Beans and Grains–more tips and tricks…
To speed up the soaking time for beans, pour boiling water, rather than cold, over them and let them soak for 1 hour instead of overnight.
This little trick may not get all the gas out of your beans, but it’ll cut it down; Throw away the water you’ve soaked the beans in; cook the beans in fresh water for 15 minutes, then discard that weater and start again with fresh boiling water.
To get your popcorn to pop more easily, sprinkle it with warm water an hour before popping.
If your popcorn won’t pop, you can remedy the problem by putting the popcorn in an airtight jar or container, adding a little water, and refrigerating it overnight.
To prevent pasta from becoming sticky after cooking, drain it in a warmed colander and serve it in a warmed dish. The secret is to keep it warm. As the pasta cools, the starch in it gets sticky.
Or sprinkle grated Parmesan cheese over the drained spaghetti and toss. It not only keeps the noodles separated, it flavors them as well.
If you’re watching your salt, don’t add it to the cooking water when you’re cooking pasta It doesn’t keep the pasta from sticking together; it’s mainly used for flavor. The pasta may cook at a higher temperature with salt in the water, but the difference is hardly noticeable.
To reheat pasta, just place it in rapidly boiling water for a few minutes and then drain.
Don’t wash your pasta maker or pasta-maing attachment ater you’re through with it. Rather remove the larger pieces of dough by hand and then let the small pieces dry overnight. Dried pasta dough flakes right off with no special cleaning.
To protect dried grains and beans from insects during storage, spread a thin layer on a baking sheet and heat for 30 minutes in an oven set from 140 to 160. Or place them in a freezer that maintains a temperature of 1 for three to four days. Put a dried hot pepper in each mjar or plastic bag of dreied beans or grains to keep away weevils and other insects.
Stay tuned for tips on herbs and much more, coming up in the days to come!
Hooray for the Prepardness Fair
Thanks to all those who attended the Prepardness Fair today in Brigham City, and visited our booth! We were thrilled to meet so many of you, and look forward to helping you with your food storage and prepardness needs. It was great to finally meet some of our on-line students as well, and we thank Kira, especially for helping us at our booth. She was so kind to bring donuts and chat with our visitors and came early to help us set up. Thanks, Kira!
Fruit Tips
Here are some great tips on fruit I thought you’d enjoy….
1. Extra bananas? You can freeze them either peeled or unpeeled, cut into chunks, or mashed, depending on what you plan to do with them.
2. Here’s a great use for ripe bananas: Slice the fruit, place the slices on a baking sheet, and freeze them until firm. Roll each slice in honey and then in your favorite topping, such as chopped nuts, coconut, or crushed rice puffs. Return them to the freezer and when frozen solid, put them into plastic bags and seal. These make wonderful frozen candy snacks.
3. Pureed bananas can be used in breads and cakes. Overripe bananas–too ripe to eat raw-are particularly good becuase they’re so sweet.
Grapes
Frozen grapes make a fine natural snack; just lay them out on a baking sheet in the freezer so that they freeze separately, and then bag them for snacking later.
Lemons and Limes
You will get almost twice the amount of juice out of a lemon or lime if you drop it into hot water for a few minutes before you sqeeze it. Heating the fruit breaks down the inner membranes so that they release more juice. Or instead of heating the fruit, try rolling it on a hard surface to break down those membranes.
If you want just a few drops of lemon juice, poke a hole in one end of the fruit with a toothpick. Squeeze the desired amount from the hole, replace the toothpick, and store the lemon in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for future use.
Grating
Grate your citrus rind over wax paper or foil to make pouring it into a measuring cup or mixing bowl easy.
Use a pastry brush to remove the citrus rind that is stuck in the holes of the grater.
Pineapple
They may be messy and prickly, but pineapple trimmings can make great pineapple juice. Pineapple processing plants use this trick all the time. Put ithe trimmings and even the core into a blender with just enough water for processing and grind them up; then strain the juice through a very fine sieve or cheesecloth-line straiiner and serve it up chilled. Fresh pineapple juice will ferment quickly, so drinkit immediately.
Every pineapple top is a houseplant ready to happen. Twist oit off with a circular motion so that you leave no fruit on the stem, and then remove 10-15 of the small, bottom leaves from the stem. You’ll see little brown or shitish roots already tin place to grow. Put the stem in water about 1 inch deep, and leave it ion a warm windowsill for a couple of weeks, after which time you should have roots. Then you can plant it in a pot, or in your garden if you live in a warm, frost-free part of the country. Being a bromeliad, the pineapple appreciates water poured into it’s crown as well as on it’s roots.
To keep pineapple fresh longer, cut slices from the bottom as you need them, leaving the green top growth intact. Wrap the unused portion, anwith the top growth attached, in plastic wrap.
Watermelon
Got a surplus of watermelon? Scoop the pulp from the rind, removing the seeds as you go. Then run it through a food mill or blender, or mash it with a potato masher. Freeze the smooth pulp in ice cube trays, and you’ve got wonderfl natural fruit pops.
Fruit Miscellany
Don’t discard the rind of lemons, grapefruit, or oranges. It makes excellent flavorings for cakes, frostings, and such. Wash it well and grate, being careful not to include the bitter white part under the rind. Put it in a tighlty covered glass jar, and store in the refrigerator.
Leftover aapple, orange, or lemon rind can be put into your tea as it’s steeping to add a wonderful flavor and aroma–just like the fancy gourmet tea blends.
For a quick dessert, an unsweetened can of fruit can be opened and frozen. When ready to serve, put the frozen fruit in a blender or food processor and sppoon it into stemmed glasses. Top it with chopped nuts. You can make another easy, light dessert by freezing fresh fruit, like kiwi fruit or melon, and then shaving it into small chilled bowls.l
To freeeze peaches and other fruits without sugar, use orange juice instead of the traditional sugar syrup. Slice the fruit into thawed orange juice concentrate, making sure the slices are thoroughly coated to keep them from darkening. Towo large cans of concentrate will easily do for a crate of peaches.
A coating of lemon, orange, or pineapple juice will keep cut fruits from browning.
Thre’s really no need to rehydrated dried fruit before you add it to a recipe, because even the hardest dried raisins or prunes will become soft and moist when cooked in recipes that contain plenty of liquid, like custards, puddings, stuffings, and moist tea breads.
There are several fresh fruits that, when included in a gelatin dessert of salad, will prevent the getlatin from firming up. They are pineaple, figs, papaya, and kiwi fruit. Samve them ofor other uses.
Small berries, such as huckleberries, can be cleaned by gently rolling them back and forth with you hand across a dry terrycloth towel placed on the counter. They will come clean and as a bonus, they will have lost their little stems, which are so tedious to remove by hand.
Enjoy your fruits!
Tips for Tuesday…
Here are some more tips I thought were helpful and wanted to share them with you…
1. To keep your homemade ice cream from crystallizing, add one envelope of gelatin for every 1 1/2 quarts of liquid in the recipe. Just heat some of the liquid and dissove the gelatin in it; then add to the other ingredients.
2. You can have “sour cream”: on your baked potatoes without the extra calories by using cottage cheese instead. Run it through a blender or food processor to smooth it out, and flavor it with chives. Plain yogurt is a good sour cream substitute, as well and it comes smooth right from the container!
3. To keep apple skinds from cracking while they bake, pare a 1-inch band around each apple’s center.
4. An avocado will ripen faster if placed in a plastic bag with a piece of banana peel.
5. To keep refrigerated avocado dip or half a sliceed avocado from turning dark quickly, place the avocado pit in the center and wrap to form an airtight seal.
6. Do you have extra banans? You can freeze them either peeled or unpeeled, cut into chunks or mashed, depending on what you plan to do with them.
7. Here’s another wonderful use for ripe bananas: Slice the fruit, place the slices on a baking sheet, and freeze them until firm. Roll each slice in honey and then in your favorite topping, such as chopped nuts, coconut, or crushed rice puffs. Return them to the freezer and when frozen solid, put them into plastic bags and seal. These make wonderful frozen candy snacks.
8. OPureed bananas can be used in breads and cakes. Overripe bananas–too ripe to eat raw–are particularly good because they’re so sweet.
9. If you bring home a big bunch of bananas that you now you’ll be separating and using singly, seperate them right away by cutting off the “knob” that joins them all together. Make sure that you cut them so that a 1-inch tip is left on each. This tip will dry up and seal itself in a day or two. Then when you are ready to use the bananas, you won’t have to bother breaking off one at a time, which can often result in splitting the top skin of several and exposing the open parts to bacteria!
So go bananas over all these tips and tricks, and join me again soon for some more ideas in the kitchen!
all you wanted to know about eggs….
Did you know that if you don’t have a fresh egg for baking, and you don’t have any egg powder that you can simply substitue 1 tbsp. ground flax seed with 3 tbsp. water, mix it till stretchy, and VOILA!!!! You have a simple egg substitue! This was something I learned recently from my friend, Lisa Armstrong–thanks Lisa!
1. To grease your pans, and save money at the same time, simply save your butter wrappers in a baggie, and then use them to grease your pans when you;re ready!
2. A good way to use up the last drops of honey in the container is to add a cup of boiling water to the fjar. Then add your favorite tea bag, let it steep, and treat yourself to a relaxing tea break!
3. Freeze clusters of grapes to float in punches. Theyu keep the punch cold and add a lovely garnish as well.
4. To keep cheese longer in the refrigerator, moisten a paper towel with a bit of cider vinegar and wrap it around your cheese; then place the wrapped cheese in a plastic bag and seal. The acid in the vinegar will keep mold away. If the paper towel dries out, moisten it with a bit of water-vinegar solution.
5. Ricotta and cottage cheeses will store longer in the refrigerator once they’rve been opened if you turn the reclosed container upside down, thereby forcing some of the air out of the container. You can get the same results by taking the cheese out of its original container and storing it in a smaller glass jar.
6. if you find that the difference in price between large and small eggs is 8 cents or less per dozen, the larger eggs are the better buy.
7. You don’t have to throw away the cracked raw eggs you find in the carton; use them, but only for egg dishes that are thoroughly cooked, such as hard-cooked eggs, or in baked goods.
8. You can tell whether eggs are fresh or not by placing them in a deep pan of water. Any floaters should be thrown away. If you’ve cooked some eggs, and are not sure if they’re done, simply take one out and spin it. If it spins quickly, it’s done, if it spins slowly and then stops, it’s raw or needs more time.
9. When you need to store raw eggs without the help of a refrigerator, such as during a campling trip, coat the eggs with shortening. It will help to preserve them longer by sealing out air.
10. An egg poacher or fried egg mold can be made by removing the top and bottom of a clean tuna can.
11. Get more volume from beaten eggs by letting them stand at room temperature for about an hour before you beat them.
12. If you have the patiencew, a slow but easy way to separate eggs is to breat them one at a time into a small funnel over a cup. The white will pass through tinto the cup, and the yolk will be left behind in the funnel.
Have fun with your eggs!
more tips and tricks for everyday…
1. Grind up puffed rice and use it instead of sugar to sprinkle on cookies or pastries or try a light sprinkling of ground almonds.
2. If you have no wire racks on which to cvool cookies, or not enough of them when making large batches, cool cookies on cotton dish towels or on a large cvotton tablecloth folded in half.
3. A piece of bread or apple in the cookie jar keeps soft cookies from hardening.
4. For a flaky pie crust, use sour cream or yogurt for the liquid.
5. To add flavor to apple pie, sprinkle a cup of coconut over the apples before covering them with the top crust.
6. When measuring oil and honey for a recipe, measure the oil first so that it coats the spoon or cup, making the honey that’s measured next slide out easily. When you’re baking with oil and eggs, crack your eggs in a measuring cup first and then pour them into your mixing bowl. The eggs will coat the measuring cup so that when you measure the oil it will slide out easily, leaving no oil behind in the cup.
7. Dust butte3red pans with cocoqa powder insteqd of flour to keep dark cakes brown and beautiful.
8. Parchment paper can be used to line baking pans so that you don’t need to oil or butter the pans. This saves calories and also saves cleanup.
That’s all for now, ladies! More to come in the next couple of days…….
Tips and tricks and everyday wisdom
Once in a while I run across some great ideas for the kitchen, and I jot them down. Today I just wanted to share some of these with you in hopes that you would find them useful as well!
1. To make a whole wheat bread rise higher and feel lighter, add 1 tbsp. of lemon juice to the dough as you’re mixing it. This will add lightness but will not influence the taste.
2. To make a sweetener-free bread, omit all honey and sugar from the recipe and add 1 tsp. of malt for every tablespoon of yeast called for. The malt provides the food that enables the yeast to grow.
3. Keep a plastic bag nearby when you’re kneading bread or making pastry or pasta. Tnen when the phone rings or you have to reach for a clean bowl, you can slip the bag over your messy hand and not spread the flour around the kitchen.
4. Lightly oil the dough hook on your Bosch before kneading your bread. The oil will keep the dough from “climbing” and will make cleaning up easier.
5. There’s no need to go out an dbuty a fancy baking tile to produce a crisp bottom on your pizza or french bread. An unglazed terra-cotta tile purchased from a flooring or tile store can just as easily substitute.
These are just a few little baking tips, but there are many more to come, so check back often to find more helpful hints for the kitchen, and more!
…And on it goes…
After a good 8 hours of work, the mayor’s pantry was finally finished, polished, labeled, organized, and looked like a stocked grocery store–with charm! I had the whole day to myself and loved the quiet of being able to work with no distractions. One of my favorite things is to walk into a pantry and decide how to make it come to life–how to divide areas so that it makes sense for my clients–a baking section, a canning section, a dehydrating section, a snack food and cereal section, and so on. In this pantry, I even included an area for a first aid kit and a fire extinguisher, as well as a large bin on the floor under the shelves for little hands–grandkids who had a place for their coloring books and crayons, playdough, and other little activities. There was also a basket designated for extra shopping bags. At the far end of the pantry, I established a paper goods section, where everything for entertaining was easily accessible–paper plates, cups, utensils, even lovely dinner napkins. It looked cheery and colorful. I took all the big boxes of granola bars, microwave popcorn, gum packages, candies, and put them in click n flip containers, and labeled them for convenience. I also lableled a container for baking supplies–things like muffin cups, extracts, food coloring, candles, toothpicks–all those little items that seem to get lost in the shuffle! Finally, I went through all of her spice jars, all of them mismatched and toppling in the cupboard, and emptied them into little matching glass spice jars, then labeled each one, and set them alphabetically in a large drawer next to her oven.
Needless to say, she was thrilled, and felt like it was something she had wanted to do for years, just didn’t know where to start–The excitement and satisfaction of my clients is truly payback for me!!!
We immediately set an appointment to get together again and get started on her new appliances–her Bosch and her WonderMilll Grinder. She wanted a coaching lesson or two on how to make healthy foods for her family, and so yesterday was the day!
Again, I walked up to her doorstep playing Santa Claus, with a Bosch in one hand, and a Grinder in the other–there’s nothing more exciting than watching ladies carefully unwrap these power tools, and seeing their eyes dance with excitement! For the next 4 hours, we went to work–we made homemade pita bread, whole wheat bread, she learned how to sprout wheat, and alfalfa, and we even had time to make up some pantry mixes like pancake mix, white sauce, cheese sauce, onion soup, and others. We started on some fruit leather, and then it was time to say goodbye!
How lovely to see her family gather around as the bread came out of the oven–the smell of fresh bread, and the great feeling of having those you love all around you–it’s a gift! This was a wonderful morning!
Before and After
I was just recently asked by the mayor’s wife in my town to help her get her food storage in order, so I jumped at the chance–I love to organize, dejunk, and besides, this is a woman I admire deeply, and I looked forward to the opportunity to rub shoulders with her!
I have always believed that food storage should be a beautiful thing–something lovely to look at, something to be proud of, and something colorful, and ALIVE! I love when my clients realize that food storage is not food hoardage. We don’t just buy food once, and then shove it in the deepest darkest corner of the basement, expecting to pull it out when the big catastrophe hits!
Well, like many other homes, this is what I was presented with. Her good husband had found a reputable company, and with best intentions had purchased cases and cases–we’re talking about 60 cases of dehydrated and freeze dried ready to eat foods. Things like ready to eat peanut butter, crackers, instant couscous, and others! The boxes were over 10 years old, and had never been opened. She hardly knew what alot of these foods were! One by one, we sifted through each box, determining what would stay and what would go–we took 1 can of each food and set it apart from the others, with intentions to open each one on our next visit and see what we thought of the quality and palpability of each food.
Unfortunately, 2/3 of these foods were no good. Well, perhaps edible, but not much nutrition to speak of. We decided that she would donate these to the food bank and let them decide if they were even edible. Foods like white flour, macaroni and cheese, powdered dairy products, and more–way past their expiration date had to just be thrown away!
We both felt a little disheartened that all this money had been spent with no intention of really using it, and now so much of it had to be thrown away. But this was a lesson that many of us have to learn the hard way. So in sharing this with you, I urge you to only store things that you intend to rotate regularly–think about your investment wisely, and consider how much of it you’ll really use before it goes bad! Don’t shove it down in the basement and forget about it, but begin to take inventory, and know what you have. IF you’re not sure how to use these foods, open them up, and find out! Experiment, and become familiar with them, so that if you one day have to rely on them, it will become seconc-nature!
After we organized her cans in an orderly fashion–those we were keeping, I promised I return and label each shelf, so that it was easy to read. All the boxes were piled up, and will be hauled off in the pickup truck. AAAh the feeling of clean–and the knowledge of what she now has gives her more peace of mind.
We moved upstairs to her pantry, and she had already done a lot of cleaning and organizing. She had great staples, and great adjustable shelves, and she promised to purchase more shelves for our second session.
We sat down at her kitchen table, and went through an inventory list–the one that is found on our website–www.simplylivingsmart.com. We decided that we needed a greater variety of foods in her storage, and I made a list of the things I would purchase for her in bulk, and then she made a list of all the things she could find at the local grocery store, or at the case lot sale coming up.
We set an appointment for next week, and have planned to go shopping–first to Costco, and then to the local grocery store for smaller items. We plan to stock her pantry and her storage room with all the items she could possibly need for the next 3 months, not including fresh produce, or dairy products, of course.
I went home and ordered all of her bulk foods like buckets of wheat, dried fruits and vegetables, water containers and pumps, and so forth. Then I ordered her some small glass spice jars so that we could reorganize all of her spices from mismatched plastic containers, that were taking up too much room in her cupboards, to a convenient drawer right near her stovetop.
This was a productive 3 hours! I so look forward to next week, as we shop, and fill her shelves. The week after that, we go to work organizing the pantry–recontainerizing the food, and labeling all the containers, giving her seperate sections in her pantry to make the space more user-friendly. I like to always include a baking section, where all the flours, sugars, and baking supplies are stored, then a canned food section for all the canned fruits and vegetables, then a snack section–especially great for kids and teenagers, and also an appliance section. I also add a paper products section, so that all those things like napkins, paper cups, etc. have their own space. Then I do condiments–dressings, sauce packets, bouillons, and more. With the adjustable shelves, we will be able to design the space perfectly, freeing up more room than she ever knew she had!
I’ll be taking before pictures this time, to show you our progress, and then I’ll take more pictures along the way! Hope you’ll find this interesting as I take you on a journey through food storage organization….join me next week for another update!
When the student prepares, the teacher will come…
“When the student prepares, the teacher will come…” This wise statement was shared with me by one of our darling on-line trainees. I have thought often about these words over the last 2 months, and have wondered what I am doing to prepare for change, for a better future, for more knowledge, more wisdom. Am I taking opportunities to ask questions, to act on my curiosities, to dig a little deeper into concepts that interest me?
Yesterday I had a lovely visit with one of our on-line trainees in Minneapolis, and she shared with me her commitment to becoming better self-reliant. She told me that in January, she had nothing and knew nothing regarding food storage, but she had a deep desire to learn and to improve. As she searched, and read, and inquired about these things, she was led to our website, www.Simplylivingsmart.com. She was excited to feel part of an online community. She was encouraged by others she read about who were making progress in their food storage. As limited as her time has been, working full time and raising a 2yr. old little daughter, she has committed to participate in the online training program, and to put away a set amount of money away each month for her food storage. She now has emergency heat, a way to cook, some food and other emergency supplies on hand, and she is feeling confident in her ability to provide for herself and her daughter. She is looking forward to doing more and learning more, and has an incredible ability to believe that she will succeed! And she will!!!!
Step by step, we all can prepare ourselves to receive our “teachers”, whoever they may be. It may be in an educational, spiritual, vocational or physical manner, but prepare we must. When we imagine ourselves as we want to become, we move more quickly towards that goal. I truly believe that as we project positive energy, a willing heart, and assertive action, we can achieve whatever we believe!
Let us not be discouraged by our challenges–they only test our strength, and our commitment to our greater goals!! Let us conquer our challenges by keeping our eye on the end result–who we really want to become, what we really want to accomplish. Then we can look back and as we evaluate our progress , shout, “I DID IT!!!!!”
Let us prepare each day in whatever area we choose to receive our “teachers”, those who will help guide us on our paths to greatness! Then let us be active in studying, and learning and let us show gratitude by living what we learn!
Thanks to all you wonderful women who teach me as we interact with each other. May you see great success in your lives!
Your friend,
Anitra