Macaroni & Cheese from Bulk Food Storage

It was another busy day in the bulk food kitchen today!  Of course, grits and eggs for hubby's breakfast - he was out pretty early this morning!  Then somewhat later I fixed pancakes for breakfast - I need to share that recipe one of these days - but for those, I was into the soft white wheat, powdered milk, baking powder, & salt.  I put up some strawberries this week and as a special treat I made a strawberry syrup this morning for those of us who like that sort of thing on our pancakes - YUMMY! - for that I was into the evaporated cane juice.  What I really need to do is ask Sarah over at Stir it Up! if she has a recipe for fresh strawberry syrup!  Anyway, for dinner we had Spanish rice (I did use white) and refried beans (I cheated tonight and used canned).  But the main reason for tonight's post was the macaroni & cheese I made for lunch.  I recently purchased a 6 lb container of cheddar cheese powder to make my own version of the "boxed" mac and cheese.  A friend of mine with 7 children buys the cheese powder by the 50 lb bag.  I really wanted to give it a try, so here goes . . .

Macaroni and Cheese ~

    Bring to a boil 5 cups of salted water.  Add 3 cups of elbow macaroni and cook until al dente.  Drain the macaroni.  Place the elbows back in the pot.  Add a 1/2 stick of butter, 1/2 cup of milk - you guessed it, I used my powdered solution, and 1/2 cup cheddar cheese powder.  Stir until all the lumps are gone and you have a creamy texture.  It was actually very good - as far as boxed substitutes go!!
                                                                                                                                   


I really needed to bake bread today, too, but I ended up being too busy!  Tomorrow's another day . . .

Pumpkin Muffins

I know I am still straying here . . . but couldn't resist sharing this muffin recipe.  It is one that frequents our home.  Last week I made four batches.  Of course, last week I splurged and added chocolate chips to the recipe.  Maybe that is why they kept disappearing :D  !!!

As a side note, last fall after halloween our local grocery store put their pumpkins on sale for 99 cents.  Not per pound, mind you, any pumpkin, any size, 99 cents!!  Well, I couldn't resist.  I bought two of the biggest pumpkins I could find and for a couple of days, I canned and froze pumpkin.  If I remember correctly the smaller of the two pumpkins yielded 7 pints - and of course we had a quart jar almost full of yummy roasted & salted pumpkin seeds.  Anyway, all that said, my family is not crazy about pumpkin unless it is in a pie or in a muffin . . .


Pumpkin Muffins ~

1 cup freshly ground soft white wheat (may use all purpose)
3/4 cup unbleached flour (may use all purpose or more soft white)
1/2 cup Sucanat (may use sugar)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup milk (I used that powdered milk from the last post ;) )
1/3 cooking oil

1/2 cup pumpkin
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 cup chopped nuts (my preference is pecans - also optional)
1/2 cup chocolate chips (OPTIONAL)

Grease muffin tin.  Preheat oven 350 degrees.  In a large mixing bowl stir together all dry ingredients, including cinnamon & nutmeg.  Add wet ingredients and pumpkin.  Stir until just moistened.  Add optional nuts or chocolate chips at this time.  Spoon mixture into greased tin.  Bake 20 minutes or until inserted toothpick comes out clean.  Enjoy!!!

Stretching Milk

I know this is a bit of a departure from our beginning instructions but it is something I have been doing the past couple of weeks and it needed mentioning . . .

One of the things that we stored back before 2000 was powdered milk.  Believe it or not, I got into one of those stored containers just two weeks ago.  The powdered milk was stored in a mylar bag within a 5 gallon bucket.  There were oxygen absorbers in the mylar bag and this particular mylar bag was hand ironed shut by me - this would probably make for its own post sometime!!  Anyway, we don't drink a huge amount of milk at my house but enough.  Probably the biggest consumption of milk is what I cook with, so this was my plan . . .

My children DO NOT like powdered milk and they DO NOT drink powdered milk!  And thank the Lord up to this point they have not HAD to!!  But I figured I could stretch my gallon of milk twice over if I simply used powdered milk for my cooking.  So I got a quart jar and placed one cup of powdered milk into it.  I first added about a cup of cold water and stirred with my whisk.  Then I continued to add water periodically placing the lid on it and shaking it well, alternating stirring with the whisk.  This mixture can be lumpy, but eventually the lumps dissolve.

I have been using this mixture for ALL my cooking - pancakes, bread, soups, quiche, muffins, etc.  I am sure I have saved myself two gallons of milk in the last two weeks.  May not seem like much, but at $4.79 a gallon that is $19.16 savings per month and $229.92 per year.  Of course, I already had the milk on hand - I can't even remember how much we paid for it in 1999 - but currently powdered milk from my source is about $112.00 for a 55 pound bag.

I guess I will try to keep up with how long it takes me to go through this 5 gallon bucket and see how my savings measure out.  I'll try to remember to keep you posted . . .