Homemade Mixes

Homemade or from scratch foods and mixes can normally be made for a fraction of the cost of the convenience foods you find at the grocery store. Not only are they cheaper, but they are better tasting and you know what ingredients are in them. Look at a cake recipe and you can easily pronounce the ingredients. Now pick up a cake mix. Can you pronounce the ingredients - let alone know exactly what they are?

There are numerous mixes listed on the web, including some of my own favorites. Although there are lots out there, you really don't need to follow a mix recipe to make your own. Pull out your favorite cake recipe. You can mix all the dry ingredients together, put them in a baggie or other air tight container, label it, and put it away for the next time you want to make a cake. Now all you need to do is pull it out, add the wet ingredients, and your finished making a scratch cake with the ease of a mix! You can do the same with pancakes, brownies, etc. Just use your imagination.

Breakfast is usually the most rushed meal during the day, especially on weekdays. According to a report on Good Morning America this morning, store purchased cereals can contain up to 50% it's weight in sugar! It's so easy to make some wonderful homemade granola that you control the sugar and the ingredients to fit your family's needs and preferences. Maybe you like the ease of instant oatmeal. Did you know that you can just put one part quick oats to two parts milk in a bowl and microwave it - and it's done about as quickly as instant. If you like the flavors, add raisins and cinnamon, brown sugar, maple syrup, dried fruits, nuts.... the sky's the limit. Save some time by measuring out and putting a serving in a baggie with the dried fruits,nuts, & flavorings of your choice (no wet ingredients). Make enough for a week, and you'll have the ease of the packets for a fraction of the cost.

Maybe you love pancakes or waffles. On the weekend, you can cook up a batch, cool them, then stack them with a sheet of waxed paper between each one. (pancake, waxed paper, pancake, waxed paper...) then put in a container and freeze. During the week, you can pull out the amount of pancakes (or waffles) you want and just warm them up in the microwave. Waffles can be warmed in the toaster. If you have problems with the pancakes sticking together, put them single layer on a cookie sheet, then freeze for an hour or so, take them out and stack with waxed paper between each one, put in a container and freeze.

Start looking at the recipes you use most. Ask yourself if you can measure out and pack some of the ingredients ahead to save you time. Just by doing this, you'll be buying less convenience foods from the store, and making more from scratch in the same amount of time, with the wonderful taste of homemade. And the best part - you're saving money to use elsewhere!!

Book Review: "South African Gourmet Food & Wine" by Myrna Rosen & Lesley Loon

South African Gourmet Food & Wine: Traditional South African Food & More...
Authors: Myrna Rosen & Lesley Loon
Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Co.
ISBN: 9780805941876
Genre: Cooking, South African, food, wine

About the Book (from publisher website):

"South African Gourmet Food and Wine: Traditional South African Food and More..." is a superb collection of genuine South African cuisine, including local favorite dishes from a variety of contributors.... [It] offers the cooking enthusiast...a wonderful array of mouth-watering creations as much fun to prepare as they are delicious to eat." - Bookwatch

"South African Gourmet Food and Wine: Traditional South African Food and More..." is an excellent, well-rounded source of South African cuisine, including local-favorite dishes from a variety of contributors. No dish is too complex to be fixed in any kitchen, and many delectables can be made quickly and easily.

From crayfish to sosaties, bobotie to chicken periperi, and from torte to truffles to South African wedding cake - these are a sample of the dishes ready to be prepared from this fun cookbook.

There is an historical section on the KWV wines of South Africa, with wine service suggestions throughout the book as well as many dishes featuring unique wines and liqueurs as ingredients.

Myrna Rosen and Lesley Loon overwhelm the cooking enthusiast with a great array of mouth-watering culinary creations. This book is a must for everyone who loves to cook...and eat!

My Thoughts:

First impressions:

When I pulled this book out of the package, I was immediately taken by the stunning cover. It is simple, but the photographs demanded that I pay much more attention to what was inside the book. Upon opening the book, I found the pages to be nice and heavy and the print to be clear and easy to read. In the middle of the book are 16 pages of gorgeous full color photos of some of the dishes contained in the book.

That's great, but can I really get the ingredients to make all those delicious looking dishes?

My first impressions made me really wonder how difficult the recipes would be, as well as how easily obtainable the ingredients would be. Since it's a South African cookbook, I had assumed I would need a grocery store that carried South African ingredients. I live in the middle of nowhere in a small village where the largest "city" within an hour's distance has a population under 40,000, so you know I'm probably not going to easily find ingredients.

The South African wines and spirits that are discussed and used in the cook book are available by mail-order from one source here in the US. If you live in Canada, you have a few more options. Sadly, because I live in Pennsylvania, I cannot mail order any of these items, so I must either make a trip to Connecticut to purchase them or substitute with something else. With that in mind, I did not try any of the recipes containing alcohol (yet).

What I was most surprised about was the specialty ingredients - there really weren't that many and usually a easily obtainable substitute was given!

Those dishes looked beautiful in the photos - I bet they are difficult to cook and being gourmet, I bet many of them are beyond my taste buds!

What I loved about the book is many of the recipes are not only delicious, but are quite easy to make. I found most of the difficulty was chopping up the ingredients before cooking. (in other words - really quite easy!) The recipes are clear with easy to follow instructions.

Most of the recipes weren't terribly different than what I grew up with. That really surprised me. I had expected more "odd" dishes, but according to the introduction to the book, South African cooking is much like ours - a blend of all different elasticities. This gives more of a new twist to the recipes instead of being blatantly different. With that said, this makes a very user-friendly cookbook that I know I will be reaching for again and again.

There are numerous recipes calling for fish and chicken. Not nearly as many recipes were for red meats and nothing for pork. I found that somewhat surprising.

The recipes I tried were all delicious and most easy to make. The "Portabella Mushroom Soup" was surprisingly easy and yummy.  "Monkey Gland Steak" sounds extremely gross; however, it is not only delicious, but doesn't contain monkey at all!! There were a couple of recipes that were a little more fussy, like the "Chocolate Raspberry Dacquoise Torte", but they were well worth the effort!

So what did I really think of this book?

I just love this cookbook and will be using it a lot in the future. There are so many delicious looking recipes that I haven't tried yet and everything that I have tried, I will be making again in the future. Without being able to view this book in the bookstore, I would have passed it up, assuming the ingredients would have been impossible to obtain, and being "gourmet", the recipes would have been terribly expensive to make and way too unusual for my average cooking style and taste. I would have really missed out on something wonderful!!


I received a complimentary copy of "South African Gourmet Food & Wine" as a member of the Dorrance Publishing Book Review Team. Visit dorrancebookstore.com to learn how you can become a member of the Book Review Team.