Food Storage Friday: Honey Mustard Chicken

I originally found this recipe in a grocery ad and added a few veggies to it. Although the recipe was for marinated chicken kabobs. I don't own a grill and I am not interested in broiling things in my oven. (Here in the desert it is already summer time.) So I threw everything in my crockpot, and I didn't bother to cut the meat up as small. I'm sure that if I had it would have looked more appealing, but I'll admit sometimes I'd just rather throw it in the crockpot and forget about it. It was still tasty.

Honey Mustard Chicken
Food Storage Ingredients:
2 tsp steak sauce
4 Tablespoons of mayonaise
2/3 cup dijon mustard
1/2 cup honey
salt and pepper to taste
3 cups prepared rice

Fresh Ingredients:
2 lbs chicken, cut into chunks
1 yellow onion, cut into chunks
1 green bell pepper, cut into chunks

1. Mix first four ingredients. (If you are making kabobs, use half to marinate chicken and half to dip chicken in after it's cooked.) 2. Throw all ingredients (except rice, salt and pepper) into a crockpot. 3. Cook on low for 6 hours. 4. Serve over rice. Makes 4-6 servings.

This was a total crock pot meal. I cooked the brown rice in my small crock pot, the chicken and sauce in my medium and baked the sweet potatoes in my large. 20 minutes of preparation, a whole bunch of leftovers and I didn't have to heat up my kitchen.

Oobleck

Yesterday I read Bartholomew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss to my kids. A good story, but not my favorite Dr. Seuss. My kids enjoyed the silly thought of something green falling from the sky. Then I told them that we were going to make oobleck and they were skeptical. (I learned how to make this in elementary school and I can't even count the times I have made it since then.) They looked at me with raised eyebrows when I started mixing and playing with the goo. But it wasn't long before my entire family had their hands in the bowl of green goo. Oobleck is simple to make, non-toxic, inexpensive and lots of fun. Although I will warn you that it makes a big mess. Make sure you have a cheap waterproof tablecloth on your table before you start, or better yet, take this outside. (It's not too hard to clean up, it dissolves in water.)

Oobleck
2 cups cornstarch
1 1/2 cups water
a few drops of food coloring
1. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. These measurements are approximate. I've never actually measured them. Just keep adding and mixing until you get the right consistency. It should feel powdery and wet at the same time. You should be able to grab a handful, break it like a solid and then have it melt between your fingers.

Here's a video to give you an idea of what it should look like.

Enjoy! And yes that is Thing 2 discovering a penny in the background. I have no idea how to edit video. :)

Our Potty-Training Experience.

Thing 2 is officially potty trained. Hooray!  I read a book and a multiple articles, but when it came down to it, the most effective thing in training him to use the potty was cueing into him and letting him take it at his own pace. When he was barely two years old, he decided that he wanted "to pee in the potty". He would go in the bathroom, pull down his pants and pee on the floor next to the toilet. This was the week before we were moving into our new house. I didn't want to rock his world too much, nor did I have the time and patience to be potty training just then. A couple months later he was begging to use the potty again. So I bought a small potty that played music, superhero themed underwear and  many prizes and treats. He did fantastic for about 2 days. Then he came down with an awful case of diarrhea and we went back to the diapers. After this we tried several times, but he just wasn't really interested in using the potty and I didn't push it. Occasionally he would come to one of us, tell us he needed to use the toilet, sit down and successfully do his business and request a piece of candy. I know it was all about the candy, but I did care because we were making progress, even if it was small and random progress. After he turned three I tried to encourage him more often, but he was pretty determined that he only wanted to wear diapers. I tried switching to pull-ups. He called them swim diapers and treated them like any other diaper. Finally one day I sat down and spent three hours coloring a potty chart. It's kind of like a game board with little prizes along the way, a big midway prize and a big final prize. He gets a sticker for going #1 and two stickers (or one large sticker) for going #2, after he washes his hands. The first couple of days he was only moderately interested, but after he started earning prizes, he started cruising through and I feel like he had it down pretty well by the time he was only a third of the way through the chart. (I overestimated how long to make the chart. For Thing 1 the chart had to be much bigger. I didn't know it at the time, but she struggles with bladder spasms, which complicated things.) Some of the prizes I used were: baking cookies, going out for ice cream, going to McDonald's, picking something from the surprise box (which I had filled with an assortment of inexpensive small boy oriented prizes), choosing a movie from Redbox,  choosing something from the dollar store, getting a new movie or choosing a candy from the store. His big prizes were visiting Pirate Island and Jumpin' Jacks, neither of which I really enjoy going to but have totally enthralled my children. It also helped that Thing 1 was very encouraging, because she also benefited from most of the prizes that he earned. And now we have four blissful months without purchasing or changing diapers.

The potty-training chart that is taped to the wall outside the bathroom.

Food Storage Friday: Powdered Milk

First I must say I that I am pretty picky about my milk. I only drink skim milk and I only drink it from certain stores. So the thought of drinking reconstituted non-fat dry powdered milk <shudder>, not going to happen, it smells too weird to me. However, I feel that storing powdered milk is an important part of emergency preparedness, so I store it, and I even use and rotate it. I try to consistently have some made up in my fridge and use it in recipes that involve cooking milk. I generally can't taste a difference. I have also used it many times when I am out of evaporated or sweetened condensed milk.

Types of Powdered Milk

 This is pasteurized skim milk reduced to a powdered concentrate. It can be found in two forms, regular and instant. They are both  made from milk in a spray-drying process, but the instant variety has been given further processing to make it more easily soluble in water than regular dry milk. Both types have the same nutrient composition.

Regular Powdered Milk

•  More compact and requires less storage space than the instant variety.

• To make; mix your milk with warm water using a wire whip, then chill. Before serving, give it another quick stir and serve. This will give the milk better flavor.
• Need 4-#10 cans per adult = 1 c. per day. You'll need more for children.

Whey Based Milk (Morning Moo, Swiss Maid, Mountain Mills, etc.)

• Most of the milk protein has been removed: Morning Moo, Swiss Maid, etc.
• Does NOT meet protein needs of growing children.
• Best tasting of the milks
• Will NOT make yogurt or cheese because the milk solids have been removed. Whey is what’s left over after making cheese or yogurt.

Instant Powdered Milk

Instant milk is made by taking regular powder and making it a little flakier.

• Most common variety found in grocery stores.
• Dissolves instantly in cold water (will lump up in warm water)
• Need 5 - #10 cans per person = 1 c. per day, more for children.

Flavored Nonfat Dry Milk
This may be found packaged in a variety of forms from a low calorie diet
drink made with artificial sweetener to cocoa mix or malted milk. The key
ingredient is the dry milk so buy and store these products accordingly. They
have less calcium than plain milks.

Dry Whole Milk
This dry milk has a higher fat content and therefore a shorter shelf life than nonfat. Other than that, it can be used in exactly the same way. Dry whole milk is difficult to find, but can sometimes be found where camping supplies are sold and from a few online providers, or in the Mexican food aisle of the grocery store under the brand name of Nido by Nestle.

Buttermilk Powder

Dry buttermilk is for use in recipes calling for buttermilk. Since it has a slightly higher fat content than nonfat dry milk, it generally does not keep as long. The acid in buttermilk reacts with baking soda or baking powder in your recipes to make batters rise a bit. This is what gives you puffy pancakes and batter breads.

Advantages to Using Powdered Milk

• It needs no refrigeration (until reconstituted)
• It is easy to store for long periods of time
• By making just what you need there is less waste
• It is fast and easy to measure and mix
• Adding 1 T. dry milk to 1 c. fresh milk increases: protein, B vitamins, calcium and minerals.

Here are a few recipes that I use powdered milk in on a regular basis.

Noodles & Company- A copy-cat of the restaurant's creamy macaroni and cheese from I Dare You To Eat It.com

Apple Wheat and Buttermilk Pancakes- My own crowd-pleasing creation, that's easy to make and uses most food storage ingredients.

Pumpkin Apple Oatmeal Muffins- I've been making these for decades now and I still love them so much. Actually I use powdered milk in almost all muffins.

Now here  is the most important reason I think that people should store powdered milk. You can use it to make baby formula. I have personally never tried this. My kids refused to drink formula, period. (Which is ironic because for whatever reason formula companies still send me samples and coupons. At least my local food pantry got something out of it.) If there was some kind of crisis and I have a neighbor with a baby, I want to be in a position to help out. So here are a couple of baby formula recipes. Now this won't work if the baby has a milk allergy, and it doesn't have the extra vitamins and additives that commercial formulas do, but in a bind, it will do.

Baby Formula
⅓ c + 2t. instant powdered milk
1 ⅓ c boiling water
Mix together completely. Add:
1 Tablespoon oil
2 teaspoons sugar

Baby Formula 2
1- 12 oz can evaporated milk
1 1/2 cups of water
1 1/3 Tbsp sugar
Boil water for 5 minutes, add milk and sugar. Pour into prepared bottles and cover.
Ready to use. Refrigerate unused portion. (DO NOT use Karo syrup or honey for sugar)

Truths and Myths About Warts

 Once last summer I went with my family to the beach. We had a great time. This was a Tuesday. By Wednesday evening there was a tender spot on my foot. By Friday, it was becoming painful. It was kind of a slow day at work so my co-worker and I used our available resources to rule out a lot of things that it wasn't. My foot looked perfectly fine. I was beginning to think I had a acquired some exotic foot disease at the beach.  By Sunday evening, it hurt so much that I couldn't walk.
 First thing Monday morning I made an appointment to see a podiatrist. He looked at my foot with a magnifying glass and said "Hmm". Then he cut off a few layers of skin. "Hmm". Then he cut off a few more layers. After this he came to the conclusion that deep inside my  foot there was a cluster (or mosaic) of more than a dozen warts, which had nothing to do with our trip to the beach. I just thought it was a more pleasant picture than the warts on my foot.  Fantastic. Personally, I'd rather have an exotic foot disease.
  So while I was sitting there with my foot in the air and him cutting a hole in it, followed by him freezing those annoying little things, I tried to focus on something other than the pain by picking his brain. Here are a few things that I learned from the experience and one other run-in with warts years ago.

• Warts are caused by a human papillomavirus. They are contagious. There are many varieties of this virus and they are specific to certain areas of your body. (The HPV that causes plantar warts is not the same HPV that can give you genital warts or cause cervical cancer.)
• They can disappear on their own after a few months, last for years or reoccur.
• Common treatment of warts include cutting, freezing, salicylic acid (that over-the-counter Dr. Scholl's stuff) and lasers.
• When I had a stubborn wart removed in high school, a dermatologist injected it with Bleomycin. He described it to me as an acid that they inject into cancerous tumors. It's pretty expensive and it feels like hell. But it worked.
• There is some validity to the urban myth that duct tape can get rid of warts. It's not as effective as previously listed methods, but my podiatrist told me that studies have shown evidence that it is sometimes effective.
• Same story for painting a wart with fingernail polish. Although he said that the studies couldn't explain exactly why for either method.
• For unknown reasons Cimetidine (yes, as in the OTC heartburn medicine) is very effective in helping your body to fight off and get rid of warts. I tried it and it did seem to help. Of course I did this at the same time I was having him treat with it with liquid nitrogen and the knife.
• Sometimes the skin around the wart will turn purple a couple of days after freezing. I was concerned when a fairly large portion of my foot turned purple. I called his office. His receptionist was an idiot and told me she was sure that it was because I had my band-aid on too tight. I'm pretty sure that a bachelor's degree in nursing qualifies me to correctly place a few spot band-aids, and that wasn't the problem. When I talked to him, he let me know that sometimes that happens and not to be concerned.

Family Night for Japan

Recently when reading a friend's blog about a project that she was involved in for children in Japan. The Sleepy Time Gal has a friend in Ishinomaki, Japan. This friend is an elementary school teacher there, and on the day of the earthquake many of her students' parents never came to pick them up.  (You can read more about the project on her blog.) These children have many needs right now and it is something we can do to help. Simple things that I have around the house would mean so much to them.

I explained to my kids about what had happened in Japan and how there were children there who didn't have houses and some didn't have families. For family night we went through our closets and pantry and found things that the kids might enjoy. Most of these items I got cheaply (and some for free) using coupons and hitting sales.

Here are some the things that Sleepy Time Gal suggested:

• erasers
• crayons
• pencils
• hand sanitizer
• paper/supplies
• shippable foods
• children's clothing and shoes
• toiletries

The most cost-effective way to ship things to Japan is ship in a priority mail box. From what I have read on the internet, a small box cost $14 to ship to Japan and a medium box costs $44.  I grabbed one of each. I discovered that the small box was too small to effectively send much of anything, so I decided to cram whatever I could in a medium box.

I included 6 packs of tuna, 5 packs of instant potatoes, had to incorporate some food storage into this project somehow ;) a notebook, 2 pairs of shoes, 2 boxes of crayons, 2 small bottles of hand sanitizer, a box of instant hot chocolate packets, 6 small sheets of stickers, a box of cereal bars, 2 bags of cough drops (I read that there is a flu-like disease running around there) and a whole bunch of organic fruit suckers. I was pretty impressed that we managed to fit all of that in this box.

Now I don't share this because I want to say, oh look at me, but because I want people to see this and think 'Hey there is something that I can do to help'. And it was something that I could do with my kids, so I am teaching them that it is important that we help others.

Food Storage Friday: Italian Chicken and Peppers

Spaghetti noodles are one of those food storage items that if you play your coupons right you can get for free, and even if you don't coupon, you can still get them for very cheap. Unfortunately my husband does not like spaghetti. I generally make it once a year and that's only if I am willing to make or purchase meatballs. (Heather doesn't like meatballs.) Recently when I was at the grocery store they were offering samples of this recipe. I thought, hey this is great and my kids liked it too. And I incorporated  those green bell peppers that came in last weeks Bountiful Basket. Food storage victory.

Italian Chicken and Peppers
Food Storage Ingredients:
1 package of spaghetti
1 jar (24 oz) pasta sauce
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 can (4 oz) mushrooms (optional)

Fresh Ingredients:
2 lbs chicken tenders
2 green bell peppers (medium)
2 medium yellow onions, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
shredded Parmesan (optional)

1. Cut green peppers into 2 inch strips. (I chopped mine more finely to increase the likelihood of my kids eating them. This plan actually backfired. This time they refused the sauce all together.) 2. Heat  fresh vegetables and chicken tenders in olive oil in a large pot over medium heat, until chicken is thoroughly cooked. 3. Stir in sauce and cook until bubbling. Add mushrooms if desired 4. Serve over cooked spaghetti.

Notes: My husband and I really liked this. Hooray I found a way to get my family to eat spaghetti! Although my kids ate the samples in the store, when I made it at home they opted for plain noodles with a little cheese sprinkled on top. Whatever. :S I used whole wheat pasta (13.25 oz) and Classico Spicy Tomato and Basil Sauce with happy results. The original recipe called for 16 oz of plain spaghetti noodles. I liked it with the whole wheat noodles better. When I was digging through my freezer for chicken I found 2 lbs that were marinated in an Italian Herb dressing. Wow, that smelled amazing while it was cooking.