The World Within our Walls. Getting ahead with meals.

We have talked about how important meals are to the comforts of home.  Not just filling bellies but the smell of cooking when family come in the door, meal times together. Celebrations.  Soup on a cold night.  There are so many beautiful family moments around the table.

Achieving all these meals is another thing!   There is shopping, budgeting, menu planning, leaning new recipes, using up left overs,  staying ahead of life little surprises like visitors, illness, storms and simply sometimes running out of time.

I am a member of quite a few Facebook groups and blogs and one thing I continually see are posts by people who are simply out of food.   They have children to feed and they have run out of money before pay day and the pantry isn't in good shape either.
Then of course there is illness and other things that go wrong where even if the fridge is full we are too sick to do anything about it!  There are too many reasons we might fail to get dinner on the table to list!   It happens.  It has probably happened to us all at some time.

If you are new here I have lots of posts on Pantries and Preparedness in my index.  I have spent a few years now building up my pantry and supplies so I always have lots of meals I can make even if the shops were shut.

Having a baking day or a baking afternoon is a great way to get ahead with meals. 

And use stuff up!  This is a post with some handy recipes.... The money saving baking day.

It was with the help of Laine that I really changed my shopping habits drastically.  I went from going to the supermarket and getting what I needed and coming home to shopping many different shops, markets and locations every month and menu planning from what I had, what needs using up and what great deals I have found. It kind of flipped grocery shopping upside down!  Shopping this way roughly doubled my stock or halved my bill whichever way you want to look at it.
You can read this post and Laine's menu planning here.

Once I got going on menu planning I developed a system where I keep a list on the fridge of all the ready to go meals I have in the fridge, freezer and pantry currently.  This list is always changing but I like to have at least thirty meals listed.
My pantry itself holds more possible basic meals but my list is usual meals I either have ready to thaw or cook from the fridge.   These are good backups but I also want actual ready meals too, meals that just need thawing with no work involved for times I might be sick or unable to think!
Once I did this it became both a challenge and a form of security.
All the time I am working on building up my list!

During a week I will cross off things as I have used them.   When I shop or do some cooking I will love to add all the meals to my list and get a few more!   Trying to do this has made me see many more ways to stretch a meal, use things up, create a new meal with left overs....  save something over for another meal. I will think about how I can add a meal to my list!
The list also stops me from forgetting something at the bottom of the freezer and later finding mystery packages that need carbon dating to identify!  So less is wasted!

When I cook up some spaghetti sauce this is a chance to freeze a few batches for later.

I will also make up a Lasagna. 

When it is cold it slices neatly and then you can freeze single portions. 

These are so handy! 

Saturday night Chloe came to watch the Royal Wedding.  I had a huge crockpot going full of pumpkin soup and I made pumpkin scones (gf) as I love soup and Chloe loves this pumpkin one.   Andy ate left over roast chicken pieces and scones.  This was all in front of the TV where we were snuggled up!   It wasn't a normal meal but everyone was happy.
Last night I had more soup and I heated up a Spaghetti Bolognese pasta bake for Andy.  I had one individual portion frozen from another time.  He loved that and I loved my soup.   Sunday nights are often a use it up night.  This is a breakthrough for me as years ago I though everyone needed to have the same thing for dinner (for some reason) and now if there are a few things left over then we will have a meal of this and that.

Other ways to build up some spare meals are to simply always double a recipe if you possibly can and put away a meal.

 I have had it where people keep coming back for more regardless of how much they just ate.  (Years ago I had this problem although not now.)    I learned to set it aside immediately and put it out of the way.  

Add a side to a dish that can be stretched to two meals.  And/or add a soup or a desert that will stretch it further into "enough".

To make up casseroles in the slow cooker and bulk them up with lots of veggies.   The left overs then make the most wonderful pie fillings.   Keep some puff pastry in the freezer.   Pies freeze as perfect instant meals.  You can make family sized pies or individual ones.  Little ones in muffin trays are lovely for children.   Pies are great emergency meals!

Have a use it up night and create a pizza, fried rice, soup or something with all your odds and ends left over.  Make extra and fill the lunch boxes for tomorrow.

Serve up lots of left overs Indian style in little bowls,  add some rice, bread, salad or something to make it go further.

Have a toasted sandwiches,  eggs on toast night.   Toasties and soup used to be one of my favourite dinners.

Save ingredients for another time.  Mimi mentions this... be aware of what is enough and save something for another time.  Over time you get extra meals this way.

Half your expensive ingredient and double the rest.   i.e. if I am making something like Blueberry Muffins I will use a single recipe amount of the berries and I will double the rest.  Same with chocolate chips etc.  No one notices, you just get more!   This recipe will use up a tiny bit of anything and turn it into a tray of muffins....  Miracle Muffins.  (sweet or savoury)

When you have an abundance have a cook up.   These were cobblers I made in my last house when I had lots of apricots.  I would just make as many as would fit in the oven....

They were great on soup nights!

The same with baking....  if dinner is a smaller meal I have fruit cake on hand to offer.

Then I am glad I had a baking day and stored these away!

Right now I can get extra meals by having a quick look in the fridge and crisper.  I can freeze some portions of soup giving me a couple of emergency meals.  I know I have two zucchini to use.  I will see what else.... then make a plan to use these up in the next few days.   Doing this I very often get a couple of extra creative meals.  I can build my list!  

The slow cooker is a big help to me as when you make soup, a casserole, curry etc you can add so many things that are left overs...  my pumpkin soup on the weekend had a bunch of broccolini stalks thrown in.   My last casserole had a few tomatoes added that needed to be used.   Spaghetti sauce is a place you can hide all kinds of grated veggies.   So is meatloaf, sausage rolls, hamburgers, rissoles... you can fill all of these with veggies that need to be sued up and greatly bulk out your meat.  (and also trick kids who are being difficult!)

How do you speech ingredients and make more meals from what you have?

Do you have tricks to get ahead and save?   

I think our Mum's and Grandmas were experts at this!   My Nan used to make a tomato bake Nans Tomato Pie  that consisted of zucchini, onion, tomato, bread and cheese topping.  She also make great stuffing!   These were served with roast meals.  I LOVED them both.  It took me years to realise she was stretching the meat much further by all the sides she served! 

Other cultures do this wonderfully... the English add Yorkshire Puddings.

Asian cultures tend to add lots of little bowls of sides and the meat part is actually quite small but it goes such a long way!  You have wonderful sauces and condiments, rice and veggies... the meat portion goes a mile! 

We can learn a lot from this!

However you achieve it having meals to fall back on when you need them adds a lot of peace and security to your home.  I look at my list on the fridge and think that actually when I shop I need nothing.  The only money I will spend is on absolutely fantastic deals.  With luck these will get me further ahead!

I hope you have a wonderful week!  I have lots of plans including a further afield shopping day and seeing Hilde.... this always builds up my pantry. xxx

Gluten Free Sour Dough.

Last week I experimented a lot with converting my sour dough starter to gluten free flour.  I know a lot of you are on gluten free diets and even if not you are likely to know someone who is.   Let me tell you... gluten free baking is a very welcome gift to anyone not eating wheat!

I was very doubtful that this would work!  But it does!
My original starter came as a dried starter from Nanna Chel.   This is aa regular starter from wheat flour.   You can read how to start a dry starter and make your first bread here on my post Getting starter with Sour dough.   This covers how to build up, feed and grow your starter.
I have never made a starter from scratch so I can't help there but it should also be possible to start one in GF flour.   I always feared a science experiment gone wrong though so having a good starter given to me was easier!

To get a GF starter I took a little bit of what I had, I used less than a quarter of a cup and fed it gluten free flour.  At first it was really small so I gave it a quarter of a cup of flour and a quarter cup of water and stirred it in.  I did this twice a day for two days.  I soon saw tiny bubbles.  As it grew I fed it a bit more and on the third day it started to get quite bubbly and healthy looking.  Just like old times!   By day four I had quite a lot and it was really bubbly and puffy.  When I stirred it the bubbles were crazy!  It was just like regular starter, bubbly, puffy, stretchy... smells a bit sour and yeast like.

On day five I thought ok I have enough to make bread.   Now this bread is still going to contain a tiny amount of gluten from the little bit I started out with... by now it is a tiny percent.  For a celiac I would still not consider this safe but for someone intolerant we are getting pretty good by now.  This is your call.... over time you are going to have a tinier and tinier percentage of gluten in there,  at this point I have kept using it and feeding it so I am now feeding it is safe to call mine gluten free.

The first tries I learned a few things.  I found the bread will rise well.  But normally you would let your dough rise then knead it again and then put it into your pans to rise before baking your bread.  This failed.  It didn't rise that second time.  I decided, fine, from now on I will let it rise in the pans then bake and this worked.  So ONE rise only worked for me.

I used what I had learned baking so much sour dough.  Yeast loves gluten.  And its not getting any of that.... but yeast also loves WARMTH, HUMIDITY,  and PROTEIN.  So to my original bread mix I added all these things.   For the protein I added a desert spoon (or three heaps teaspoons) of powdered milk and one egg.  I also decided to use all the rising power I could muster ad used a teaspoon of baking powder and I used gluten free SR flour mix.  All these things somehow gave me decent airy bread!

So  this is my basic bread recipe....
Take two or three cups of good bubbly starter. Remember to have put some aside for future batches and feed that too.
Make your sponge.   A sponge is when you feed up your starter with a big feed to get it super bubbly!
You must have a bubbly starter then a good bubbly sponge.  No bubbles or low bubbles will not succeed.

You add a full cup of your gluten free flour and a full cup of water to your starter and give it a big stir.
I left mine an hour as it was super bubbly and happy.
When you are happy with the bubbles add your basic bread mix.
I added a pinch of salt,
a big blob of olive oil,
1 egg,
1 spoon of honey,
1 big spoon of powdered milk,
3 cups of gluten free SR flour.
1 teaspoon baking powder.
I set in my mix master to knead.
You will always have varying amounts of starter so add a bit more flour if you need to. You are looking for a good dough not too wet. Think play doh!

Line two loaf pans.  (or one really big one) Put your dough in and put it somewhere slightly warm to rise.  It should at least double in size.
Then bake as you would normal bread,  mine were about 25 minutes.

That is it!   Obviously you can use your own favourite bread recipe.  I would just suggest the egg, powdered milk and baking powder as additions as you are tying to compensate for lack of gluten!

It smelled like bread, sliced beautifully and tastes like bread.  Weirdly it is super white which is the give away.  But as far as I have tasted this is good gf bread.
And the exciting bit to me is I can use this mix to make Naan bread, flat breads, pizza bases.... all so exciting to have!

I also think this will work to make scrolls which are great for work and school lunches.
If you are cooking both regular and gf then just have two starters running and make up a gf batch of everything.   Then no one is missing out.
Given the huge prices of gluten free cooking in the stores this could be a massive saving.

I did also make GF Raisin Bread.
To my sponge I added 2 tablespoons of milk powder,  1 and a half teaspoons of cinnamon,  3 tablespoons of raw sugar, 1 egg, 2 tablespoons of soft butter,  1 cup each of raisins, chopped apricot and sultanas (you could use 3 cups of any dried fruits you like) and 3 cups SR GF flour, one teaspoon baking powder.
I mixed it up adding the dried fruit last.  Form into two loaf tins, let rise until doubled and bake.
This also worked and sliced so nicely ready for toasting.   I guess you could also make this up as buns. Or scrolls... then ice.

Meanwhile I have fed and grown the starter I retained.  Now it is asleep in the fridge.
I hope this gives you the confidence to take some starter and just feed it Gluten Free flour.  It works!  I have used Aldi GF flour.  As far as I can see GF flours are usually a mix of flours such as rice flour.
The softness and puffiness of a yeast dough lends itself to so many things and is just different to cake like mixes.   The stretchiness, bread smell and bubbles give you that bread texture and crust too.

I think you have to experiment.   I would say use any recipes you have loved and just factor in some substitutes of things you know yeast likes.... some protein,  some warmth...  and in spite of no gluten it still has food.  At the end of the day you are dealing with a living thing.  We all live in different climates and temperature and humidity play a part.  Also knowing how dough should feel etc. is something you have to try.  So be prepared to experiment a little bit.   The internet is full of recipes and help.  Look up a website called Cultures for Health.  They have a series of free books to download and one of these is about Gluten Free Sourdough bread making.   Once you have a sour dough starter you can make anything and never have to buy yeast again!  You have your own yeast farm!   I have other sour dough recipes and information if you look to the index and follow Sour Dough.

I hope this helps someone and helps the budget.  Over the next weeks I will post how I went with Naan Bread and pizza etc.

This week I have the cleaning bug.   Meals are easy as I am using the pesto I made and some of my spaghetti sauce I froze.   I hope your week is going well! xxx

The World Within our Walls. Food on the table.

We have been talking about the world we create at home, the world within our walls.    Our efforts to make our homes nice are all building up our nests!   The wise woman builds her home and there are so many ways to do this!

Mary sent me these gorgeous photos. 

Her husband took them in their garden. 

I thought they are so perfect! 

No matter how lovely we have things everyone needs warmth and nourishment!  Walking in the door to the smell of a meal cooking... nothing is better.  I love winter when it is cold outside and the family can walk in to the warm and to a hot meal.  We have all experienced the relief of a bowl of soup on a cold day.  A good meal at the end of a long working day.  Meal times together with the family.

Lots of our good memories are based around family together and meals.  When we were little Nan used to cook for us a lot.  She always had soup on.  She supplied cakes and biscuits, scones and slices.  For many years Nan cooked a big roast lunch for after Church on Sunday.  We would all gather, her kitchen table was huge!  It was wonderful.  That was the best table ever!

Now it is Mum who has a big table and we all gather around.  Mum's table seats fourteen but sometimes we have more family than that and then we set up a second table.  Roasts with lots of vegetables and sides followed with pudding or pavlova are the usual meals at this table.

If you think about your most wonderful family and food memories I bet the food wasn't fancy.  Many times we remember something delicious but it wasn't necessarily  anything spectacular,  it might have been something simple but we remember how it made us feel.  

Nan's meals were beautiful.  They were all kinds of roasted meats, gravy, roast veggies, mashed potatoes, scones and soups.  She was very good on sponges and cakes.

When I was little I loved when Mum made pancakes,  fried rice, open grilled cheese sandwiches...  tuna mornay.   I loved these!    I got cup cakes in my lunch box.

Mini's beautiful preserves from her kitchen. 

Other memories I have are not specific i.e. the memory is the house smelled of cooking.  Or there always being something to eat after school.   Mum always in the kitchen!

Cooking does not have to be fancy!  It needs to be wholesome.  

Mimi's packaged and ready to go baking. 

Gorgeous! 

Today is the first really cooler day we have had.   Being Autumn I have jumped at the chance to make soup!  I love soup!   One of the biggest helps to me for many years is the slow cooker.  Last night I loaded up my biggest cooker with pumpkin, sweet potatoes and onion and I only had to flick the switch this morning and my soup is on.   

At the end I take out some pumpkin as I want to make scones.   Also maybe some for Scarlett.   Then the rest will be blended with chicken stock. I add turmeric to my soups for an extra blast of goodness.

Pies ready to add to my freezer have always been so handy to me.

My gluten free sour dough  starter now looks like perfectly normal starter so this morning I made half of it into the sponge to make bread.  That is looking really bubbly now so in a minute I can go and make dough.  That will be rising (well I hope!) during the day while I run errands etc.   So tonight I can bake a loaf and see how it turns out... hopefully this will be hot out of the oven just as the soup is ready.    Getting things started in the morning is just the biggest help.  

Beautiful baking from Maria's kitchen.

I know her Grandchildren already associate her with beautiful meals!

I started writing recipes into a cookbook,  cutting clipping and sticking them in when I was a teenager.  Since then I have filled many books with things I would like to try,  Nan's and Mum's recipes and pictures I think are inspiring.   When the girls were little I had one of those cook everything cookbooks.  It was the Nursing Mothers Cookbook and everything in it worked, was easy and had simple ingredients.   These old books are the best!  Another famous one is the CWA cookbook.   They were just recipes from members that worked.  They were not daunting.  Truly wonderful!

More baking from Maria.  Her Grandchildren now put in requests.

In the last few years I have become a better cook and tried things outside of my usual range.  I have learned more things from scratch too which I think is a good thing.  I am still trying to become a better cook and learn more.  Tomorrow I am going to see Hilde.  I almost always come home with a recipe to try from her.   

I try to make things easy.   It is easier to make loaf or slab cakes to feed a lot of people than cup cakes or biscuits.  I always use non stick baking paper for everything.  I double recipes and freeze things.   Left over casserole and stews become meat pies.  

I love that left overs can become a great meal with baking.  Some ham and sun dried tomato can become a big quiche.   All kinds of odds and ends can go on a pizza.  Fruit can be used up in  a crumble or muffins.   Baking is a great stretcher of ingredients and a good way to use things up.

These all can become the lunches that go off to work or to school.  

This all helps the home economy,  builds everyone up,  keeps you ahead with meals and spares in the freezer,  welcomes family home and to the table.  

When you are sick or over run you thaw something from the freezer and have a nourishing meal ready to go.

Cooking is building up your home.  It blesses people.  

Nana always said that an ounce of help is better than a pound of sympathy.  Her way to help was usually making someone a meal and delivering it.   So really your baking can be a ministry. 

You do not have to go to far off places to have a ministry.  It can be from your own home. 

Mother Teresa said "if you want to change the world go home and love your family."

Cooking for your family shows a lot of love. 💗

What are your food memories from when you were little?

How do you handle a busy life and still put good food on the table? 

All tips and recipes are most welcome.  This is an area we never stop learning. Sometimes a small tip makes the world of difference.  Many of us are noticing food prices increasing too.  Ways to stretch what we have and use things up are most helpful.  Maybe even a good subject for another post.

Have a great new week.  I will go start this dough....

xxx

When you make your own yoghurt...

If you could see my house right now...  I am in the bedroom surrounded by piles of boxes of pantry items, there is noise and dust...   I decided to write up a post about the spin offs from making yoghurt as it is so incredibly useful and zero crafts are happening right now!

First of all I discovered that the yoghurt I was eating contained cultures but not live ones! Unless the label says Live culture they probably aren't living.  So this would explain why it never did my any good when taking antibiotics and I ended up having to buy a chemist version.  It was also expensive. Also when I had tried yoghurts with fruit in them I came out in a rash.  Every time!  On closer inspection these contained all kinds of preservatives.

Cath from The Cheapskates Club got me onto making my own yoghurt and I haven't looked back.  There are all kinds of methods and I had been put off by recipes with heating, temperature taking and a lot of fiddling around.  This method needs none of that.  You can find the way recipe here.  I ended up with an Easiyo yoghurt maker with needs no electricity and is really basically a large thermos.
Also I use either real yoghurt as my starter or a couple of spoons of Easiyo starter,  either is fine.

Suddenly yogurt goes from expensive to cheap!  It is very nutritious and yum.  The things you can now make also cheaply are mind boggling! You can also flavour it naturally however you like.

First of all you can make a whole list of things from actual yoghurt.  Frozen ice blocks,  smoothies and shakes, smoothie cubes, parfaits etc.   An easy pizza base is just plain yoghurt mixed with flour to make a dough. This presses out to be a surprisingly good base!  I found that half water and half yoghurt worked just as well.

There are so many muffin recipes that use yoghurt.  The ones I make are my Miracle Muffins that use basically any ingredients you have on hand.  Miracle Muffins.  These are so good for breakfasts and lunch boxes.  And they freeze perfectly.

 I make Naan Bread and that is just my regular bread dough with a few spoons of yoghurt mixed in. This makes it silky smooth.  These are so yum!  You can also make a two ingredient Naan using just 200g Greek Yoghurt and 1 and 3/4 cups Sr flour.  Knead this well, cut into six, roll flat and cooking until lightly charred in a little olive oil in a hot pan. 

I make a mint raita with yoghurt, mint and cumin.  Just blend away!  It is so good with any curry.

With mint in the garden this costs me almost nothing. Yet the girls always ask for containers of it they love it so much! 

Then there are cakes.  So may cakes contain yoghurt.  My main one is my Use it Up recipe that I will add any fruit to.   

That recipe is Economical and Yummy Cake.   Very easy and also freezes.

Then you have pancakes,  french onion dip, Tatziki, yoghurt and bread crumbed dipped chicken (simply dip chicken into the yoghurt, then the crumbs and bake. That's it!)  and as a topping on Lamb Kofta or Glouash...

After you exhaust things to make with yoghurt then you have things you make with either sour cream or buttermilk as yoghurt can usually be used in the place of either.

So my plain Greek Yoghurt goes on top of baked potatoes, into potato bake and even can become a substitute for a cheese sauce.  Lynette makes A Moussaka Topping using one cup of yoghurt, 2 eggs and 1 tablespoon plain flour. She beats the eggs and adds the rest.  Spreading this on top of moussaka (or lasagne) and bake as normal.

There are countless cakes with sour cream or buttermilk.  I am making banana cake that is meant to contain buttermilk and using yoghurt with some water added to get the consistency right.   This recipe is a favourite around here.  It is on this post The Money Saving Baking Day. 

Every time I make Enchiladas I use sour cream so now I use Greek yoghurt in its place. No one has noticed any difference. 

Then there is Ranch dressing, other dressings and toppings...

There are just so many possibilities and I have recipes lined up to try yet including Sour Cream apple slice and Southern Fried Chicken by Donna Hay.  I keep noticing new recipes to try.  Another option is to strain the yoghurt until you have a soft cheese.  I am yet to do that but it is on my list when I get my kitchen up and running again.  I will report how that goes! 

When I made my first batch of yoghurt I had no idea how it would help the rest of the food budget.  It is one of the best new things I learned this year!  This has worked by eliminating things I buy and giving me ingredients to use in pretty big quantities.  Plus I am eating more and it is the real stuff which is good for me. 

When I started this post there was grinding happening in the kitchen and now it is Wednesday morning there is glue going down and then flooring!  I see a small light at the end of the tunnel!  😊

I hope your week is going well!  And I hope if you are in the US that you are safe and dry and ok. Please let us know.

If you have any tips or recipes that use yoghurt please share and between us we will have a good list. I am amazed how this one simple thing has given me so many possibilities!  xxx

Being rescued by Vicky! Using up eggs.

My packing up of the kitchen and dining room has started and I am re organising as I go. I decided this is also spring cleaning and re arranging my cellar as well.  The whole domino effect has begun!
Lucky for me I have my dear friend Vicky come to my rescue!

With the cost of meat it has been noticed here by many that eggs are mostly the cheapest source of protein. In fact earlier in the year we had almost no eggs on the supermarket shelves at one time and it was because it was winter and chickens lay less then but also that more people are buying eggs as a main meal option due to the prices of meat.  

Other times we can just have a lot of eggs to use up as the chickens all seem to lay at one time and this is when it is great to do heaps of baking, quiches, custards,  slices like zucchini slice and so on.

Anyway over to Vicky:

Having and using a glut of eggs! 

Bluebirds, at times we will all have an excess of something and of course we want to use it with as little waste as possible as we are doing our best to keep up a good economy of our households. Right now I have an abundance of eggs that I am trying to use. Eggs are a cheap protein when money is tight and is a very versatile ingredient. Besides all of the ways to cook them they can also be frozen to use later and are good for about a year in the freezer. I have found when serving something that I have an excess of my family has always let me know when they are tired of it, but I have always tried to keep it varied so they don't burn out too quickly while using the most of the excess. When we have an abundance it is time to get busy! Cooking or prepping for future use either way the sooner it gets taken care of the less will go to waste. So for my egg adventures for this week I am planning ahead for future breakfasts, hard boiling some for egg salad which takes care of lunches and also incorporating them into dinners as well. Sometimes looking to other ethnicities and how they use ingredients can give us some different choices and add some new likes to the menu and meal planning or pulling out some recipes that has been passed down in your family that you have never made and takes the ingredients you need to use up? and I will show an example of a dessert we make with egg whites that I made to use some of them up. 

My best little layer! 

So for the breakfast portion of my egg use up I have scrambled eggs with onions , peppers, and cheese and put the mixture in freezer bags for omelets.

Then I experimented with cooking an egg in a canning ring for a nice round egg that will fit perfectly on an English muffin for breakfast sandwiches. It worked pretty well and I will be making at least a dozen more and breakfasts are done. 

Next I boiled a 2 dozen for egg salad and a few just peeled for either a snack or to add to salad for lunch, but I didn't take a phot of those I think hard boiled eggs always look the same all over. Giggle giggle! 

Then for our evening meals I have made dumpling soup which is just a variation on pasta and is dropped into hot liquid instead of adding more flour and rolling out dough, This is a very filling meal and cheap to make because you can make it with chicken or beef broth, in a tomato type soup or in any kind of vegetable soup and they can be made thicker for a chewier and more firm dumpling or thinner for more of a spaetzli type dumpling.

 Either way they are always good! And I made more pasta dough to put in the freezer to roll out later, but I am ahead in that department and have used up some eggs. 

Rachel's Ravioli, another egg recipe! 

Then for desserts I have made just a few plain cakes, but my biggest egg user is a dessert that my Yugoslavian grandmother always made is called Sampita and uses several egg whites which is when I make it, to use up eggs. It is puff pastry with a very sweet, fluffy filling. It is so sweet that it goes a long way so I share it around. 

There are so many things we can do with eggs from quiches to eggs benedict, French toast, etc, one of our favorites is breakfast for dinner which we may be having several nights this month until I use up all of these eggs! 

What is your favorite way to use up eggs when you have a lot? 

XOXO

Vicky

Thank you so much Vicky!  I love that you showed a desert that is a family recipe also. 

I am going to work on adding an egg based dinner to my weekly menu plan.  Often I keep up with eggs with baking but as a dinner this would give us a meat free night.  I somehow tend to do this more in summer with self crusting quiches and slices which I love to take on picnics and pack for lunches. 

What are your recipes that make eggs suitable for a main meal?  

How do you use up a lot of eggs when you have heaps or they are at a great price? 

Of course today is not my usual Christmas Challenge post.  I will mainly keep to the routine but I have a lot of pantry and preparedness subjects I want to cover before the end of the year.  There are not enough Mondays!  So I might do some extra posts or swap some posts around.

I hope your week is going well!  See you on Friday! xxx

Pantries and Preparedness. Rachel teaches us how to make Ravioli.

This week I am packing up my whole kitchen, lounge and dining rooms as next Monday the new floors go in.  My place will be looking like a disaster!  We have a wide passage in the middle of the house which will be lined with boxes of all my pantry contents.  It is going to be interesting!
I haven't even finished replies to everyones comments but I will today and tomorrow I hope!

A couple of weeks ago we had Vicky teach us how to make pasta from scratch and with no special equipment at all.  This week Rachel shows us how she makes Ravioli.  A picture tells a thousand words I think!

Each new skill we learn means we have more options from a few basic pantry ingredients!  Many times this results in less things to buy.  Also with menu planning it means we have more meals on the list that we can make!

Over to Rachel:

I had some thick cream to use up, soooo .... I used it in place of ricotta, with homegrown parsley and an egg, as a ravioli filling!

This is my simplest bush pasta - just flour and water.

Once the water is boiling, the ravioli go in, and, just a few minutes later, the ravioli float to the top! They are ready!!

This is my quick, stick-to-the-ribs meal at the end of a tiring day!! The scrappy bits are for the dog!!

For a lover of pasta, the dried shop type just can't cook quickly enough!! Apart from the storage space difference, I like to make simple, fresh pasta (although I am no expert!) because the cooking time, and energy required, is so low. Besides, fresh pasta is entirely different to the other!

That's my little story! 

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The recipe photographed is from Rachel's husbands Mum's recipe book! 

Thank you so much Rachel.  I think recipes like these show how just a few very simple things can make a beautiful meal.  

After the tradesmen are gone and my floor is finished I will be re setting up my kitchen and dining area.  I will have my spice cabinet and another small cabinet that will house my baking dishes.   My whole kitchen is going back together in a new way, with my "Laine baking centre" and ready for serious cooking.

Then I will be making pasta as Vicky showed us and making Ravioli as Rachel has shown!

My menu planning has me now at 23 meals ahead.  This made last week one where I only needed milk and later I needed some veggies.  I found five dinners worth of major bargains that kept my protein at under $2 a meal.  Absolutely amazing. 

This week is much the same. I already cooked a lot of spaghetti sauce over the weekend.  I really need nothing except some salad items.  Not even milk!  So I am just looking for major deals.   It is exciting to see what I might find!   I will go to one supermarket this afternoon as I will be next door paying a bill.  This is kind of funny as I didn't even realise HOW grocery shopping could be so different!  With little I need I will pick up a dozen tins of tomatoes that I know they have on a huge special.  This is all helping me build up my pantry so much.  The pantry in the hallway haha! 

Have a good week! xxx

Pantries and Preparedness. Learning to make pasta with Vicky.

The last weeks have been big learning weeks for me.  Gradually I have eliminated quite a few things from my shopping lists.  Some of them are surprisingly big savings!  Also one thing seems to lead to another i.e. making my own yoghurt has given me lots to play with and so I made my own Tatziki Dip which is something else new. Another thing I no longer will buy!

Before we get started I am going back to an old Laine's Letter.  This is just an excerpt but it is full of motivation to increase your cooking skills to help beat rising prices and get ahead.  It starts with a reader question...

2~ Can you tell us how you are handling the food prices going up? I don't seem to be doing so well in this area. I know you've written about it many times, but I need a pep talk so much.
Yes, I have watched the food prices go up as well in my area. And the gas is higher than this time last year, as well as our electrical and water bills. So I am doing my best to readjust my budget accordingly and continue to save as much as I can. I pray for God's help all the time!
My best advice to give you is to learn how to cook as much as you can from scratch. I am still amazed at how much I save from a continuing learning and growing in this area. I learn from cooking shows, magazines, friends and family, the ladies on this list, and cookbooks from the library. I am constantly trying new recipes to increase my knowledge.
It is so wonderful to know how to make pasta from scratch, as well as egg noodles, muffins, doughnuts, french fries, tortillas, bread, or numerous other things. They really require so few simple ingredients, so it is much cheaper to make them than buy them. Plus it is so much tastier as well. We have so many recipes on our website for you to try. And learning to cook with leftovers is so important, too. So often I look as forward to the leftovers as I do the main meal, because I know what I'll be cooking with them next.
It is also good to buy seasonally when things are on sale. For example, I just bought all my canned pumpkin for the year while it was on sale at Thanksgiving. I did the same with cranberries and froze them for the year as well. I do the same thing during the summer on certain fruits and vegetables. I also used coupons for cream cheese and stocked up on that this past week, as well as many baking goods. With cheese rising in price, it is nice to know how to make it; so I want to increase my knowledge in this area for the future.
And that is really the key, increasing our knowledge in cooking, baking, canning, freezing, growing, and drying food. The more we learn, the more we can save. It is also so important to be ahead of our families in this area. That is why I love to do my cooking in the morning, because then there are good things for them to eat all day. And I know what is coming out of the oven, so there is a plan for dinner when they ask me. Then we don't need to eat out or munch on junk food, which are both costsly and not good for our health.
"She is like the merchant ships, she brings her food from afar, she also rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household and a portion for her maidservants." Proverbs 31:15
"The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish pulls it down with her hands." Proverbs 14:1
I think it is a continual learning and growing in our homes. I am constantly asking the LORD to teach and train me!


With those words to get us going now over to Vicky and her pasta demo.   Some of you will already be wonderful at this!  But I have always thought it was to fiddly for me surely!?  Now I am determined to learn.  So I hope this also helps others like me!

Vicky says in this tutorial her pasta isn't thin enough but her husband was hurrying her along and she was taking photos as well!  But to get it thin!  She also said it costs her about 40c to make a small batch of pasta.

She also says that she allows one cup of flour and one egg per person.  But to start off with a small batch to get the hang of it!


Here we go...

Start by sifting 1 cup of All Purpose flour onto the counter in a mountain shape and then make a well into the flour. 

You want 1 whole egg and 1 yolk in the well, but hang onto the second egg white in case your dough is a little dry then you can add it in. And add a dash of salt. 

Using a fork scramble the egg the well and when all scrambled going in circles start pulling the flour into the egg just like you're still scrambling the egg.

When you have mixed enough of the flour in to start forming a dough using your hands, start needing the dough. If it is sticky add flour a little at a time until it isn't sticky and knead until it is firm yet pliable.

 A good way I tell is I wash my hands because they will be messy and then give it another knead or two and if it isn't sticking to my hands I call it good. If it is still sticky add a little more flour and knead some more. 

After you have it all kneaded wrap it in plastic wrap and leave it to rest for 30 minutes. 

Divide your dough into workable pieces and sprinkle the counter with flour and start rolling it thin.

 Once your dough is rolled thin you can start cutting it. A pizza cutter works really good. 

Drop into salted boiling water. They will cook in 1-3 minutes depending on you like them so be ready to take them out not long after you drop them in the boiling water and voila fresh pasta! 

Vicky says that you can make soup noodles, buttered noodles, fettuccine with spaghetti sauce, chicken and noodles or whatever you like!  And that thinner again is Linguini noodles. 

She served her noodles here with butter and parsley. 

Thank you so much Vicky!  You make it look possible! haha! So I promise to get going!

Next week we are studying menu planning with Laine!  She recently got me started on menu planning and it is not what I thought.  My idea of menu planning was a list of my meals for the week.  Well, that is the beginning but there is so much more!  It is new to Laine too and you will see how this can save you so much money and also build up your emergency meals.  Laine who stretches a dollar unlike anyone else I know still has managed to halve her grocery shop with her new menu planning. I find this amazing since she is so frugal already!  But this is the power of menu planning. 

Then we have a Ravioli tutorial from Rachel!  I have so much lined up that I need more Mondays! 

Do you make your own pasta?  What would you really love to learn how to make but have never quite taken the plunge?  I am thinking there will be other tutorials that we can have as we have some great skills between is all!

Have a really productive week!  Be diligent and watchful!  xxx