A Smarter Kitchen

When I begin the task of organizing the house, I always feel like I should start in the kitchen. It is one of the most used rooms in the house and it has the most "stuff" traffic. I am not one of those super frugal extreme couponing moms but I do try to be smart about how I spend our money. Especially as I watch the cost of grocery items rise. I try to take advantage of sales (particularly buy one get one free) and coupons (combined with a sale).

Note: Buying groceries in bulk or on sale only saves you money if you actually use them!!

I have had an ongoing struggle with mealtime at my house. I think it is related to my tendency to get focused on "what needs to be done right now?" because I have been so busy playing catch up that I don't take the time to plan ahead.

Unfortunately, once I get all of these great cheaply purchased groceries home, I get busy. I have not really gotten into the habit of planning out my menu ahead of time and so, as I'm trying to get the kids to do (or not do) something or get one more thing done, I suddenly realize that it's almost dinnertime and I have NO idea what to make for dinner!

The other part is that, I not only have picky eaters, I have infrequent eaters. If I do make an actual meal, sometimes I am the only one who will eat it. I never know if J will like it, if B is having an eating day (some days she will only drink) or if Mike's stomach will let him eat that day. How do you shop for that? I used to shop as if we were all going to eat full meals throughout the week. Yeah, not so smart. Now I am trying to relearn shopping. Instead of getting everything at once, I shop for staples I know J will eat for breakfast and lunch and one meal. If I'm the only one who will eat it, that one meal will last all week.

In the meantime, before I changed my shopping habits, I had built up an impressive stock of goods...that we will never eat. So, part of my reorganizing of the house is also adjusting how I do stuff.

The first thing I did was wash and put away all my dishes, etc. so I could see what I really have. I went through all my "tupperware" and realized we have enough containers to store food for four families. Why? I kept the "good stuff" and the sets that stack inside of each other (wise space usage) and gave away the rest. There's probably still an extra family's worth in there, but it's better than it was.

The second thing I did was go through my pantry and cabinets. I tossed anything that was expired and I donated anything that was going to expire in the next two months. I figured that people relying on free food will definitely eat it whereas it may just expire and go to waste if I keep it.

For anything left, I grouped them by food type (cereal, fruit, meat, lunch sides). Big stuff like large drink containers go on the floor. I put the breakfast items and lunch sides on the bottom two rows so that J can see them and get to them easily. Now he can get these for himself. I put stuff I use to make dinner on the next shelf up and dessert stuff he might be tempted by at the very top, not that that would actually stop him if he really wanted something. Our pantry is not that big, so soups, drink mixes, baking ingredients and spices are in the cabinets. Here is what J's pantry shelves look like:

Once everything was in place, I labeled any storage containers (I got cheap all purpose labels at Walmart) and wrote the expiration dates on everything big enough to see easily with a Sharpie. Some of them are really hard to see otherwise. I figured if I'm taking the time to look now, I may as well make it easier for next time.

As I was going through doing that, I also created an inventory with expiration dates. From this inventory, I made a list of the foods that need to be used first. This way, as I plan my menu, I can try to use foods from the "Need to Use" list so that nothing else gets wasted.

If I do this pantry clear out and inventory every 2-3 months, I can be sure that all of those great deals that I bought will get used instead of wasted, either by our family or one in need.


I did a similar make over of my refrigerator and freezer.
1. Now that J is able to do more kitchen things for himself, I rearranged a bit to make sure that the items he will most likely use are within easy reach.
2. The day before garbage day is becoming, "Leftover Night" and whatever leftovers aren't eaten are tossed (I don't want anything growing in my containers!) and check for outdated condiments, overripe fruits & veggie, etc. night.
3. My freezer shelves are now designated by food type (Breakfast, Meat, Veggies, Prepared Meals, Breads & Desserts), which helps ensure I do not buy too much of one type of food and not enough of the others (although there may be a bit more dessert than we need).
4. I am also making sure that I label anything I repackage to freeze with a Use By date (if I buy in bulk, I can put some in the refrigerator and freeze the rest).

One last thing:
Since our pantry is sort of a skinny walk in, we can only have shelves on one side. So what do you do with that little bit of space at the end? I put our stacking recycle bins there. It has been so convenient to be able to just stick the empty boxes/cartons while I'm standing there replacing them! You can see by the overflow that we didn't put the Paper bin out last trash day (it was raining-sloppy cardboard-yuck!).

I still have some work to do in the kitchen, mostly with our family "calendar and control center" but this will get me going on the goals of cooking more at home and being a better steward of our resources.

If you have any tips or ideas, I'd love to hear them!

The Great Bread Experiment: Whole Wheat Bread #1

Well it's too early to declare a winner for the Whole Wheat category, especially since this is the first one we tried, but we definitely have a contender!

As with the white bread, I started with my Better Homes and Gardens "New Cook Book" eleventh edition. I made no changes to the recipe. I did, however, remember to take more pictures this time.

The Book:

The Bread:
Better Homes and Gardens Whole Wheat Bread
Ingredients:
3-3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 package dry active yeast
1 3/4 cups water
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons butter, margarine, or shortening
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
2 cups whole wheat flour

 My gathered supplies *Kitchenaid stand mixer and saucepan not pictured

Directions:
1. In a large mixing bowl stir together 2 cups of the all-purpose flour and the yeast; set aside. In a medium saucepan heat and stir water, brown sugar, butter (or margarine or shortening) and salt just til warm (120-130 degrees) and butter almost melts. Add water mixture to dry mixture. Beat with an electric mixer on low to medium speed for 30 seconds, scraping the sides of the bowl constantly. Beat on high speed for three minutes. Using a wooden spoon, stir in whole wheat flour and as much remaining all-purpose flour as you can.

2. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead in enough of the remaining all-purpose flour to make a moderately stiff dough that is smooth and elastic (6-8 minutes total). Shape the dough into a ball. Place dough in a lightly greased bowl, turning once to grease surface of the dough. Cover and let rise in a warm place till double in size (for 1-1 1/2 hours).

3. Punch dough down. Turn dough out into a lightly floured surface; divide in half. Cover; let rise 10 minutes. Meanwhile, lightly grease two 8x4x2in loaf pans. (I used 9x5x2.5 loaf pans)

4. Shape each portion of dough into a loaf by patting or rolling. To shape dough by patting, gently pat and pinch each half into a loaf shape, tucking edges beneath. To shape dough by rolling, on a lightly floured surface, roll each half into a 12x8 inch rectangle. Roll up jelly-roll style, starting from a short side. Seal with fingertips as you roll.

5. Place the shaped dough in the prepared pans. Cover and let rise in a warm place till nearly double in size (45-60 minutes).

6. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 40-45 minutes or till bread sounds hollow when you tap the top with your fingers (if necessary, cover loosely with foil the last 10 minutes of baking to prevent over-browning). Immediately remove bread from pans. Cool on wire racks. Makes 2 loaves.

The Result:
This bread was very easy. Easy to mix, easy to knead and shape. Since the first white loaf tasted too "Floury", I decided not to try to force the additional all-purpose flour into the dough. I probably used a 1/2 cup after the initial 2 cups between flouring my work surface and adding some in. Maybe that's why it was so much easier to shape. The baking time was spot on for this recipe, and I did use the foil for the last 10 minutes. The result was to beautiful (minus my inability to shape well) loaves.

The Review:
We all really liked this loaf! It tastes very close to a good whole wheat bread at the store, but is a little more dense. So far we've liked it on all of our regular sandwiches and warm with butter (we haven't had it toasted, yet). I'd say this one is definitely a possibility as our go-to sandwich bread!

The Great Bread Experiment: White Bread #1

For those of you who read my main blog, Time to be Mom, you might have seen the post about my son's severe tree nut allergy and how dangerous we are realizing that it is; particularly when it comes to baked goods. There are even brands of sandwich bread that we can't use because it is processed on equipment that has been used for products containing tree nuts.

Hence "The Great Bread Experiment".

Like so many moms out there, I am trying to balance health, time and four Very different sets of taste buds. My plan is simple, although it is going to take awhile to fully meet out. I am going to go cookbook by cookbook and Pinterest pin by Pinterest pin to find the bread recipes we like the best. I would like to find a good French/Italian bread, a sub/hoagie roll, a good Cuban loaf and a basic sandwich bread (we like wheat). Between these, I can make pretty much any dish. Right now, my primary goal is the sandwich bread so I can use it for J's lunches.

Since I am new to bread making, I figured I would start with the most basic just to see if I could make a loaf without noticeably blowing it. We did a similar experiment with Banana Bread last year and the one we liked the best was a recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. Given that success, I decided to start there this time. It was also helpful that there are pictures and tips on how to do things like kneading that I had not done before. I have the eleventh edition of the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book.

The Bread:

Better Homes and Gardens White Bread
Prep: 30 minutes  Rise: 1 1/2 hours  Bake: 40 minutes  Oven: 375  Makes: 2 loaves
Ingredients:
5 3/4 to 6 1/4 cups all purpose four
1 package dry active yeast
2 1/4 cups milk or buttermilk (I used whole milk)
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon butter, margarine or shortening (I used butter)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Directions:
1. In a large mixing bowl, combine 2 1/2 cups of the flour and yeast; set aside. In a medium saucepan heat and stir milk, sugar, butter and salt until just warm and butter almost melts. Add milk mixture to dry mixture. Beat with an electric mixer on low to medium speed for 30 seconds, scraping sides of the bowl constantly. Beat on high speed for 3 minutes.Using a wooden spoon, stir in as much of the remaining flour as you can.
2. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead in enough of the remaining flour to make a moderately stiff dough that is smooth and elastic (6-8 minutes total). Shape dough into a ball. Place in a lightly greased bowl, turning once to grease surface of the dough. Cover; let rise in a warm place till double in size (45-60 minutes).
3. Punch dough down. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide dough in half. Cover; let rest 10 minutes. Meanwhile, lightly grease two 8x4x2in loaf pans (the only ones I could find were 9x5x2.5 so my loaves were wider and flatter).
4. Shape each portion of dough into a loaf bt patting or rolling. To shape dough by patting, gently pat and pinch each portion into a loaf shape, tucking edges beneath. To shape dough by rolling, on a lightly floured surface, roll each portion into a 12x8in rectangle. Roll dough up, jelly-roll style, starting from a short side. Seal with fingertips as you roll.
5. Place shaped dough in the prepared loaf pans. Cover and let rise in a warm place till nearly double in size (30-40 minutes).
6. Bake in a 375 oven about 40 minutes or till bread sounds hollow when you tap the top with your fingers (if necessary, cover loosely with foil the last 10 minutes of baking to prevent over browning). Immediately remove bread from pans. Cool on wire racks.

The Result:

The prep itself was easy enough. Even the kneading wasn't difficult, although I didn't get anywhere close to the whole amount of flour into the dough. However, during baking, I opened the oven door with 10 minutes left to cover the loaves with foil to discover that the loaves were fully done (and a bit over browned) at 30 minutes! It's a good thing I had planned to do the foil! Not sure if this was because of my oven or that I used glass loaf pans but now I know...

The Review:

The flavor was approved by everyone (even J) except for my daughter who simply refused to try it but then, she's not quite 2 and she does that. We liked it best toasted or warmed with butter & honey or jelly and for ham and cheese sandwiches. We did not like it as much for PB&J. I thought it would do well for garlic toast and perhaps grilled cheese sandwiches, but we didn't get around to trying that.

It was much denser than supermarket sandwich breads and almost had a sourdough taste to it. It did taste a bit floury to me, so I might try it again with a little less flour and a little bit of sugar.

One note:
Without the preservatives used by companies, this bread will spoil faster than supermarket bread! We made it through the first loaf with time to spare, but I would highly advise wrapping and freezing the second loaf until you are ready to use it.

If you would like to try this recipe as well, please do and tell us what you think.
Happy Baking!
Robin