Showing posts with label to have a food supply. Show all posts
Showing posts with label to have a food supply. Show all posts

Monday, September 21, 2009

Homemaker Monday: A Food Storage Give-Away!

Welcome to the 60th weekly edition of...


Thank you for joining us! If you're new to this carnival and would like to enter your post, please check HERE for the rules and regs.

MINE: For this week's Homemaker Monday, what could be better than a give-away? And as far as homemaking is concerned, what could be better than giving away nearly $40 worth of Gourmet Food Storage guaranteed to last up to 7 YEARS!

Yes, the Food Storage Depot, a gourmet food storage company, has teamed up with 11th Heaven to give away a HUGE bag of gourmet bread mix. It's called "Aunt Kate's Quality Roll Mix" and THIS is what you can easily make with it...



Indeed, trick your family and friends into thinking you slaved in the kitchen for hours to make these delectable cinnamon rolls and other amazing recipes. You are going to LOVE this! OR save it for that special someone for the upcoming HOLIDAY SEASON!!

Here's how to enter....

Create a link by copying and pasting the following HTML code into a blog post and publishing it, then leave me a comment here to let me know you did...




(If you're not sure how to copy and paste, just right click the above box and click "Select All", then right click the highlighted text and click "Copy", then to go where you write your blog posts, go to the body of the post, right click there and hit "Paste".)

This is what your post will look like...

"11th Heaven's Homemaking Haven is giving away nearly $40 worth of gourmet bread mix! It will seem like your spent HOURS in the kitchen making treats like this...



...but it only takes minutes! To enter, click HERE!"

(You can change the wording any way you like.)

There, couldn't be easier, right? The contest goes until midnight MST, September 27th and I will announce the winner at next Homemaker Monday, so come back here to see how you did! Good luck!

OURS: Okay, here's MckLinky! I can't wait to see what all of you wonderful homemakers have for us today. Thank you for joining us!



If you liked this post and would like to join me here on a regular basis via email or other reader, please...
 Subscribe

(You'll be helping to pay for at least one of the nine kid's college tuition.)
OR... bookmark or share this post by clicking the "Add This" button below... Thank you for your visit!
In This Post... ,
21 COMMENTS (Share yours!)

Monday, June 15, 2009

Homemaker Monday: How to Can Dry Beans Without Precooking

Welcome to the 45th weekly edition of...


Thank you for joining us! If you're new to this carnival and would like to enter your post, please check HERE for the rules and regs. (By the way, if you have been featured on Homemaker Monday in the past, your name is on my left sidebar. Check it out!)

YOURS: This week's "YOUR" goes to The Newlyweds for their recipe for easy refrigerator pickles! I loved this because you can make pickles without having to use a hot bath or a pressure cooker. I'm so excited to try this! I hope mine turn out as delicious-looking as The Newlywed's did...


Thank you so much, Newlyweds, for this inspiration and I look forward to reporting on this next week. For their entire post, click HERE.

MINE: In the small Mexican farm town in which I live, bottling garden produce is a way of life. It's just what you do in the summer and since I've moved here, I've felt like somewhat of a bottling outcast as I have never bottled anything in my life. About two weeks ago, however, I was able to attend a very well-done, inspiration bottling class given by a friend and I feel that my life will now improve dramatically as I can now feel more a sense of self-worth, frugality and industry, and, to be honest, fit in better with my peers in our village. During the class, I was literally awestruck when I learned how one can bottle dry beans without pre-soaking or cooking them. If you know me, you know I love to fix beans, such as in this recipe...


(Click the photo for the recipe)

...but it takes a lot of pre-planning, something which, as I've admitted in earlier posts, is not one of my fortes. Thus you can see why I was twitter-pated when I learned of this method. I will post the recipe as it was taught to me, but personally, I believe it was a bit too salty, so the next time I will half the amount of salt. Here it is

Bottling Dry Beans



Ingredients:

1 cup beans (I used a 15-bean mix)
1 teaspoon salt
Water
Any other spices desired, such as garlic or onion powder (optional)

Directions:

Step 1: Pour the beans, salt and optional ingredients into a one-quart mason jar.
Step 2: Fill the jar to the rim with water.
Step 3: Screw on the lid and process in a pressure cooker as per the manufacturer's instructions.

When you are finished, make sure to carefully lift out the jars with a tool designed specifically for this purpose...


...and place overnight on your counter, undisturbed. I can't remember why this step is important, but it is, so just do it. (L., if you are reading this post, perhaps you can enlighten us?)


When we served up the beans for lunch the next day, I spooned them out into a pot, added more water to give it the soup consistency I was looking for, and simply heated it up 'til it was good and warm. This was so surprisingly easy and I am so grateful for smart people like L. who open my mind and make my world a better place!

OURS: Okay, now it's your turn! Let's see what wonderful ideas you homemakers have for us today. If you have any canning or bottling tips, I'd sure love to see some of that! Thanks for visiting and/or linking up today. I hope you have a great Homemaker Monday!




If you liked this post and would like to join me here on a regular basis via email or other reader, please...
 Subscribe

(You'll be helping to pay for at least one of the nine kid's college tuition.)
OR... bookmark or share this post by clicking the "Add This" button below... Thank you for your visit!

In This Post... , , ,
13 COMMENTS (Share yours!)

Monday, January 26, 2009

Sprouted Wheat Manna Bread

I am beyond excited about today's post. I have discovered a bread that is guilt free, filling, and extremely nutritious. It's called manna bread and is a staple of raw food vegans. This bread is "cooked" at very low temperatures, for the purposes of this post, 225 degrees, which basically just dehydrates the loaves. It can also be placed in a dehydrator for a period of time. Cooking at such low temperatures helps to preserve the enzymes, vitamins, good bacteria and other nutrients which would be lost at higher temperatures. Since I've made this bread four days ago, I've been eating it every day for breakfast in place of regular bread and I don't feel like I've missed a thing! Here we go...

Manna Bread:

Ingredients:
2 cups whole wheat berries (These will be sprouted. Instructions will follow.)
1/3 cup raisins
3/4 teaspoons sea salt (You can substitute regular salt if you would like, but it won't be as good for you.)

Step 1: Sprout the wheat. This takes about two days to do, so a little planning is in order, but it's worth it as sprouting grains increases their vitamin share exponentially. Did you know that whole wheat berries do not have any vitamin C when they are in a dormant state, such as when they are ground up into flour, but if they are sprouted, their vitamin C level jumps to over 2.8 mg per serving! That is 5% of the USDA daily recommended value. It's amazing! Soooo, here's how to do it...

Pour the wheat into a wide mouth quart jar...


(These photos show six to eight jars of wheat being sprouted. Most normal people don't sprout this much, but I had my reasons.)

...then fill the jar with water...


... and cover with cut out panty hose, cheese cloth, or other breathable fabric. I just used my jar rings to secure the panty hose, but you could also use a rubber band...


Let it sit on your counter for 8 to 12 hours or overnight. In the morning, drain off the water. I sometimes find that I have to push into the wheat through the panty hose, like so...


...in order for all the water to come out.

Next, put the jar upside-down, at a slight angle to allow the water to drain and enable appropriate breathing room for the wheat... ( I just used a towel-covered baking pan.)


Let the jar of wheat sit for 12 hours, then rinse the berries to keep bacteria from forming. I like to simply stick the faucet into the panty hose, like so...


...and let it run for a few seconds, then swish the wheat around, then drain.

Repeat this rinsing every twelve hours. Your sprouts should soon look like this...


(See the tiny bit of white sprouting out?)

...then finally, when the sprouts are about 1/4" long or almost as long as the wheat berry, they should look like this...


They are now ready to use! If you want to use sprouts in recipes other than manna bread, they are great on sandwiches in place of alfalfa sprouts, in oatmeal, in salads and baked in breads.

Note: Sprouts do not keep long in the fridge as they will keep growing and begin to taste very bitter. Make sure to use them within two to three days.

Step 2: Now that our wheat is sprouted, we can get back to the business of making the manna bread. Even though we only started out with two cups of wheat, we should now have about four cups of sprouts, as their size has doubled. Pour all of the sprouts in a food processor, along with the raisins and the sea salt.

Process for a couple of minutes until everything is well blended and you have a sticky dough, that looks like this...


Grease your hands with oil, then grab the dough out of the bowl and form a loaf about 8"x4". Trust me, you'll really need to grease your hands for this. The loaf should be no more than about 1 1/2" high or it will not dehydrate properly...


Step 3: Bake at 225 degrees for three hours. When your loaf is done, it will have a light-colored, thin, hard outer crust and a moist interior, kind of like a muffin...


When the loaf is cooled to room temperature, you can store it in a Ziploc bag to be used within two or three days, or you can wrap it in plastic...


...then store it in a Ziploc freezer bag in the freezer for later use...


Here's how I lay it on my plate...


And here's how I eat it, with natural peanut butter, raw honey, and psyllium husks...


I love it! This breakfast will keep me full for about five hours, but doesn't make me feel like I'm going to founder after I eat it. I again, have to thank my daughter, Bethany, for the inspiration for this recipe. She introduced me, by phone, to manna bread, something she is able to buy on a daily basis at the health food store, and I was so inspired that I had to surf the net and find out how to make it, as we don't have access to health food stores here in Mexico.

I hope you'll try this. It's really fun to learn to sprout and very fulfilling to know you're eating something so good for you! If you do try it, let me know how it goes!

I am pleased to list this post at...



-Tip Junkie's "Talk to me Tuesday",
-5 Minutes for Mom's "Tackle It Tuesday",
-Tammy's Recipe's "Kitchen Tip Tuesday",
-Blessed With Grace's "Tempt My Tummy Tuesday",
-Mary's "Tightwad Tuesday",
and -The Lazy Organizer's "Talk About Tuesday".

If you liked this post and would like to join me here on a regular basis via email or other reader, please...
 Subscribe

(You'll be helping to pay for at least one of the nine kid's college tuition.)
OR... bookmark or share this post by clicking the little beauty below... Thank you for your visit!
In This Post... , , ,
28 COMMENTS (Share yours!)

Monday, November 17, 2008

The Best Ever 100% Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls

It was my turn to make the dinner rolls for our weekly Sunday dinner and I didn't have any white flour. I'm not afraid to use all whole wheat when I'm only feeding my family, but when I want to impress the in-laws, I always like to make sure that the recipes I chose are up to par with the rest of the daughters-in-law. No, I'm not competitive at all. With no white flour, however, what was I going to do? I was going to have to suck it up, bite the bullet and use all whole wheat...



I went to my favorite place to find recipes, allrecipes.com, and found something that sounded good. It had a high user rating (something important to my when I'm searching for recipes), so I thought I'd give it a go.

You cannot believe how amazing these rolls turned out to be!

Here are the ingredients I used:

4 (.25 ounce) packages active dry yeast
3 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
1 cup white sugar
2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled
2 eggs, beaten
10 cups whole wheat flour (as finely ground as possible. If you don't have a wheat grinder, try putting your store-bought wheat flour in a blender, a cup at a time, until it is powdery.)

Step 1: I first dissolved the yeast in the warm water and let it sit for about ten minutes. If you're not sure how warm warm is, click HERE.

Step 2: I then added to the yeast mixture the sugar, salt, butter, eggs, and 5 cups of the flour. I stirred this until it was mixed well.

Step 3: Next, I stirred in the remaining flour, one cup at a time, until the dough was soft and pulled away from the bowl. I dumped it out onto my floured counter and kneaded it for ten miinutes. If you're not sure how to knead, here is a video I forced asked the 16-year-old boy to help me make that will show you how.



Step 4: I then put the ball of dough in a large, greased bowl, covered it with a damp towel, and set it in a warm place to rise in until it was doubled in bulk. (For more on how to find the perfect warm place to raise your bread, click HERE.) This could take anywhere from one to two hours.

Step 5: I punched down the dough, kneaded it for one minute to get the air bubbles out, then tore it in half, then tore each of those halves in half until I had 16 balls of dough. Then I tore each of these pieces into three pieces, rolled them up into neat balls, placed them on four cookies sheets (12 on each one), brushed the tops with melted butter, and let them rise, covered with damp towels, until doubled in bulk. (You should have had 48 balls of dough.)

Step 6: At some point in the rising process, I preheated my oven to 400 degrees, then baked them for about 12 minutes. They should be light golden brown.

Here's what mine looked like...


Yeah I know, kind of plain, but it was easy...and delicious! If you would like your rolls to look fancier, like this...


(Photo by www.allrecipes.com)

...just click HERE for instructions at allrecipes.com.

It was hard to believe that these rolls were 100% whole wheat flour. They were light, soft, and looked like this when we tore into them...


These are going to make a perfect addition to our Thanksgiving dinner. Best of luck with this!

I am pleased to list this post at...

-Tip Junkie's "Talk to me Tuesday",
-5 Minutes for Mom's "Tackle It Tuesday",
-Tammy's Recipe's "Kitchen Tip Tuesday",
-Blessed With Grace's "Tempt My Tummy Tuesday",
-Mary's "Tightwad Tuesday",
and -The Lazy Organizer's "Talk About Tuesday".

Check out these blogs! You're going to love 'em!

If you liked this post and would like to join me here on a regular basis via email or other reader, please...
 Subscribe
(You'll be helping to pay for at least one of the nine kid's college tuition.)
OR... bookmark or share this post by clicking the little beauty below... Thank you for your visit!

In This Post... , , , ,
15 COMMENTS (Share yours!)

Monday, November 10, 2008

Make your own whole grain pancakes without a grain grinder!

We're Mormon, and in case you didn't know it, Mormons are counseled to have a year's supply of food on hand at any given time. This food storage can be used in case of a natural disaster or other calamity, a loss of income, the sudden onset of illness or death, or any other unforeseeable circumstance in which the families food supply is diminished. Our family has chosen to heed this counsel, and because we have such a large family, we literally have two tons of food, one ton of which is wheat. Yeah, I know...weird.

We are also counseled to rotate and use our food storage, with good reason. It's all good and great if you have a ton of wheat for your family, but what if you don't know how to use it, and worse, what if your body isn't used to the whole grain goodness? That could be a problem. That last thing you would want in times of calamity is a gassy, upset intestinal tract.

In my quest to be an moderately decent Mormon homemaker, I have tried to incorporate whole wheat into my food preparation as much as possible. In previous posts, we have talked about whole wheat recipes such as:

Whole Wheat Pie Crust
100% Whole Wheat Bread Machine Bread
and
Fresh Berry Crisp

(In case you didn't know, if any print is blue in my posts, that means it's a link and if you click on it, you'll go to some other page.)

Today, I would like to share with you one of my favorite whole wheat recipes that doesn't involve the use of a wheat grinder. As long as you have a blender, you can make these hearty whole grain pancakes! Here's what you'll need:

1 1/2 cups butter milk (or 1 1/2 cups milk with 1 tablespoon vinegar added - let sit for 10 minutes before using)
1 egg
2 tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup whole wheat berries
1/4 cup oats (not instant)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons sweetener, such as sugar, honey, or molasses

In case you've never used whole wheat before, here's what it looks like...


...and you can buy it at any health food store.

Step 1: Blend the first 6 ingredients in a blender very thoroughly. This could take up to five minutes, depending on your blender. Just make sure, however, that you listen carefully to your blender for a change in the motor sound. If this mixture is over blended, the gluten in the wheat will begin to bind and create a sticky substance that will reek havoc on your blender. If this happens, stop the blender immediately.

Step 2: Pour the contents of the blender into a mixing bowl...


(Your batter should be smooth as shown above...)

...and add the rest of the ingredients. At this point, one of your children could help stir...


Okay, even though the two-year-old is doing a good job at this point, let's switch to the 6-year-old for the final mix-up before disaster occurs...


Step 3: Pour on a hot, buttered griddle...


(I love my George Foreman that can cook up to 12 pancakes and three quesadillas!)

...and cook on both sides until light golden brown.

Step 4: Top with butter and syrup or anything else you want and enjoy!


(This was the 16-year-old boy's serving. He was so happy.

So were these boys...)


(If you've been following this blog, I'll bet you can tell which one is Joseph and which one is Hyrum, can't you!)

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you love this recipe as much as I do. Have a GREAT Tuesday!

I am pleased to list this post at...

-Tip Junkie's "Talk to me Tuesday",
-5 Minutes for Mom's "Tackle It Tuesday",
-Tammy's Recipe's "Kitchen Tip Tuesday",
-Blessed With Grace's "Tempt My Tummy Tuesday",
-Mary's "Tightwad Tuesday",
and -The Lazy Organizer's "Talk About Tuesday".

Check out these blogs! You're going to love 'em!

If you liked this post and would like to join me here on a regular basis via email or other reader, please...
 Subscribe
(You'll be helping to pay for at least one of the nine kid's college tuition.)
OR... bookmark or share this post by clicking the little beauty below... Thank you for your visit!
In This Post... , , ,
17 COMMENTS (Share yours!)
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)