Taco seasoning

Well, I seem to have a working computer again, so I figured I may as well take advantage and blog.  Yesterday for dinner I ran out of my taco seasoning mix.  I LOVE my taco seasoning mix.  I found it in a book by a lady from 3dhealth.net.  While the book has some great ideas, it is so unorganized that I hate trying to find things in it.  For example, this recipe is called chili mix even though I always think of it as taco seasoning.  It also calls for a veggie mix that you then have to try to find in the book.  I really hate using the book, but I love the recipe.  It pretty much has everything you need including a few veggies.  I also like the flavor and so do all of my kids except 1 who doesn't seem to like ground beef in general.   Be warned, these probably aren't items you will have in your pantry unless you are into food storage.  You will probably have to buy them at some sort of specialty place on online.  My particular favorite is honeyvillegrain.com.  I like them mostly because they are the most economical because their shipping is always 4.49.  I can't say that I got any of the items I used yesterday from Honeyville though.  I just find them easiest to use.  If you care to know, my celery and peppers were Thrive products, my tomato powder was Auguston farms - although purchased through 3dhealth.net and not my favorite quality wise - I do not recommend it.  Could have been old from the person who sold it to me though.  My onions were from the lds home storage center, and the other items from costco.  
On to the mix -here it is with everything all together.  Yea!

Ingredients

• 1 cup tomato powder
• 1/2 cup dried onions
• 1/2 cup dried celery (mine were freeze dried)
• 1/2 cup dried bell peppers (I have a red and green mix)
• 1 Tablespoon garlic minces or garlic powder (I used powder yesterday.)
• 1/2 cup chili powder (this makes a pretty mild mix - you may want to add more if you like it spicier)
• 3 Tablespoons cumin
• 3 Tablespoons coriander
• 1 Tablespoon salt

Mix all of the ingredients together and store in an airtight container.

To use:
Tacos - 1/2 cup seasoning with some water to 1 lb meat (or 1 cup lentils or beans to make vegetarian)
Chili beans - 1/2 cup seasoning to 1 cup (dry measure) beans
rice - 1/4 cup mix to cooked rice with 1/2 cup water
refried beans -1/4 cup mix to 3 cups mashed pinto beans

You get the picture - honestly I usually only make this as taco seasoning, but I have used it with beans, ground beef, and chicken.  Personally for refried beans I prefer mashing salsa up with black or pinto beans.

taco seasoning

This is the recipe I've been using for a while for taco seasoning.  I love it because it has a lot of veggies in it in addition to the spices.  I never feel bad adding more for spice because I'm only adding more veggies.  I like the mix.  It does call for items that are not run of the mill grocery items like dried celery, dried bell peppers, and tomato powder.  My favorite place to purchase those items is currently honeyvillegrain.com mostly because of their 1 low price shipping charge.  They also have regular sale codes for 10 or 15 % off. Truth be told though, I think my tomato powder is from one place (possibly honeyville) and my celery and bell peppers are from shelf reliance, so use what you like.

Ingredients

• 1 cup tomato powder
• 1/2 cup dried onions
• 1/2 cup dried celery
• 1/2 cup dried bell peppers (I have a red/green mix)
• 1/2 Tablespoon Garlic minces or garlic powder
• 1/2 cup chili powder
• 3 Tablespoons cumin
• 3 Tablespoons coriander
• 1 Tablespoon sea salt.

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients in an airtight container.  I store mine in a large canning jar.  I always shake this up before using it.  

soup mixes

So, somehow in the last 2 days I've managed to be out of 2 different soups/mixes that I needed for various recipes.  One was lipton onion soup mix.  I thought I had 3 in the pantry, but was mistaken.  Thank goodness for the internet there.  I found one at food.com.  The other was cream of mushroom soup - I've actually been trying to eliminate using those so I haven't bought anymore and I forgot the recipe I decided to make on a whim called for it (more on that next post.)  Luckily I found a great substitute in a book (family feasts for $75  that I have checked out of the library.  So, here are my 2 soup mix substitutes with my commentary.

Onion soup mix

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup dehydrated onion
• 1/3 cup beef bouillon powder
• 4 teaspoon onion powder (I actually had less because I ran out but it was still fine)
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed celery seeds (I don't know about crushed, mine just say celery seeds and are very tiny already.)
• (original called for 1/4 teaspoon sugar -I couldn't see the need to add this so I didn't.)

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients and store in and airtight container.
2. About 5 Tablespoons are equal to 1 package store bought.  (I used 3 rounded Tablespoons for the recipe I was making and it was plenty strong but I think the bouillon I have is particularly flavorful.)

Cream of anything soup

Ingredients

• 3 cups powdered milk
• 1 cup cornstarch
• 1 cup powdered chicken bouillon (I actually didn't add this when I used it last night and I don't think I would add it next time.  see directions below)
• 2 Tablespoons onion powder (actually didn't have this at all (see above recipe I had made the night before :)  I just tossed in some extra dehydrated onions to the actual recipe.)
• 1 teaspoons thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon basil
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 3 Tablespoons butter powder (optional - didn't have it for cream of mushroom last night.)

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl.  Store in and airtight container at room temperature up to a year.)

To make soup:

1. In a medium-size saucepan, combine 1/2 cup dry soup mix with 1 1/4 cups water, 1 Tablespoon butter (if you didn't put butter powder in the mix), and desired flavorings (see below)

Cream of chicken - no extra seasonings - although my plan in the future is to make it with chicken stock and not add the bouillon to the mix.  I just didn't think it through last night as I was hurriedly trying to get dinner prepared.

Cream of mushroom:  Add 1/2 cup minced mushrooms.  I actually added the mix (no bouillon) a Tablespoons of beef bouillon, water, and dehydrated/freeze dried (not sure which I have) that I just crushed in my hand.  It was really good that way (in the recipe at least)

Cream of celery:  Add 1/2 cup minced celery.  You can puree soup when it cools if necessary

waffle mix/ waffles

So, a friend of mine found a new food storage website - www.3DHealth.net.  The woman from the site puts out a cookbook with her food storage plan - while she it totally over the top for me in a lot of things, I really wanted to try her waffle mix.  She uses it for lots of things - waffles, pancakes, muffins, and it is pretty healthy, so how can you lose right?  So I went ahead and tried it with waffles yesterday morning and muffins this morning.  The waffles were fine - sweeter than I would make a waffle, but I really liked the muffins we had this morning.  Tavio actually ate 3 for breakfast and then 4 for lunch, but hey, what was I going to say?  It was a good meal - had veggies, fruit, whole grains, eggs and milk for some protein and even some yogurt - See, how could I say that wasn't a good lunch - even if it was the same as breakfast?  I myself have eaten more than I would like to count.

While this book is full of some useful info I do find it a bit confusing.  For example, I could find no recipe for actual waffles - I just had to guess to make a good consistency.  It is also organized rather strangely, and uses ingredients I just don't have - like powdered vanilla and powdered honey.  And, it is super over the top for food storage - like she sprouts her grains then dehydrates them, then grinds them, and she makes seemingly EVERYThing from scratch including all sorts of Faux meats and milks.  I haven't figured out how you would ever have enough hours in a day to do all that, but like I said, there are great tidbits of info in there and a lot of things I'd still like to try.  Thanks so much Lisa for letting me borrow your book.  I don't at all mind being the guinea pig for the recipes.  :)

Waffle mix
Ingredients

• 10 cups freshly ground whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 cups powdered honey - I used 1 cup splenda (I have some I need to use) and 1/2 cup sugar - for trial purposes, they were what I had in my pantry.
• 1 1/2 cups ground white beans (I ground small white beans in my grinder with no problem)
• 1 cup egg powder
• 1 Tablespoon salt
• 1 Tablespoon baking soda
• 3 Tablespoons baking powder
• 1 2/3 cup powdered milk
• 1 Tablespoons vanilla powder (I used I think 4 Tablespoons french vanilla non dairy creamer - Because that is what I had that seemed like it would work as a substitution.)

Directions

1. Mix everything together in a large container.  (I used a bucket I had got to make bread in 5 minutes a day - it was pretty much the only thing I had that was big enough.)

To make waffles mix 2 cups mix with 1 1/2 cups water.  That made almost 2 waffles for me.  At first I used 1 1/2 cup mix and 1 cup water.  That filled my large waffle iron perfectly, but they were way too dense.