"Break-the-fast-dinner".....

Yes, that is my Kindle among these food storage staples.  I am in love, it is a great little item and it is easy to search and find wonderful things using it.  What am I making you may ask?  Stay tuned.....

Some of you know that my husband and I are serving in a Young Single Adult ward.  The opportunities and experiences we are having are not only amazing, but are very memorable.  Well, our ward had a "Break-the-fast-dinner".  What this means is that essentially is some folks brought main dishes, others desserts, etc.  It's a big, big potluck dinner to break the fast following church on Fast Sunday.  I wasn't assigned to bring anything, but I just couldn't show up empty handed. 

I then thought about all the food storage staples I have in my home...and now that one or more children come and go, we don't necessarily need it all.  So, I decided to make something from my Food Storage.  I decided upon pies.  I put the first 3 ingredients in my food processor.

After putting in the cold water, I had a wonderful dough to use.

I rolled it out and trimmed off the rough edges.

Then, I rolled it on to my rolling pin and place the dough into the pie plate.

I put in the Cherry Pie filling that I canned using Ultra Gel.

Roll out the top crust and place it on.

Choose the fluted edges you wish.

Cut vents.

This suggestion come courtesy of my sister, Teri. Cut leaves and the shape of the fruit inside.

Using eggwash or water, attach them to the top crust.

Cover the edges with foil while baking. Remove the foil during the last 10-15 minutes of baking. The foil protects the edges from burning. 

The pies turned out well, but I don't have a photo of the finished product....because I was running out the door with my pies in order to make it to church.

I made this totally with food storage supplies....and there was not any left after the meal.  I made cherry and apple, and it was actually simple. I have decided that I will be making dishes from my food storage for future dinners.  It's great practice for me, it helps rotate my supplies, and it feeds the masses.  

If you are wondering what this amazing recipe is....see it below. It comes from KSL TV.

Perfect Pie Crust

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup cold lard
• 6-8 tablespoons cold water

Method:

1 double crust 9-inch pie or 2 single crust 9-inch pie shells.

Stir together flour and salt. Using a pastry blender or 2 knives cut cold lard into flour until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle water, 1 tablespoon at a time, over flour mixture tossing gently with a fork; continue to add water until pastry is moist enough to press into a ball. Do not over mix pastry. Divide dough in half and roll each half out on a lightly floured surface, or between two sheets wax paper until it is the size of pie plate. Follow directions for favorite pie.

Boboli.....Making your own!

As we finalize our focus on White flour, I give you the "Boboli".  We have all seem them at the store, and most likely have purchased them due to their convenience.  Well, using our same "Little Caesars Pizza Dough" recipe, you can make your own out of your food storage staples.  Here are the steps

In previous posts, we made this recipe in our bread machine and then placed the dough in a zip-lock bag overnight in the refrigerator.   Here is how the dough looks right out of the refrigerator.

Drizzle olive oil on your pan. 

Empty the dough from the bag onto the pan.  Press the dough out, flip it over and press again.  It is now coated with olive oil.

After letting the dough rest for a few minutes press the dough to the desired shape.  The dough as a "memory", and may not let you be as symmetrical as you desire (....let me rephrase that....as I desire!).

Sprinkle it with Parmesan Cheese.

Put it into a 350 degree oven for 5-10 minutes depending upon the color you wish. Remember, you are only cooking it halfway. When you use it to make your pizza, it will finish cooking.

Here it is on the cooling rack. 

Wrap it in plastic wrap (and then freezer wrap) and freeze it.  Pull it out whenever you wish to use it!

Lesson's Learned:

• Your bread machine did all the work!  (see previous post on "Little Caesars Pizza Dough")
• It took maybe 5 minutes to prepare for the oven.
• It took a couple of minutes to wrap it up.
• Convenience:  You have them ready when you are ready.  When you come home from a busy evening of sports, dance, work, etc, you can easily pull this out and make your 'made-to-order' pizza of your choosing!
• It is all made with basic Food Storage ingredients.

It's yummy, and easy!

Little Ceasar's Pizza Dough..........

I have your attention with that title don't I?  We are continuing to focus on unique ways to use your flour.  This recipe can make some wonderful things.  It comes from http://savoryseasoning.blogspot.com/ (See the recipe at the bottom of this post!).  My thanks to this blog for posting this fabulous recipe!

Now, we are not just going to make pizza.  We are going to make this a matter of convenience.  In all seriousness, that is exactly what we are going to do.  Remember that Bread maker we pulled out a few weeks ago, it should still be easy to access at this point.  Get it out.

  

The reason we are going to use this machine, is that it will do all the work.  This is very important to the LRH, and most likely everyone else, because I have a long list of things to do every day.  So, on a day you are home, and still have that long list, you can make up several batches of this and save them for later.

Pour in your warm water.

 Put in all your dry ingredients (yeast, sugar, salt).  Then add your honey, olive oil and flour.

Turn it on your dough cycle and leave! 

  

 When the cycle is done, take the dough out and punch it down.

Place the dough into a gallon zip-lock bag.  My sister states that she keeps her bags and uses them over and over to put this same dough in.

This is how it looks just after I zipped the bag.

Put it in the refrigerator overnight.

This is how it looks the next day.

Lessons to be learned:

•  It took me about 3 minutes to put everything into the bread machine
• I only used my Food Storage ingredients.
• I got a lot done while the bread machine did the work for me.....did you catch that?  It did the work for me.
• Convenience:  If you make several batches in a day, you have dough for other days.  How does that work?  Take it out of the refrigerator, punch it down, wrap it in plastic wrap and get about 3 balls of dough into that same zip-lock bag and freeze them.  On the day you want to use it, take it out in the morning and let it defrost in your refrigerator.  By dinner time, it is ready to go.
• It is a lot less expensive to make this from scratch than to purchase dough from the store or from a mix.
• The hands on time was less than 10 minutes per batch.
• You can make more than Pizza dough with this.  The first thought are those wonderful bread sticks that can be made.  Watch the blog for more ideas of how to use it.

Here is the recipe for "Little Caesars Pizza Dough".  

Little Caesars Pizza Dough

http://savoryseasonings.blogspot.com/

1 1/4 cups (9.7 oz) warm water (appox. 120° F)

2 3/4 tsp. dry active yeast

2 TBSP sugar

1 TBSP Honey 

1 TBSP Olive Oil 

2 Tsp. Salt

1 1/2 cups (8 oz.) bread flour or all purpose flour

1 1/2 cups (8 oz.) whole wheat flour (optional, can use 100% bread flour or all purpose flour)

Mix water and yeast in mixing bowl and allow it to proof for 5 minutes. Mix in sugar, honey and oil. Then mix in 1 cup flour and the salt. Continue mixing in all the remaining flour until you get a nice, soft dough. Knead until dough is soft and smooth (approx. 10 minutes). 

Finish kneading on a lightly floured surface and shape into a ball. Place in the refrigerator in a covered container coated with olive oil for overnight. For the perfect flavor, it is best to time making the dough 24 hours before baking the pizza's (for pizza Saturday at 5pm, make your dough Friday at 5pm). If you are short on time you can sacrifice some flavor and make this dough first thing in the morning and place it in the fridge until dinner that evening. 

3 hours before baking: Remove from fridge and either divide dough in half for two 12” pizzas or leave whole for one somewhat thicker 16” pizza. Work each piece of dough into balls. Allow the dough to come back to room temperature (this process generally takes 3 hours).

45 minutes before baking: With your pizza stone on the bottom rack of your oven, preheat your oven to 475° F to allow the stone to get hot enough (this process generally takes 40-50 minutes).

15 minutes before baking: Shape dough into desired pizza crust, sprinkle pizza peel, wooden cutting board or upside down cookie sheet with corn meal, flour or rice flour. Place pizza crust on top, then add toppings. Gently slide pizza onto the hot pizza stone and bake for 9-11 minutes. 

Try it today!

Flour.....something yummy to try....

This is like a hidden picture that your children may search for the hidden item in a magazine.  What are we discussing?  The hidden item is a Tortilla.  We will be making Tortilla's with flour. 

Flour is our target item this week.  We all know you can make cakes and cookies with it.  But, I am trying to suggest other things to try that are not that difficult and use your basic food storage staples.  Being creative makes your food storage inviting.

First, get out your needed ingredients.  Here you see the flour, baking powder, salt, and shortening.  You also see my The Amazing Wheat Book   by LeArta Moulton.  The recipe comes from this book.

Although you can make this by hand, I choose to use my Food Processor....because I am always in a hurry!  Place your flour in the machine.

Next, add your Baking Powder, Salt, Shortening and the water.

Process the mixture.  The Food Processor incorporates the shortening very well.

Cover the dough and let it rest for 5 minutes

After rolling it out to at least 1/4 inch with a rolling pin, cook it on a hot ungreased griddle.  The tortilla should be able to slide around the pan with the touch of your fingers. 

I decided to try my hand at the "Cafe Rio" method and turn the tortilla over with my fingers....it worked out just fine!

Here is the Rooster's dinner.  The tortilla has Fajita Beef, Spring lettuce, cheddar cheese, and Salsa.  You can hopefully see the tortilla under it all.

Making it all from your Storage:

Even though I had several of these toppings in the refrigerator, I could have produced this entire meal from my storage.  Certainly the tortilla is from food storage staples (and you could also use your wheat flour), the Fajita beef was from the freezer as was the cheese.  I have young spring lettuce coming up in the garden, and I have canned salsa from last summer. 

Food storage meals do not have to be "boring". Planning ahead makes all the difference in the world.  Do you think the Rooster of the house knew this was a food storage meal?  I can answer emphatically, that he did not.  He came in the door, and sat down to eat.  There is no reason this could not occur at any of our homes.

Here is the recipe: 

4 C whole wheat or white flour

1 Tablespoon Baking Powder

1 Teaspoon Salt

1/3 Cup oil or shortening

1 1/8 C warm water.

Mix Together:

You may have to add a little more water when using shoe wheat.  If shortening is used, cut into dry ingredients.  It will be a very soft dough.  Knead gently just to get the dough together  Cover and let rest 5 minutes for gluten to develop.  Form into balls, could use an ice cream scoop (you want a 1 1/2 inch size ball).  Roll out very thin, at least 1/4 inch.  Keep remaining dough covered. Bake on a hot ungreased fry pan or griddle.  Brown on both sides.  Makes about 24 tortillas.

Make a plan!

It's a matter of making Pasta....

As we are focusing on White flour this week, I thought I would try my hand at making pasta using this wonderful food storage staple.

In a previous post, I alluded to how ridiculous it was that I have acquired so many "gadgets" over the past few years because I was thinking that "I just might need it"!  Well, I just might!  The gadgets today fall within that category.  I have a Kitchen Aid mixer.  One day I was browsing the clearance area of a large store and saw that the price of the pasta attachment was really significantly reduced.  My "I just might need it" thinking started to to come to the forefront, and I purchased the needed items.  I promptly put them in my cupboard and forgot about them for about a year.  So, I felt it was time to try them as we are focusing on White flour this week.  This is another way to use this staple as well.

I am making a Basic Pasta Dough without eggs as I may not use all the pasta that I am making right now.  If I did incorporate eggs, I could not store the pasta because of the threat of salmonella.

I decided to try the "old school method" and try to do it by hand....you never know when you might have to do it that way.  The instructions for the recipe I used state that you need to make a well in the flour.  Some hard-core pasta makers make a mound of flour right on the counter with the well in the middle and start mixing from there.  I am not so trusting.

Next add your water to the well.

If you don't recognize the "EVOO", this is a throw-back to Rachel Ray's nick name for Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

Add your olive oil as well

Begin to mix the wet and dry ingredients together very slowly with a fork.  Only incorporate a little flour at a time so that it mixes smoothly and evenly. 

After a while, the fork was not longer effective, so it was time to use come clean hands to assist in the matter.

Eventually I made this ball, and it looks a little sorry...but remember I am just learning here!

  

The instructions said to cover the dough and let it rest for about 30 minutes.  This really did make a difference as the dough did soften become more pliable after I did this.  The instructions also say to repeat this a couple of times....which adds to the overall time spent doing this.  Now, do you see why I choose to not make egg noodles...after all this work, I wanted to keep the left over pasta and not discard it.

Yes, it is another ridiculous item that I picked up "just in case I needed it".  However, you need to know that the LRH has what I call a "birth defect".  Are you ready to know what it is?  Well,  I just can't pay full price for anything without a significant amount of pain....and this is my "defect".  So, please know that this item was on clearance...somewhere.  It is a pasta stand.  You do not need to have one of these.  I have read that you can use a towel on the back of a chair to place your pasta, and even a cloth-covered broom handle that is propped between 2 chairs.  Please don't think you have to acquire this....although it was fun to use.

So, it was time to try my pasta attachment.  These are the "screens" that come with it.  It can make Macaroni, Angel Hair, Spaghetti, Egg, and Lasagna noodles. This is a pretty nice selection huh?

My son choose Angel Hair Pasta, so I put that screen on the attachment.

This is how it looks when it is coming out of the machine.

I hung the pasta on the stand, however the pasta came out so quickly that I didn't successfully separate it well.  I need to work on that particular skill.  The young Rooster of the house ate and ate and ate the pasta...but I have enough to make a pasta dish...when my life slows down a little bit this week!

Finally, I want to show you a non-electrical model that I acquired and have used in the past.  Believe it or not, I got this a a closeout store for very little money at the time.  It has several attachments that you can get and attaches to your counter to stabilize it.  So, if I really didn't have power, I could mix by hand and shape the pasta without power.  And....you can use a knife to cut your pasta if you choose to roll it out on your counter with a rolling pin.  I have also done that many times as well.  You don't have to get ridiculous with the gadget acquisition process as I seem to have done.

Lessons learned!

1. I will mix the dough in my Kitchen Aid or in my Food Processor next time.....I am always in a hurry!
2. I will let the dough rest before forming the pasta....it really makes a difference.
3. I will try other ways to take the pasta off my machine without clumping it all together.  I have some ideas and will attempt to try them and hopefully share them with you later.
4. I will try to make vegetable pasta with other food storage staples.  You can use Tomato Sauce or puree your dehydrated vegetables (and you wondered if you would ever use these in a unique way!).
5. Don't give up.....it tasted delicious and is another wonderful way to use your flour.