Taste Test Tuesday: Ham Potato Bean Soup

Got left over ham?  Or simply wanting another way of making it tasty?  I got this Ham, Potato and Bean Soup from my sister.  It is delicious.  It works great to use dry milk powder--use 2 c water mixed with 6 tablespoons of dry milk powder for the 2 cups of milk.  Also replacing cooked white beans with the canned is fine too, or using dried/freeze dried veggies, make it yours and  Enjoy!

Taste Test Tuesday: Warm Spiced Lemonade

The recipe I am sharing today, Warm Spiced Lemonade, I got from my sister.  You can adjust the amounts of any of the ingredients to taste, or make it as is.  Enjoy!

Taste Test Tuesday: Fall Baked Apple Pie

MMM pie!  This recipe technically goes well with 4th of July, fall and Thanksgiving, but I'm a little slow in sharing it.  It is delicious no matter what time of year though!  My sister shared this recipe with me, and it was amazing.  This would be a good recipe to use dried apples--as they are already cored, peeled and sliced--just rehydrate them.

Enjoy!

Taste Test Tuesday: Beach Street Chicken

MMM.... Today's recipe, Beach Street Chicken, is so yummy!  I got this recipe from here:  http://dealstomeals.blogspot.com/2009/03/my-favorite-pasta-recipe.html.  It is delicious.  This works great to use a sun oven to cook the chicken, it also is a great prepare ahead recipe (freezing the chicken with the marinade ingredients).

Enjoy!

Taste Test Tuesday: 60 Minute Rolls

Mmm...homemade rolls.  Today's recipe I got from a sister at Relief Society back more than a few years ago.  I have made it many times, each time loving it.  I have other roll recipes that turn out delicious too, but this one from start to finish is only about 1 hour, so less than the other roll recipes that require more rising time and such.  Also this recipe calls for a mixer to do the kneading, rather than by hand.  I'm sure it could be hand-kneaded, but that is one thing I like about this recipe is the ease in making it.

The milk in this recipe can be made using dry milk powder, either premade or to make just one cup of milk using dry milk powder thoroughly mix 1 cup of water with 3 T of dry milk.  I've used all purpose flour almost every time I've made this and never had a problem, so even though it states that bread or high gluten flour is best I've not found that it is necessary to have a delicious roll when all is said and done.

Enjoy!

Taste Test Tuesday: Black Bean Pumpkin Chili

Today I want to share a recipe I got from my sister:  Black Bean Pumpkin Chili.  This chili is great because leftover turkey from Thanksgiving or Christmas or any other turkey dinner can be used.  It's use of healthy things like veggies, beans, pumpkin and turkey (a little healthier than red meat, right?), olive oil make it a winner, too.  Instead of fresh veggies, dried or frozen could be used instead.

Enjoy!

Taste Test Tuesday: I Can't Believe It's Food Storage recipes

Yesterday I shared my review of the food storage cookbook:  I Can't Believe It's Food Storage by Crystal Godfrey.  Today I want to list &/or link a couple of my favorite recipes from the book and/or her website:  www.everydayfoodstorage.net.

Easy No-bake Blender Cheesecake:  find here on her website, I also posted about it here.  This recipe uses dry milk to make sweetened condensed milk, you can also use dry milk in this recipe to make yogurt cheese to replace cream cheese.
Cheeseburger Meat Loaf:  this is one recipe I have only found in her book--not on her website, I have altered it to fit my family's tastes & to use more food storage items--maybe I'll share my altered version sometime.  This recipe uses dry milk to make evaporated milk.
Whole Wheat EZ Bread:  find here on her website, I've also posted about it before and made pull-apart breads with it--see apple cinnamon pull apart bread, or pull-apart bread in recipe index.
Cheeseburger Mac n Cheese:  find here on her website, or the post I did on it here.  This recipe uses Magic Mix and dried onion
Magic Mix, Magic Mix Fudgsicles and other things made with Magic Mix (these are also found in the New Ideas for Cooking with Basic Food Storage cookbooklet I posted about before at different times) 

These are just a few of the recipes my family has enjoyed from this cookbook and the website:  www.everydayfoodstorage.net, there are many other great recipes!!!  I highly recommend this food storage cookbook, along with the New Ideas for Cooking with Basic Food Storage cookbooklet for those just starting out with using food storage--the recipes are great and easy.  But even if you are a food storage guru, you may find some things you haven't tried and like.

Miscellaneous Monday: Food Storage Cookbook Review

Food Storage Cookbook review:  "I Can't Believe It's Food Storage" by Crystal Godfrey

Layout:  Recipes are divided by main long-term food storage ingredient.  The long-term food storage items are those sold at LDS home storage centers, plus powdered eggs.

Recipes:  She includes recipes found in the Basic Food Storage recipe cookbooklet that I posted about a little bit ago and at other times; she also includes some recipes from her blog:  www.everydayfoodstorage.net, and some recipes that aren't found on her blog.  I've personally tried many of the recipes and they were great.  Total recipes between 130 and 140.

What I like:  She uses basic ingredients, the recipes aren't including food storage items that many people may not have (like powdered sour cream or tomato powder).  The recipes are also easily adaptable to personal tastes by adjusting ingredients and amounts.  She also includes FHE plans and ideas on what to include in a 3 month food storage, 1 yr food storage.  Overall I'd give this food storage cookbook a 5/5.

Taste Test Tuesday: Replacing oil with beans in box mixes

Yesterday I shared my review on the cookbooklet:  New Ideas for Cooking with Basic Food Storage.  Today I am sharing one of the tips from that booklet:  to replace fats in baked goods with beans.  To help make it not as scary to use beans instead of fats like oil, start with box mixes for brownies and cakes then try from-scratch recipes.

Replacing oils:  puree cooked beans in the blender--add a little water as necessary to puree.
Replacing butter/shortening/margarine:  mash cooked beans, adding more liquid if necessary to recipe.

Enjoy!

Miscellaneous Monday: Food Storage Cookbook Review

There are many sources available for recipes that use food storage items, specifically long-term food storage items.  One of these sources is a recipe booklet:  New Ideas for Cooking with Basic Food Storage.  I've posted about this booklet before like on the post found here; it is also available online in a couple places, here is one such place.  Well today, I am going to share my review on this recipe booklet.

First off, the layout.  The recipes are categorized by the long-term food storage item main ingredient.  Recipes that use wheat are together, recipes that use oats are together, etc.  I like this layout for when I want to use a specific long-term food storage item, as I can easily find a bunch of recipes all together.

The recipes & tips:  Most of the recipes are easy to make and tasty.  They don't require a lot of food items that most people don't have on hand, nor do they require food storage items beyond basics that some/many people may not have like powdered butter, freeze dried foods, or tomato powder.  They do indeed help someone use their food storage items.  Some of the recipes I have shared on this blog come from this recipe booklet.  I've also seen other food storage blogs that have used these recipes.

Overall: If I was to give a score I'd say A+ or 5/5.  It is a very handy recipe booklet to have for those who want to know how to use basic long-term food storage items (sold at a LDS Home Storage Center, aka cannery)--wheat, oats, beans, rice, dry milk, flour, dried apples, etc.  I like that it uses basic ingredients for the recipes.  I've not tried all of the recipes, but those I have tried I liked.

Taste Test Tuesday: Greek Yogurt Pancakes

Mmm...pancakes.  We like our pancakes, particularly when they can be made a little healthier.  These greek yogurt pancakes replace the usual oil used in pancakes with greek yogurt, they also use whole wheat flour, so I like to think they are healthier than your run of the mill pancake mix pancakes.  This recipe works great to use dry milk both for making the greek yogurt as well as the milk needed.

Enjoy!

Taste Test Tuesday: Cheese Ravioli

Last week I shared the recipe for making homemade ricotta cheese, this week I am sharing a recipe that uses it--Cheese Ravioli.

I don't have a ravioli maker thing, so I used a rolling pin and a pasta maker to roll out the pasta to a uniform thickness then put globs of cheese filling on it like on a cookie sheet and covered it with another rolled pasta sheet (or folded it over).  I then used a pizza cutter to cut them down to size and sealed the seams simply by pressing a little.  I wasn't exact or anything and it shows in the pictures, if I had wanted to I probably could have made them look nicer.

Tastewise:  both the store bought egg and egg powder pastas turned out fine, without much taste difference between the two.  We did prefer the taste a day or two later to the first day, for some reason after cooking them and sitting in the fridge, then being nuked in the microwave, they actually seemed to taste better.

Enjoy!

Taste Test Tuesday: Dry Milk Ricotta Cheese

I adapted a recipe I found to make ricotta cheese, but to use dry milk instead.  I prefer to use the crockpot to heat the water, dry milk, cream and salt so I don't have to stand at the stove stirring and stirring while it heats.   If you like a drier ricotta, strain longer, whereas if you prefer it wetter, strain it for less time.

Catch the whey in a bowl if you want to save it for using in bread or soups or something, but also so that you don't get whey all over the counter.  You can line a strainer with the cloth or hang it like I did.

Enjoy!

Taste Test Tuesday: Banana Cream Pie

Well, it was that time again when I had bananas that needed to be used, but I didn't want to fall back on ye old banana bread, so I made banana cream pie instead.  But I also wanted to try it using dry milk to see if it worked and tasted the same or at least similar.  It did--yeah!  I wasn't ready to try egg powder in this recipe yet, but the dry milk did work out.  Here is the recipe:

I often have a hard time with homemade graham crusts, but other than that this recipe turned out great.  And I got to use up some bananas.  Enjoy!

Taste Test Tuesday: Fruit Leather

Today is a very simple recipe for making yummy and colorful fruit leather.  The ingredients:  apple sauce plus flavored gelatin or flavored drink mix if you want to flavor and color the fruit leather.  Plain applesauce without the gelatin or drink mix works just fine too.  Making a variety of colors, you can make a variety of designs.

Simply mix the gelatin or drink mix into the applesauce, mixing more or less in to get the color you want.  Yellow doesn't need drink mix or gelatin, I just added lemonade mix to it to flavor it.  I found that orange and blue needed more mix to reach colors that actually were orange or blue and not yellow or green.
 
If you don't have fruit leather trays for your dehydrator or even if you do and you want a very easy clean up, you can use plastic wrap.  Put the plastic wrap on the tray, getting it as flat as you can.  To make removal easier, spray it with cooking spray before putting the applesauce on it.  Spread a thin but even layer of applesauce onto the plastic wrap.  And dehydrate away at the fruit setting of about 135 degrees.  When they are dried, let them cool and then simply roll them up with the plastic wrap and store in an airtight container.  I use kitchen scissors to cut the rolled up fruit leather into about 1 to 2 inch wide strips for those that aren't specific designs.

Enjoy making very easy fruit leather!

 

Taste Test Tuesday: Strawberry Lemonade

A while back strawberries were on sale for a great price, so I bought a bunch and made freezer jam, jarred jam and strawberry lemonade concentrate.  The freezer jam is pretty much gone already because it is just so good--on bread, mixed in with homemade yogurt, to use as a topping for strawberry shortcake, etc.  MMM.  This is the first time I have made strawberry lemonade concentrate.  The process took a while, but it was worth it.  Opening a quart jar of it and making it up, mmmm.  The recipe I am sharing indicates to use a 1:1 ratio of concentrate to water or pop, but you can use more (or less) water and/or pop to reach the desired taste and consistency you want.  One of the things I love about canning is that I don't have to use freezer or fridge space until opening the canned product, I simply need shelf space.

Making freezer pops out of this is really yummy too!

Enjoy!

Taste Test Tuesday: Easy Pizza

Today's recipe is simply how to make some really quick and easy pizzas using buns.  I love the simplicity of english muffin pizzas, but didn't have english muffins on hand, but I did have hamburger buns, so....  I thought I'd try making them into pizzas and hope for the best.  They turned out fine.  The bun wasn't soggy but crisped up a little--mmm, and it was a great way to use buns that needed to be used.  The buns can be regular or wheat, homemade or not.  Very kid friendly.

Enjoy!

Miscellaneous Monday: Children's Cookbooks

I have found that when my kids help make the food we are going to eat, they are more excited to eat it. One way to get them excited to help in food prep is to use cookbooks made for children.  The 3 listed below are the ones that I & my family have liked the most for the layouts, and of course the great recipes that are easy to make.

Betty Crocker's Kids Cook!:  This cookbook has some fun layouts and easy recipes.  Puts the finished product into a fun layout.
Mom and Me Cookbook:  Shows some pictures of ingredients and the process as well as the end product--a great help for visual learners or those not reading yet.
The Disney Magic Kitchen Cookbook:  Uses Disney characters in the layouts of the finished product, as well some fun names for the food like "Body Shop Black Bean Salad."  Also has great information about creating healthy menus, activity ideas for being physically active.

Each of these cookbooks have main dishes, sides and salads, snacks and treats and more.  Have fun preparing food for the family with the family!  There are other great recipe books out there, these are simply the ones I recommend based on actual use.

Thrifty Thursday: Using dry milk to make yogurt

Milky May...

What is the cost effectiveness of making homemade yogurt using dry milk?  One #10 can of dry milk can make about 48 c of yogurt ($0.18 per cup), about 21 c of greek yogurt ($0.41 per cup) or 15 c of yogurt cheese ($0.57 per cup).  What a savings!  Store bought yogurt can range from 40 cents (store brands) to 75 cents (name brands) regular price.  Greek yogurt is even costlier, coming on sale for $1 or regular price at Sams Club for about $0.81 and up per container.  And cream cheese regular price for store brand is about 1.30 up to about $2 for name brand cream cheese.  As far as sour cream, homemade yogurt or greek yogurt can be used in recipes calling for sour cream, thus saving money as sour cream can be anywhere from $1 on sale to $2 regular price.

The amounts listed above are based on my calculations when I made yogurt, greek yogurt and yogurt cheese using dry milk, using the recipe below & using the pricing for a can of dry milk from the LDS home storage centers March 2013 (about $8.60 a can).

Taste Test Tuesday: Strawberry Fruit Topping

Today's recipe:  Strawberry Fruit Topping.  I made this fruit topping to top homemade no bake cheesecake (that uses dry milk).  I had some dried strawberries that I had dehydrated using a dehydrator, I thought I'd try making a fruit sauce out of them and this is the result...mmmm.  It was absolutely delicious on the cheesecake, but also great for ice cream.

Enjoy!