Food Talk And Fabulous Finds - What else can we make?

I have been inspired to make my own bread and yogurt by threads in this topic.

Do any of you make some other basic food item that people usually purchase at the store?

Let's make our own money!!! Oh, I'm so going to jail!

Ok, forget that suggestion. I'd like to make pesto someday. But it's probably too early for fresh basil, at least it is here.

Does growing your own plants count? :)

It really depends what you mean because you can find almost anything in the store.

I've been thinking about making almond milk lately although I don't really use it often enough to justify making it.

I have started growing my own sprouts which is fun and fairly quick to do.

Other things you could make...

Nut butters ? Jams ? Sorbet/Ice cream?

I LOVED the yogurt making. I've lost count of the number of batches I've made since it seems like I make one every few days. Bread making still intimidates me (1) because I have never made it before and (2) because I am afraid I will eat it ALL because I <3 bread. :D Among the other things I make myself are mufifns and cookies. Sometimes I make my own frozen convenience foods like cooked frozen chicken, beef patties that I can just nuke and eat. One thing I've always DREAMED of doing myself is making jams and preserves. That always scared me too because you have to boil everything and there is room for contamination from some of the stories I've heard. But wouldn't that be great mixed in with yogurt or on fresh baked bread?!?!?! :hun:

I have been inspired to make my own bread and yogurt by threads in this topic.

Do any of you make some other basic food item that people usually purchase at the store?

I do a fair amount of canning (although not as much as I have in the past). We have canned fruit (almost done), jams, hot sauce, salsa, tomato sauce, pickles, and I'm probably forgetting something. I use a dehydrator in the summer and dry usually cherries and roma tomatoes. I'm baking most of the bread we're eating, oh and I made thin crust whole wheat mini pizza shells on the weekend.

I've stopped canning tomatoes. It's just so much easier to buy 8-can packs at Costco. Even the tomato sauce I don't can much of anymore. What I have is actually meant to be a pizza sauce (a mix of tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, and dried tomatoes). Although I'm not working at the moment (which makes some of this easier) the canning I've done most years while working full time.

I've always wanted to have a go at making homemade pasta, but I don't eat enough of it anymore to consider it. I did make my own tortillas a couple of weeks ago (from oat flour - not the best choice). They weren't bad, and I'll probably try them again.

Hmmm, I don't make yogurt, but I do make bread, and other baked goods. I have made pesto and will again - it's so nice to have on hand. I've made jam/jelly for years, as well as canning veggies and pickles.

Oh I forgot to say that I've been making my own salad dressings. It is fun and they taste better than anything you can buy.

I LOVED the yogurt making. I've lost count of the number of batches I've made since it seems like I make one every few days. Bread making still intimidates me (1) because I have never made it before and (2) because I am afraid I will eat it ALL because I <3 bread. :D Among the other things I make myself are mufifns and cookies. Sometimes I make my own frozen convenience foods like cooked frozen chicken, beef patties that I can just nuke and eat. One thing I've always DREAMED of doing myself is making jams and preserves. That always scared me too because you have to boil everything and there is room for contamination from some of the stories I've heard. But wouldn't that be great mixed in with yogurt or on fresh baked bread?!?!?! :hun:

Oops, I guess I didn't think of that. I do a lot of frozen meal cooking. In the winter there's almost always beef stew, gumbo, meat sauce, chili, individual lasagne, and ready to cook meat loaves (also individual). At this time of year it's more skewed to raw meats (divided), hamburgers, and a couple of sauces (tomato and curry) to use.

Jams and preserves are easier to make than you would think. I know most of the recipes I see now tells you to sterilize the filled jars, but we don't. You heat the jars and rings in the oven for more than 10 mins at 250F and boil the sealer lids (~7 min) and keep them hot while filling. If your jam is at the right temperature you really shouldn't need to boil the filled jars afterwards. You just need to know that if the lid doesn't stay pulled in - don't eat it!

Getting jams the right consistency is the only real trick. Even after 15 years doing it I still don't always get it right. And asking my mother (who has at least another 15 years on me) doesn't always help. You know though, even if it's thin it's still great. When fruit is inexpensive during the summer buy 12 jars and give it a shot. Once you've had your own jams you likely won't buy them again. My favourite is what I call 'mixed' jams. We toss home grown fruit into the freezer during the summer. In early fall or even early winter I see what I have and make jam. This last batch I think is a 6-fruit jam (raspberries, gooseberries, boysenberries, rhubarb, plums, and cranberries). The last two weren't grown by us, but just in the freezer.

The trick to bread is to never slice it when warm. I can usually avoid bread once it's cooled (although I slice it fast and usually freeze it), but it can be tough to avoid if you slice just a little piece off to taste when it's hot out of the oven.

Oh I forgot to say that I've been making my own salad dressings. It is fun and they taste better than anything you can buy.

Hmmm... I'm making those as well. Neat tip for people - Oil Substitute - mix 1 cup of water with 1 Tbsp of cornstarch. Heat on the stove, stirring until thickened. Cool and use instead of oil in salad dressings. I tend to make 2 cups at once and put it in the fridge until needed. The only difference I find is that you need to cut back on the peppery ingredients in the dressing.

I make my own jelly, marmalade, jam and pickles. Last year I put up 100 jars of guava jelly (and yes, I work full time, more than full time, but I don't have any kids). I make muffins and I used to make my own bread, but I'm not that into bread these days. I've even made my own pasta, but IMHO it was more work than it was worth. Occasionally I make my own salad dressing. I also make my own pesto and freeze it in 1 tbsp servings (an ice cube tray is very helpful for this). Right now I have basil pesto and sage pesto in my freezer and both are only 35 calories per tbsp, which is quite a bit lower than most commercially produced pesto. If you have a food processor, pesto far easier to make than you think.

I make my own ground chicken and my own ground pork, but you need a food processor to do this (but if you have one, it's super easy--just cut the meat into big hunks, put it in the food processor and process for a few minutes). You can use much leaner cuts of meat than they use for the pre-ground meat.

And I make my own bread crumbs in the food processor. It's a great use for stale bread and I can use my special high-fiber, low calorie bread. I make up a big batch and store the crumbs in the freezer.

I've heard that it's possible to make your own tofu, but I've never tried it. Same thing for peanut butter--I guess you can just grind up peanuts in your food processor, but I've never tried it.

One thing I've always DREAMED of doing myself is making jams and preserves. That always scared me too because you have to boil everything and there is room for contamination from some of the stories I've heard. But wouldn't that be great mixed in with yogurt or on fresh baked bread?!?!?! :hun:

Actually, you don't need to bother with boiling and sterilizing the jars. In fact, you don't need the jars at all. Just make a small batch of jam or preserves and then store it in the fridge in a Tupperware container (you can also freeze jam or preserves if you make more than you can eat in a month). I make a great strawberry jam that is super easy and we just store it in the fridge. To make a small batch, mix 2 1/2 cups halved (quartered if large) strawberries with 1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp sugar and bring to a boil over med heat. Boil until it gets to a jam-like consistency, then add 2 tbsp brandy. Cook for a minute or so longer. It will keep in the fridge for several weeks. You could use just about any type of fruit in this recipe.

Jam and preserves are easy. I make my own cranberry compote/jelly every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas and I've even made my own marmelade (orange and grapefruit) for years.

Soup bases ... stocks and broths .. I always make my own. It makes homemade soups so yummy and adds a lot of flavor to things like beans, lentils, etc.

Pesto - I always plant enough basil for multiple batches of pesto so I can freeze some.

Spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, and salsa ... every year I make tons of both from our homegrown tomatoes and peppers. I can some and freeze some and it's always yummy and fresh tasting, unlike what you buy in jars or cans at the store.

Pickles are easy to make and sooo yummy and you can pickle just about anything, not just cucumbers. I pickle green beans, okra, beets, pearl onions, etc.

Fruit butters are also easy to make ... I make apple butter and pumpkin butter every year and they're great for healthy snacks.

Hm. I know there's more I make, but I don't think of it as being unusual, so I'm not sure what else to list. I rarely, even before my weight loss, ate packaged or pre-made foods. I Love to cook and experiment and I'm used to making a lot of my own stuff.

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Wow, everyone is busy cooking something!

Anne, I am going to try your tip with the cornstarch. I find that most of the fat free/low cal dressings are too tart for me. Maybe this will mellow it out a bit.

I am interested in raising some sprouts! That sounds like fun, as well as some jam to put on my homemade bread or in my homemade yogurt.

I make pesto in my food processor and store it in ice cube trays. I also make lots of chicken stock because I cook so much chicken. I store the CS in various sized containers, so I can always find one the right size for my recipe.

Sometimes we can get a garden to grow. It is somewhat problematic to garden in the desert. We usually have tomatoes which I consider a "staple".

I almost forgot! We have chickens. We really enjoy the fresh eggs. I am of the "don't throw out the yolks" school. :lol: I don't eat that many eggs, and I just can't stand to throw half of it away.

The yolk's the best part. :T

I make some jam each year. I found that I really like blueberry rhubarb jam.

The yolk's the best part.

And that's no yolk!:D

I have this idea that I don't like rhubarb. I haven't had it in 50 years, so I should try it again.

I'm not a big fan of plain rhubarb, but I love it in combination with other fruits - blueberry rhubarb or strawberry rhubarb is yummy! :)

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The rhubarb really kicks up the blueberry jam. I love it with strawberries, too and had never thought of pairing it up with blueberries until I had some blueberries and stewed rhubarb left over and didn't have enough of either to use in a fruit crisp I wanted to make. So I just dumped them in together and just loved the combination. And that's no yolk! ;)

Hee!

I think this might be Rhubarb season.

I have just been reading about growing sprouts. I checked with our local health food place and they have seeds in small quantities. Probably astronomically expensive, but I just want to try it. If I love the sprouts and want to go to the trouble, I can find a cheaper source.

I have my seeds and my quart jar. Will start the sprout project soon! The seeds were pretty expensive at my local health food store. If I decide I really want to do this, I will have to find a better source of seeds.

I bought my seeds online at sproutpeople.com.

Also I started simple with things already in my pantry like lentils and garbanzo beans. Bean sprouts tend to be small but are nice additions to salads.

I sprouted seeds years ago. Maybe I should try it again. Got to think about this some. Hmmmmm. Yes, I think I'll do it sometime soon. I've got loads of garbanzo beans that I could sprout.

I purchased a seed mix. It has mung beans, clover, alfalfa, and radish. The sprouts I buy at the store are the same, but no mung beans. I want the sprouts for salads, but I have heard of "sprouted wheat" bread. Maybe....if the salad sprouts work, I will branch out.

Gosh, I forgot a lot of things that I do at home....

We make sprouts - usually alfalfa - all winter. Lettuce just gets tooo expensive here.

Gail - we used to have chickens, and I agree, the eggs are great! I always eat the yolks. :)

Oh and I often make my own salad dressing. Once you start, you'll notice that the commercial dressings are really salty (never mind being expensive).

As for rhubarb, it's great suff. I make a rhubarb onion relish that's awesome. My DH eats rhubarb all the time. I like it but you do have to add a fair amount of sugar so I limit how much I eat. I always put cinnamon in when I make a compote or pie or actually anything where there isn't another fruit involved.

I make my own:

~yogurt
~yeast bread (regular, pita, rolls, etc.)
~tortillas (ww and corn)
~almost all other baked goods (cakes, pies, cookies, biscuits, muffins, etc.)
~kim chee
~sauerkraut
~jams
~pickles (just pickled some asparagus because it was 1.19 a lb)
~relish
~salad dressings
~hummus
~pesto
~stocks and broths (I save all bones and veggie bits to do this)
~granola bars
~sprouts

I work as well, but I love being in the kitchen so it doesn't seem like drudgery to me.

I make salad dressing, hummus, pesto and chicken broth, too. I agree that purchased salad dressings seem very salty, but I have some favorites from Trader Joe's. I would make more salad dressing if it kept better. I don't always want to make it every day.

My sprouts are underway, although they aren't doing anything yet. I had to swipe a glass canning jar from one of the chickens' water dishes. :lol:

Wow, you ought to see my sprouts! As I write, I am eating my salad with sprouts. They were very easy. At the end of the process, I set them outside. It only took maybe half an hour and they started to get a little green. I think I left them out about 2.5 hours total just to get them a little more green. The directions said that greening them increases the Vitamin content. So much fun!

I also made yogurt this weekend.

Oh I totally forgot about hummus. Home made is the best. Also, I've been collecting veggie scraps and I plan to make my own veggie broth sometime soon. Possibly when I decide to make a soup.

I am having my adventures in sprouting as well! I think I am one day away from having lovely sprouted mung beans. I used a colander and about 1 cup of beans. Little did I know that was waaaaay too much. Now my colander overfloweth with sprouts, but they're kind of shorter than I wanted, so I split it in two colanders =P I am putting a weight on one to see if it really makes a difference in the girth of the sprout like I've been reading.

It is pretty amazing how fast they grow and how much space they take up. The mung beans in my mix were almost as big as the ones I buy in the store for making stir fry. A cup of seeds - yikes. You are gonna have a houseful of 'em. I started my second batch today.

how do you make hummus?

Homemade mozzarella and ricotta cheeses. I want to branch out into other cheeses, too, but haven't had the time or skills quite ready.

there are tons of hummus recipes if you google them.

Its basically chickpeas, tahini, garlic and lemon juice. Although some recipes call for olive oil, I've never put any in mine. I've also wanted to try cauliflower hummus which is low calorie and sounds good :)

I love the book More With Less. In it there are recipes for making all kinds of mixes (biscuit, pancake, soup, baked goods, etc.). I also use a Soyabella to make my own soy milk (and I can make tofu, but I haven't yet).

My daughter and I made dumplings together. I am always looking for creative ways to get more veggies in her diet. I didn't use a recipe, but a tad of cannola oil to stir fry a little chicken breast with a lot of veggies and some spices for the filling (used the food processor on it). She loved using the dumpling press to stuff the pre-made wonton wrappers. I steamed up a large batch and the leftovers are frozen. They were really good and diet friendly too!

What great ideas! Homemade cheese? I will have to look that up. Would love some fresh mozzarela.

Yoyoma, are you a cellist? Your dumplings sound terrific.

So weighted beans do yield fatter sprouts....by quite a bit! I should have taken pictures, but the ones that I set the cans on were a lot fatter than the ones without. They almost looked like ones from the store, just a little shorter. This is some tasty stuff. I'm working on a batch of adzuki beans now =) You guys are the best coming up with stuff to make. I'm going to make some dumplings with some sprouts stir fried in =P

Hummus is super easy. I made a batch just tonight - then I package it in little Glad bowls in 1/4 cup servings, so I can just grab one to take to work for a snack.

1 can chickpeas (or great northern beans, or really any bean you want to try it with)
1 or 2 cloves garlic (depends on how garlicky you like things)
1 T tahini paste (sunflower seed paste)
1-2 T olive oil
1 T lemon juice
salt to taste

Whirl it all up in a food processor or blender (I use my little Cuisinart mini-prep which is just the right size). If you let it sit overnight, the flavors will blend better.

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1 T tahini paste (sunflower seed paste)

Psst! Tahini is sesame seed paste. ;)

I like to make it with other beans too, just like you do. It is so good!

Ack. :)

You're right. I am munching on sunflower seeds right now - talk about a freudian slip! :)

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I have been eating sunflower seeds today too. It is hot and I should avoid the salty stuff, but they safely take care of my snacking urges!!! :)

Gail - mozzarella takes 30 minutes to make, and makes a great party activity. Imagine inviting your friends over for a party, making your own mozzarella with the help of your friends, then having sliced tomatoes, basil, and the fresh mozzarella for starters, and making homemade whole wheat crust pizzas for dinner! You don't have much prep work to do (you can even buy the dough at TJs) and everyone will have a great time.

This is a great kit for learning how to make mozzarella and ricotta.
http://www.cheesemaking.com/store/p/169-30-Minute-Mozzarella-Ricotta-Kit.html

Oh, Amanda, I am drooling - caprese, no? We will soon have ripe tomatoes, and I have basil growing in my flower bed....

I started to read a little about cheese this weekend, but my dial-up was very cranky. I got as far as where it basically says "sterilize your kitchen". Hmm...I can't wait to read the link above.

I just "harvested" - ie dumped out into another container, my second batch of sprouts.

A bit later: I just requested Rikki Carroll's book from the library. I am all excited that I might be able to make one of my own, personal worst, trigger foods AT HOME.:lol: I need to remember my mission to reach goal sometime this century.