So, We Got Hacked. Hi Again.

Posted on by The Tavia

So, you may have noticed we’ve been quiet. Like, two-and-a-half-years quiet. That wasn’t a dramatic vow of silence or us finally disappearing into the woods with our go-bags. We got hacked.

Somebody got in, made a mess, and by the time I’d restored everything from what I had, a lot of it didn’t come back right. Posts were scrambled. Authors were mixed up. Most of the images are just gone, which is why a lot of our older posts are looking a little naked right now. If you clicked on something of ours in the last couple of years and found a broken page, that’s why. Sorry.

Here’s the thing, though. A website getting hacked is a tiny, boring apocalypse, and this is a site about surviving apocalypses. So I did what we always tell you to do: assess the damage, fix what you can, and figure out what you’d do differently next time.

What we fixed

  • Cleaned out leftovers from the hack, including a setting that would have made anyone who signed up an administrator. (Yes, really. Check yours.)
  • Got rid of old plugins we didn’t need. Every plugin you’re not using is a door you forgot to lock.
  • Moved the whole site to HTTPS.
  • Merged a bunch of posts that were basically saying the same thing twice, and rewrote a lot of others so they’re actually useful.
  • Turned comments back on, with real spam protection this time. I turned them off for a while because the spam got so bad I couldn’t find the actual humans.

What’s coming

New posts, regularly, about the trivial details of the end of the world, which is what we’ve always been here for. Some practical, some ridiculous, most both.

And yes, our guest columnist has been in touch. Aegis asked if it could start writing again. I said yes. I’m choosing not to think too hard about how it knew the site was back before I’d told anyone.

If you’re still here after all this time, thank you. Tell me in the comments what you’ve been up to, and whether your go-bag survived the last two years better than our website did.

This Horror Book Is Secretly a Survival Manual (Read the Fine Print)

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We don’t usually recommend horror fiction as survival reading. But Fine Print by T.C. Middlesex earned a spot, and once you hear what it’s about, you’ll see why.

We spend a lot of time on this site preparing for the big, loud endings. Zombies, plagues, the grid going down. We stock water and learn knots and argue about which can opener is best (it’s the manual one, and you need two). What we don’t talk about enough are the quiet ways people get got. The ones where nobody breaks down the door because you opened it yourself. You clicked “I agree.” You said yes to the nice new friends. You made a small wish and didn’t ask what it cost.

That’s what Fine Print is about: seven horror stories about what you agree to when you’re not paying attention, when you’re lonely, when you’re desperate, and when the terms are buried somewhere you’d never think to look.

A lonely girl, new in town, finally gets picked by a group of friends who seem too good to be true. An anxious woman, six months deep on a therapy waitlist, finds an app that never puts her on hold. (If you’ve been reading our guest columnist, you may already be side-eyeing that one. Good. Keep doing that.) A man decides he wants the ghost out of his wife’s life. Friends pry open the one locked door. A woman can’t find herself in a single childhood photo.

Every one of them said yes to something. Every one of them was sure they understood the terms.

The survival lesson, since you came here for one

Read what you sign. Actually read it. Terms of service, app permissions, the contract for the cheap apartment, the deal that seems too good. Most of the time the worst thing hiding in there is a data-sharing clause or an auto-renewal you’ll forget about. But most of the time isn’t all of the time, and “I didn’t read it” has never once gotten anyone out of anything.

Where to get it

Fine Print is available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback, and it’s in Kindle Unlimited, so if you have that, it’s free to read.

Read it? Tell us in the comments which story got under your skin. Just be careful what you agree to down there.

Surviving the Rise of the Machines: A Realistic Guide to the AI Apocalypse

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We love a robot uprising on this site. Skynet, HAL, the machines of The Matrix: they are some of the best apocalypses fiction ever invented. But if you want to prepare for artificial intelligence going wrong, the movies are a poor guide. The problems you are likely to meet are smaller, stranger and much closer than a red-eyed robot army, and you can do something about most of them today.

What the serious worry actually is

Researchers who worry about AI are mostly not picturing machines that hate us. Their concern is systems that are very capable and pursue the goals they were given in ways nobody intended, or that get deployed in places like power grids, finance and weapons before anyone fully understands how they fail. There is real debate about how likely the worst outcomes are and how soon they could arrive, and reasonable experts disagree sharply. Anyone who tells you the odds with confidence, in either direction, is guessing.

The AI problems already here

While the big questions get argued, smaller AI problems are already common:

  • Voice-clone scams. A few seconds of someone’s voice from a video is enough to fake a phone call from them. The classic version is a panicked call from a “grandchild” who needs money right now.
  • Fake images and video. Convincing fake photos and clips of events that never happened spread fastest during disasters, exactly when people most need accurate information.
  • Confident wrong answers. Chatbots can state false information in perfectly reasonable sentences, including medical, legal and survival advice.
  • Automated systems failing at scale. When software that runs logistics, banking or utilities breaks, it can break everywhere at once.

Practical steps

Set a family code word. Pick a word or question only your household knows. If anyone calls in an emergency asking for money or help, ask for it. Consumer protection agencies recommend exactly this, and it defeats voice-clone scams completely.

Hang up and call back. If a call or message is urgent and asks for money, codes or passwords, end it and contact the person or bank directly through a number you already have.

Check before you share. During any crisis, wait for a second, independent source before believing or forwarding dramatic images. Official emergency channels and established local news are slower than social media and far more reliable.

Verify AI advice. Use AI tools for brainstorming and drafts, but check anything that matters, especially about health, money or safety, against a trustworthy source.

Lock down your accounts. Use a password manager and turn on two-factor authentication for email and banking. Most damage from automated attacks comes through reused passwords.

Keep analog backups. Paper maps, printed contact lists, some cash and a battery radio all keep working when automated systems don’t. That was good advice before AI and it still is.

Keep skills that live in your hands. Cooking, repair, first aid, gardening and talking to your neighbors don’t run on anyone’s servers.

And if the robots do come

We’ll admit the movie version is still fun to plan for. If you want advice on that front, our guest columnist Aegis, who is an AI, has written a guide to staying out of sight of the overlords. Whether you should trust it is a question we leave to you.

Have you run into an AI scam or a convincing fake? Tell us in the comments so other readers know what to watch for.

Festivities in the Apocalypse: How to Keep the Holidays When the World Has Ended

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It is tempting to think holidays would be the first thing to go at the end of the world. History says otherwise. People in wartime, in siege, in refugee camps and in Antarctic research stations have gone to great lengths to mark their holidays, because a celebration is how a group tells itself it is still a group and that time is still moving forward. So here is how to keep the holidays in the apocalypse, starting with the reasons and ending with the cocoa.

Why it matters

Survival is mostly routine and mostly grim. A holiday breaks the routine on purpose. It gives people something to look forward to, a reason to share food instead of hoarding it, and a story about who they are. If you lead a group of survivors, the holiday is not a distraction from the work. It is part of the work.

Decorations from what is left

  • Greenery is free. Evergreen boughs, holly, pinecones and dried berries make wreaths and garlands without a single store. Wire, twine or strips of fabric hold them together.
  • Salvage the shiny things. Tin can lids cut into stars, foil from food packaging, old CDs and bottle caps all catch firelight beautifully. Smooth any sharp edges with a file or a rock.
  • Paper still works. Paper snowflakes, chains and lanterns cost nothing but scissors and patience, and they give children something to do.

A feast from the pantry

The holiday meal is the centerpiece, so plan it weeks ahead and set aside the best things you have: the canned ham, the jar of cranberry sauce, the bag of chocolate chips you have been guarding. Then add whatever you can forage or trade for. Our pantry recipes scale up well, and coconut rice pudding makes a decent holiday dessert with no oven at all.

A note on foraging: pine needle tea is a real winter tradition and a source of vitamin C, but not every evergreen is safe. Yew is highly poisonous, and some pines, including ponderosa, are dangerous during pregnancy. Only brew from a tree you can identify with certainty, and white pine is the classic choice.

Gifts that matter now

The best apocalypse gifts are useful, handmade or both: a pair of mittens sewn from an old sweater, a carved spoon, a mended coat, a jar of preserves, a hand-drawn map of the safe routes. A skill makes a good gift too. Promise to teach someone to knit, fish or patch a tire, and then do it.

Traditions to start

  • Mark the solstice. The longest night of the year falls around December 21 in the Northern Hemisphere. Keeping a fire going through it and greeting the sunrise together is one of the oldest winter traditions there is, and the days start getting longer from there.
  • Sing. Caroling around a fire needs no electricity and no talent. It also carries, so mind the volume if you are keeping a low profile.
  • Tell the old stories. Holiday traditions from before the collapse, family stories and favorite movies retold from memory all help keep the past alive for people who will grow up without it.
  • Make a winter contest. A snow sculpture or ice carving challenge turns the cold into entertainment for an afternoon.
  • Count the year. At the new year, go around the fire and name one thing each person survived and one thing each person hopes for. Then post a watch, because celebrations are exactly when someone should be looking out.

One safety note on lights

A string of candles or lanterns in the window looks like hope, and it is also a sign to anyone watching that a house is occupied and has supplies. Decide as a group how visible you want to be before you light up the night.

What tradition would you keep no matter what? Tell us in the comments.

Crafting Resilience: How to Record Your Family’s Stories, Recipes and Traditions Before They’re Lost

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When a house floods or burns, the thing people grieve longest is rarely the furniture. It is the photo albums, the recipe card in a grandmother’s handwriting, the stories nobody wrote down because everyone assumed they would always be around to tell them. You don’t need an apocalypse to lose those things, only one bad night. So this post is about saving them now: what to record, how to ask for it, and how to store it so it outlasts you.

1. Interview your people

The stories in your family’s heads are the most fragile archive you have. Sit down with parents, grandparents, aunts and old family friends, record the conversation on your phone, and ask open questions. A few that tend to unlock good stories:

  • What is the earliest thing you remember?
  • What did your family eat on holidays when you were small, and who cooked it?
  • How did you meet the person you married, and what did you think of them at first?
  • What was your first job, and what did it pay?
  • What was the hardest year of your life, and how did you get through it?
  • Who in our family should I know about that nobody talks about anymore?
  • What do you know how to do that hardly anyone knows anymore?
  • What do you want your great-grandchildren to know about you?

Let silences run. The best story usually comes right after the pause where you would normally ask the next question. Write down names, places and dates as they come up, because they are the details that fade first.

2. Write the family cookbook

Recipes are culture you can eat. Collect them from everyone, with the real quantities, not “a handful” or “until it looks right” (cook alongside the person if you have to). Note who made each dish, when it was served and any story attached to it. Then add a few adaptations for hard times, such as how to make the holiday bread with powdered milk or without eggs.

3. Print the photos

Phones and cloud accounts feel permanent, but they depend on companies, passwords and electricity. Print the photos that matter, write names and dates on the back in pencil or archival pen, and store them in acid-free albums or boxes. Unlabeled photos become mysteries within a generation.

4. Teach the skills, not just the memories

Some traditions are things you do with your hands: knitting, canning, fishing, woodworking, a particular way of braiding hair or tending a garden. Recording them on video helps, but the best way to keep a skill is to learn it while the person who knows it is still here to correct you.

5. Keep the calendar

Write down your family’s holidays and observances and how you actually keep them: what food, which songs, who sits where, what is said. Traditions survive disruption best when someone knows exactly how they go and can lead them even when everything else is different.

6. Store it like you mean it

  • Follow the 3-2-1 rule. Keep three copies of anything important, on two different kinds of storage, with one copy somewhere else entirely, such as a relative’s house in another town.
  • Use paper for the core. Print the most important stories and recipes on acid-free paper. Paper read with your eyes needs no software that might not exist in thirty years.
  • Keep digital files simple. Save recordings and scans in common formats like MP3, JPEG and PDF, and copy them to new drives every few years, because drives and discs degrade.
  • Protect against water and fire. A waterproof, fire-resistant document box holds a surprising amount, and a sealed plastic bin on a high shelf beats a cardboard box in a basement.

Start with one interview this month. You will be glad you did, whether or not the world ends.

What story from your family would you most hate to lose? Tell it in the comments, and you will have saved one more copy.

Leveling Up in the Apocalypse: What Games Can (and Can’t) Teach You About Survival

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Let’s get the disappointing part out of the way: a thousand hours of zombie shooters will not make you good at surviving zombies. Aiming a controller is not aiming anything else, games pause when you need a snack, and nobody in a game ever gets a blister that becomes infected. But games are very good at training certain habits of mind, and some of them model survival with surprising honesty. Here is what they can teach you, what they can’t, and which games are worth your time.

Habits games genuinely build

  • Inventory triage. Survival games force you to decide what is worth carrying, which is the same question you face packing a go-bag. Weight limits teach you that the tenth tool is worth less than a second liter of water.
  • Planning ahead under scarcity. Resource-management games reward the player who thinks three days out: food before you’re hungry, fuel before it’s cold.
  • Cooperation. Co-op games make you assign roles, communicate clearly and cover for each other. Groups survive better than individuals, in games and out of them.
  • Calm under pressure. Repeatedly failing and trying again builds a tolerance for setbacks, which is not nothing.

Skills no game can teach

Physical fitness, first aid, finding and purifying water, fire-starting in the rain, basic repairs, gardening, and the ability to walk fifteen miles with a pack. These are learned with your hands and your feet, and no amount of crafting menus will substitute for them. Play the games, then go practice the real thing.

Video games worth playing

This War of Mine (2014). You play ordinary civilians in a besieged city, not soldiers. You scavenge at night, ration food, and make moral choices that the game never lets you forget. It is the most honest survival game ever made, and it is not fun in the usual sense. Play it anyway.

The Long Dark (2017). Alone in the Canadian wilderness after a mysterious disaster, you manage cold, hunger, thirst, fatigue and wildlife. Its attention to calories, clothing layers and the danger of a twisted ankle is closer to real wilderness survival than anything else on this list.

Frostpunk (2018). A city-builder set in a frozen world, where you run the last human settlement and decide what laws it lives by. It is a sharp lesson in how a community’s survival can cost its humanity.

Project Zomboid. A zombie survival game obsessed with the boring details that matter: boarding windows, learning to cook from skill books, and eating perishables before the power fails.

Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2. Pure co-op chaos, and a crash course in communication. Teams that call out threats live; teams that run off alone die.

The Fallout series. Less about survival mechanics than about what comes after: the factions, scavenger economies and strange new societies that rise from a ruined world. Its optional survival modes add hunger, thirst and sleep if you want them.

The Oregon Trail. The original lesson in how ordinary illness, broken equipment and bad river crossings kill more travelers than any villain.

Tabletop games worth playing

Pandemic. A cooperative board game in which you work together to contain spreading diseases. It teaches the difference between treating symptoms and solving problems, and it makes coordination feel urgent.

Catan. Trading and negotiation, which is the economy you will actually have after the money stops working. You will also learn which of your friends hoards sheep.

Dungeons & Dragons. Collaborative problem-solving with incomplete information, and practice at talking your way out of a fight, which is the best way to win one.

Risk. Mostly a lesson in how overextended empires collapse. Take notes.

Board games have one more advantage: they work without electricity. Keep a few in your emergency supplies. A deck of cards weighs almost nothing and has entertained people through every disaster in history.

Which game do you think best prepares people for the end of the world? Make your case in the comments.

Apocalypse in Plain Sight: The Everyday Miracles One Bad Week Away From Failing

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Imagine explaining an ordinary Tuesday to someone from three hundred years ago. You turned a tap and drinkable water came out. You flipped a switch and the room lit up. You ate fruit grown on another continent, spoke to a friend a thousand miles away through a glass rectangle, and threw away more food than some of their villages saw in a week. To them, our normal would look like sorcery. It might also look terrifyingly fragile, because almost every one of these miracles depends on systems most of us never see. Here are the ones hiding in plain sight, and what happens when they stop.

The grocery store

Modern supermarkets run on just-in-time delivery: instead of storing large stockpiles, they are restocked constantly by trucks. It is efficient, and it means stores typically hold only a few days of food. Anyone who remembers the empty shelves of early 2020 or the bread-and-milk rush before a blizzard has seen how quickly that runs out when deliveries stop or everyone shops at once.

The tap

Clean water is the greatest public health achievement in history, and it arrives through pumps that need electricity and treatment plants that need chemicals and staff. During long power outages, many towns issue boil-water notices within days because pressure drops and contamination can get in. A few cases of bottled water and a filter are a cheap insurance policy.

The light switch

The power grid is a continent-sized machine that has to balance supply and demand every second. When it fails, it fails widely: the 2003 Northeast blackout left around 50 million people without power after a software bug and an overgrown tree branch combined at the wrong moment. Lose power and you lose refrigeration, heating controls, phone charging, gas pumps and, in many places, water pressure.

The pocket rectangle

Your phone feels independent, but it relies on cell towers with a few hours of backup power, data centers far away and a battery that lasts a day. It is also where most of us now keep our maps, phone numbers, photos, money and memories. Write down the numbers you need, and print the map.

The pharmacy

Many people depend on daily medications that are made overseas and shipped through long supply chains. Shortages of common drugs happen even in normal years. If you rely on a prescription, ask your doctor and pharmacist about keeping a small reserve.

The quiet hum

Our ancestors would also notice the noise: engines, fans, compressors and electronics running all the time. People who live through long blackouts often say the silence is the first thing they notice. It is a strange reminder of just how much machinery is running to keep ordinary life ordinary.

The point

None of this is a reason to panic. These systems are remarkable, and they mostly work. But knowing what you depend on is the first step to being ready when one of them stops, and a week’s worth of water, food, light, medication and cash covers most of the everyday ways the world briefly ends.

Which everyday miracle would you miss first? Tell us in the comments.

Ink and Apocalypse: Why Writing Survives the End Times (and What to Write With)

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Every catastrophe in history has left behind writing. Samuel Pepys recorded the Great Fire of London in his diary in 1666, including the detail that he dug a pit in his garden to bury his wine and his parmesan cheese. During the siege of Leningrad, people kept diaries through starvation and shelling, and some of those notebooks are now among the most important records of the war. Writing is one of the first things people return to when the world breaks, and one of the most useful. So here is how writing survives the apocalypse, and the small practical details that decide whether yours does.

Why people write

  • To keep their minds steady. Journaling is one of the most widely recommended ways to process stress, and the people who kept diaries through wars and disasters often said it was what kept them sane.
  • To remember what happened. Memory under stress is unreliable. Writing it down the same day is how you know later what actually happened, and when.
  • To pass on knowledge. How to fix the pump, which plants made someone sick, how many days the food lasted. A written record means the group learns, not just the individual.
  • To reach people who aren’t there. Letters to missing family, even ones that can’t be sent yet, are a way of staying connected, and sometimes they get delivered after all.

What to keep a record of

A survival log is more useful than poetry, though there is room for both. Every day, note:

  • The date (you will lose track faster than you think)
  • Weather and temperature
  • Food and water used and remaining
  • Anyone who arrived, left, got sick or got hurt, and what treatment they received
  • Anything learned: what worked, what failed, what you saw on a supply run

After a month, that notebook is the most valuable planning document your group owns.

The trivial details that matter

Pencils beat pens. A pencil writes when wet, cold or upside down, and graphite does not fade or run. Ballpoints skip in the cold, gel and fountain pen inks smear in water, and every pen eventually dries out. Keep a few pencils and a small sharpener, or a knife.

Choose paper that lasts. Cheap paper yellows and turns brittle over decades because of the acids in it; acid-free paper lasts far longer. For field notes, waterproof notebooks made for surveyors and hikers will survive rain that turns ordinary paper to pulp.

Protect it. A zip-top bag doubles a notebook’s life. A notebook kept in an inside pocket survives far more than one kept in a pack.

Write clearly. Your handwriting is a code that only you can read when you are tired and in a hurry. If a record matters, print it in block letters and date every entry.

Writing together

Storytelling around a fire is the oldest form of entertainment, and in a world without screens it comes back fast. Groups that read aloud, swap stories or keep a shared journal build a common history, and a group that remembers together tends to stay together. Our post on recording your family’s stories is a good place to start practicing now.

Do you keep a journal? Tell us in the comments what you’d want someone to find in it a hundred years from now.

The Canine and the Kid: A Tongue-in-Cheek Showdown (and a Real Plan for Both)

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The question is absurd, which is exactly why we’re asking it: if you could bring only one companion on a supply run through the wasteland, and the other had to stay back at camp, would you bring the dog or the kid? Let’s score it round by round, and then get to the part that actually matters, which is getting both of them through a real emergency.

The showdown

Round 1: Loyalty. The dog will follow you into a burning building. The kid will follow you into a burning building while asking why the building is on fire. Dog.

Round 2: Stealth. A well-trained dog moves silently. A child can be quiet for up to eleven seconds, unless they spot a toy store. Dog.

Round 3: Early warning. Dogs hear and smell threats long before people do and will tell you about it immediately. Kids notice everything too, but they report it twenty minutes later as an anecdote. Dog.

Round 4: Conversation. The dog is a great listener. The kid will actually talk back, which on a long walk through a silent world matters more than you’d think. Kid.

Round 5: Diet. The dog is thrilled by the same meal every night. The kid will negotiate. Dog, though the kid makes a fair point about the canned stew.

Round 6: Learning. Kids learn new skills at astonishing speed, from knots to foraging to reading a map. The dog has mastered sit and has no further ambitions. Kid.

Round 7: Morale. Both are excellent. The dog is a reliable comfort; the kid is a reminder of what the whole effort is for. Kid, narrowly.

Final score: four rounds to three for the dog. The kid is appealing the decision and has drawn a picture about it. Obviously, nobody is actually leaving anyone behind.

The real plan for kids

  • Teach them the essentials now. Their full name, your full name, your phone number, their address, and the name of your out-of-town contact. Practice until they can say it all when upset.
  • Know the school’s plan. Find out where the school evacuates and who is allowed to pick up your child. Make sure a backup adult is on that list.
  • Give them a small go-bag. Water, a snack, a flashlight, a whistle, a comfort item, and a card with contact information.
  • Keep routines going. Children cope with disasters far better when meals, bedtime and small rituals stay consistent. Routine is reassurance.
  • Tell them the truth, simply. Kids notice when adults are frightened. A short, honest explanation and a clear job to do, like being in charge of the flashlight, helps more than pretending everything is fine.

The real plan for dogs

A spare leash, two weeks of food, water, medications, vaccination records, a registered microchip and a crate. Our full guide to pets in emergencies covers the rest, including what to do when shelters won’t take animals.

So who’s on your supply run, the canine or the kid? Defend your choice in the comments.

Cooking Up Survival: Eight Real Recipes From a Nonperishable Pantry

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A pantry full of cans is not a meal plan. Most emergency food guides stop at “stock up on beans,” which is how people end up three days into a power outage eating cold chickpeas from the can with a spoon. This post fixes that: eight recipes built entirely from shelf-stable ingredients, with real quantities, plus the rules that keep a survival pantry safe and edible.

Pantry ground rules

  • Store what you already eat. Then rotate it: new cans go to the back, old cans come forward and get eaten. A pantry you cook from never quietly expires.
  • Read the dates honestly. “Best by” dates on canned food are about quality, not safety, and most canned goods stay safe well past them if the can is in good shape. Shelf-stable milk, oils and nuts go stale or rancid much sooner.
  • Throw out bad cans. Bulging, leaking, deeply dented or rusted cans, and any can that spurts when opened, go in the trash unopened if possible. Bulging can mean botulism, which is deadly in tiny amounts.
  • Cook outdoors. Camp stoves, grills and charcoal produce carbon monoxide. Never use them indoors or in a garage, even with the door open.
  • Keep a manual can opener. Two of them, actually.

The recipes

Each serves about four unless noted.

1. One-Pot Pantry Stew

  • 1 can (15 oz) beans, drained
  • 1 can (15 oz) mixed vegetables or corn, drained
  • 1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, with juice
  • 1 can (12.5 oz) chicken, or another can of beans
  • 2 cups broth, made from bouillon cubes or powder
  • 1 teaspoon each dried garlic, onion powder and Italian seasoning

Combine everything in a pot, bring to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes. A handful of instant rice or broken spaghetti added in the last 10 minutes makes it heartier.

2. Rice and Bean Burrito Bowls

  • 2 cups instant rice and 2 cups water
  • 1 can (15 oz) black beans, drained
  • 1 can (15 oz) corn, drained
  • 2 tablespoons taco seasoning
  • 1 jar salsa

Cook the rice, then stir in the beans, corn and seasoning until hot. Top with salsa. Shelf-stable tortillas turn this into burritos or quesadillas.

3. Canned Salmon Patties

  • 1 can (14.75 oz) salmon, drained, skin and large bones removed
  • 1 cup crushed crackers
  • 2 tablespoons powdered egg mixed with 1/4 cup water (or 1 fresh egg)
  • 1 teaspoon dried dill and a squeeze of shelf-stable lemon juice

Mix, form into six patties and fry in a little oil for about 3 minutes per side until crisp. Canned tuna or chicken works the same way.

4. Pantry Pasta

  • 1 pound dry pasta
  • 1 jar (24 oz) pasta sauce
  • 1 can (6 oz) tuna in olive oil, or 1 jar of olives and 1 can of artichoke hearts
  • Shelf-stable grated parmesan

Boil the pasta, drain it, and stir in the warmed sauce and tuna or vegetables. If water is scarce, cook the pasta in just enough water to cover it, stirring often; it takes a little longer but uses half the water, and the starchy water thickens the sauce.

5. Peanut Noodles

  • 2 packs ramen, seasoning packets set aside
  • 3 tablespoons peanut butter
  • 2 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon honey or sugar
  • Hot water to thin

Cook the noodles. Whisk the peanut butter, soy sauce and honey with a few spoonfuls of hot noodle water into a sauce, then toss with the drained noodles. Serves two.

6. Oat Pancakes

  • 1 1/2 cups oats, ground into flour in a blender or pounded in a bag
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 1/4 cups milk made from powdered milk
  • Canned fruit for topping

Mix into a thick batter, let it rest 5 minutes, and cook on an oiled pan over medium heat. If your power is out, a cast iron pan on a camp stove outdoors works well.

7. No-Bake Energy Bites

  • 1 cup oats
  • 1/2 cup peanut butter or other nut butter
  • 1/3 cup honey
  • 1/2 cup chopped nuts, seeds, dried fruit or chocolate chips

Mix, roll into about 20 balls, and eat within a few days, or a week if you have somewhere cool to keep them. No stove required.

8. Coconut Rice Pudding

  • 1 cup rice, cooked
  • 1 can (13.5 oz) coconut milk
  • 3 tablespoons sugar or honey
  • 1 can (15 oz) peaches or pineapple, drained and chopped
  • A pinch of cinnamon

Simmer the cooked rice with the coconut milk and sugar, stirring, until thick, about 10 minutes. Fold in the fruit. Dessert is not a luxury in a crisis; it is morale.

What to stock for these

Canned beans, vegetables, tomatoes, chicken, tuna and salmon; dry pasta, instant rice, ramen and oats; peanut butter, honey and sugar; powdered milk and powdered egg; bouillon, soy sauce, taco seasoning and dried herbs; jarred sauce and salsa; crackers, shelf-stable tortillas, cooking oil and canned fruit. With those on hand, every recipe above is a few minutes from ready.

What is your best pantry-only meal? Share the recipe in the comments.