Homemade Chocolate Pudding Snacks

I'm not by any means a Real Food Purist.  While there are many "food-like-substances" that I will avoid if at all possible, there are few that Will Never Pass My Lips.  I do find, though, that I prefer cooking from scratch from basic ingredients over boxed meals, seasoning packets, and ready-to-eat prepared foods.  It's definitely healthier, it's frequently much cheaper, but for me the real benefit is that it's much more flexible.  I don't have to worry about whether I have a packet of "taco seasoning" in my cupboard if I suddenly decide I want tacos for dinner.  I sometimes miss the convenience of just being able to open a box and pull out single-serving portions of something, and so do some of the other less food-conscious members of my household.  Homemade versions of "store-bought" frequently take more time than I'm willing to spend for the amount of food I get out of it.  If I spend two hours of active time making something, I'd better get at least four meals out of it!

A couple of months ago I saw that Food in Jars had posted a glowing review of The Homemade Pantry by Alana Chernila (who blogs here).  I flipped through it at my local B&N and decided that it had enough good ideas to be worth spending money on.  A lot of the recipes are things that any good cook probably could have figured out, but there's something to be said for letting someone slightly more driven do the experimentation for you!  Add to that a bit of "Gee, I'd've thought it would be more complicated than that!"  and you've got a good reason to pick this book up.

I've made a few of the recipes now, and am starting to tweak some of them to my household's tastes and habits.  The chocolate pudding recipe gets used frequently.  Normally I wouldn't make a dessert on a regular basis, but this recipe came along shortly after I started putting chocolate pudding in my daughter's school lunches.  I know I could have used a classic custard-based chocolate pudding recipe from The Joy of Cooking, but frankly, this one is faster and easier, and most importantly for my ASD daughter, the flavor and texture are nearly identical to store-bought.  No surprise there, because they're essentially the same thing - milk thickened with cornstarch and flavored with chocolate.  I have found that a half-recipe of Alana's chocolate pudding fits perfectly into five 4oz canning jars!  On Sunday evening I spend a total of maybe 15-20 minutes and make five little snack-sized jars of chocolate pudding for a week's worth of lunches.  Time well spent!

At least I'm getting *something* out of the garden!

 I may not have had enough good cucumbers to make pickles, but I had enough to make relish!

It's the basic Ball Blue Book sweet relish recipe.  I haven't tasted it yet, but it sure smelled good!  It calls for covering the veg with salted water for two hours, then rinsing and draining thoroughly.  I think I drained pretty thoroughly, but I still ended up with more liquid than I was happy with in the final results.  Next time I think I'll try and get more of that water out.  I'll either let it soak longer, or salt-and-sit without water first, before I rinse.  Or maybe I'll line the salad spinner with cheesecloth and try and spin the rinse water out that way!

What have you done to get more liquid out of chopped veg before pickling?

Surviving on next to nothing, part 2

As I mentioned in my last post, part of my current strategy for survival on an extremely limited budget involves finding ways to shift some expenses from the cash budget to the food stamps budget, mostly by using homemade cleaning products that rely on ingredients like vinegar, and handmade soap, which uses cooking oils.  In order to do this I need to make sure that I spend my food stamps wisely, so that I have enough both to keep my family fed for the month, and be able to buy those few extra things I use for cleaning.  Fortunately this is not difficult.

 

A lot of these ideas are things I'm sure you've heard before, as the grocery budget is the one we all have the most control over, no matter our financial situation.  There are a few things I do differently, but these are based on my own personality quirks - Your Miles May Vary :)   A lot of what I do is tied in to my whole Philosophy of Food, not all of which is about saving money. 

First, let me say that I'm a huge fan of Michael Pollan.  In The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food I found someone making a case against processed food and industrial agriculture who was able to back his assertions up with facts, naming specific studies and their results.  He cites his references, and includes a bibliography so that you can find the original studies and see the results in context, should you so choose.  Here, for once, was a true journalist who came to his conclusions as a result of his research, rather than looking for research to support a conclusion.  This was no zealot nutjob, this was someone whose conclusions I was able to take seriously, and it's made a tremendous difference in how I view food and where it comes from.  That being said...

I cook almost everything from scratch.  My personal beliefs about highly processed food aside, I do find that I spend less.  I can buy cumin, oregano and chili powder, combine them with other pantry staples, and have a year's worth of tacos PLUS I have those seasonings on hand for anything else that calls for them!  No need to spend .99 on an envelope of "taco seasoning" that has almost as much sugar as spice, and I can decide we're going to have tacos on the spur of the moment without having to worry about whether I have taco seasoning on-hand!  I've managed to find recipes for most of the convenience foods I used to buy (e.g. macaroni and cheese, and ranch and Catalina dressing).  Some of them (though by no means all!) take a little longer, but taken as a whole, they do work out cheaper in the long run. 

I only buy what's on sale.  I hear a lot of "keep a sale price diary" so that you know how low sale prices go on certain items, and how often.  I'm not quite that organized, but I do know what the lowest sale price on certain things is, and when it hits that price I try and stock up.  I only buy ground beef or boneless chicken breast when it drops below a certain price.  I buy chicken leg quarters and separate them into thigh and drumstick myself.  I buy bone-in thighs and bone them myself.  The bones go into the freezer (along with various vegetable trimmings), and when I have enough I make chicken stock.  The chicken stock gets frozen in ice-cube trays, and the resultant cubes go into a freezer bag.  Did I mention I have a freezer chest? 

I have a freezer chest!  It is absolutely worth its weight in gold.  It allows me to buy things in bulk that I would never have room for otherwise.  It allows me to make my own "convenience foods" in large batches because I have room to store it all.  It takes the same amount of time to make four gallons of chicken stock as it does to make one, and I'm more likely to actually do it if I don't have to do it very frequently.  It allows me to freeze leftovers of big meals that otherwise would go bad, because no one wants to eat chili four nights in a row.  It also means that DH doesn't complain that he can't fit his beer mug in the freezer because I've gone and stuffed it full of food of all things!

I'm a very "seat-of-your-pants" cook, so I ignore the advice to plan a weekly menu.  The idea behind that advice is that you look at all the supermarket flyers and plan your meals for the week around the sale items.  It's a good idea, but it doesn't work for me.  My version of this idea is to be a Really Good Cook!  I buy lots of basic ingredients (see first point), so when it's time for dinner I can look at what I have and decide what I want to make.   I'm not dependent on recipes, although I sometimes use them, and I know when it's safe to leave out or substitute an ingredient I'm missing.  It achieves the same basic goal - to have the majority of your meals based on what's on sale or what's on hand - but it has a great deal more flexibility.

I no longer bother with warehouse club stores.  Sure, it's cheaper than the supermarket, but only on the brand name items they offer.  Most of the time the supermarket brand was still cheaper than the warehouse brand name price. Yes, when there was a warehouse store brand version of something it was cheaper than the supermarket store brand. Unfortunately most of the items I found these savings on were for things I no longer buy - namely packaged, processed food.  The few remaining items (milk, cheese, butter, etc) do not offer enough savings to make up for the annual fee and the gas to get there.

I do not bother with coupons, except maybe store coupons (as opposed to manufacturer's coupons).  With rare exceptions, manufacturers coupons are all for processed food that I no longer buy.  Even when I run across a coupon for something I want, I find that the store brand is frequently still cheaper than the name brand, even with the coupon. Occasionally there will be a sale on a brand name item I want while the coupon is still valid - then it will be cheaper than the store brand.  If I already subscribed to the Sunday paper and was getting the coupons anyway I'd be willing to keep an eye out for these deals.  As it is, I'd have to spring for the paper once a week in hopes of finding coupons for food I was willing to buy combined with those items being on sale sometime soon.  Way too many "ifs" for the amount of effort involved.

I have a vegetable garden.  Many people don't realize that food stamps can be used to buy vegetable seeds and plants, as well as food!  My garden is fairly small, and it's only in its third year, so I'm still on the uphill side of the learning curve.  Some things work and some don't - and I try to distinguish between things I did wrong and those problems that are the Gifts of Mother Nature so that I can learn from my mistakes (Mother Nature's mistakes I can do little about).   I have not given up just because last year was awful for tomatoes and this year my cucumbers may not last long enough to provide me with pickles :(  I will try again next year!  In the meantime, I no longer have to buy  fresh herbs from the supermarket!

I found that my local farmer's market has a grant from Wholesome Wave that allows them to give 2-for-1 food stamps.  For every real food stamps dollar, I get two farmer's market "credits."  This puts the farmer's market produce on par with (or cheaper than!) the supermarket prices, which allows me to indulge my philosophical penchant for local food while staying within my food "means."  I like the idea of keeping my money (more or less) in my community.  A lot of farmers are on food stamps, too!

I can. It is not my primary form of food storage, nor is it necessarily even cheaper, as far as just plain condiments go - not until the garden improves.  It costs me more per pint to make my own blueberry preserves than it does to buy a pint of store brand grape jelly.  It is, however, much cheaper than the comparable "gourmet" blueberry preserves you might find at the supermarket, and I know exactly what has gone into it.  For me the biggest cost savings in canning is the ability to give the results as gifts!   Food as Gift is another way to transfer cash burden from Real Money to Food Stamps, and my family always appreciates the fruits of my labor.

Sadly, the one thing I don't do as much as I'd like is bake my own bread.  My daughter won't eat my homemade bread (it's an autism thing - I think she dislikes the texture) so I need to keep store-bought on hand.  While the rest of my family is quite happy to eat my bread, and expresses a desire for me to make it more often, I find that when it comes time for them to make their own sandwiches they automatically reach for the pre-sliced bread, and mine goes either stale or moldy.  Since the most expensive food in the world is the food you waste, I no longer bother.

It does, however, make wonderful bird food!

*Disclosure:  If you buy something from Amazon through the links to the Michael Pollan books I get a few pennies.

Pressure Cooker Chicken Stew-ish

 Another dish in my "Seat-of-my-Pants" cooking repertoire!  Not exactly stew, I suppose - not with the whole chicken legs.  Still, it's really fast and really tasty!  I end up cooking a lot of chicken this way.  DH can't eat pork or beef in any form except ground, and won't eat seafood except shrimp, so we're pretty much stuck with chicken, hamburgers and hot dogs.  I have perforce become adept at cooking chicken in many different ways.  I'm sure the nuances are completely lost on DH, as he tends to slather barbecue sauce on all his chicken no matter what I've done with it - but at least I don't have to get tired of chicken!

 

• 4 red potatoes, skin on, chopped roughly into eighths
• 2 largish carrots, peeled, sliced or chopped, whichever you prefer
• 2 stalks of celery, sliced into roughly 1/4" slices
• 1 large onion, sliced or chopped however you like it
• 4 chicken leg quarters
• 1/3c white wine
• 1/3c stock or broth (chicken or veg)
• 1T salt
• 1/2t fresh ground black pepper
• 1 1/2t Bell's Poultry Seasoning
• 3T chopped fresh parsley

Adding vegetables to pressure cooker as you chop, saute on very low heat for about 10 min while prepping chicken.  Dredge chicken in flour and brown in a separate pan, two legs at a time.  Place chicken on top of vegetables.  Sprinkle with poultry seasoning, add broth, salt and pepper.  Seal the pressure cooker and bring to pressure (about 7min).  Cook at pressure for 10 min, turn off heat and let rest for another 10 min.  Release pressure, sprinkle with parsley, and serve with a slice of  really good bread!

Being busy and Miso Soup :)

I was lucky enough to get three orders in over the weekend (yay!), so Monday and Tuesday were mostly spent working in the studio.  DH always tries to take pictures of me when I'm working, unfortunately sometimes what I'm doing just isn't that impressive :\

I've been working on a ton of earrings, some of which are going to be included in an Amazon promotion through my 1000 Markets shop(!), and a couple of rings.  I also have a custom piece that I'm working on for a friend, so I'm definitely keeping busy!  The rings and one pair of earrings will be shipping today, everything else should go tomorrow.  I like playing in the studio and coming up with new designs, but I like it even better when I know I'm getting paid!

All of this means I have not been able to tackle the anti-tarnish jewelry roll I've been talking about for two weeks.  Oh well.  The fabric is not going to disintegrate on me - it'll still be there waiting when I have time to deal with it.  In the meantime I can leave you with my recipe for Miso soup!

• 3c Dashi (Japanese fish stock - if you don't have an Asian grocery near you, you can probably find this at your local natural foods store.  I'm not a purist - I'm happy with the powdered stock!)
• 1/2-1 c sliced, chopped button bushrooms
• 1-2T butter (or oil of your choice)
• 3T Miso (again, available at Asian groceries or natural foods stores) White miso is milder than red miso, so if you're not sure what you're doing yet go with the white.  I like to mix them half-and-half.
• 1-2T Wakame (dried seaweed in a plastic bag - available etc., etc.)
• 1 or 2 scallions, whites and greens very thinly sliced. (I know it's a "garnish", but don't skip the scallions!)
  

Soak the wakame in a small bowl with warm water.  Use a bigger bowl than you think you need - this stuff expands dramatically!  Saute the mushrooms in the butter (or whatever you prefer for sauteing mushrooms).   Add the dashi, bring to a simmer.  Strain and add the wakame.  Adding the miso can be tricky, as it has a consistency much like peanut butter.  In Japan they have a special kitchen tool for this that is basically a strainer shaped like a small ladle.  You put the miso in the "ladle" and lower it into the soup, then you can stir and rub it against the side of the strainer so that the miso gets dissolved into the soup instead of making big lumps.  Most of us don't have one of those.  Instead, put the miso in a small bowl, add a littl of the dashi and stir until it's smooth.  Add this thinned miso to the soup.  Stir once or twice, remove from heat, and serve, garnished with the scallions!

This is so amazingly quick, and almost everything is shelf-stable or freezable (I freeze batches of sauteed mushrooms and sliced scallions) that it has become one of my "emergency meals" when I'm short on time or ingredients for anything else.  Enjoy!

Homemade soup + handmade bowl = perfect lunch!

I'm a big fan of soup, so this cooler weather has been a welcome change!  I'm also a big fan of making things "from scratch," so for me "soup" is never something that comes out of a red-and-white can!

This is lunch whipped up from leftovers :)  I had made chicken stock the night before, and had about a cup left that hadn't been put in the freezer yet.  I scrounged around and found about 2 tablespoons of leftover taco meat.  Yay!  Taco Soup!  I added a little garlic oil, some extra salt and pepper, and garnished it with sour cream.  Add to that the leftover end of a sourdough baguette that I got from the Cityseed Farmer's Market a few weeks ago, and I have a nice hot lunch, from scratch, that also uses up leftovers - and takes about ten minutes!

I'll admit that although I did make the bowl, I did not make it this afternoon, and it took longer than ten minutes to make :)