Taste Test Tuesday: Oatmeal Buns

Happy New Year!

Today's recipe:  Oatmeal Buns, I got from my sister-in-law.  They were soft, and yummy.  The original recipe only called for about 4 1/2 cups of flour, I found I needed 6, not sure if that is because of elevation differences or what.  Use enough flour to make dough that pulls from the sides or if doing by hand, is kneadable.

Enjoy!

Wednesday Why: Shelf-Stable Meals/Menu

What are some shelf stable meals?  And what is an example of a 1 month shelf stable meal menu?  When I say shelf stable I mean food items that can remain on a pantry/cupboard shelf until opened.  Also if using dehydrated foods, will need to store more water to rehydrate these items compared to their canned counterparts.

Some great meals that can be made using shelf stable food items are:  Soups, chilis, noodle dishes, rice dishes, baking mix foods, cereals/grains; all with canned/dehydrated fruits and veggies as sides.

Specifically:
Soups/Chilis:  canned soups/chilis or homemade using: broths, canned/dehydrated veggies & meats, canned/dry beans, pasta sauces, salsas, tomato sauces, jarred sauces and rice or noodles.
Noodle dishes:  Make casseroles, soups or pasta/sauce dishes.  Simply add canned/dehydrated meats, veggies, condensed soups, jarred sauces/salsas and seasonings to taste.  Like spaghetti or other noodles with pasta sauce, canned noodle dishes (like ravioli, Spaghetti O's, etc.), boxed or homemade Mac & cheese (using jarred cheese sauce or velveeta since these don't have to be refrigerated until opened), ramen noodles.
Rice dishes:  casseroles or soups using rice.  Simply add canned/dehydrated meats, veggies, condensed soups, jarred sauces/salsas and seasonings to taste, just like with noodles.
Potato dishes (using potato flakes):  Make up flakes to mashed potatoes, add canned/dehyrdrated meats/veggies/condensed soups and seasonings to make casseroles--using mashed potatoes as a crust of sorts
Potato dishes (using dehydrated potato dices, slices, shreds, etc):  make casseroles by adding condensed soups, canned/dehydrated meats or veggies and seasonings.
Baking Mix dishes/foods:  pancakes, biscuits, waffles, pot pie/pie/cobbler crusts/topping, cornbread, breads, some cakes and cookies
Cereals/Grains:  using dry milk for drinking milk and thereby the milk in cereals, oatmeals, grits, cracked wheat cereal.  Make wheat cereal with wheat berries or cracked wheat and sweetener/jam.  Crackers are a great 72 hour kit item, but also great for meals at home--use with tuna/canned chicken, PB&J or cheese.

Sample 1 month menu using shelf stable meals:

You may have other favorites that already use or could use shelf stable items in place of fresh.  When you find a meal that your family likes that uses only shelf stable items, then write it down and add it to your rotation.

When making your own menu, you can choose any number of breakfasts, lunches and dinners, I chose 7 different meals to rotate through, you can do more or less.  Then simply stock up on the items needed to make those meals--even though these items are shelf stable, you will want to use and rotate through them before the expiration date.

Hope this helps in giving ideas on meals that can be made when the fridge/freezer isn't working.  All of these meals can be made using an alternative cooking method if the electricity is out.  I originally put this menu together a few years back in preparation for hurricane season, knowing that if one hit, the electric could be out for anywhere between a day to a couple of weeks days.

Taste Test Tuesday: Peach Crisp

MMM...peaches!  Today's peach crisp recipe was created when I had a few peaches that I needed to use, it turned out yummy.  I used whole wheat flour instead of white flour, and it still tasted great.

Enjoy!

Taste Test Tuesday: 5 Dry Milk Recipes

Milky May:  Today as sort of a grand finale of Milky May I will be sharing 5 recipes rather than one that use dry milk.  First, I will highlight 3 recipes I have tried from the wonderful dry milk recipe handout found here:  http://peaceofpreparedness.com/Resource%20Library/Recipies/Got%20Milk%20Recipes%202011.pdf.Then I will share a recipe using a recipe from www.everydayfoodstorage.net that I have tried and liked.  And lastly a peanut butter no bake cookie using prepared dry milk.

The recipe in the handout for this is actually called Bacon Brunch Pie, but as I was making it I thought it was more like a crustless quiche and so thought of it as Basic Quickmix Quiche, with either name, it is good.  I thought it would go great with sausage or other meats like ham or even browned ground beef.  I used fresh eggs instead of egg powder when I made it.  I also didn't use bacon bits as the original recipe calls for but cooked bacon crumbles/pieces.  I also added the tomatoes thinking to serve some shredded lettuce on top for a kind of BLT quiche.  Whether by itself or with lettuce with it, it had the consistency of quiche or scrambled eggs with veggies in it.

Another recipe from this great handout:  Country Gravy

MMM.  This gravy was yummy.  It is much like the gravy that can be made with Magic mix.  I like them both as they are both quick and easily seasoned to taste.

And again from peaceofpreparedness handout:  Pasta Primavera

I added cooked chicken to this as well--adding it with the rehydrated veggies--it did make it so there wasn't as much creamy sauce--just enough to coat everything lightly so if you do like more sauce with your veggies and pasta, you will need to add more of the sauce ingredients:  flour, dry milk, sour cream and water.  Depending on how hot or mild you want it, you will want to adjust the dried pepper and crushed red pepper amounts.  As is, it was ok for me but a little hot for others--it really depends on individual likes.

Now onto another source for great food storage recipes:  www.everydayfoodstorage.net.  The Chocolate Cake Cookie Mix recipe below is using the chocolate cake mix found here:  http://everydayfoodstorage.net/2012/02/27/making-your-own-cake-mixes-food-storage-style-dark-chocolate-cake/food-storage-recipes, there is also a great handout about making your own cake/muffin mixes and how to adapt recipes to mixes--see the above post link for that.  So onto cake mix cookies using this cake mix recipe.

I'll admit I like this cake mix made into cookies much better than when I made it into cake using the recipe shown on everydayfoodstorage.net.  When it comes to chocolate cake I like the homemade-made-from-scratch chocolate cake much better than this cake mix or store-bought cake mixes.  But this cake mix does make excellent chocolate cookies!!!  They are so yummy!  The variations my family has tried:  using peanut butter chips (I think we also added chocolate chips when using peanut butter chips); using white chocolate chips and chocolate chunks, just chocolate chunks.  ALL variations were delicious.  When using teaspoon to tablespoon sized balls, it makes around 50 cookies.  Also, if using melted butter instead of softened butter, you will need a little more mix.  Also, this is a batter that unless you have a powerful mixer, you will need to mix by hand--especially as you add more mix to make the dough stiff and add chocolate chips--a wooden spoon works great for mixing.

And now for another cookie recipe:  Peanut Butter No Bakes

This no bake cookie recipe comes from a church congregation cookbook that I have, it simply calls for milk, I simply adapted it to use dry milk and even cooked cracked wheat.  Great with or without the cooked cracked wheat.

Enjoy!

I hope the recipes I have shared this month, as well as in the past, have been helpful in giving ideas on using dry milk.  For more recipes that use dry milk, click on labels then dry milk or go to the recipe index page and look for recipes that indicate they use dry milk.  Enjoy!

Taste Test Tuesday: Apple Cranberry Almond Oatmeal

I felt like making my own oatmeal mix using dried fruits and this was the result...mmm.  You can eat it with milk in a bowl, or on a plate with roasted potatoes, scrambled eggs or other delicious food items.  


Oatmeal is nice to have in food storage because it cooks up pretty fast (even faster if using quick oats), it is healthy and filling.  If you'd like to make your regular oats cook up faster, you can put a cup or so in a blender and pulse a few times to break up the oats before cooking.

Taste Test Tuesday: No Bake Cookies

MMM... cookies!  This recipe isn’t much for any new year’s resolutions to lose weight, but at least it has whole grain in it!

This recipe is adaptable to your tastes.  I added about 2 tablespoons of cocoa this time.  You can also increase the oats to 1 1/2 c and omit the wheat or decrease the oats and add more wheat.  In the past I have made no bakes using cooked whole wheat berries.  Just a note about using the wheat berries--the day after, the wheat berries were much harder to chew--I don’t know if it is because the sugar in the recipe crystalized within the berry or not, but I would suggest that if you are going to use wheat berries, make sure the cookies are eaten the same day they are made.  This recipe is also good adding some shredded coconut, sunflower seeds or chopped peanuts (I use crunchy peanut butter anyway).

As far as the milk goes, I used reconstituted powdered milk this time.  It turns out just the same.  If you don't have reconstituted milk on hand, here is what you need to make just 1/4 c worth:  1/4 c water, 3/4 T dry milk powder, mix well until no clumps.  I suggest using a container larger than 1/4 c to do the mixing, the other option is to simply put the water and dry milk powder in with the sugar and butter and mix it up that way-- (I added it already reconstituted). The dry milk powder amount is for non-instant dry milk powder.  If using instant you will need to double the amount.

Enjoy!

Taste Test Tuesday: Wheat Banana Cookies

Got bananas?  Sometimes, it seems, the bananas get eaten before it can even register that we have some. Other times though, the bananas stick around for a while, becoming perfect specimens for bread or other things that require mushy bananas.  Well, rather than always make bread, I sometimes freeze my mushy bananas so I can make bread another day, or like this recipe, instead of bread I made cookies.  They turned out pretty good.  They were soft, not crunchy, but still more cookie like than bread like--which is what I was hoping for.  These cookies were even softer the following day--maybe because I had them in a plastic storage bag.  I can't remember right now what recipe I adapted to get the above recipe, possibly an allrecipes.com recipe  (the original recipe didn't call for wheat flour, I remember that much--but this is a great recipe to use wheat flour in!!!).  Banana recipes (bread, cookies, cakes) are good recipes to replace the white flour in whole or in part with whole wheat flour.  When substituting wheat flour for white flour in a recipe that calls for baking powder or soda as the leavening agent, like the above recipe, increase the amounts of these slightly.  The same is true for yeast recipes--increase the yeast slightly when replacing white flour with wheat flour.  Enjoy!

Taste Test Tuesday: Nutty Granola

I love granola, dry or as a cereal.  This recipe has been adapted slightly from one found on everydayfoodstorage.net, but either way, granola is yummy!  This is easy to make and adaptable to family tastes.  Use what nuts you have on hand or like, add any extras and you have a delicious breakfast or snack.  Some dried fruits that go well with this recipe:  dried cranberries, dried apples, dried blueberries and strawberries and more.

Enjoy!