Shelf-Stable Chicken Gravy Dinner Meal Kit

LibbyLeave a comment

Hi friends!! This shelf-stable meal kit is a hearty, hot meal on a cold day and deeply easy. I feel like the entire thing could be made in the microwave though there are no microwave directions on the packages that I got and I wasn’t able to test that method. But the internet says it’s possible!

When we had it for dinner it reminded me a lot of chicken and noodles (you know, if you had noodles) but a very cut-corners version. Definitely not what grandma used to make but it’ll do in a pinch. Ya know?

I think this meal could feed six people easy and it cost about $10 per kit for me shopping at my local Walmart.

Queso Chicken and Rice Shelf Stable Meal Kits

LibbyLeave a comment

I saw a recipe from @yourbarefootneighbor on Facebook and thought it sounded delicious. I also thought that it was *mostly* shelf stable already and would make a great meal kit. But first I had to test out my theory. I’m not just going to put an idea in a bag!

I tested it out and I was truly astonished at how delicious this was. So while you’re putting together these meal kits for your community, go ahead and save one for you because it’s so good!! It’s a rare occasion when you can get something that’s super cheesy and creamy and also shelf stable.

Also, I made (in my opinion) a hilarious video about this recipe. You can catch it on my Instagram right here.

And here’s the printable to include in each kit!

SPAM Fried Rice

Libby, , Leave a comment

I made two shelf-stable meal kits for our community’s Little Free Pantries and I’m already sick of beans. I’m thrilled to report that when I went around town to donate some things on November 1, the first day that many folks had to do without their SNAP benefits–they were so much more full than I’d ever seen them!!! Hooray!!!

Every single pantry has tons and tons of beans. Which is great! Because beans have so much fiber and protein and they tend to be incredibly affordable. Win. Win. Win! But in that case, I feel like I don’t need to add more beans to the stock. So I added another rule to my personal guidelines for this project.

The meal kits I’m creating must:

  1. Be completely shelf-stable
  2. Make 4 servings
  3. Cost no more than $10 ea
  4. Contain no beans

Now, I do have a few ideas for meals that don’t follow these rules and occasionally I’ll let myself bend them–but that’s fine because they’re made up anyway.

But for day one of the Bean Free Challenge we’re making SPAM Fried Rice!

Each one of these meal kits contains:

  • 8.8 oz pack of 90 second Jasmine rice $1.38
  • 15 oz can stir-fry vegetables $2.08
  • 12 oz can luncheon meat $2.00
  • 8 oz can pineapple tidbits $1.23
  • 4 oz cup of diced carrots $.55 ea (but comes in a 4-pack for $2.22)
  • 1 oz packet of fried rice seasoning $1.26

Each kit costs around $8.50 and serves 4. Prices reflect my local Walmart at the time of this posting.

If you make these for your local pantries or to gift to loved ones or organizations, go ahead and print out my recipe card to go along with it! You can fold it in half and make sure to put the title facing the outside so people know what they’re getting.

Let me know if you try this!

Meal in a Bag Ingredients

LibbyLeave a comment

If you’re coming here from my Instagram, HI! I usually write about what I’m reading but my brain has been preoccupied, lately, about how our neighbors are currently without SNAP benefits and what I can do to help.

I. Have. A. Lot. Of. Thoughts. But I’m not using this space for that right now. I don’t even have much brain space in this moment to make this as thorough as I wish I could. Right now, I just wanted to share the info that I have about the meals I distributed around my town today.

I created 64 Servings of food in three different meal-types. I put everything you need to make a shelf-stable meal into a ziplock bag, added instructions, and then took them around to the Little Free Pantries spread around our town.

Cajun Ham and Bean Soup makes 8, 1-cup servings:

Butter Chicken makes 4 servings
Chicken Burrito Bowl makes 4 servings
Add all ingredients into one bag so that you can make both meals with one bag of rice.

I’ve been following Dollar Tree Dinners for a little over a year and a few months ago she made this video about pantry meals where I got this idea for putting ingredients into a bag.

I have been seeing her content being shared amongst all of my friends the past few days and I’m so glad that people are finally discovering this gem of a human. I love that she’s extremely mindful of what “accessibility” can mean to different people. So many people who talk about budget meals want you to do evvvvverything from scratch and some of us have to, like, work. We can’t all grind our flour by hand even if it does save us thirty five cents.

What I Read in September 2025

Libby, , , , , , Leave a comment

Her reading is leveling up, folks! Libby finished one singular book this month! 😀

It’s kind of liberating to think back on how my life used to be consumed by books and reading, it was my literal job to know about all the books and I always felt so behind. Like, I’d read so many books in a month and could never keep up with all the new releases and recommendations my customers wanted. WOOF. It feels really good to open a book or an audiobook just for the fun of it these days. What a relief!

I will say that with the entrance of fall, my reading has absolutely picked up and I hoped to have one of the books that I’m currently reading finished by now because they are so good and I want to tell you all about them. But you’re just gonna have to either wait till next month or follow me on StoryGraph to find out what I think.

I will say this, I’m reading a haunted house book that I’m loooooving! And another audiobook that I fully bought absolutely on accident and wondered if it might break my reading slump. And what do you know–it did! Just haven’t finished yet.

But here’s the one book that I read in September!

The Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick
Get the audiobook from Libro.fm and help support indie bookstores.
Order it from Bookshop.org and help support indie bookstores.
Order it directly from your favorite indie bookstores.
Request it from your local library.
Just, like, whatever you do don’t support Amazon by buying your books from there or using Audible. *wink face* *peace sign* *tongue out emoji*

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again–whoever said “don’t judge a book by its cover” was a lazy graphic designer. That’s the book cover’s entire job. And that’s 100% what drew me to this one. The sepia tone. The cigarette. The CARPET! Ugh. I love it.

I had a good time with this one. It’s set in 1960s suburbia, which is such a fun backdrop because you get alllll the housewife archetypes: The drugged-up, miserable one with a sharp tongue (loved her, she was chaos she was freedom). The sweet but oblivious one whose marriage is a nightmare but she doesn’t see it until the train wreck happens. And then—this was the one I related to the most, even if she wasn’t the most fun to read, the one who’s actually… happy? Or at least fine. And then she realizes, oh, if I shift just a few things, my life can feel way more fulfilling, and then it ripples out into her family and community. That character felt the most realistic to me and like most of the women I know in my life.

The story itself is super character-driven. Like, the plot is basically “oops, we started a book club and now we’re all besties.” Which is exactly my jam. I love stories where people just… find each other, and then the long relationship itself becomes the main plotline. I fell in love with all of them (especially the prickly ones).

Now, if I put on my imaginary “editor hat” for a second: it wasn’t the most diverse cast which felt suuuuuper obvious to me and a glaring oversight because it means there are so many real perspectives we missed out on. And yeah, I get it: 1960s suburbia, white middle-class neighborhood, blah blah blah. Historically accurate. But also? Boring and unfulfilling. I wanted at least one character with a different background. A different race, different tax bracket, not straight. Because you could have pulled that off in a realistic way, and it would’ve made the story way more rich.

To be fair, Bostwick at least acknowledges the fact that not every woman’s 1960s experience looked the same. She nods to how much harder life was for Black women during that era, and she makes a point that I don’t think gets presented enough in fiction: feminism, even though men resisted it, ultimately benefitted them too. Which, true. That part I thought was smart (even if it was kind of heavy handed with the delivery).

Anyway. Was it perfect? Nope. Did I care? Also nope. It gave me exactly what I wanted: messy women, strong friendships, little doses of snark, and that cozy feeling of watching people’s lives expand. Ten out of ten would join their book club. If only for the cocktails and coconut cake.

I will say, it’s more fun when I only read one book because I have more energy and space to write a longer, more fun book review.