Teach Me Tuesdays: Making Staples for the week

Sundays are my day of accomplishing whatever tasks I have had in mind all week to do, but for some reason haven't been able to 

& for preparing the week's grocery staples. 

I of course go to church and spend time with the family, 

however we try to designate Saturdays for Family Fun Days, 

so I multitask on Sundays after church while Mini-Me-Moose is napping.

This day I made: loaf of bread, started dough for bread throughout the week, made homemade yogurt, dried orange peels for diy citrus scrub, whey infused ranch dressing

I. Making Homemade Bread Products From ABI5MD (Artisian Bread in 5 min/Day):

• making the last loaf of bread from my bread dough I have in the fridge 
• making a new batch to set in fridge for me to provide fresh baked bread products for the week (Pitas, Flat bread, Naan, Chibata, Bule, Sandwich bread, Flour Tortillas, Gooey Cinnamon Rolls, Bread Rolls).  
• I might have to make a fresh batch mid week, yet I always am making a fresh batch on Sundays.

I have 2- 5 LB bag of un-bleached flour in the deep freeze, but I forgot to get it out and it won't rise properly if the temp is that low, so I threw in 1 & 1/2 C of ground flax meal not sure how that will affect the gluten and baking chemistry over all. Don't know if that will affect the dough as it rises, or bakes or the chewiness, but u know I don't do a lot of things bc of fear of failure. I won't loose out on much, and I will gain experience and knowledge...we will see, maybe I will come across success to? Saw that Wal-mart has 25 Lb bags of unbleached flour for $16 that is on my list...

(UPDATE: the flaxmeal an interesting addition, it added an crispiness to the dough, especially since I use EVCO to grease my pan, I REALLY liked the toasty nutty flavor this gave the crust!)

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SIDE NOTE:
I did learn something that extra-virgin Olive oil (evoo) is NOT a good substitute for extra virgin coconut oil (evco) for  non-stick baking when using the wet dough of The Artisan Bread in 5 min/day. Ughh!

I asked the authors how to make the bread into loaf pans without using non-stick pans and Jeff Hertzburg assured me that using this one heavy commercial bakery loaf pan would help me along with heavily greasing it up. He uses EVOO, I had only used extra-virgin coconut oil as non-sticking agent up until 2day,  I thought I would give evoo a try, but NOPE, part of it stuck and as I tried to pick it off I accidentally placed my thumb on the pan and OUCH!! Searing pain immediately...

I placed a dab of evco, on my thumb and then added lavender essential oil and you know, I was so

• amazed that lavender actually helped take the pain away, 
• amazed that I didn't see a blister forming, 
• amazed that something natural actually works as purported to work!!

A Little FYI on Lavender: 

I have heard that the healing powers of essential oils was discovered when a french chemist had accidentally burnt his hands with some chemical mishap and dunked his hands in what he thought was water but was lavender essential oil. He noticed immediate pain relief from the natural occurring analgesic properties that lavender naturally posses and the healing properties helped heal the skin faster than the chemist expected. He then focused his search on the healing properties & recuperative properties of lavender and other essential oils.

I have 2 oz of Lavender I always keep it on hand I use it as perfume but now I will keep it in the kitchen for a first aid kit too. Plus I learned that evco works amazing as a non-stick agent, amazingly well, plus it helped my burn, it is barely even red, just kinda tingles...so cool I learned that some things actually work like I hear on the natural web. I will also be making a burn salve soon with evco and lavender within this week after that experience going to look up some recipes...

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II. FREE SUBSITUTIONAL INGREDIENTS:

 A. WHEY, MILK AND YOGURT-
I made tacos for Sunday supper and forgot to purchase sour cream so I took my plain yogurt and did the classic drain with a mesh strainer over a larger bowl trick to make the yogurt thicker like a sour cream product. It turned out great and no one knew of my trick, LOL! Now what to do with the whey left over, I have never given a second thought about throwing out the whey liquid in the past, but now-a-days who can afford to throw away anything that has nutritional value or possible meal enhancer quality or FREE substitutional ingredient.

Yes, I know i just made up a word, but really how many times have u found a FREE substitute ingredient in your pantry for something that typically costs lots-o-dough?? 

• Like when u make homemade stock and you place in fridge to cool
• remove the fat layer off,
• what do you do with that, throw it away? 
• NO!! 
• You finely dice an onion and render it with that chicken fat and 
• AND you have Matzo Ball soup starter, you pay a fortune for that in the store, 
• but this is a FREE substitutional ingredient.

That being said, the whey that I had drained I caused me to pause and ask myself, 

"This is a tangy nutritional liquid, do I throw it away or find a use for it??"

I make my weekly ranch dressing and add buttermilk subsitute (milk with lemon juice), but instead of that I added the drained whey...guess what it worked!! YAY!! It was a free substitutional ingredient and it added nurtrion as well.

I have read about making your own yogurt with pre-made yogurt and milk on the blogs. So I set about making the yogurt, it takes 10 min to cook the milk to kill off the bacteria in milk, then you cool it down so it won't kill the yogurt cultures, then you add the yogurt to the milk in a warm crock and wrap it with towels and blanket. Allowing it to sit overnight...in the morning walla homemade yogurt stretcher. We will see how this works, Jim was not happy to see me pouring a half gallon of the precious "white gold" in a pan and not into his cereal bowl. I am moderately anticipating that this work. I am only out $1.29 if this doesn't work, but I have spent $3.99 or $4.99 on yogurt we all hated, so we will see. (Update: It turned out great and I have been making my own yogurt for over 5 months)

 B. DRIED CITRUS PEELS:
I read from a blogger that she uses dried citrus peels to make a version of citrus scrub. Our family eats about 3 lbs of citrus/week I hate wasting the peels so I do grate the peel of limes and lemons and place in freezer for future use.  Just haven't really thought of what to use the oranges for besides making orange cookies, which we LOVE!, but now, we have a FREE subsitutional ingredient!!

I have orange peels drying (Jim thinks I am insane), but hey, once he sees us saving money, the essential oils will become more intense upon drying so it will smell awesomely gr8 too! (UPDATE: THE BEST WAY TO DRY AROUND HERE WITH THE HUMID WEATHER IS TO PLACE IN OVER- I HAVE GAS, OVERNIGHT AND BY MORNING IS PERFECTLY DRY)

• Once they are dried- 
• might make about a week, 
• then I will grind it in my bullet 
• add borax and baking soda to an upcycled large herb container with w/sprinkle lid

I LOVE HAVING a citrus scrub to remove the stains on my white ceramic sink which turns brown and stained even if I pour tea down the drain plus extra cirtus cleaning power to clean bath tub and sinks!! Pretty cool, huh? I have spice containers Jim thought I was nuts to save but now I have an upcycle purpose for them, I will place the mixture in those with the label I made from a free printable site.

So in less than one hours time, I made a loaf of bread, started dough for bread throughout the week, made homemade yogurt, dried orange peels for diy citrus scrub, & made whey infused ranch dressing