Pantry Challenge: Week Four Finale

The Pantry Challenge ends this week and I believe it was quite a success!

The most important two things I learned are planning and time are the keys to saving money in the kitchen.  If I don't plan, I forget to get out things to defrost and end up flying by the seat of my pants.  Once I get out things I must take the time required to cook it!

I did a little bit of experimenting this week and came up with a really easy way to make homemade pizza dough!  I take my no-knead bread recipe and when it comes time to put it on the stone, I carefully spread out about half of the dough to the edges of the stone.  Make sure your hands are pretty wet so that they don't stick to the dough.  Put the spread out bread in the oven until it gets just a tiny bit brown, take it out and put on your sauce, cheese, and toppings, then continue baking it until it's done to your satisfaction.  The leftover half of the bread can go in the refrigerator and be baked in the next two weeks - just preheat the stone (and don't forget the water for steam).  No thawing, rising, or anything else is required. 

I bought two bunches of organic bananas and of course they didn't all get eaten before they started getting overripe.  Banana bread to the rescue!  Everyone has their favorite recipe, here's mine:

  After creaming together the butter and sugar, I just dump all the ingredients one at a time while the mixer runs (even the whole bananas!).

Banana Bread

1-1/4 c. sugar

1/2 c. butter

2 eggs

3-4 ripe bananas

1/2 c. buttermilk or milk

1 tsp. vanilla

2-1/2 c. flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 c. chopped nuts (optional)

Bake at 350-degrees for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Makes 2 loaves.

My own personal Pantry Challenge will continue into the spring so that I can clean out, use up what I have before the new spring and summer vegetables come in and in the fall when the new batch of chickens, pork, and venison get put in the freezer. 

"Being frugal does not mean being cheap! It means being economical and avoiding waste." 

--Catherine Pulsifer

Making The World's Easiest Brownies Even Better!

Quite awhile ago I wrote a post about the Baker's Chocolate One-Bowl Brownie Recipe and how fantastic it is.

World's Easiest Chocolate Brownie Recipe

The only problem I found with these brownies is that they fell apart if you tried to get them out of the pan while they were hot, and if you waited for them to cool, they stuck like iron to the bottom of the well-greased pan.  

Then I had an aha! moment.

Parchment paper!  I shaped a sheet of parchment paper as well as I could to the bottom of the pan and poured in the batter.  

Success!  The brownies don't stick at all.  

And they're going fast!

Pantry Challenge: Week Two

I should look at my previous week's Pantry Challenge update so that I can remember what I wanted to cook the next week. 

  

This is what I planned: 

Leftover Holiday Bean Soup, homemade biscuits

Manicotti (I made it awhile ago and it must be used)

Roast chicken, pumpkin bread

Apricot Pork Chops

Baked Salmon, corn relish, cabbage salad with asian ginger dressing

Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore

Pumpkin Ravioli

Salad, every day.

Other than the Baked Salmon and Leftover Holiday Bean Soup this is not what I cooked.

The salmon was yummy and with it we had a cabbage salad (thinly sliced green cabbage, grated carrots, and sliced almonds) with Asian Ginger dressing (recipe to follow).  The recipe comes from Family Feasts for $75 a Week.   You've got to check out this cookbook!  I was dubious about the recipe, but even the kids gobbled it up! 

Another day we ate Pork Chops rubbed with a Barbecue Spice Rub that is one of four Rubs - Barbecue, Mediterranean Herb, Cajun, and All-Purpose - a friend gifted me.  Mmmm.  

I made some rice with the pork chops and mixed a bit of the homemade Asian Ginger dressing into the rice while it cooked.  It flavored it beautifully.

The next day I had a ton of leftover rice.  I sauteed and browned red and green peppers - frozen from my summer garden, onions and garlic - from my summer garden, and sweet bulk italian sausage - from my summer pig, into another great dinner!  

We ate leftovers a couple of nights and soup that was hiding in the freezer.  I adore hot soup on these cold and breezy days, but I guess I made it too much and my daughter finally told me she was tired of soup!

I had to make a run to the grocery stores for some big shopping and ended up spending $217 at our big box store for assorted odds and ends - flour, organic apple juice, toilet paper, etc.  This included giant bags of dog and cat food.  Along with about $8 at the bakery thrift store, $30 for a huge hunk of cheese, and another $25 at the local grocery store for milk, a lemon, and bananas, that is our grocery bill for quite a while!  $217 + $8 + $25 + $30 = $280.  Not too shabby for a month's worth of groceries for four people.  We'll see how long I can cook meals off of this shopping trip.    

The big expenditure at our house is milk.  We can go through up to a gallon a day.  At almost $4.00 a gallon that adds up fast.  I started looking for a local dairy from whom I could buy milk because they usually sell it for about $2.00 per gallon.  Unfortunately, even if I find a dairy, I can't blog about it.  With all the hoopla about raw milk I fear the "milk nazis" could shut down any dairy I would find.  

I made a pumpkin pie out of my kakai pumpkin puree.  The pie tasted rich and pumpkiny, but not quite as sweet as an actual pie pumpkin would have yielded.  My husband, the pumpkin pie aficionado, said he liked the less sweet taste better.  I'll definitely plant this pumpkin next year!  

Asian Ginger Dressing

Makes about 1-1/2 cups

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/3 cup white vinegar

1/3 cup water

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup soy sauce

3 Tbsp. honey

2 Tbsp. sesame oil

1 Tbsp. peeled and minced, fresh ginger

1/2 tsp. salt

1. Combine all ingredients in a pint-size container with a tight fitting lid.  Shake well.

2.  Remove lid and heat jar in microwave on High 1 minute just to dissolve honey.

Cool and shake well before serving.  Store, tightly covered, in refrigerator up to 2 months.

~ from "Family Feasts for $57 a Week" by Mary Ostyn

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I usually write about the dinners I'm serving for the Pantry Challenge, but breakfasts and lunches are included in the Challenge as well.   We usually eat biscuits, eggs in some form, toast, or hot cereal of some kind, for our breakfasts  - and leftovers, or soup and sandwiches, for our lunches.  Today, to go with lunch, I'm going to try to make a homemade tomato soup using canned tomato sauce from this summer's crop.  It should make enough to last 3, 4, or even 5, days!    

Sunday Breakfast

A big Sunday breakfast is a tradition in our house.  Sometimes I make a big batch of pancakes or waffles.  This morning we ate bacon from our own pigs, homemade biscuits (recipe to follow), butter, and honey from our own bees.  In an attempt to plan ahead,  I usually make extra so that there are leftovers for breakfasts during the week.  Sometimes there just aren't any leftovers to be had!

I was lucky to get a shot of the bacon before it disappeared!

A quart jar of raw, unfiltered honey

"Never-fail" Biscuits

I've tried a number of different biscuit recipes and these are the best I've found.  They come out light and airy and the family loves them.  I'm not entirely happy about the large amount of baking powder they require and will happily take suggestions from anyone who has a good alternative recipe!

Never Fail Biscuits

~ from allrecipes.com

Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 tsp. salt

4 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. cream of tartar

2 tsp. white sugar

1/2 cup butter, chilled and diced (I learned that the trick is to dice it up pretty small)

3/4 cup milk

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450-degrees.

2.  In a large bowl, sift together dry ingredients (or just throw it all in and mix it up a little bit like I do).  Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse oatmeal.  Make a well in the center of the dry mixture and pour in the milk.  Stir until dough begins to pull together then turn out onto a lightly floured surface (it'll be kind of crumbly). 

3. Press dough together and then roll out until 3/4 inch thick. Cut into 2 inch round biscuits and place on an ungreased baking sheet. 

4. Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes or until golden. 

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I realized, as I typed out the ingredients for this recipe, that I forgot to add the cream of tartar to the above batch of biscuits!  That must be why they didn't puff up as much as usual.  They still tasted really, really good though!

  

One Ham - Four Meals

We finished the last ham before the next set of pig meat comes home.  We had most of the hams cut into ham steaks when we had last year's pigs butchered so each of our hams are pretty small - maybe 2-3 pounds with a big bone in them.  

One Ham - Four meals.

Meal number one:  Plain old baked ham with the usual sides

(after this I cut off as much meat from the bone as I easily could and cubed it)

Meal number two: Creamy Ham and Potato Soup

Meal number three: VanVoorst Ham Casserole

Meal number four: Basic Ham and Bean Soup

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Here are the recipes! 

(My kids said they're all keepers)

Creamy Ham and Potato Soup

3-1/2 c. peeled and diced potatoes

1/3 c. diced celery

1/3 c. finely chopped onion

1/2 c. chopped carrot

1 c. diced cooked ham

3-1/4 c. chicken broth

1/2 tsp. salt or to taste

1 tsp pepper

5 Tbs. butter

5. Tbs. all-purpose flour

2 cups milk

1 c. shredded cheddar cheese

Combine the potatoes, celery, onion, carrot, ham, and chicken broth in a stockpot.  Bring to a boil and cook over medium heat until potatoes are tender, about 10-15 minutes.

In a separate saucepan, melt butter over medium low heat.  Whisk in flour, and cook, stirring constantly until thick, about 1 minute.  Slowly stir in milk so that lumps don't form and until all of the milk has been added.  Continue stirring over medium low heat until it starts to thicken, 4 -5 minutes.  Add cheese,  stirring constantly until melted. 

Stir the milk mixture into the stock pot and cook until soup is heated through. 

Top with cheddar cheese, chives, and bacon if desired.  Serve immediately.

6 Servings

I found and copied this recipe when I was going down the Internet blog rabbit hole and cannot find who wrote it.  If you come across this and it's yours, please let me know so that I can credit it to you. 

VanVoorst Ham Casserole

10 oz. cooked spiral pasta

2 c. cubed cooked ham

1 c. sour cream

1 (10 oz.) can condensed cream of mushroom soup

1/2 c. shredded mozzarella cheese

1 Tbs. prepared yellow mustard

1 Tbs chopped fresh parsley

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 shredded mozzarella cheese

1 Tbs. chopped fresh parsley

Preheat oven to 350-degrees.  Grease a 2 quart casserole dish.

Mix together the ham, sour cream, mushroom soup, 1/2 c. mozzarella cheese, mustard, and 1 Tbs. parsley in a bowl until well combined.  Fold in the cooked pasta, season to taste with salt and pepper.  Spoon the mixture into the prepared casserole dish and top with 1/2 c. mozzarella cheese and 1 Tbs. parsley.

Bake in preheated oven until hot and bubbly and the topping cheese has melted and started to brown, about 30 minutes.  Let stand 5-10 minutes before serving.  

I found this recipe online at "www.allrecipes.com".  They have a fantastic application where you plug in the ingredients you have and then the site searches for recipes.   

Basic Ham and Bean Soup

1 pound dry Great Northern Beans

8 c. water

1/2 tsp. salt

1 ham hock or bone

1 c. chopped carrots

1/2 stalk celery, chopped

1 c. chopped onion

 1 tsp. minced garlic

1 tsp. mustard powder

2 bay leaves

2 cups chopped ham

1/2 tsp pepper

Rinse the beans, sorting out broken and discolored ones.  In a large pot over high heat, bring the water to a boil.  Add the salt and the beans and remove from heat.  Let beans sit in the hot water for at least 60 minutes.

After 60 minutes of soaking, return the pot to high heat and place the ham bone, carrots, celery, onion, garlic, mustard and bay leaves in the pot.  Stir well, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 60 more minutes.  

Remove ham bone and discard.  Stir in the chopped ham an simmer for 30 more minutes.  Season with pepper to taste.

- from www.allrecipes.com  (Also on allrecipes.com it's fun to look at the comments and see what modifications other people have made to the recipes.)

Here are my modifications to this recipe:  I regularly buy big bags of beans and cook them up for about 45 minutes, then drain and freeze them in quart bags (it's much cheaper, tastier, and you don't get the high amount of salt).  For this recipe I had a mix of great northern and pinto beans.  

I used my ham bone which still had on it the meat I could not easily get off.  

I cooked this soup in my crock pot!  I started it around noon and put it on high for an hour then on low for about five hours.  

When it was done cooking I pulled out the ham bone and picked off the meat.  It's a lot easier to get off after it's cooked for awhile.  Remove the bay leaves.    

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I love cooking soups and casseroles because the recipes are not really set in stone.  For example, the Basic Ham and Bean Soup calls for 1 c. chopped onion.  I had a half of an onion in my 'fridge and didn't want to run out to get another onion.  I went with whatever half an onion gave me.  The soup was still yummy.
Also, I'm pretty sure I didn't pull 4 cups of meat off this ham (which is the total amount called for in the three recipes).  I just threw in as much as I thought would taste good in the recipe and split it three ways.  The Basic Ham and Bean Soup doesn't really need a ham bone and 2 cups of chopped ham.  The bone is going to flavor it up nicely and a little bit of added meat goes a long way!    

Enjoy!

Easter Bunny Cake

The kids and I made a Easter Bunny cake for yesterday's holiday.  The cake was tasty and the kids had a great time helping to make it and enjoyed being part of the dinner preparation.   This hasn't been a tradition at our house, but it's going to become one!

We made a yellow cake for the base and I wanted an easy recipe for the frosting.  I found one that fit my requirements of needing only a few ingredients that I had on hand and easy to make.  Here it is:

Fluffy White Frosting

1 cup sugar

1/4 tsp. cream of tartar

2 egg whites

1 tsp. vanilla

Dash of salt

In a saucepan combine sugar, cream of tartar, 1/3 cup water, and dash salt.  Cook and stir until bubbly and sugar dissolves.  In a mixer bowl combine egg whites and vanilla.  Add hot sugar syrup very slowly to unbeaten egg whites while beating constantly at high speed of electric mixer about 7 minutes or till stiff peaks form.  Frosts two 8-inch or 9-inch layers or one 10-inch tube cake. (It makes plenty of frosting!)

                         ~ From Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book

This makes a wonderful, fluffy, meringue-like frosting that is soft and spreads beautifully - and it best of all, it tastes delicious!

Don't forget to hop on over to Homestead Arrival and see what's going on!



P.S. The pig's arrival has been pushed back to Wednesday.  We spent the weekend moving the fence and their shed and everything is ready for them.