Ingenuity in the Kitchen

Ingenuity in the Kitchen

·         Kick the fast food habit. Commit to cooking at least 4 meals a week in your kitchen from foods you have stored in your pantry or freezer.

·         Stock your kitchen shelves with small containers filled with egg mix, powdered milk, etc. This will serve as a subtle reminder that you have these items without taking up your whole kitchen. Stock your shelves with canned items, too. The more you see these items the more often you will use them.

·         Before you grab eggs and a stick of butter from the fridge to make your favorite cookies, try using powdered eggs and powdered butter in your recipe. (Ok, doesn’t sound appealing, but it really works great!) For instance, when I make chocolate chip cookies, I use 8 tablespoons of butter powder instead of a cube of butter and 2 tablespoons of egg powder for each egg, along with the appropriate amount of water to reconstitute the ingredients. I also substitute a portion of the white flour with freshly ground whole wheat (I use white wheat—my family likes it much better than the red.) Using my hand crank wheat grinder, it takes me 2 minutes, 15 seconds to grind just over ½ cup of the wheat kernels into 1 cup of flour.

·         Figure out creative uses for your food storage ingredients. Check out the internet for recipes using the foods you have on hand.

·         Foods can be multitaskers! For instance, dried beans aren’t just for savory dishes such as soup and chili. White beans can be magically transformed into “pumpkin pie,” “bundt cake” or “chocolate fudge.” Oatmeal can be used in fruit smoothies. Truth be told, I’ve been searching for three years for a chocolate lentil cake recipe. I tried a piece of this cake at Washington State University while visiting my daughter there and fell in love. I had no idea that lentils were used in the cake! When I found out, well, I knew I had to get the recipe. (By the way, I was successful! The recipe is provided on this blog site.)

·         Let your kids help choose recipes to try, then let the kids help make them. Kids are much more willing to try a new recipe that they helped create.    

·         When making a favorite food storage recipe, double the batch and share with a friend! Be sure to include the recipe—maybe you and your friend can switch off on trying new recipes and finding dynamite grocery deals.