Another Look at Master Mixes and Cooking from Scratch
I received this comment to yesterday’s post and decided there was lots of good idea. I didn’t want you to miss it so I have posted it here also. While I love having a large batch of favorite things in one place the ideas below may be more appropriate for your circumstance. Thanks so much Jeanette. Enjoy!
When those master mix recipe books came out years ago, I tried many of the recipes. I learned something about myself in the process. I decided that I really did not have the room to store all of my food storage and also the large containers needed to store the mixes. I also decided that I liked to either just make a recipe or “dump one”–meaning, I didn’t want to measure again out of a large mix–most of the time. The one large mix I do like to use is the biscuit mix. So, I started to make my own mixes, as you advocate, only I would make them one at a time and put it in a ziplock bag or twist tie bag, so that later I could just “dump” it into a bowl and then add the wet ingredients. Even though I would do each recipe separately, it would save time later because I wouldn’t have to pull out all of the ingredients, measure, and then put everything away. Once for Home Evening we made three muffin mixes this way for a cooking lesson–my husband, our youngest child, and me. Our names were put on each separate bag and then frozen. It was a nice convenience later on.
I have mainly cooked from scratch most of my life and have thought a lot about what my personal preferences are. When time really is short a ready prepared mix is a life saver. You can either buy it or make it yourself.
There are other things that make cooking from scratch unattractive to all of us at times–not wanting to get our hands sticky, clean-up, what to do with a big batch of cookies when they are all baked, etc. Also, a person may now be alone and balk at having to eat the same thing for weeks at a time. What can you do and still store and use basic ingredients when there is just one or two to cook for?
Suggestions I have are these:
l.Decide what you consider convenient. What type of convenience do you look for at the store and buy? If you like the smell of freshly baked cookies and buy the rolls of dough, then make rolls of dough with your own ingredients and freeze them. If you are single and can’t eat a whole roll of dough in a reasonable amount of time, then when you make your own rolls of dough, make them shorter. You will bake fewer at a time, but each time you do, they will be fresher than if you had a bunch of stale cookies. If you are in the mood to bake something, make the regular recipe and freeze unbaked portions in smaller batches to be used later. If there are other recipes that can’t be divided in half because one of the ingredients is an egg, consider buying a small can of dried eggs. That way you can easily divide an egg in half and not waste the other half. Your supply of other ingredients will seem easier to use because you won’t have the hangup of “the egg” problem. This may also help if you simply do not have freezer space at all for baked goods and could use the convenience of mixes and also use your stored supplies.
I decided that I also did not like to make drop cookies the normal way–with one teaspoon and scooping it off with my finger, or even with two teapoons, pushing the dough off with the second spoon. I invested in a small ice cream scoop that does the job much faster. These scoops are sold all the time now as cookie scoops. If you have never used one, get one. You will find that the work goes much faster. Also invest in sheets of parchment paper. Put one of these on your cookie sheet and your cleanup will be much easier. You can do MANY batches of cookies with one sheet of parchment paper.
Buy a cookie rack and place it over a large brown paper bag. After the cookies are cooled and put away, you can also throw away the brown paper bag and not have to scrub your counter. If you don’t have a cookie rack, just put the freshly baked cookies on the brown paper bag.
If the batch of cookies is large, I freeze them by eights in sandwich ziplock bags. Place four cookies upside down in the bag and place the other four right side up on top of the first four. All of the flat sides will be touching. If the cookies are moister, slide a small piece of wax paper on top of the first four cookies before you put the others on top. Then they will not stick together.
Some may think it silly of me to try to address all of these hang-ups. But I realized at a certain point that if things got really bad, I would be more stressed, not less. I was already committed to cooking from scratch in order to rotate my food storage. It is important to personally address these issues when times are more normal. Think now of being Pandemic Flu ready. If you are taking care of a house full of sick people, or even just one person, and cannot go out to get food for one reason or another, you will be stuck with what you have in your home. ANYTHING you can do to make cooking easier in that scenario will be important. Not only will you need to eat, but you will also have to get some food into those who are sick.
If no one in your home is ill at that time, you very well could be asked to care for more who are not ill–children maybe–so that they will not be exposed–reverse quarantine.
Thanks Again!
