Last night I was Googling my way through the blogosphere, and stumbled upon an intriguing blog called One Frugal Foodie.
This blogger decided to compile healthy kids’ recipes contributed by health-minded parents and bloggers. The result? A 173-page FREE e-book called Smart School Time Recipes! If you’re looking for ideas for nutritious meals to pack your little ones…check this out! I was impressed with the quality of recipes and ingredients. There are many vegetarian and vegan recipes included, too.
Check it out!
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Reader Julie sent me an email last night about how she’s created her own spreadable butter.
She writes:
I put an end to buttery spreads in our home recently because they don’t get cheap enough and I can’t pronounce half the ingredients included. Then after 2 weeks I was really wishing there was some middle ground on it all because I kept mangling my son’s morning toasttrying to spread stick butter on it. So, I did a little experiment andso far it looks and tastes just fine!
Here is her recipe:
:: 2 sticks of unsalted butter
:: 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil
:: 1/4 cup of water
:: Salt
She then softened the butter in the microwave and put all the ingredients in the food processor. You could also use a blender or mixer. Then she whipped the mixture together for a few minutes, poured it into a container, and placed it in the fridge.
Julie writes that it solidified but was very spreadable.
What a smart idea, Julie! Thank you for sharing. What convenience food items have you made from scratch?
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I’m beginning to think zucchini is one of the most “sneaky” vegetables out there. The other night I put it in spaghetti and my kids gobbled it up. Today I baked it in bread and they were none the wiser.
I headed to Allrecipes.com and looked for a recipe that had ingredients I had on hand (no sense making a special trip to the store, I say!). I found this zucchini bread recipe, and it yields two loaves, which is always a bonus.
First, the dry ingredients – flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and lots of cinnamon.
Next the eggs. Three of ‘em.
Mix in sugar, vanilla, vegetable oil, and then 3 cups of shredded zucchini.
Of course, your cooking will always taste better if you mix in a little love, too.
Bake in a 350-degree oven for about an hour. I hate dry bread, so I started checking mine at 45 minutes in. After an exactly hour, the loaves were exactly right.
We couldn’t wait. I sliced it up right away and the kids and I devoured half a loaf in one sitting!
By the way, ONE zucchini from my garden made both these loaves and spaghetti from a couple nights ago!
Like this post? You might be interested to peruse my gardening and recipe categories!
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I’ve entered a fun stage of gardening: harvesting and eating. Last night I decided to pick something out for dinner from my backyard, and here’s what I came up with.
I’ve read that if you can eat the produce as soon as it’s harvested, you’re getting the best possible nutritional value. So I decided to pick only what I could eat for dinner.
So what exactly did I do with all these beautiful veggies? The carrots and beans I ate raw. A few nights ago we tried grilling them, and the result was terrible. I hated throwing away those beans, but I seriously could not stomach the flavor. Raw, fresh out of the garden seems the best choice. I may try steaming them sometime soon, too.
I also harvested my son’s carrots. He started these by seed as a Sunday school project. We transplanted them to the garden when they got bigger. I thought it was sweet how all along, these carrots had been forming a secret friendship.
The zucchini I decided to turn into a sandwich. First, I sliced it down, lightly coated in olive oil, and added a dash of kosher salt and pepper. I roasted in oven for about 20 minutes.
I LOVE roasted vegetable sandwiches, but unfortunately I didn’t have other vegetables on hand that would’ve worked well with zucchini. So instead I came up with an Italian version – I added about 1/4 cup marinara sauce and free Kraft Italian cheese. I melted it a bit and put it on a hoagie. Simple, cheap, delicious.
I seriously wonder what my life was like before gardening. I love gardening for so many reasons now and see myself doing this for many, many years to come. If you’ve ever thought about starting a garden, I hope I’ve encouraged you to make the leap!
This post is participating in the Tuesday Garden Party!
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For months now, my parents have been making green smoothies every day.
Green smoothies are exactly what they sound like: smoothies made with greens. My mom has been known to use everything from kale to spinach to beets to figs and every plant in between to make these drinks she calls “smoothies.”
Yesterday I harvested two huge heads of lettuce from my garden. Not one to waste food, I have every intention of using up all that lettuce before we leave for our trip Wednesday. So this morning, I decided to bite the bullet.
Lettuce, banana, kiwi, nectarine and coconut milk. I would like to dub this drink ”Farmer’s Market Blend.” While sort of strange at first, I’m actually quite full at the moment. I think my body is thanking me, but it may also be slightly confused by what I’ve just ingested.
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It’s been awhile since I’ve worked up a “from scratch” recipe to feature on this blog.
On this beautiful, sunny Monday I decided today would NOT be an oatmeal day (as it usually is in our house)! I had a couple pounds of blueberries sitting in my fridge…so why not make blueberry muffins? My son thought this was a fabulous idea. Probably because muffins are shaped like cupcakes.
I found a recipe on Allrecipes that looked good, plus I made some modifications per the reviews and what was in my pantry. So here is what I did:
Blueberry Muffins
1 c flour (original recipe calls for 1/2 white; 1/2 wheat)
1/3 c brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
1/3 c milk
1/4 c vegetable oil
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 c fresh blueberries, coated with 1 tbsp flour & 1 tbsp sugar
In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Combine the egg, milk, oil, vanilla, and almond extract and add to the dry ingredients. Gently fold in the blueberries. Grease or paper line muffin trays. Bake at 375 for about 20-25 minutes until done. Cool 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack.
This recipe yielded me 7 muffins. I would definitely double it next time for our family. You could also substitute applesauce for the oil if you prefer.
Incidentally, when building your stockpile, I highly recommend you focus your efforts on basic cooking and baking essentials. Foods like flour, sugar, butter, baking soda, olive oil, rice, vinegars, and pasta can be cooked in many different ways and give you the most bang for your buck. In general, the best times of year to stock up on these types of food seem to be around the holidays and again at Easter. Today’s muffins required no trip to the store, because I had everything on hand!
For more on my cooking adventures, including strawberry jam, bread, and graham crackers, see my recipe category.
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Remember all that mint growing in my garden? After reading some tips and ideas, I decided sometimes the simplest ideas are best.
2 Sprigs of mint leaves, squeeze of fresh lime juice, water. Enjoy.
Perfectly healthy and refreshing after coming inside from working in my garden!
Speaking of mint…if anyone is looking for a great, FREE money-management system you should look into signing up with Mint.com. I signed up last month after your recommendations. I still have to navigate it a bit, but I think it’s going to take away that dreaded “updating the budget” task off my plate!
Now if only my money would grow like that mint out in my garden…
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I’ve never made a jam before – at least, not that I could think of. With a huge bag of over-ripe strawberries sitting in my fridge, I decided this was as good a time as any.
I used this recipe on Allrecipes.com. I liked it because 1) it looked easy, 2) it was rated well, and 3) it didn’t require pectin. Seeing how I’m starting at the very beginning, I want to ease my way in.
All this recipe required was strawberries, sugar (and LOTS of it), and lemon juice.
Mash the strawberries, and then add them to a saucepan with the sugar and lemon juice. Then, bring to a rolling boil. One thing I didn’t anticipate was having the strawberries REALLY bubble up. They were very close to overflowing the saucepan. Make sure you select a pretty deep pot for this recipe.
Boil until the temperature reaches 220. Then, cool.
As your jelly cools, it will start to thicken. The final result will be a soft, spreadable jam.
Here’s how mine looked immediately after pouring into the container.
The recipe gives further instruction on how to can your jam. Since we planned on eating ours right away, into the fridge it went. I did reserve about half and simply froze it in a freezer bag, making sure to remove the air pockets.
I have been thinking more about canning. I’ve never done it, but I think it will be a natural next extension to my gardening and stockpiling ways. I ended up using some of the Amazon credit I’d racked up by using Swagbucks to buy a coupon couple books on canning over the weekend: Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving
and Ball Blue Book of Preserving.
So did my homemade version of strawberry jam work for my kids?
What should I make next? I definitely need to work on my bread making skills, but I’ve been kickin’ around the idea of making homemade yogurt. A couple of you also suggested bagels. Other thoughts?
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If you’ve been following me lately you might have noticed I’ve tried making pizza, bread, and most recently, graham crackers from scratch. As I worked up some strawberry jam yesterday (post coming soon), it occurred to me that this sort of food preparation required a different sort of skill set. Here’s the list I came up with:
Preciseness matters. I’m used to the sort of cooking where you can throw in a little of this or that or substitute one ingredient for another. When cooking from scratch, however, it’s important to pay close attention to the details – even if they seem unnecessarily exact. You will kill the yeast if the water temperature goes above 120 degrees, and if it’s not warm enough, it will not activate. Yesterday, my jelly needed to come to 220 degrees in order to set. 215 would not cut it. Cooking is both an art and a science – and cooking from scratch may be more on the science end of things. I’m seeing the need for some different kitchen tools now – a good thermometer, and perhaps a food scale.
Patience matters. Truth be told, I love my microwave. I love being able to whip up a meal on the fly. But many of these recipes take time. There can be multiple steps involved. Most of the time isn’t spent working with the ingredients, it’s simply waiting. Waiting for the jam to set. Waiting for the dough to rise. Or waiting for it to chill.
The right ingredients matter. This goes hand-in-hand with being precise, but until you’ve got the recipe down, make sure you’re using the correct ingredients. I had to hunt a little to find the graham flour, but I sure didn’t want to waste my time or other ingredients and not have the recipe turn out. As I get better at this, I imagine I’ll learn what can reasonably be substituted in a recipe and what can’t.
Practice matters. I consider myself a pretty decent chef, but this has been a very humbling experience. I see now that making a perfect loaf of bread will probably take several tries to get just right. Sometimes it’s gratifying to work at something that doesn’t come natural and over time, succeed. We’ve gotten so accustomed to our conveniences and doing things the “easy way,” haven’t we? Whether it’s cooking from scratch or something else, I encourage you to work on developing a new skill! It’s good for the soul.
The wisdom of others matter. As I’ve floundered a bit through these recipes, so many of you have left wonderful comments and emails. You told me wax paper isn’t a good replacement for parchment paper. You mentioned that I should weigh my graham cracker ingredients and not measure them. One of you has even graciously offered to help me redo my bread recipe for an upcoming vlog (stay tuned!). It’s important to listen and learn from the wisdom others have to share.
What else would you add to my list?
As for me, I’m off to enjoy this beautiful Washington May Saturday! I hope you have a chance to turn off the computer and enjoy some fresh air, too. And maybe take in a slice of homemade bread with a dollop of homemade jam.
Photo credit Kriss Szkurlatowski
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