I love free buckets for food storage

My husband and I think the next few years may hold challenges neither of us have faced in our lifetime.   I hope these concerns are only that, and our country rebounds and all is rosy.  In the meantime, we’ve been getting a few more bulk food items. Storing these has been a challenge.  It is one thing to find bags of rice on clearance, but then how do you store them to keep rodents out???

Our answer is a free product.  We’ve been collecting food buckets from our grocery store and bakery.  Each day they throw away these wonderful buckets.  And the lids have a great seal.  They are wonderful option for storing pantry foods and pet food.  They stack and are super quality.  I can’t believe they are free.  And I really can’t believe this plastic goes into the dumpster each day…. hundreds of them. I think we’ll have many uses for these and we’re making a very small dent in the landfill.  We’re not stocking up on so much stuff that we need mylar bags and oxygen absorbers, so this fits our needs perfectly. see here for updated post

Yesterday Dave got this bucket from a cookie shop near his office.  The lady was just finishing up using it and didn’t have time to clean out the frosting.  What a treat for us.  I scraped out the icing and made a cake.  The frosting was really thick, so I only used it in the middle and top, but it was delicious.  See pic and cake mix dr recipe at the bottom.

For other great ideas, check out http://kellythekitchenkop.com/  and http://www.wearethatfamily.com/ and http://www.cheeseslave.com.

Here’s how I made the quick cake and it was wonderful:

Mix all this.  Don’t worry about making sure all ingredients are same temp.  We’re not on foodnetwork!  It was soooo moist.

• one box choc cake mix
• 2 heaping tablespoons coco/hot choc mix
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup veg oil
• 1 cup water
• three eggs

Bake at 350 for 28 to 32 minutes.  If you use devils food cake mix with pudding, you can skip the coco mix.

Yummie Whole Wheat Brownie Recipe

A few weeks ago I posted on my whole wheat brownie flop.  I’m getting good at bread products with fresh gound wheat, but have not had a homerun with a choc treat.  Laura told me about this recipe. It is from the King Arthur flour website.

I modified by using one shot of espresso.  I also didn’t have 2 cups of good choc chips, so I used on 2 oz dark choc bar chopped into small pieces.   I didn’t use King Arthur white flour, but used fresh ground pastry flour instead.

These were so good.  The combo of choc, vanilla and espresso was fabulous.  But be prepared b/c the texture is different.  It is a heavier treat than your brownie made with refined flour.  The girls poured a little choc syrup over theirs.

Good for you Chocolate Chip Cookies

On Fridays we have a light school day.  We’ve been baking today.  We’ve made 2 loaves of bread, wheat rolls and chocolate chip cookies.

I tried a new recipe for cookies.  See link here.  When you look at the ingredients, it is almost the same for whole wheat pancakes, if you use ground wheat flour.  I used ground spelt flour and added an extra two heaping tablespoons like the end of the recipe recommended.  Next time I’ll cut the salt in half because they were too salty.  I baked them for exactly 11 minutes and the texture is perfect.  They remind me of the gourmet cookies I used to buy at Central Market.  If I add pecans and dried cranberrys I think I’ll have a match to theirs which cost an arm and a leg.

I like giving the girls sweet treats without feeling guilty.  It takes a little more effort than a packaged rice crispy treat, but I’m hoping these habits will last a lifetime.

Pecan Pie

This is my mom’s recipe for pecan pie.  I plan to make it next week and thought I’d share.  Very good and easy.

In a mixing bowl,melt 1/2 stick of margerine; add 3 eggs and beat with a
fork  until blended; add1/2 cup white corn surrup, 1 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon
of vanilla and 1/2 teaspoon lemon flavoring. Mix well with fork and add 3
cups pecans and stir once again. Pour into an unbaked pie crust and bake
@325 degrees for about an hour ( when the middle of the pie is firm it is
done.

Cool n’ Easy Pie

I have a guest blogger today.  Thanks for the post Meredith!  I can’t wait to try this.

Cool ‘n Easy Pie

• 2/3 cup boiling water
• 1 package (4 oz. serving size) Jell-o Brand Gelatin (any flavor)
• 1/2 cup cold water
• Ice cubes
• 1 tub ( 8 oz.) Cool Whip, thawed
• 1 prepared graham cracker crumb crust ( 6 oz.)
• Additional whipped topping for garnish
  

1.  Stir boiling water into gelatin in bowl 2 minutes or until dissolved.  Mix water and ice to make 1 1/4 cups.  Stir into gelatin until slightly thickened.  Remove any remaining ice.

2.  Stir in whipped topping until smooth.  Refrigerate 10 minutes or until mixture will mound.  Spoon into crust.

3.  Refrigerate 4 hours or until firm.  Garnish with additional whipped topping, if desired.

Frozen Ice Cream Key Lime Pie

I made the best pie today.  To my friends just starting to cook, this is a great sweet treat recipe to start with.  It is also very inexpensive.   HEB has a special which ends this Tuesday (Sept 2nd, 08):  if you buy an HEB frozen pizza you get a quart of HEB ice cream free if you use their yellow coupon, so both cost a little over $4 total.  It is a decent deal.  I got the key lime ice cream.

I made a graham cracker pie crust with a sleeve of crackers from my pantry.  Each box of graham crackers comes with three packages inside the box.  The HEB brand is less than $2 for a box.  One sleeve will make a pie crust.  It is about 6 full size crackers.  Mix 1/2 stick of melted butter or margarine (microwave is fine)  & 1/3 cup of sugar with mashed up graham crackers.  Just mash the crackers with your hands.  They don’t have to be like powder, chunks are fine.  Mix all this up, press into a pie plate and bake at 350 for about 15 minutes.  You’ll see the crackers starting to become brown and you’ll smell a good aroma.

Then let cool.  Once the plate is cool enough to pick up w/o mitts, then put in your fridge.  Once cool (about 10 minutes) take out and add key lime ice cream.  Try to pack it in so there are no air pockets. But be gentle b/c the crust will come apart.  Fill to almost the top of the sides of the graham cracker crust.  Cover with plastic wrap and put in freezer for 15 minutes.  To serve, slice a piece of pie and top with your choice of: cool whip, redi whip cream from the can or heavy cream you whipped.

This is soooooooooo good.  It gives you the crunch of pie and the lime flavor, but is not as tart.  If you used a store bought graham cracker pie crust and cool whip, this would take you less than 5 minutes to make.  And it is good enough to serve to guests.  In addition, you could have these ingredients on hand all way in advance because the crust has a decent shelf life.  And the ice cream & cool whip would be fine for a month in the freezer.

The cost for this pie:  approx $1.5 for the ice cream, 50 cents for the crackers, 10 cents for the margarine and $1 for the heavy cream.  Total is $2.10 (not including electricity).