slaw would offset the heat of the beans and meat. Honestly as a true Shoebox supper, I would have chosen fruit and gelatin or even applesauce as a dessert, any of which also might be a cool and refreshing item to go with this meal.
I mixed up my own Bbq sauce today. I had a bit of pineapple juice from a can I'd drained (*Gathered fragment here) and used the end of a bottle of yellow mustard I'd rinsed with water (*), the last of a bottle of ketchup, some Worcestershire sauce, and brown sugar.
This got a little more brown than I'd have liked.
I drained and rinsed my can of beans (Vegetarian B&B Baked Beans), added some chopped onion (onion powder could also be subbed if no fresh were available), and enough of the homemade Bbq sauce to moisten them. I cleared a spot in the center of my baking dish and put the Spam in the middle, cut it into six slices, roughly two ounces each, not quite through so they remained attached and poured the last of the Bbq sauce over the meat. This baked in a slow oven for about an hour, not at all necessary, but it was most convenient to me. You can certainly heat and eat a lot sooner than I did. I just like my beans a little bit dry.
This too looks a little more well done than I might desire. I cooked per instructions but shall try to remember when I use this mix in the future to cut back on the time by a few minutes.
I mixed up a package of Martha White Buttermilk Cornbread Mix, which required 2/3 cup of water or milk. I opted for water because it has buttermilk powder but if you are needing to increase nutrients by all means add milk (canned or shelf stable or reconstituted dry can all be subbed in). I was impressed with how smooth and fine this batter was but it was so fine that I found it tasted like cornbread but looked and felt like biscuit bread when it was cooked. I cannot fault the taste of it. It was very good. I shall look for more of these Martha White packets to keep in the pantry for Shoebox Meals.
I thought, since I have a breakdown of the main ingredients of this meal I'd share what this cost. One thing we might as well know now about Shoebox Suppers is that they are not necessarily budget minded meals. I'm pretty sure I can make food a little more cheaply than this but one thing we must remember using most canned meats and beans is that it's going to cost more per serving than foods we're making from scratch.
A 12 ounce can of Turkey Spam, or any other flavor, costs $3.19. The can of baked beans was a sale item at $1.66. The packet of cornbread mix was 89c. One might buy a bottle of Bbq sauce for about 99c. I daresay my gathered fragments sauce was more budget friendly than that. Just these ingredients alone, divided by three (I have one serving left enough for one of us to have for lunch) works out to about $1.92 per serving. Had I bought Bbq sauce and added in a jar of applesauce (99c) that total would rise to $7.72 or $2.57/per serving. This is not a horrible figure and overall it's not bad for something that might be an emergency or as an occasional convenience meal. It's certainly cheaper than ordering pizza or getting take out.
I cannot figure the cost of the coleslaw to give you a true accounting of what my meal cost per serving. I used the butt end of a head of cabbage, 2 tsps mayo and 1 tbsp pickle relish to make the slaw.
Our opinion of the meal was that it tasted good, it was filling and it's something we'd like to eat again. So I'm putting this one in my recipe book, too. If you try it, let me know!
6 comments:
I love cornbread and don’t mind at all if it’s kind of well done-ish. When I do beans we like b&m original, and I doctor it up with chopped bacon, ketchup, brown sugar onion and garlic powder. I bake it like you do. Now I’m hungry😂
Your BBP and Spam and cornbread meal sounded tasty to me. I've been craving corn bread, and I have it in my pantry, but it just keeps being so hot here. Only a few days in the low to mid 80's and that still makes it way to hot in our house in the early evening/late afternoon. I am ready for a little bit cooler weather.
My mom used to put whole cloves in Spam and bake it in the oven, then had something like fried potatoes a3nc onions and a veggie. Very tasty supper. She may have added something like brown sugar to the Spam. Gramma D
This is a lovely shoe box meal, Terri! I admit I haven’t eaten Spam in a while, but I do remember having it fried with eggs often when I was growing up. The turkey spam sounds interesting. I am so impressed how you just threw together some fragments for barbecue sauce. I wish I were talented at that. I will have to doctor up baked beans next time we have them. I made the beans from scratch, but didn’t like how they turned out.
You are a creative cook! Lots of folks would be stumped if they didn't have barbecue sauce or whatever and abandon the idea without trying to make it missing product themselves. Meijer has vegetarian baked beans which I doctor up to suit our tastes. Gotta watch labels as so many things have pork in them.
My baked beans were not what I said they were. They were Bush's Baked Beans. I must have been recalling an old vintage ad to say they were B&M or whatever I called them!
Making Bbq sauce is something my mom did all the time. I used recipes from my favorite old cookbook but then just started experimenting. Almost all Bbq sauces have a tomato base, a sweetener and a vinegar/tart component. So you can sub in apple butter, peach jam, apricot jam, honey, cane syrup, maple for the sweet and you can use vinegar or citrus juices for the tart component.
Dora, I have a recipe that calls for it to be studded with cloves, and basted with a brown sugar and pineapple juice, broiled with pineapples
Post a Comment