My Very First Gallon of RAW MILK

We were so excited to get our first gallon of fresh raw milk on Wednesday.  We nearly drank the whole thing in less than a day!  It was delicious!  I drew a red line on the picture so you could see how much cream was on top.  I skimmed it off and used it to make butter.  Yes, that's right.  I made my own butter.  And I thought getting chickens made me feel like a country girl!

What We Ate for Dinner: Fin & Norah's

Last night we packed up the car and headed up to Kaysville to spend Mother's Day weekend with Bryce's mother (and father).  We decided to stop and have dinner at the Skybox restaurant because I had a gift certificate.  Little did we know that the Skybox restaurant is no more.

So we dined at the new restaurant in it's place called Fin & Norah's.  It was nice not to have to do the dishes for once.

What We Ate for Dinner: Leftovers

Yum.  If you must know the details, we ate more Uglies with the Six Bean Salad.

Food Storage Six Bean Salad

It probably won't surprise you to know that I have been craving salad.  Without the purchase of fresh fruits and vegetables, anything green sounds delicious.  I found this Bean Salad recipe over at--you guessed it--Allrecipes.com.  Here is what I threw in a reusable storage container:

1 can green beans, drained
1 can great northern beans, drained
1 can garbanzo beans, drained
1 can black beans, drained
1 can kidney beans, drained
Approx. 1/4 c. frozen green bell pepper (it was all I had)
1/4 c. dehydrated onion
1/4 c. dehydrated celery
1/2 c. water
1/2 c. salad oil
1/2 c. white vinegar
3/4 c. sugar
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. pepper

I made this yesterday.  It says to refrigerate for 8 hours, so I waited until today to try it.  I have say, it really hit the spot.

What We Ate for Dinner: Uglies

That's what they're called: Uglies.  I didn't make that up.  I went searching for a ground beef recipe on Allrecipes.com because ground elk is the one thing I have.  I found a recipe for Uglies.


Basically, its a biscuit in a muffin tin filled with ground beef and BBQ sauce and topped with cheese.  I totally splurged on this meal because I had to make my own biscuits and they used a whole cube of butter.  I also used up most of our cheddar cheese.  I served these up with our last can of corn.  Kimball liked the corn best.

The little uglies were pretty easy to make.  I used a recipe for cheddar buttermilk biscuits that I have made before.  In place of the buttermilk I used 1 t. lemon juice + enough milk to equal the 3/4 c.  Let that sit at room temperature until it starts to curdle.  There you go, buttermilk substitute!

I used a sunflower cookie cutter because it was the biggest I had.  But they worked out perfectly because the scalloped edges made it so the biscuit fit into the muffin tin so easily.  And they looked so cute.

For the sauce, I used the powdered BBQ sauce I mentioned here.  However, I had to doctor it up a bit.  I added Worcestershire sauce and extra water and vinegar.

It ended up tasting more like a sloppy joe, which was ok.  But I won't be using this powdered mix a lot.  I am still going to look for a good canned BBQ sauce I can make.

With a better BBQ sauce I might actually make these little uglies again.

Baby Food from Food Storage: Strawberry Applesauce

Last night I used up the last jar of fruit baby food.  So today I needed to make something that Stanford could eat.  I figured out a month or so ago that you could make apple sauce from dehydrated apple chips.  Today I added some dehydrated strawberries.

All you need to do is add enough water to cover the fruit, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and cover the pan.  Let it simmer until the fruit looks like mush.

Put the mush in a blender and blend well.

Then put the contents in ice cube trays.  Once frozen you can transfer to a freezer bag.  Alternatively, if you are not making baby food, you can simply refrigerate the apple sauce in a air tight jar.

What We Ate for Dinner: Mulligatawny Soup and "Soup Mix"

Are you familiar with the "Soup Mix" that used to be available at LDS Canneries?  I found a recipe online if you are inclined to make your own, however, I wouldn't bother.  You see, the Soup Mix is annoying.  The various ingredients--split peas, lentils, rice, and alphabet pasta--all take different times to cook.  The split peas are still crunchy by the time the pasta has turned to mush.  Be that as it may, I have Soup Mix in my food storage (thanks to Bryce's grandma and mother) and I feel obligated to use it.  So last night I did.

I made mulligatawny soup for the first time.  I have been craving curry, but without any coconut milk on hand, I haven't found anything that satisfied--until now!

1/4 c. dehydrated onion
1/4 c. dehydrated carrots
1/4 c. dehydrated celery
3 t. curry powder
8 c. water
8 chicken bullion cubes
1/2 c. dehydrated apple chips
2 c. diced chicken breasts (I used turkey)
1 c. Soup Mix (you could use rice instead)
1 can evaporated milk

I threw all the ingredients, except the milk, into the crock pot and cooked on high for 4 hours.  1/2 hour before serving, I turned it to low and poured in the milk.  The picture is nothing to look at, but it was delicious!  We will be adding some version of this soup to our regular meal rotation.  It was *that* good.

What We Ate for Dinner: Do you even need to ask?

We had grilled cheese and tomato soup.  Bryce always asks for it on Sunday and I always oblige--so long as we have cheese.  We still have the grated cheddar that was frozen.  It's a bit messy for sandwiches, but tastes great. By the way, the picture is not mine, but they do look good.

Cookbooks I Love: Allrecipes.com

I don't know that a website can count as a cookbook, but I don't know what I would do without allrecipes.com.  If you haven't used the site, you should check it out; if you have, you probably know what I mean.

Allrecipes.com is a site when regular people like you and me have submitted their recipes, and then more regular people like you and me have rated them.  It's so helpful when I am looking to use up ingredients or find something specific.  I especially love the reviews because I can get an idea of how easy the recipe is and how it might need to be altered.

I used this site to find a recipe for graham crackers to modify for butter powder and for countless other things I have made before this experiment began.  If you are looking for help in the kitchen, allrecipes.com is a great place to start!

What We Ate for Dinner: Green Garden Burgers, Onion Rings and Homemade Winger's Sauce

I used up another of my freezer meals for dinner.  My sister-in-law Kirstin made these green veggie burgers for a freezer meal exchange we did some months ago.  They are really delicious and are the next best thing to fresh greens.  Well, almost.  I looked at the recipe and am wondering if it could be modified for food storage items.  I think it could probably work with frozen spinach.  I only have one more package of frozen spinach and I haven't decided what to do with it.

I found the batter for the onion rings in my pantry.  It's amazing what you can find when you start to clean things out.

We also used some homemade Winger's sauce I had in the fridge (Just so you know I skip the corn syrup).  With a little mayo this was an awesome dip for the onion rings.  I also liked it on my veggie burger.