In my last post I shared a very basic menu plan with 42 dinner options. I did not provide any recipes but recommended that you search through your collection of cookbooks and look for simple recipes that will work for you and your family. Even the best laid plans will go awry if you make them too complicated. I have found that when it comes to simple recipes, older is better. One of my favorite all time cookbooks is The Way To A Man's Heart: The Settlement CookBook by Mrs. Simon Kander. This is the book I inevitably reach for when I am looking to create a replacement for some mass produced convenient item. The only caution with using old cookbooks is that they do not have oven temperatures! And some measurements are interesting, to say the least.
One of the grocery store items that I really loved was Bisquick mix. I mean, what is not to love about this mix? You can use it to make everything from pancakes, to waffles, to coffee cake, to shortbread. And there are even recipe books dedicated to using Bisquick! But this stuff can get expensive at almost $7 for about 12 cups worth of mix. I don't know about your family, but my family loves pancakes and so a 12 cup box is only good for two pancake breakfasts - forget about making any waffles, desserts, or other wonderful food. I needed to find a better option.
In my favorite cookbook was a recipe that I found I was able to use to make my own homemade version of Bisquick that tastes just as good and works just as well. I can make an entire Tupperware container full equivalent to the store bought 12 cup box for a fraction of the cost.
Homemade Bisquick Mix
10 cups of All-purpose Flour
3 heaping tablespoons of Baking Powder
2-1/2 teaspoons Salt
Sift all of these ingredients together and put into a large storage container. On the side of my container, I wrote: 1 cup mix; 1 cup milk; and 1 egg. This is the rest of the recipe for making pancakes, the most common use for my homemade Bisquick mix. This mix can be used in all the Bisquick dedicated recipes too.
There really is not much difference between the homemade version and the commercial version. In fact, here is the listing of ingredients that is shown on the Betty Crocker website: Enriched Flour Bleached (wheat flour, niacin, iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and/or Cottonseed Oil, Leavening (baking soda, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate), Dextrose, Salt.
I don't know about you but I am not so sure I am comfortable with all those additions to the flour; or the use of soybean oil, especially since soybeans are now predominantly a GMO product. And I am starting to watch out for aluminum too. Making this mix myself gives me the control I want over what is ultimately being fed to my family.
By being willing to make this mix yourself, you can save a fair amount of money, especially if you use the mix a lot in a variety of recipes. A 10 pound bag of flour costs about $5.00. A whole container of iodized salt is usually around $1.00 and baking powder for around $2.00. This amount of the basic ingredients is enough to make the equivalent of two of the 96 ounce commercially produced versions of Bisquick, so we are talking about a savings of at least 50%. And since these are ingredients that I generally have in my pantry in bulk, I can refill my designated Bisquick container in just a few minutes.
There is no need to find fancy, complicated recipes - unless you like that sort of thing. Me, I prefer quick, simple, and flavorful. And the more I save, the better.
Be blessed.
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