Make-Ahead Healthy Cake Mixes Tutorial

Here is another tutorial from Mary's Nest. This one is for cake mixed you can store in your pantry or freezer. I would personally put mine in the freezer since we don't make cakes all that often and I can't tolerate foods that have gone even a little rancid. Also, I recommend using the usual canning lids and rings if you store yours in canning jars. I have not found the white plastic lids designed for use on canning jars to be a good, air tight seal. 

Here is the link to recipes on her page. This is where she gives the instructions on how to make the cakes later, so you will need this to print out the instructions to go with the mixes. I recommend keeping them with the mixes, as she does. Mixes Recipes and Instructions.

I am curious to see if her recipes can be used with gluten-free 1-for-1 flours. I may try a couple of them out in single cake proportions. But, then again, I may not. My life is full of good intentions that never quite make it to real life. blah. :-)

Also, as she mentions, these mixes could make nice gifts for people who bake desserts. This could be in keeping with the post from November 14th on changing your gift giving this holiday season - and, hey, why not all of next year?

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Kitchen Tip – The Dating Game

(First published Oct. 2011.)



My mom has had a habit of keeping leftovers too long sometimes, as did her mother before her and her mother before her.  After one “incident” when this didn’t work out well for my dad, he suggested that we start dating every container of leftovers before we put them in the fridge so that we would know how long they had been in there.  This happened before I got married, but I still try to keep up the habit most of the time since it is very useful to know exactly how old something is!  You just can’t remember all that stuff if you have any decent sized collection of leftovers.

As you can see from the photo, I use a part of a sticky note and put the date on it.  Sometimes they do fall off of some lids because of the texture of the plastic.  In the case of glass storage dishes with plastic lids I often put the label on the side of the dish because it sticks better to the glass.

This not only helps you not to feed your family food that is too old, but it also helps you to use up the older things first, thus giving some added direction to the usage of leftovers.  And, I admit, upon occasion I have found some things in my fridge that were way too old to be used!  :-)

By the way, the sticky notes also work for putting food in the freezer.  However, I suggest you use a piece of tape to make sure it stays on, and also add the contents as well as the date with the year so that you know what it is and how long it’s been in there.

Freezing Fresh Garlic

 

Of late, I have not been going through my fresh garlic fast enough.  I’ve had some trouble with it molding or spoiling in the jar where I keep it.  On the last batch I decided to do something I saw online somewhere.  I chopped it up quite small, put it in small canning jars and put it in the freezer.  

I only cooked with it, so I don’t know if it would work well for “fresh” use.  For my purposes the results were quite satisfactory.  I intend to do it again, as time permits.

Advantages:

1)  It was easy to guesstimate how much I needed. 
2)  I was able to remove part of the garlic without using the whole lot. 
3)  It saved time when I was actually cooking since I didn’t have to stop to chop the garlic.
4)  It tasted better than dried garlic.

Graham Crackers

My sister made some graham crackers once years ago.  They were pretty good, but quite different than “store bought”.  We never made them again.  A couple years ago or so I told a friend I’d try to find that recipe for her.  Turns out it wasn’t in the book my mom and I both thought it was in.  I found this one in a magazine I’d saved, but I’m not sure it’s the one my sister made since there were no smudges or telltale marks to show it had ever been used before. ;-)  Anyway, I finally got around to trying this recipe out this year, and here it is.

Graham Crackers

1/3 C. oil
1/2 C. honey
1 Tbs. molasses
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. salt
3 1/2 C. wheat flour (presumably meaning whole wheat)
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/3 C milk

Mix liquids first except milk.  Add dry ingredients alternately with the milk. If dough is too sticky, add more flour.  Roll into smallish walnut size balls and flatten with your hands.  Place about 1/2 an inch apart on lightly greased OR parchment paper lined cookie sheet.  Prick with a fork.  Bake a 300F until edges are slightly browned.  Cool on cookie sheets about 5 minutes before removing to wire racks.  Can be frozen in airtight containers.

Note: I added a bit of lemon juice to this recipe to try to make it taste more like the graham crackers my friend and I enjoy at a restaurant.  The change may have added some flavor, but it didn’t make these taste more like the restaurant’s variety.  These are good, not very sweet, and quite filling.

I also changed the method of rolling them.  The recipe calls for rolling them out and cutting them into squares.  The dough seemed to me to be of the sort that would stick to the surface, so I opted for rolling them into balls and flattening by hand.  It worked very well, and saved some frustration I suspect. :-)

The thousand word project: Snow Fun

A Few of My Favorite Kitchen Things – the Steamer Pot

Every kitchen needs some good tools that really work or help make work easier. I am going to try to give you some reviews on various items that I have found to be especially useful in real life. I say, “in real life” because before I was married I collected a lot of things for my hope chest – some of those things proved useful to me once I started keeping house myself. Some did not. In fact, I got rid of some things long before I ever married because I could see that they weren’t worth carrying back and forth across the country as much as my family moved. Either I didn’t figure I’d use them, or I figured I’d find something when I needed it.

If you already have a kitchen of your own, or if it’s a dream for someday when you have your own home to keep, maybe these posts will give you some ideas about what is useful and what is not. Not everyone has the same needs, but at least you may get some idea as to whether you could use a particular item.

I would call this a steamer-stew pot combination. It is stainless steel (with no non-stick coating). As you can see in the picture, the stew pot part is not invaded by the steamer part, which sits only slightly nested into the bottom. This actually makes it more useful.

We received this as a wedding gift from some friends and it is one of my favorite kitchen tools. At the time that I put it on our registry (we were only registered at Amazon.com), I think that I didn’t really anticipate using the steamer part much since I wasn’t fond of steaming vegetables. I don’t remember if it was the only model that had the size and type of pot that I wanted at the time or what. I just knew I needed a large stew pot for making soups, stews, roasts, etc. for larger groups. Since there are six adults when my family here are all eating together, this is kind of necessary for my kitchen. If I had to get a steamer with it, well, that was OK too.

I used the pot for stews and stove top cooked roasts several times and it turned out to be a good pot. Then I made a great discovery. I could cook meat (and potatoes) in the bottom of the pan and steam the vegetables in the steamer part all at once, thus getting the whole meal cooked on one burner! (Plus it added flavor to the veggies and vice versa.) Wow. What a great idea! :-) That was a real plus.

Then last spring we had an abundance of greens (that was before the real drought hit Central Texas). I needed to help out by processing them for later use since there was too much to eat at the time and the weather was getting hot (not good for most greens). Back in the day when my family still used a microwave, Mom used to blanch greens for freezing by putting them in the freezer bags and putting them in the microwave for some seconds till they got warm and started to wilt. Since we no longer use microwaves, it occurred to me that maybe I could just steam the greens in my steamer and then put them in bags and freeze them. This sounded a lot better than the traditional dipping method.

Well, it worked great! Bringing the water to a boil first, I’d put a batch of greens in and let them steam for a few minutes on one side then turn them over with tongs and let them steam on the other side briefly. Then I carefully put two servings of greens into each bag, let them finish cooling, labeled them and put them in the freezer. I could do several batches of greens with the same batch of water. It turned out beautifully. :-)

(Side Note: The rich broth left in the pan after this is done can be used as a soup base or an “energy drink”. There are a lot of nutrients there, as the color indicates.)

So, a good combination stew pot-steamer is a very useful tool if you:

- cook for larger groups.

- like to conserve energy.

- process large quantities of greens or other vegetables that could be steamed before freezing.

We have used this pot to make large amounts of East African style tea. :-) A pot like this is also handy for canning things like jams or jellies.

Cons -

The only problem I’ve had with this particular model is that the handle on the lid, which is metal, gets hot to the touch. I have to be careful to use a hot pad or over mitt whenever I’m cooking in it. However, I think I can put the lower pot with the lid on it in the oven because all the parts are stainless steel or glass, which could be useful at some time.

Freezing Food for Easy Use --- and to Save Money

Since I usually am only cooking for two people these days, but sometimes for 4 or 6 or more, it is good to have a flexible method for freezing some food.  It occurred to me that it would be handy to freeze things like they do for commercial frozen food where you can reach in the bag and grab just what you want, or measure out the exact amount you need.  It also means you don’t have to take the time to thaw a large quantity when you are only going to need a couple of servings.  So, I started working on it and found some things that freeze well this way and work for my cooking habits.

The first step is to lay the food your planning to freeze out on a cookie sheet covered with waxed paper.  You may skip the paper, but it will be harder to get them off.

[At right is a tray of kielbasa type sausages which we buy in quantity at Costco (a membership warehouse).  These can go straight from the freezer to the frying pan or into water to boil.  Cook over medium heat till heated through.  Raw sausages will take longer to cook than pre-cooked.]

Step Two – Place the trays in your freezer (in such a way that they won’t fall out when you open the door), and leave them there till the food is frozen solid enough to be moved to bags without fusing together again. 

Step Three – Move the food to plastic zip freezer bags marked with the content and date and store in the freezer.

Since the food is loose and not all stuck together you can take out as much as you need at a time.  This really works well for certain foods and makes a healthy “fast food” “repertoire” for you to choose from.

Here are baby carrots that I froze this way.  They may freeze from raw OK, but to speed up cooking I put as many as I want to freeze into a 2 qt. pot and almost cover them with water.  Then I bring them to a boil and turn off the burner allowing the carrots to sit in the water till they cool enough to handle.  This will partially cook them, but they will still be pretty firm.  I spread them on the lined cookie sheet, freeze them and later break them apart and put them into the freezer bag.  (I also save the broth from cooking them to drink as it contains added nutrients over plain water.  You could also use it for soup base.) 

To use these I usually add them to a dish of food that I’m cooking towards the end of the cooking time.  By the time they are thawed and the dish is done the carrots are done too.  For firmer carrots, add them closer to the end.  For softer, add them earlier.

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You can freeze serving-size strips of raw meat (pre-cut, or cut by you) also by laying them close together, but not touching, on the sheets.  Once they are frozen and bagged they can be used without pre-thawing them as they will cook quite fast.  You can remove just the number you need for the meal without thawing a whole steak or roast.

Individual pieces of raw chicken can also be frozen this way for quicker thawing or immediate use in stews and such.  (Do not try to bake it without thawing it first.)

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  Lastly, you can freeze broth for future use by pouring it in muffin tins and freezing it (don’t use the waxed paper for this).  It is important to freeze till they are solid!  Once they are frozen solid remove by popping them out of the cups one at a time.  Only run them under water (on the bottom of the pan) if necessary, being careful to only do one cup at a time and having your hand there to catch the frozen “cubes”.  Place them in the bag and return to the freezer as quickly as possible to avoid them melting and sticking together. 

You can either do an approximate measure or you can use an actual measuring cup to measure the broth the same way every time so you have an exact idea of how much broth is in each “cube”.  You can thaw and add this to recipes or add it directly to soups, stews, etc. when you need more liquid.  It is very handy, and it means you can buy broth in larger quantities and not have to worry about using it up before it spoils.  Or you can use up your homemade broth without it spoiling.  (Homemade broths can be used to make gravy as well, though I don’t recommend this with the store bought broths since they usually lack flavor in my opinion.)