What to bake?

You have the basics...now what to make?
With the basic ingredients of flour, baking powder, salt and fat you are able to create:

• pancakes
• biscuits
• tortilla shells
• dumplings
• flat bread like roti
  

With the additions to the basic pantry, you are able to create:
(An addition to the add-ons list would include yeast and sugar)

• Everything above PLUS:
• pancakes (these are better than the ones above because they have eggs.)
• muffins
• quick breads
• coffee cakes
• cinnamon rolls
• cookies
• cakes
• bread
• buns
• and many more

You may be thinking, if I have to get out a bunch of ingredients and mix up a dough and warm up the oven, and bake it, how can this be quick? Well, granted, some things like yeast breads are not "quick" from start to finish. However, much of the time you are waiting for the dough to rise. During this time you can do a lot of other things. However, if you just aren't going to be home to put in the time, then opt for a quick bread that rises with baking powder, which doesn't require any rising time apart from the baking time.

Picture this:

You come in the door of your home and its almost suppertime. You put down whatever is in your hands, and before you even take off your coat, you go into the kitchen and put a pot of water on to boil. This pot will be used to cook potatoes, rice, pasta or soup. Now you can take off your coat and hang it up. By the time you return to the kitchen, your pot is 5 minutes closer to boiling, and you have been brainstorming. Here's what's been going through your mind:

• Do I have enough leftover veggies and meat to make a soup? (Just add those and bouillon to the water. Throw in a few spices.)
• Should I make potatoes, rice or pasta? Barley, split peas or lentils are an option as well. They just take a few minutes longer to cook. (Again, depends on what's in the fridge to go with.)
• If you decided that you had enough leftovers and don't need to cook anything on the stove, then use the boiling water to make hot chocolate or herb tea. Your family will think its such a treat!
• Now, while your family is helping you by setting the table, you throw something in the oven so that you can sit and eat with them while your creation is baking. What will you bake? Muffins, quick bread, cake, biscuits, or maybe cornbread if you have cornmeal. If you already have some kind of bread or buns to eat with your dinner, then make your creation a dessert.

Now let's look at 3 different examples of the above process:

1) Penny walks in her door, puts down her keys and purse and puts on her pot of water to boil. On her way to take off and hang up her coat, she thinks about her leftovers: chili, corn, and a few hard-boiled eggs. By the time she gets into the kitchen, she has decided to make rice and use the chilli and corn as toppings. The hard-boiled eggs she will cut open and devil them and serve on a few leaves of lettuce. She will make cornbread to go with it. She gets into the kitchen and realizes there's not enough rice--no problem, she will cook elbow macaroni instead. The water is not boiling yet, so she gets the cornbread batter mixed up and into a pan in the oven. It only takes 25 minutes to cook. She then devils the eggs and rips up a few leaves of lettuce to line the plate. Time to put in the macaroni. Now set the table. The chili and corn get warmed up separately in the microwave. She finds a small cube of cheese and grates it, and a half an onion which she chops. The macaroni and cornbread are done at the same time. Supper's ready! (about 30 min)

On the menu:
Macaroni with chili, corn, onions and cheese as toppings (Give everyone a scoop of macaroni and let them top their own.)
Salad: devilled eggs on lettuce
Side: cornbread

Talk about a quick-cheap-easy meal! Hearty and healthy go along with that one, too.

2) Andrea and her 3 kids (ages 12, 9, and 2) walk in the door of their home and she puts down her shopping bags and puts on her pot of water to boil. She goes to put her coat away and the older kids get into a big fight. She is distracted for about 10 minutes getting them separated and busy doing something. By the time she returns to the kitchen she has no idea what to make but is glad for that pot of almost boiling water. She looks in the fridge and sees 2 pieces of leftover chicken, a few green beans, half a tomato, and half a jar of applesauce. Now the baby's crying. Needs to be held. She calls in her 9 year old daughter and 12 year old son for help (the ones that were fighting before.) While she sits at the kitchen table cuddling the baby, she supervises the children. She instructs daughter to put the green beans and bouillon into the pot of now-boiling water. Her daughter also brings her a knife and cutting board, the tomato and chicken legs. Meanwhile she has given her son a recipe for cinnamon coffee-cake. The 1/2 jar of applesauce will go into the batter to make a cinnamon-apple coffeecake. By the time she has the chicken and tomato cut up, while holding the baby, the son has the batter measured and mixed. The baby is settled and Andrea gets up. She puts the chicken and tomato into the pot, sees a few cloves of garlic and tosses them in, too. One last scour of the fridge reveals 1/2 cup leftover curried rice. That goes in the soup too. The water's back to boiling and the coffeecake has 10 minutes left to bake. Andrea and her older kids set the table. Supper's ready! (yeah...) They can start eating while the dessert finishes baking. She brings out a bag of leftover hamburger buns.

On the menu:
Homemade soup with chicken, rice, green beans, tomatoes and garlic
Leftover hamburger buns. Her family likes them toasted to dip in soup
Apple-cinnamon coffee cake for dessert

Another quick-easy-cheap-meal on the family table!

3) Gladys comes in the door late because she was held up at work. With only her husband and herself at home now, it would be easy to just order out for supper. However, they are trying to cut back on the amount they spend on food because they are saving up for a well-deserved vacation. It's her husband's turn to cook; she and her husband take turns but he's been putting a lot of overtime this week while a fellow-worker is away sick, so she still beat him home and decided to switch turns with him.

She puts down her keys and briefcase and puts her pot of water onto boil. She has done this many times before and has already decided on the way home from work to cook potatoes. She has a few new potatoes left in a bag.
She goes to put her coat away and upon returning to the kitchen, she rinses off and cuts up the new potatoes-- peeling not required. She cuts them up into 1 inch cubes for quicker cooking. In the fridge, she has, well, almost nothing. On the counter she has 7 or 8 slightly dried-out mushrooms in a paper bag, and then the idea comes to her. In the freezer she has 4 or 5 uncooked sausages. She gets a pan on to cook with a little water in the bottom and goes to fetch the sausages. Into the pan they go with a lid to quickly steam and then cook them. The potatoes are almost but not quite done. Gladys then puts a little oil in a frying pan, cuts up the mushrooms and some onion, and starts to saute them. She drains the potatoes and puts them in a bowl. Sausages are sizzling now. She takes the mushrooms and onions out of the frying pan, and stirs a white sauce into the frying pan, scraping up the bits left behind. While this gravy simmers, she turns the sausages over to brown the other side. A quick set of the table for two, and her husband now walks in. Happy to smell food cooking, thanks her with a kiss. She adds the mushrooms and onions back into the gravy, lifts the sausages out onto a plate, and is happy with her meal. Except, she would like to see more vegetables. There are a couple of carrots and celery sticks in the crisper. Out they come. Supper's ready!

On the menu:
New potatoes
Mushroom and onion gravy
Sausages
Carrot and celery sticks

Doesn't this process sound do-able? Notice that Gladys decided not to bake anything. She could have popped something in the oven, but she and her husband don't always eat dessert, and she figured that with the sausages and gravy, the calories were already sufficient for their needs. It's all about being flexible. Had Gladys decided to pop in a batch of 6 muffins, for example, she and her husband could have enjoyed 1 each with their supper, 1 each for breakfast the next morning, and 1 each to take in their packed lunches the next day. (Or put the extras in the freezer for an emergency.) This process works for singles, college students, large families (like mine), and everything in between.

Now, keep in mind that a person doesn't want to have to put meals on the table like this EVERY DAY. But it certainly works when you need it to. Most of the time you will want to plan your work and work your plan. But thank goodness for this process to fall back on!

Pantry Basics

With a few basic baking essentials in your pantry, you can quickly, easily and cheaply add some fresh home-baked goods to your meal. These may include a batch of delectable muffins, some light flaky biscuits, a tasty cake, a stack of pancakes, versatile tortilla shells, etc.

The very minimum basics to pull this off are:
flour*
baking powder
salt
fat (oil, margarine, etc.)

Some great add-ons are:
eggs
cinnamon
oats
baking soda
vinegar
milk powder

Have I forgotten anything you think is a minimum essential?
Please tell us.
The more ideas we have, the better prepared we are!

Next time we will talk about what to do with these pantry basics.

*Our family's choice is whole wheat flour. We use this exclusively for all baking, cooking, etc. If you are still using all white flour, try sprinkling in some whole wheat flour to everything you make. After awhile, gradually increase the amount you use. The extra nutritional value and taste it provides is well worth it. Let us know of your successes/challenges with this endeavor.

First things first

The first thing a minichef needs to get a meal on the table in a quick, easy and cheap fashion is to be prepared in the pantry. If making a meal involves a trip to the store first, then it is not easy, quick, and usually not cheap either- because you are shopping when you and your family are hungry.

This is not to say that your pantry needs to be a well-stocked grocery store. We will be learning some techniques to quickly make something out of what you've got. But you've got to have something to start with.

Think about what kind of food your family eats and loves. What are some of the successes you've had in the past with impromptu cooking? What recipes have you fashioned yourself out of necessity, out of creativity, etc.

Also, be thinking about what kind of foods are inexpensive in your area. What kind of foods store well?

In the next post I will give you some answers about how to be prepared in your pantry.