You might guess by now that I am not a huge fan of all the preservatives in store-bought products when better results could be had by making it homemade, for fractions of the cost, no health risks, and very little time.

I’ve been making our own butter spread now for a while with this basic recipe:

1 part room temperature unsalted butter
1 part oil

I’ve used olive, canola, walnut, and flax.  Olive oil will have a distinct olive oil taste unless you use a lighter colored olive oil.  Flax I generally only use by adding a tablespoon or so in with another flavor nuetral oil.

Today, however, I decided to experiment a bit more by adding in some yogurt:

1 part unsalted butter
1/2 part oil (I used canola and walnut oil)
1/2 part yogurt

Mix the ingredients together until smooth.  Add salt if desired or even dried herbs.  Put mixture in a small butter crock or tupperware container.  Store in the refrigerator.  Mixture will be easy to spread, jut like store bought spreads, and delicious.

Experiment away with this one!

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I admit I am one of those people who get frustrated at “environmentally” friendly detergents; I find that they often don’t clean my dishes as well, I need to pre-rinse too much for my liking, or they leave a weird film on my dishes, particularly my glasses. 

Through some trial and error, I’ve discovered a dish detergent formula that is better for the environment and doesn’t require excessive pre-rinsing or follow-up washing.  This is not a totally environmentally friendly household recipe, but it does cut down on the amount of harmful materials being used in your home and as a bonus ends up being a lot cheaper.  As always, it goes back to some old-fashioned household cleaners that our grandmother’s used, baking soda and borax.  Baking soda has no real harmful effects on anything.  And borax is nowhere near as toxic as the detergent you currently have under your cupboard, not that I would want my son eating a spoonful, either!

1 1/2 - 2 parts baking soda

1 part borax

1 part powdered dish detergent of choice.

Stir the ingredients together.  And store in a large ziploc bag, waterproof storage container, or large mason jar.  Use as you would regular dish detergent.  I don’t have a great dishwasher and have found that I still can use less than I would think and get my dishes as clean as I want.

My next experiment will be trying to create a clothes detergent that is better too!

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So I have to admit, I always thought that granola was a pain to make, but then my son discovered it and loved it, and we were going through that and yogurt really quickly.  I figured I better learn to make both on my own if I was going to keep up with how much he wanted it!  Now he eats a bowl of homemade, unsweetened yogurt (not as tangy or tart as commercial yogurt), with either some cottage cheese or applesauce in it, and topped with some granola.  When he was younger and I had not yet introduced nuts, I made it with a combination of seeds, sesame, hemp, sunflower, and pumpkin seeds that I ground slightly in the food processor.

Granola is the ultimate flexible recipe.  Don’t have almonds, use sunflower seeds.  Don’t like honey, use maple syrup.  Like raisins, add them in after its cooked.  I make it in bulk and keep it in an air tight container in your pantry or give extras as gifts.  Definitely, visit your local natural foods store to pick up these grains in bulk rather than buying packages.  Below is my basic recipe:

4 c. rolled oats
4 c. mixed rolled grains (I usually get barley, spelt, and rye)
1-2 c. unsweetened shredded coconut
1/2 c. ground flax meal
1-2 c. sliced almonds (I grind them slightly to make it easier for L to eat)
1/2 - 3/4 c. agave syrup ( a low for glycemic sweetener with the taste of honey–it is sweeter than regular sugar so you don’t need to use as much of it; but you could also use a local honey as well)
1/2 - 1 c. real maple syrup or barley syrup (another great low glycemic sweetener)
3/4 c. - 1 c. canola oil
1/2 c.+ water to help granola clump without extra fat

Mix all of the grains together with other dry ingredients in a very very large bowl (the biggest one you own).  You can freeze or store these grains at this point before adding the sugars and oil if you don’t want to cook it all up at once.

Add maple syrup and oil.  The mixture should have a sheen to it and be tasty.  Be sure to evenly coat all ingredients with sugar and oil.  Add water if necessary to help mixture clump into those yummy crunchy clusters.  Bake at 350′ for 30-40 minutes in 9×12″ pans.  Do not overfill the pans with granola as you will need enough room to stir and move the granola around to prevent overcooking.

You will need to stir the granola every 10 minutes until it reaches a golden toasted color.

Stir every 10 minutes or so until all of the grains and nuts are toasted evenly.

Let the granola cool in the pans and then move to an air tight container or bag.  At this point, you can freeze a portion of the recipe if you feel you won’t be able to finish it in over the next two months or so.  Also, to add bulk without adding calories or sweeteners, once cooked and cooled you can add a variety of whole puffed grain cereals (puffed wheat, millet, kamut, even corn).

Enjoy often with yogurt, milk, or by the handful!

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Submit a recipe with a short introduction or related story here, and I will feature the best in a related blog post.  Recipes for pantry staples, homemade mixes, easy and quick dinners, kid-friendly and healthy dishes, and yummy treats are all especially welcome!

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Want to share your menu plans with others?  Want to get some menu planning ideas?  Share as a comment below!

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It was recently pointed out to me by someone, who may have been a bit defensive about the subject matter of this blog, that Martha Stewart’s quite smart.  I agree with this statement, wholeheartedly in fact.  I think Stewart is an amazing business woman and entrepreneur.  I have at least one of her cookbooks and receive (and read) one of her magazines.  I am also addicted to her Halloween issues.  I have on more than one occasion turned to her recipes to make a family event special.  I respect her immensely for having made her fortune and her livelihood out of domestic and household arts.  Martha is a cultural icon and, therefore, an easy target when anyone starts to talk about or criticize domesticity these days.

What I hope is that we begin to question together our bombardment of cultural images that make us believe that we can have a perfectly organized, color coded, neatly indexed life.  Pick up any women’s magazine and you will see articles on how to better organize a closet, an office, and a pantry.  And then when our life, inevitably, resists easy classification for faster filing, we believe that we have failed somehow, that we were not as disciplined or as organized as we needed to be.  Reading Real Simple even makes me feel guilty when I look up from the pages and see the piles of mail or cloth diapers.

The key is to be aware of these cultural influences and of course resist them!

Yesterday, I flipped to the back pages of April MS Living and was enticed by her cookie of the month, Cheesecake Brownies.  Now, my son loves all our appliances, screeches in delight at the prospect of using them.  So while many toddler parents may look wistfully at such a recipe and think maybe in a few years, I thought that maybe we could have fun while using the mixer.  But, it was definitely a bit fussier than I like, requiring the brownie base to be cooked and cooled before the cheesecake topping could be baked on it.  I forged ahead, reminding myself aloud that we need to have fun while making it.  My son helped by adding ingredients into the mixer and turning it on, even if his preference is to keep the mixer on high and for several minutes.  We managed to avoid over-beating the brownie base, and I let him have his fill of beating the cream cheese mixture as fast and as long as he wanted.  We had fun watching it bake in the oven.  And my husband and I enjoyed the brownies that night with a glass of Layer Cake Primitivo.

But when our backs were turned, our 75 lb. weim/lab mix, surfed the counter and licked off all of the cream cheese frosting, that same night.  And while I had a great time making it and believe in seeing the value of the process, I still really really like the result of getting to eat the brownies!  For me, striking a balance between the fun of the process (definitely high priority) with the result (high yield) is important.  This time, the dog got the yield!

Isn’t this often the way when we put a lot of effort into some organizing projects?  We buy all these supplies, spend a weekend re-organizing, labelling, and de-cluttering and then life happens, and pretty soon it’s back to the piles again.  Was it the organizational system that failed?  Did you not buy the right products or enough of them?  Were you too busy to put stuff back right?  Or did the “dog” get the yield?  How many times did someone else get the yield from your expenditure of time and resources?  How many times have you put in 25 hours of work on a 15-page report only to find out 10 hours and a report of half its length would have sufficed? What do you think you could do to stop the dog from getting the yield?  Share your ideas!  Share your own stories of the “dog” eating your results!

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This year we decided to make our holiday gifts, and one gift that went out to friends, family, and neighbors was a homemade multi-grain baking mix.  If you have a health food store near you that sells grains in bulk, that would be where I would go to pick up the flours, otherwise store remaining flour in the freezer to prevent it from going rancid.  Below, I’ve included the baking mix recipe, the two recipes using the mix that we gave out, and then a list of fun add-ins and toppings.  We packaged the gifts in a paper bag with plastic bag liner to keep it fresh .  Attached to the bag, we printed out the recipes and the toppings and add-in list on 4×6 index cards, decorated with a picture of our little guy chowing down on the entire  plate of pancakes that he had just yoinked from the center of the table.

Multi-grain Baking Mix

This homemade baking mix is healthier than the store-bought variety–no trans fats or preservatives.  It will yield yummy whole grain muffins or fluffy pancakes that are easy for adults and kids to make!  Use as you would Bisquick–however, if you are going to make something that requires fat, like biscuits, you will need to add that in separately. And while the mix is good plain, feel free to experiment with some of our suggested fun pancake additions or toppings ideas.  Enjoy!

4 c. white flour
2 c. wheat
2 c. oat flour or a multi-grain flour (or another cup of wheat)
1 1/3 nonfat dry milk or buttermilk
1/4 c. raw sugar
1 tbsp. salt
1/3 c. baking powder
1 tbsp. baking soda (check expiration date first)
if desired, decrease flour by 1/2 c. and add 1/2 c. ground flax meal

In a large bowl, mix all ingredients thoroughly.  Store in an airtight container and use often with directions below.

Pancakes

Makes about 12 medium-sized pancakes

2 c. Multi-grain Baking Mix
1 c. water, soy milk, or milk
2 tbsp. canola oil
2 eggs, beaten
1 tbsp. sugar (helps pancakes caramelize)

1.  Put all ingredients in a bowl.
2.  Stir just enough to moisten dry ingredients.
3.  Preheat skillet or griddle on medium-high heat.  The skillet is ready when drops of water “dance” on the dry surface.  Add a teaspoon of oil or butter to pan.  For each pancake, pour ¼ c. of batter onto hot skillet.
4.  Cook slowly until the surface is covered with bubbles and outside rim is browned.  Turn and cook until second side is lightly browned.

Muffins

Makes 12 muffins

2 c. Multi-grain Baking Mix
½ c. sugar
1 egg
¼ c. canola oil
2/3 c. water

1.  Preheat oven to 400°F.
2.  Grease 12-cup muffin pan.
3.  Mix the Baking Mix and sugar in a bowl.
4.  Beat egg with a fork.
5.  Add egg, oil, and water to dry ingredients.  Stir just until all ingredients are wet.
6.  Spoon into the prepared muffin pan.
7.  Bake 15 minutes or until lightly browned and toothpick comes out clean.

Fun Mix and Match Additions:

• Any kind of berries, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries
• Apples, diced
• Peaches, diced
• Bananas, diced
• Granola
• Pumpkin puree
• Orange or lemon zest
• Cinnamon
• Applesauce
• Chocolate Chips
• Old Fashioned Rolled Oats
• Any kind of chopped nuts, walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds
• Dried chopped fruit, apricots, pears, raisins, craisins, and so on
• Cottage cheese

Fun toppings or spreads:

• Sour cream and brown sugar
• Cinnamon and sugar
• Reduced mixture of orange or apple juice and m aple syrup
• Berries, apples, or peaches, cooked with a little water and a few teaspoons of sugar
• Jam
• Flavored cream cheese
• Honey
• Applesauce
• Peanut butter (thinned with apple juice, if desired)
• Cream cheese and fruit
• Whipped cream and fruit
• Nutella
• Cooked fruit, such as apples or bananas, with brown sugar and butter

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Inspired by a cookbook novel written in the mid-1880’s by Catherine Owen featuring a housewife who shares her menus, grocery lists, and monthly budgets, I thought I would share my own menu and grocery bill for this week.  Based on this week’s sales, I spent $109.22 and saved $41.31 and used one coupon that entitled me to one free package of frozen fruit for $4.29.  I was able to stock up on some meat, including whole chickens at .97 per pound.  I decided to cook the following for this week:

1. Slow Cooker Baked Beans with Keilbasa and Carrots with Veggie Cornbread (plus some leftover to freeze)
2. Roast Chicken with vegetables
3. Roast Pork Loin with braised red cabbage, sweet onions, and apples
4. Middle Eastern Kibbeh (sort of like a spiced meatball) with cucumber salad and pita (this is a new recipe I’m trying or else I would double it, freezing the rest for a quick weeknight meal)
5. Three Sisters (corn, beans, tomatoes) burritos
6. Raspberry and Strawberry Custard Pie (technically not a meal, but I have planned on having neighbors over, so I needed a nice dessert to prepare)

This menu follows my “rules” for weekly menu planning and grocery shopping.  Every week, I try to pick menu items that keep my grocery list basically the same with the addition of a few specialty or seasonal ingredients.  Now I can’t eat the same things every week, and as you can tell by my menu, I like to have a fairly varied menu, a little comfort food, some Middle Eastern, a little Southwestern/ Mexican to prevent that food fatigue.  I also like to plan on using the slow cooker at least once during the week, choosing at least one or two nights for a vegetarian or bean dish, and doubling recipes where I can.  I try to choose menu items along food genre and cooking method lines:

1. Ground Meat: meatloaf, meatballs, ziti, bolognese sauce, chili, tacos, taco salad, shepherd’s pie
2. Roast Meat: roasted chicken, pork loin, beef with veggies (ultimate one-pot dinner)
3. White Sauce: mac ‘n’ cheese, primavera, alfredo, carbonara, shepherd’s pie (if milk is on sale or if you have some leftover, make a batch of classic white sauce and freeze in 1 - 1 1/2 cup portions)
4. Sandwiches: sausage and peppers, brats, portobello burgers, meat burgers (beef, turkey, bison, fish)
5. Vegetarian: succotash, ratatoille, roasted vegetable medley, three sisters
6. Stew/Braise: Mexican pork/chicken stew, coq au vin, beef bourginon, beef and barley
7. Bean: pea soup, lentil and tomato soup, minestrone, Italian bean and sausage soup, dahl

Hope this gives you some ideas!   Add your own suggestions to help others in the comments box.

And taking a leaf from Julia Child’s book to make sure her PBS audience could relate to her, she always allowed mistakes to be left in the show; in that same spirit, in my haste to get dinner prepped for the slow cooker, I grabbed what I thought was worschestire sauce and gave it a good shake before realizing I had dumped about 3/4 cup of steak sauce into the pot.  So I rinsed the veggies off and started over, more slowly and double checking my labels!

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Menu-planning seems like a lot of work, and if you are not used to doing it, it does take a bit to get used to.  But I guarantee that once you start, you will feel so much more at ease both when you go food shopping and when you’re cooking.  Now, I have to hand it to the folks who do the whole oamc thing, (once-a-month-cooking), but the prospect of going on marathon shopping and cooking sprees is too much for me, even if it appeals to my “extra time upfront to save time later” mentality.

Instead, I aim to shop no more than once a week, and I make it my goal to push food shopping to a day or two past when I went grocery shopping last, though not at the cost of going out to eat.  The goal here with menu planning is that you have all the ingredients that you need for a week’s worth of food for you and your family and you know up front what you will be cooking for the week.

You, of course, still need to decide what you want to eat during any given week.  You can do what many families do:  Monday is spaghetti and meatballs, Tuesday is tacos, and so on.  Personally, I get way too bored with food for this idea to appeal to me.  But oamc and the set menu plan methods do offer some important corner cutting ideas:

1. Arrange menu and shopping around types of foods, ground meat, soups, and so forth.
2. Shop from sales flyers and buy in season.  Most are available online, and some even allow you to create shopping lists right from the flyer (score!).
3. Build options in the menu and in your shopping to make extra to freeze.
4. Stock up on staples when they go on sale.
5. If you want, set price points and savings goals.  For instance, you may aim to  spend nevermore than $2 per pound on meat, not buy certain convenience products unless they are on sale, or to save at least 15% of your total through sales, coupons, and manager specials.

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One pressure that many of us feel is regarding the orderliness of the our homes.  I remember as a child doing chores on the weekend and having to disinfect the insides of cabinets on a weekly basis.  Maybe some of you do this now.  I will say, without reservation, that I don’t.  I reserve this level of cleaning on an as needed basis.  And I also admit that as a child I cut corners because I couldn’t imagine that the insides of cabinets could get that dirty on a weekly basis.  You know what I learned?  No one was the wiser; no one recognized the difference as to when I cleaned it or not (at least not until my mom reads this post).  I will write more on the invisibility of household labor in other post.  Ultimately, I learned I could finish chores sooner and got to what I really wanted to do, play outside.

While my son was younger, dishes and housework lost some ground in my hierarchy of things that had to be done.  However, now one of his favorite activities is to stand on a chair and play in the sink.  Watching him playing in the water, washing dishes, pouring it from one container to another, and splashing makes me want to keep the sink free from dishes–now that is intrinsic motivation.  And I know some who get a bit itchy at the “mess” that this creates, the joy that he takes away from the experience, how much his senses and coordination are involved, makes it a high priority for me.  As an added benefit, he is often so engrossed in the activity that I can usually prepare dinner beside him without one whine or request for my attention–a true gift from an 18 month old.

14 months old and busy playing at the sink

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