Nice Buns.

For a while now, I've been looking for a good recipe for hamburger buns that could be made entirely from food storage, not just in case I find myself living off of my food storage, but also for all those times when I forget to buy hamburger buns and have something like, well, hamburgers on the menu. But I really wanted them to be good buns and not just regular bread dough that's shaped like buns. So when I saw this recipe, originally from the New York Times featured on SmittenKitchen.com, I knew I had to try it.

The original recipe calls for a few fresh ingredients--eggs, milk, and butter--which, with a little tweaking can be swapped out for long-term storage items. But before I tried it with the substitutions, I wanted to be sure that the recipe was good to begin with, so I made it exactly as the recipe directs. You know, to isolate the variables. Gotta keep this scientific. The buns were amazing. So much better than the cheap-o, eight-for-a-dollar ones we usually buy. I know, that's probably not saying much, but trust me. My two kids, who usually discard their buns after about two bites, were begging me for them. Plain. With no meat. Wow.

So I decided I'd try them again using food storage to see if they still turned out. The results--at least, as far as I could tell--were identical. Same fluffy texture, same golden-brown color, same everything. The only thing that presented even a little bit of a quandary was the egg wash. I had never tried making an egg wash from powdered eggs, and was a little nervous that it might not work. So here are the results:

(Click on it if you want to see it bigger)

I did one with a powdered egg wash (just one reconstituted egg without any additional water), one with a fresh egg wash (1 egg + 1 tbsp. water), and one with no egg wash. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by the powdered egg wash. It was very slightly lighter in color than the fresh egg wash, but other than that it worked the same, no funny tastes or textures or splotchiness. In fact, after I took a picture, it got mixed back in with all the others and I couldn't even tell which one it was. I had to sample a few potential candidates to make sure I tasted the one with the powdered egg wash and even after I tried them all, I still didn't know which one it was. The ones without an egg wash were good, too; they probably looked the most like the cheap ones I buy in the store. Their biggest problem was that the sesame seeds wouldn't stick, but I don't know that sesame seeds really add that much to a hamburger anyway.

So I guess in the future I won't be afraid to use powdered eggs to do egg washes. I might even try one on a pie sometime, although I'm still kind of a pie novice and don't know if I want to mess around with proven methods yet. Anyway, with a good bun recipe, you could easily shred up some canned beef, chicken, or even pork (which I have tried and it's actually pretty good) with some BBQ sauce, spoon it onto one of these buns, and have a great base for a meal. Here's the recipe, which was actually not too complicated or difficult, either:

Light Brioche Burger Buns

Ingredients:
-3 tablespoons warm milk [1-1/2 teaspoons powdered milk + 3 tablespoons water]
-2 teaspoons active dry yeast
-2-1/2 tablespoons sugar
-2 large eggs [1 tablespoon whole egg powder + 2 tablespoons warm water = 1 egg; double for 2]
-3 cups bread flour
-1/3 cup all-purpose flour
-1-1/2 teaspoons salt
-2-1/2 tablespoons butter, softened [stored long-term in the freezer or bottled, if you're brave]
-sesame seeds (optional)

1. In a glass measuring cup, combine 1 cup warm water, the milk, yeast and sugar. Let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, beat 1 egg.

2. In a large bowl, whisk flours with salt. Add butter and rub into flour between your fingers, making crumbs. Using a dough scraper, stir in yeast mixture and beaten egg until a dough forms. Scrape dough onto clean, unfloured counter and knead, scooping dough up, slapping it on counter and turning it, until smooth and elastic, 8 to 10 minutes. [The dough is super, super sticky, but resist the urge to add more flour than you absolutely have to, as this will make them drier and denser. If you have one, you can knead it in a stand mixer with a dough hook, easy as pie.]

3. Shape dough into a ball and return it to bowl. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, 1 to 2 hours. [For me, it only took one hour.]

4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Using dough scraper, divide dough into 8 equal parts. [The first time made these, I made eight and I felt like they were too huge for a regular, 1/4-lb. hamburger. The second time I made ten and it seemed just about right. ] Gently roll each into a ball and arrange 2 to 3 inches apart on baking sheet. Cover loosely with a clean kitchen towel [I didn't notice the "kitchen towel" part until just now. I covered mine with plastic wrap sprayed with cooking spray and it worked well.] and let buns rise in a warm place for 1 to 2 hours. [For me, this was just under an hour.]

5. Set a large shallow pan of water on oven floor. Preheat oven to 400 degrees with rack in center. Beat remaining egg with 1 tablespoon water and brush some on top of buns. Sprinkle with sesame seeds, if desired. Bake, turning sheet halfway through baking, until tops are golden brown, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool completely. [And if you want to fully experience their awesomeness, definitely toast them, maybe with a little butter.]

Yield: 8-10 buns.

Why Do Mormons Store Food?

A few weeks ago my sweet friend Julie asked me to write a post for a blog called MormonWoman.org for which she is a contributor/administrator. The site is not an official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but if I understand it right, its purpose is to give just a glimpse into the lives of LDS women and to help dispel misconceptions that people may have about Mormon women. Anyway, she asked me to write a post about why Mormons store food and I thought I would share it here:

http://mormonwoman.org/2009/08/28/ask-a-mormon-woman-why-do-mormons-store-food/

Naturally, writing a post all about how important I think food storage is and encouraging others to store food made me feel like a major hypocrite, since I haven't been giving much time to my food storage or this blog as of late (I guess if you're here, I don't have to point out how long it's been since my last post). But I thought maybe I could redeem myself by doing a new post right after I'm done with this one. Even though I haven't been posting, I have been trying some new fun things that I'm excited to share... as soon as I get back from Disneyland in a couple of weeks. I know, once a bum always a bum, I guess. But since I don't really think anyone reads this blog anymore, it probably doesn't matter anyway.

Strawberry Leather Forever

If you or your parents watched a lot of infomercials in the early nineties, this will look awfully familiar to you:

My parents had a bunch of those products: the Snackmaster food dehydrator, the Jet-Stream Oven, the Bamix.... I can't really talk when I personally have spoken the words, "I would like to order a set of Miracle Blades," but you know how most of those purchases go. You use them a few times before you discover that you actually can live without them and after storing them for a decade or so you give them away, throw them away, or sell them for five bucks in a yard sale.

So it should come as no surprise that as soon as I mentioned that I was interested in purchasing a food dehydrator, both my parents and my in-laws offered me the Snackmaster collecting dust in their respective garages. With their offers I could hardly justify the $200+ price tag of the dehydrator I really wanted--the Excalibur--when my primary reason for choosing it over the Snackmaster was so that I could have square trays for fruit leather instead of those pesky donut-shaped ones.

Though I was certain that a fifteen-year-old piece of Ronco couldn't possibly be worth anything, I decided to try it out on some strawberry leather, just so I could say I tried it and insist on buying the Excalibur. And of course, it made really awesome, totally delicious, all-natural fruit leather. Shaped like a donut. Really, I was very pleasantly surprised by the result and since this dehydrator didn't cost me anything, I'm trying really hard not to let the shape bother me too much.

I really didn't mean for this post to be about the dehydrator; I really wanted to talk about what a great thing fruit leather is. It's so easy to make, it tastes great (we've also made peach leather which was good, but I liked the strawberry significantly better) and it doesn't contain all the artificial coloring and sweeteners of the Betty Crocker variety so you don't have to feel so guilty about feeding it to your kids (or eating it all yourself).

Here are some tips I picked up through internet research and through my own experimentation (and failures):

- You don't really need to add any sweeteners or anything; just puree the fruit and pour it onto your drying trays. That said, I followed this "recipe" for strawberry leather and I think it turned out pretty well:
2 cups pureed strawberries + 2 tablespoons honey + 1 tablespoon lemon juice

- If you do decide to sweeten your fruit, do it with honey or corn syrup, as sugar can sometimes crystallize in storage.

- After you've prepared your puree, all you have to do is pour it onto your dehydrator trays. You can either cover the regular trays with plastic wrap or use these nifty fruit roll sheets. Then just dry it until it's no longer sticky and it peels away easily. In the Snackmaster, this can take anywhere from about 6 to 9 hours.

- If you don't have a food dehydrator and don't want to buy one (though you could probably find a real cheap one at a thrift store) you can dry fruit leather in the sun on baking sheets lined with plastic wrap. Just make sure you cover them with cheesecloth or nylon netting to keep bugs out of the leather but without touching it. Pick a day when the sun is hot and the humidity low and allow 1 to 2 days to dry.

- When you pour your fruit puree onto whatever drying tray you're using, make sure you spread it to an even thickness!!! This is very important. If you don't, some areas will be brittle when some are still gooey and you will end up throwing it in the garbage or letting your kids scrape it off and lick it off their fingers. Seriously, do the best you can to get it nice and even and about 1/4" thick like this:


- I found that in the Snackmaster 2200 (I'm not sure if other Snackmaster models have different diameters) it took about 1-1/2 cups of puree for it to come out just right.

That's all I got. What fruit leathers have you tried?

Blender Wheat Pancakes- No Wheat Grinder Needed!

Throughout my quest for good, working food storage recipes, I've run across several different blender wheat pancake recipes. And after trying them, I can see why:

-You don't need a wheat grinder to make them, so they're a good way to try out whole wheat in your diet without making a major investment.
-They're essentially a "one-bowl" recipe. Using fewer dishes always puts a smile on my face.
-They're more filling than regular pancakes, so you don't overeat. Actually, I still overeat because I like them so much (and I'm really more of a waffle person than a pancake eater) just not as much as I would regular pancakes.
-They're delicious! Even my eighteen-month-old, whom I've decided to start calling "Picky-Picky," likes them. You would never know they weren't made with white all-purpose flour. Honest.
-Do I have too many bulleted lists in these posts?

Anyway, I've tried several different recipes with minor variations and this is my favorite so far. It's from Family Dinner Cookbook by Debbie Harman.

Blender Wheat Pancakes

Ingredients:
-1 c. wheat
-1 c. milk
-1/4 c. melted butter
-2 eggs
-1 tsp. salt
-2 tbsp. sugar or honey
-1/4 tsp. baking soda

Blend wheat and milk in a blender for about five minutes, scraping sides of blender if necessary. [This particular recipe actually says to just blend the wheat by itself, but I think it works better when you blend it with the milk.] Add butter and eggs. Blend until well mixed. Add remaining ingredients and blend on high until mixed. Pour batter onto hot greased griddle. Cook until bubbles appear all over and edges start to brown. Flip and cook other side.

Tips:
-Make sure your griddle is at the right temperature (about medium-low) before you start pouring pancakes or bad things will happen. I'm sure that's obvious to anyone who regularly makes pancakes, but I had to find it out the hard way.
-If you want to cut down on your prep time, measure out the sugar, salt, and baking soda for several batches at a time into individual resealable bags so that all you have to do is dump it in when you go to make a batch. And if you really want to be a hard-core food storage user, you could even measure out your powdered eggs and milk ahead of time so that you only have to measure your wheat, water, and butter. Just make sure to adjust the amount of liquid accordingly.

The Perfect Containers

When I lived in Arizona my friend Jamie, a food storage/emergency preparedness guru, got me hooked on these storage containers from Wal-Mart:


I know, nothing special, right? And as always, not a super-flattering picture either. But here's why I like them. First of all, they hold the contents of a number ten can perfectly. Second, they have a lid like this:


As you can see, it has a small spout for pouring things like sugar and a larger opening for larger particles like potato pearls or refried bean flakes. Third thing I like about these containers is that I never have a hard time finding what I'm looking for. I have a lot of number ten cans in my pantry that all look really similar and sometimes I have a hard time finding the one I need or the one I've already opened. But having the items I use often in these transparent containers really saves me the hassle. And one last thing that I like about them is that the labels from the LDS cannery fit right on the front of them so I have the nutrition/preparation info when I need it.


Yes, I am aware that these containers don't really do anything that a number ten can doesn't do, but my obsessive-compulsive side is at peace when I open my pantry and see a nice row of uniform, neatly labeled, transparent storage containers. I know, I need help.

Canning Butter: No Canning Equipment or Experience Necessary!

That's right, you can can or bottle butter for your long-term food storage. And you don't need any special canners or know-how. Trust me, I have neither. You might think that for my first crack at solo canning I would choose some kind of fruit or vegetable, but I know that when it comes right down to it, butter is the food I can't live without. Actually, there are a couple of good reasons I decided to can butter (besides its deliciousness):

- You can buy butter that's already canned, but it's very, very expensive.
- The only alternatives I know are reconstituted butter powder and butter-flavored shortening and I can't imagine spreading either of those on my toast.
- YOU DON'T NEED ANY CANNING EQUIPMENT! Did I mention that already? That's the most exciting part, for me.
- Having butter in your year's supply really opens up a lot of options for food storage meals. Or if nothing else, you can use it in your kids' macaroni and cheese.
- If you have your butter stored in jars, you don't have to waste precious freezer space or worry about your power going out and ruining all your precious frozen butter.


I read a couple of slightly different methods for bottling butter and came up with this:

1. First, put all the jars you will be using (I used half-pint jars) into a 200-degree oven and leave them there until you're ready for them (at least 5 minutes).

2. Put all the rings and lids into a pot of gently boiling water. (I'm not sure of the reason for this, if it's just to sterilize them or if it's to get them hot, so I just left them there until I needed them.)

3. Melt the butter over low heat. Or maybe you should start doing this first. It actually took longer than I thought, so I probably could have gotten everything else ready while it was melting. If you're lucky like me, you'll have a lovely assistant like this to stir the butter for you while you read blogs or watch TV or whatever.


4. When the butter has all melted, pour it into the jars, leaving about 1/4" at the top. The easiest way to do this is to pour the butter into a pitcher and then use the pitcher to pour it into the jars. I found that out the hard way.

5. Take a damp cloth and wipe any butter off the tops of the jars. This is very important for getting a good seal on the jars and if I'm not mistaken, an important step when you're canning anything.

6. Put the lids and rings on the jars and let them sit to cool. As they cool, the jars will seal and
the lids will eventually "pop" as they form an indentation in the middle. If you're like me and you're really afraid that the jars won't seal, you'll stand there and obsessively push on all the lids to see if they've sealed yet. If you push on a lid and it pops back up, it hasn't sealed yet. Be patient or go do something else while you wait. Here is what it will look like at this point:


7. When the jars have sealed and the butter is at room temperature, shake all the jars and put them in the fridge. Take them out and shake them every ten minutes until they've solidified. Once they've set up, you don't have to worry about them separating anymore.

Here is a picture of my finished butter:


I did three pounds of butter and that's what I got out of it, plus a few tablespoons that ended up on the counter. (I started out pouring the butter straight from the pot into a funnel that my not-so-steady-handed, 3-year-old assistant was holding.) So I think that if I hadn't lost so much, three pounds of butter would have filled seven half-pint jars pretty well.

Butter has an official shelf life of 2 to 3 years, but one of my sources said that she has some cases of butter that are six years old and are still perfect.

One source also said that you should use high quality butter (land o' lakes or better). I used the Kirkland Signature butter from Costco, and I think it turned out fine. I think you have to worry more about the quality when you are canning margarine (which you can also do by this method), since cheap margarine sometimes contains water and separates easily. If you have any doubts about the quality of the butter or margarine you're using, start with just a pound. If it looks okay and hasn't separated after a month or so, go ahead and do some more.

Try it! It's fun, easy, and makes you feel like you know something about canning. And as if this post wasn't long enough already, let me just end with a picture of a couple of cows made out of butter. When my three-year-old saw it she said, "Hey look, that's me when I was a baby cow! You was a big cow."

Where's the Beef?

Sorry about the little lapse in posts there. I promise I'm still committed to this blog (for all three of you who read it besides me). Today I thought I would post about the wonder that is canned beef chunks. Has anyone ever tried these things? They're awesome! (Note: this is not the same as canned ground beef, which I've heard is kinda scary and dog food-ish. Please tell me if I've been misinformed.) Aside from frozen meat, it's the best way that I've come across to add meat to your long-term food storage. (Again, any other ideas are welcome!) It comes in 12-ounce cans of cubed, fully-cooked roast beef packed in beef broth. Okay, so I guess I don't really have any information to add to what the front of the can says, except to say that they taste really good! Here is what it looks like out of the can in all of its beefy splendor:

*Please don't let the poor photography in this post deter you from ever trying this meat. I'm not the Pioneer Woman, okay? I've come to terms with that. Just believe me when I say that it tastes better than I make it look.

The meat is really tender and flavorful and it's very versatile, too. Here are some of the things that I've done with it:

-BBQ Beef Sandwiches: Just drain off about half of the liquid, shred it up, and simmer it with your favorite barbecue sauce. Serve it on a toasted bun and you have dinner in about five minutes.

-Taco/Burrito meat: Shred it up with a little bit of the liquid and combine it with a can of pinto or kidney beans, a can of green chilies, and a can of diced tomatoes. Simmer it on the stove for 5-10 minutes (remember, the meat is already cooked) and it's ready to go. I think it tastes really good as is, but if you want, you can add additional seasonings like cumin, garlic powder, chili powder, or whatever you want. Just spread it on a tortilla and top it off with whatever you have on hand--cheese, sour cream, lettuce, salsa, guacamole... you know what you like. We've also eaten it nacho-style over corn chips. It may not look like much but I promise, the flavors will pleasantly surprise you.

-Soups and Stews: This meat is awesome for making your favorite beef stew recipe more food-storage friendly. And again, the meat is already cooked, so it saves you a lot of cubing and browning time. Sorry I don't have a recipe to post; I'll be on the lookout for a good one.

-French Dip Sandwiches: I tried it out in this recipe from The Essential Food Storage Cookbook and it turned out great! The au jus in this recipe is the best I've ever had. Here is the original recipe (fabulous as is) with my adaptations in blue:

Crockpot French Dip Sandwiches

Ingredients:
-1 to 3 lb. beef roast (or 1 to 3 cans of roast beef chunks, drained)
-2 cups water
-1/4 cup soy sauce
-1 teaspoon dried rosemary
-1 teaspoon dried thyme
-1 teaspoon garlic powder
-1 teaspoon pepper
-1 bay leaf
-10 hoagie buns
-10 slices Swiss cheese (or provolone, if you prefer a milder flavor) -I also like to add 1 or 2 (4-ounce) cans of mushrooms, drained or if you wanted to get really fancy you could saute 6 oz. sliced mushrooms in a little butter to go on top. Mmmmm.... butter.

In a crockpot, stir together water, soy sauce, and seasonings. Place roast in crockpot and cook on low for 8 hours (or on high for 5 hours). [If you're using the canned beef, you only need to cook it for 2-3 hours, just so the flavors can all blend together.] Remove meat from broth and thinly slice or shred with fork. Keep warm. Strain broth and skim fat. Pour broth into small cups for dipping. Slice through buns and lay open on baking tray. Line one side of each bun with a slice of Swiss cheese. Broil 2 minutes or until lightly browned and cheese is melted. Fill each sandwich with beef and cut in half on a slant. [My husband and I also like to slather some dijon mustard onto the bun.] Serve hot with dipping broth.

Canned roast beef chunks are a wonderful food storage item. The only problem (which I know, I probably should have mentioned at the beginning of this post) is that I don't know where to buy them anymore. I used to buy the Costco brand from the aisle where they keep their canned tuna and chicken, but then I moved and now I shop at a different Costco where I haven't been able to find them. The last time I bought them was about a year ago. I'm not sure if Costco stopped selling them globally or if for some reason my Costco just doesn't carry them. Does anyone have any idea? Does your Costco have my beef chunks? Are there any other companies that sell this product? Am I going to have to buy a pressure canner and start canning my own? (Please say 'no.') Any info on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.