What do you eat when the power goes off?

Our power went off at 3:30 a.m. this morning and just came back on at about 8:00 p.m.  No microwave, no stovetop - just the old cookstove in the garage which we did use to make beef stew for supper.

Breakfast was cold cereal.  Lunch was a salad, sliced ham & cottage cheese. 

I walked 10 blocks today to get a hot cup of coffee at the only store open in the whole town.

We cooked frozen pizzas on the grill!! LOL

Usually I eat food, but if I get deseprate enough there is the carpet, drywall and furnature.

Seriously though, I will eat sandwiches, jerkey, salad, my imitation lobster, shrimp, fat free chips, pudding, yogurt. That is all I can think of off the top of my head, sorry.

About the only disaster we could have where I live would be the power going out durning a snow storm where it's impossible to get out.  So I'm prepared for that.

I keep things in my pantry that can be eaten without cooking - cereal, crackers, tuna, peanut butter and jam, canned fruits.  I have a small sterno stove that I could set up to heat soup or make tea or coffee too.  I also keep dry milk powder and canned milk on hand. 

The big problem if that ever happened would be the cold, so I bought extra Polar Tec blankets and I have a supply of those hand warmers that heat up when you open the package, a battery radio, plenty of flashlights and batteries, and a little reading light and some books for entertainment.  I figure Bubba and I could hunker down in bed. 

The only time this happened, the power was only out for 6 hours, but we got pretty cold during that time.

I hope little kitty was ok.

We camp A LOT.  So anything that you want to eat I can prepare.
Camp stoves rock!

Of course you'd have to eat all the ice cream, since it'd just melt otherwise!!!

Is this a trick question? :-)

Power goes out around here alot in the winter...
A couple years ago when I was living with my parents the power was out for a week and a half a my mom made a huge pot of stew on the wood-stove in the garage. =)
I can also remember cooking many cans of soup, toast and once a pot of Kraft dinner over candles throughout my life.

If you have any kind of stove that you can get water boiling on, makes some veggies,  sandwiches are good too.. umm..thats all I can think of right now.

**Thanks lornajean for the reminder to take out some candles for the storm tonight, just in case**

Not a trick question.  Just curious cause it looks like our power will be off again soon and I was wondering what tomorrow's menu could be.

i like jenmcc's answer very much! :o)

We've lost power for several days a few time sdue to Tropical Storms and so have grilled out.  Once it was due to a snowstorm but DH was in the military so we had MRE's with heater packs.  Not great eats, but not awful either, and it was warm!

Avoid Mcdonalds.

I have a gas cooker so if the electric goes out... I can still cook ;)

are all of u guys from out of europe,i live in england and when our power goes it outs a couple of hour tps,its weird wot we take for granted..sorry you guys,must be quite an adventure though...actually maybe not if it happens too oftern,i would find myself getting quite paniky u think not knowing what i will make or be able to get or even see from one day to the next.

if it were us i think we wud be o.k,lots of stuff like tins and things get stuffed in cupboards and then forgotten about,and my gran lives down the road,and she is the master of the emergency cupboards and of cooking great things from nothing,she says she was a whizz in the war...bless her.

and we camp so a mini stove is in the garage.

take care and i hope its not dangerous with this power cut.

Time to fire up the BBQ pit, and the smoker! If you get out the cast Iron skillet you can even make breakfast on the grill. Grilled veggies are also great, I like a mix of onions and peppers over a baked potato, or roasted corn on the cob is great too. Im a bit biased though, I have 3 grills, not counting my camping gear. On my back deck I have a 3 burner gas grill w/ a rotiserie, a Weber style kettle grill, and a very large smoker style grill w/ the side box for offset slow cooking.

The pizza idea is great. My parents were in hurrican charlie and lost power for 5 days. They made a thin crust pizza by using butter and olive oil to stack 3 tortillas together and then adding the toppings and putting a pizza stone on the weber kettle to cook the pizza on. Mom said it was the best pizza she ever had (after 4 or5 days of no power). 

Kate, believe me, it's no picnic when there's 3 feet of snow your car and even your front door is buried, and the power lines go down because they are loaded with ice.  That kind of outage can go on for days, weeks even.  There's no way to get out and it's really cold.  There are emergency services to get out the people who are at risk - the elderly, mothers with babies, the sick, but most of us have to wait it out.

As I said, it's rare here where I live, but it's happened, so best to be prepared. 

Kate, I live in England too and since I've been here in Liverpool (2 years next Sunday!) we have had one power cut... that lasted 10mins.

When I lived out of the city in a very small village in the middle of nowhere we still only had power cuts 2-3 times a year which lasted a couple of hours tops. During those times I just hoped I'd charged my Gameboy and had a whizz on that.

I usually eat whatever happens to not need be neccessarily electronically prepared... Like canned veggies, fruits and them meatball and noodle thingies, or maybe a PBnJ sandwich or some other sandwich... or ramen

Dun really need electricity to cook.

Vegetarian chili on a gas stove. ^^;;;

We lose power here all the time with our winter storms.  I usually keep those tuna to go containers around that has the crackers, etc. to eat if the power goes out.  I also make a lot of preprepared cold food to have ready like tuna salad, chicken salad, for sandwiches.  I also have peanut butter and some of those ready to eat snack bars and meal replacement bars. 

You can always use those canned stuff to heat up on the grill or make some soup and ramen noodles etc.  Not the best for sodium but it helps when you don't have power.  We are always prepared for things like that to happen so in the winter we keep lots of bottled water and easy to prepare things so we are ready.  Our pipes freeze a lot around here too so we have to have access to water to help with flushing the toilet, drinking, and providing for the puppies as well.

Thanks for all your suggestions everyone!  You have given me some very tasty options indeed!