I hope this
series is helping some of you. I’ll
start this post by discussing labeling suggestions on how to and the importance
of it.
I am
currently am working on rebuilding many of my Master Mixes because I have some
how let my made up ones get extremely low.
Of course there will be posts on doing that as well, be prepared for
that series.
Labeling is
probably one of the most important steps of food storage. Not only what an item is, but when it was
made, and how to use it. Of course a
label for any product may not need as much information on it as another.
Examples
of this are:
Italian Seasoning would only
need the name and date made.
While homemade peanut butter slice and bake cookies would
need the name, date, how thick to slice them, cooking temperature and time.
Dry mixes
like Quick Mix Master Mix would need an equivalent
for what would be considered a packet of it, so 2 1/3 cups equals one
packet/box.
It is very
tempting to short cut on labeling or not do it at all, because you think you will
remember the Brownie Mix is in the canning
jar and the Chocolate Pudding and Pie Mix is in the
recycled jar with the blue lid. But will
others know that? Will you remember that
six months from now? They look smell and
taste very similar. Trust me, Chocolate
Pudding and Pie Mix does NOT make good brownies.
Don’t ask me how I know.
What is the
best way to do these labels? That is a personal decision. I use three methods.
1. Permanent Marker: When I am sealing
the mix/cookies in Foodsaver or mylar bags I write directly on the bag, generally
on the part I would cut off to open the bag so I can reuse the bag later.
2. File Folder Labels: These are cheap
and self adhesive. I generally use these
for temporary labeling for leftovers or what have you. I do use a permanent marker to do the writing
on the label.
3. For my day to day mixes I recently
purchased on a great sale the Brother PTouchlabeler. Because these jars will be used
over and over this more permanent label looks better as a canister label. You can add picture coding if you like.
Whatever
method you use please label clearly.
So let’s
move on to the making your own cooking basics.
First up is bouillon and powders, yes bouillon those delightful little
cubes, flakes, powders etc that you grab in a hurry when you don’t have time to
make a good broth or stock, or the jar of cherished goodness in your freezer
froze and burst leaving you nothing but glass shards or the zipper bag you froze in
leaked out when you thawed it.
One great
advantage of making your homemade broth/stock into bouillon is STORAGE SPACE!
None of us ever has enough storage space in our freezer for quarts and quarts
of homemade stock.
The second
advantage of homemade bouillons is you can cut down or eliminate salt and
msg. Not to mention some of the “other
stuff” that is in some bouillons or canned broths.
Another
advantage is there is no limit to the amount of flavors you can make beyond the
basic beef, chicken/turkey,
or vegetable bouillon you could have on hand
pork/ham bouillon for beans, fish bouillon for chowders, any type of meat that
has good bones you can roast and/or boil down can be turned into stock/broth
and then turned into bouillon. If you
cook a lot of venison, then make venison
bouillon.
Not to be
left behind in the variety bouillon category homemade vegetablebouillon/powder is also limitless. Turn
the bounty of your garden, a great sale into vegetablebouillon/powder. Any veggie or a
combination of them will work. It’s not
all that hard to do.
Don’t forget
you can do this with wild edibles you forage
for too.
There are
numerous recipes on the web for making the bouillons, but these are the
simplest ones that I use and they don’t require me to purchase nutritional yeast
or gelatin. Less is more in my book, so
I make bouillon powder with the fruits and vegetable instead of cubes for our
home usage.
While you
might not have a regular need for fruitbouillon powder you could make it just like the vegetable bouillon powder to
add to smoothies, pies, cookies, cakes, sauces the list is endless. You can also combine it with the veggies to
make an even bigger variety for smoothies.
One of the
great things about vegetable and fruit powders is you can often use the parts
of the produce that you would normally discard.
The thick tough stalks of asparagus, broccoli, the peels of fruit and
tomatoes (which is technically a fruit), over ripe produce, the thick veins of
spinach, chard, and other greens. Less
waste and more nutritious food for your family. It is also a great way to sneak
in fruits and vegetables your family won’t normally try.
Now on to
dairy products. You can replace a lot of
cans, bottles, jars, etc with a single box or container of powdered milk, be it
nonfat or whole milk (generally in the ethnic foods area of most major grocery
stores).
Something I
would like to mention here. All the time
I was growing up, right up to a few years ago I was taught that powdered/dry milk
was always cheaper to use than buying milk by the gallon. However, about 2009 we, meaning my husband
and I, sat down with a calculator and discovered quite to our amazement that
purchasing dried milk did not always save money, in fact in some instances,
depending on the brand it was far more expensive to use if you were just
reconstituting it to use as a liquid.
Using it for making the other ingredients listed below it still came out
cheaper for us to do. Plus it really helps with storage problems.
Of course
you just reconstitute the milk per the package instructions and get your daily
milk to drink, but around here that could get me in a whole lot of
trouble. My family can taste the
difference, no matter how slight it is no matter how I try and hide it. But in a pinch we have drank it very
cold.
I do cook
with it a lot, in my master mixes, gravies, breads etc. Those don’t bother my family at all.
Nor does it
when I make these basics when cooking.
EvaporatedMilk: Use this recipe to
replace evaporated milk in any recipe calling for it.
Sweetened Condensed Milk Non-cook: Oh the luxury of it. Simple to make, use it wherever you need the
canned stuff. There are two different ways to make it SweetenedCondensed Milk Cooked, slowly heat it more and turn it into caramelly
goodness.
Another milk
item made with powdered milk that has two ways of making is buttermilk. As in my post “A Single Quart of Buttermilk”
shows I prefer using live culture buttermilk version,
but both work equally as well and you don’t always have starter buttermilk on
hand.
Another
every day dairy product that can be easily made with powdered milk is yogurt. If you have read my previous post “It’s All Greek to Me” you already know I use whole liquid milk and my dehydrator to make
multiple jars of yogurt at a time.
However, not everyone has a dehydrator, or they prefer a non-fat version of yogurt. It that is you then you might prefer the powdered milk recipe for yogurt.
There are
also various cheeses you can make using powdered milk, many require Rennet aka:
Junket but some are super simple like Parmesan. I’ll leave making other cheeses to a
different post another time since they do involve rennet and other ingredients
and today’s post is about simple powdered milk recipes.
One final
item that you can easily make with powdered milk is sweetened whipped cream.
I hope you
find some recipes that work for you in this post. As always click on the hyper links to get the
recipes and to view the other posts mentioned above.