BACK TO THE BASIC INGREDIENTS OF COOKING: Bouillons, Powders, Dairy and Labeling

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.

IT’S ALL GREEK TO ME

When I was in public school I was fascinated by ancient history.  Mainly the Greeks and Romans.  The Seven Ancient Wonders of the World held great fascination to me.  The Greek gods of mythology  were some serious folks, fascinating to read about.

In high school I had a Greek pen pal, it was interesting to exchange letters with a person overseas and get a peek into his every day life.  Remember this was long before computers were  common place.  The internet did not exist then.

As time went on I became more interested in day to day life here in the USA, US history and cooking good foods of all types. My fascination for things Greek turned more to olives, and other Greek foods such as cabbage rolls, gyros and most recently Greek yogurt and thus the reason for today’s post. 

My son and I have fallen in love with Greek yogurt as a quick breakfast or snack, it might have something to do with all those episodes of “Burn Notice” we watch.  After all they are constantly grabbing a cup of yogurt out of the fridge to eat while discussing a plan.  Strange you never see them putting any yogurt into that refrigerator.  Is it actually a self filling yogurt machine?  Hmmmm, have to check on that more in the future.

But back to the subject at hand Greek yogurt making.  Now my husband is not a fan as yogurt as a snack, unless it’s the frozen type they serve at so many stores across this nation either in waffle cones or cups.  So while learning to make and use yogurt I better include how to make the frozen yogurt as well. 

So my adventure into yogurt making begins.  I am blessed to have a very nice Stx 600 dehydrator that came with the yogurt/bread proofing door/drawer for it.  This will enable me to control the heat and let the yogurt cook at a constant temperature.  I know you can do yogurt in the crockpot, in a yogurt maker, in the oven or even on a heating pad too.  There are lots of recipes on the web for doing that, however the problem with crockpot yogurt and some of the other methods, I’ve read, is the temperatures on these often vary greatly and in order to make good yogurt you need a very controlled heat. 

Since the Styx 600 has a thermostat and is actually set-up for yogurt making, complete with a yogurt setting, I decided that was the best way to go for me. 

After much research and discussion I went with the Basic Greek Yogurt Recipe for yogurt that calls for using whole milk and live active cultures from grocery purchased yogurt for the first batch.  Once I have a successful batch I will use my own yogurt for the culture for future batches.  

You will notice when you  link over to my Patterson Pantry Recipes Blog that I have included using powdered milk in the recipe notes if you prefer to go that route. 

For current usage I use the whole milk because after doing much research we discovered it was cheaper to purchase a gallon of whole milk than to purchase powdered milk and reconstitute it for cooking.  I do, however, keep powdered milk in my food storage for when I am out of milk, or want to add a little extra protein to a dish without adding excess liquid.

Now on to the yogurt making experiment.  I spent much of the first day doing research on the web, gleaning this bit of info and that recipe idea from hither and yon.  I learned a lot, some of which I will share with you here.

1.     It is better to start with your milk at room temperature so that you spend less time heating it.  It is also better to have your fresh yogurt culture starter at room temperature so that when you add it to the heated milk you don’t bring the milk temperature down too far.  It also blends in easier to the warm milk.

2.     When using gelatin in some of the recipes it should always be softened in water first.  This aids in getting it well mixed in.

3.     If you are adding powdered milk to liquid milk for added protein in your yogurt you should add it to the top of your milk and let it set for about 10 minutes before stirring it in so that it will rehydrate to some extent.

4.     If when you add powdered milk, or powdered yogurt cultures to your yogurt ingredients lumps form don’t panic, these will dissolve as you heat the yogurt mixture.

5.     If you adding jelly, jam or frozen or canned fruit to yogurt you can add it safely in with the milk as you are originally heating it.  However, fresh, and possibly dried fruit may contain enzymes that would cause the yogurt to curdle if you do it then.  So do not add those until after the yogurt is made.

6.     You can freeze leftover plain yogurt with live cultures to make future batches of yogurt in small containers and the cultures will go dormant.  Thaw slowly and naturally before making your next batch of yogurt. So invest in one small cup and then between it and the yogurt you make in the future you will always have live cultures.  Thus a $1 investment can save you a lot of money in the long run.  Sometimes, if your yogurt starts being too tart, you will need to invest in a new fresh starter.

7.     Fruit on the bottom and sundae style yogurt are basically the same animal, the only difference is you dump the fruit on the bottom yogurt out in a bowl so that the fruit is on the top and thus a sundae.

8.     Frozen yogurt is not just yogurt that has been frozen, there are a few extra steps in there, but not many.   Some recipes for this call using plain gelatin in the mixure while others merely add flavoring, sweeteners and the use of a freezing method.

9.     99% of the “how to’s” are for just plain yogurt, which can be a bit tart if your starting cultures are not very fresh.  Most of those will say you can add sweetener and flavorings at serving time.  Which you can do, but often this will cause the yogurt to thin out, which is less than desirable.  But with some research and combining my own cooking knowledge I have included recipes for flavored, fruit and yes even chocolate yogurt, and of course, chocolate frozen yogurt in my recipe blog.

10. For years I've heard mention of yogurt cheese, but never saw any in the stores.  Or so I thought.  Guess what Greek yogurt and yogurt cheese are basically the same thing.  They are made the exact same way.  The only difference in the two is you might strain the cheese longer.  I plan on experimenting with mixing herbs and such with the yogurt before straining it so the dried materials will rehydrate as it strains and flavor the cheese thoroughly.  I can't wait to have crackers and homemade yogurt cheese!

11.  I found a very good website/blog on yogurt and kefier making and using and now receive their newsletter.  If such a newsletter is of interest to you go to:  yogurtfromhome.com/   I am in no way affiliated with them.

12.  The drained whey from making Greek yogurt or yogurt cheese is good to feed to your barnyard critters.

So the next step was the "where did I put it? " step. You know the one where you put something up for safe keeping, and then can't remember where you put it?  Well that hit big time on Mother's Day when I had the goal in mind to make the first batch of yogurt on that day- -news flash it didn't happen that day.  I got too busy writing this blog on my "day off" from house work and such. 

As anyone who reads my Patterson's Princess Plan blog will tell you I am fed up with having trouble finding things so I'm slowly, oh so slowly marching through this house organizing, inventorying and other wise getting my "stuff" together.  Unfortunately the yogurt door for my dehydrator was not one of the items organized yet.  I looked on and off all day for it.  The bad thing is I actually found it where I thought I'd put it, but something had been placed on top of it and silly me didn't think to move those mylar bags to look in under them until the third trip to that storage cabinet.  Yes, that unit is now on the get organized and inventoried soon list. 

The following step was to dust off the dehydrator, sterilize the jars I'd be using and other get it together items before I started.  That is a habit I developed years ago.  When I'm preparing to cook, or preserve food,  I gather all the ingredients and tools needed to make it together first, just in case I don't have something on hand.  Luckily that was not the case this time. I had everything and got it all together on Mother's Day to start the process the next morning.

Monday morning I was moving slow, so it was nearly noon before I set the milk and yogurt starter out on the stove to come to room temperature as I went about my daily chores.  I finally got around to starting the making of the yogurt around 1:00 pm.

Just as my milk was about to get to the 185 degree mark I heard a strange knocking in the utility room.  Since I had the washer and dishwasher both running I thought it best to check it out. It took me about a split second to know what had happened.

The water company had said they would be replacing our new meter with an even newer one around the end of the month.  I guess they consider the 13th to be the end of the month.  With no warning, on a busy Monday they had shut my water off and yanked my meter.  It was nearly two hours before I had water back.  Thank goodness I'd done all my sterilizing of jars and such the day before.  I will admit I was still a bit miffed, and I let it be known, that they didn't even have the courtesy to knock on the door or honk from the safety of their truck if they are afraid of our geese and dogs (smart people are) to let me know their plans.  They just went straight to meter that is down behind our barn in the woods where I couldn't even see them and do it.

As soon as the milk was to the cool down stage I marched theough the woods to tell them they were inconsiderate louts.  They were, of course, defensive.  Claimed they didn't know which house the meter went to.  That didn't work since there is only the one house in this area, but enough on that.

Back at the house I started pre-heating the dehydrator.  This is when I actually realized that only 1/2 pint jars were going to work for yogurt in it using the supplied door.  Luckily that was what I had sterilized.  I was also thrilled to see it would hold exactly 20 of those 1/2 pint jars.  Turned out I had 19 1/2 pints worth of yogurt mixture made up.   Boy did I luck out on that!  Note to self, in the future check this information out BEFORE starting.

A dehydrator, like the Excalibur, that has a solid door on it would work for any size jar.

Next I prepped the jars while waiting for the milk to cool to the point where I could add the yogurt culture.

While I do cook with  yogurt I didn't want 19 half pints of plain yogurt with this first batch--maybe in the future.  So in nine of the jars I put about 2 teaspoons of either cherry preserves, strawberry jam, or orange marmalade (3 jars each) in the bottom.  Then I topped it off with the plain yogurt liquid.  If all goes well this should make fruit on the bottom regular yogurt.

Of the remaining ten I plan on making Greek Yogurt or yogurt cheese out of nine of them and keep the remaining half pint as plain, since I have nearly a quart of plain yogurt in the fridge already.  This last 1/2 pint will be used as starter for future batches.  Dh will have to wait for frozen yogurt later in the week, because I need six cups of plain yogurt strained to be three cups of Greek yogurt to make the frozen yogurt.

In the future if I should want to make a larger container, say a quart to make strictly plain Greek Yogurt out of I will simply use my flexible cutting board taped to the front of the dehydrator to seal the front when I take more than two trays out. 

I used my canning funnerl to fill the sterilized jars.  There was exactly 19 half pints.  How great is that? 

Once the jars were all filled I filled the shelf in the dehydrator, which had been pre-heating for an hour then set the timer.  One of the great things about this dehydrator is it will automatically shut off at the exact time you tell it to.  So I can go to bed tonight with it running and removed the "hopefully" completed cooled down yogurt first thing in the morning.  I'm thinking orange marmalade yogurt for breakfast!

It's the next morning now and I am proud to say this experiment was a HUGE success!  It set up perfectly, it's not too tart or too sweet and the orange marmalade is perfect in it for a light and wonderful fruit flavor.

Later today I'll start draining some of the plain to make it into yogurt cheese.  I'm thinking I'll flavor it with dill for a cracker spread. 

Jan who can't believe how simple the whole process was in OK