Freezing grapes

Fruit goes bad very quickly once it's been picked. Sometimes I get fruit in season but there's not enough time to deal with it because of my quilting schedule. I could dehydrate these grapes but then I'd have raisins instead of grapes.  I could make grape jelly or juice.  I don't want jelly or juice right now and there's not enough time for me to make it anyway.  I like grapes as a treat on cold winter days without paying an out of season price for them. 

I decided to flash freeze these.  It's easy, just pick the grapes off the vine, rinse them really well, and put onto the tray to flash freeze.  In about half an hour I'll stir them around to prevent sticking together as one big lump of grapes.

That's it.  No other work to it.  In about an hour they are ready to pack into freezer bags. 

If I want a snack, I simply take out a handful and eat them as frozen treats or let them thaw in a bowl.  These grapes are as sweet as candy.  If I decide to make jelly or juice in a few weeks these work just as well as fresh ones do. 

Uses for cereal

Making use of everything is what my grandmother taught me at a very young age.  Moma as I called her, would not allow anything to make it's way into a pail for the chickens until after all attempts were made to use it first.  Mama was a young mother during both world wars, the food rationing, and the depression too.  She had to live frugally for her children's sake.  I must say she was very good at it! 

For example:

Egg shells were used to "clear" coffee before being used to scour pots before finally being given to the chickens.  Egg shells were Mama's homemade version of powdered cleanser.  She scoured pots with the egg shells but did not add soap to it because she knew the chickens would be eating it.

Leftover coffee grounds were used to stuff chair pads to sit on or stuffing rag dolls or put into pin cushions instead of simply going to the compost pile.  Sometimes the coffee grounds were used to clean her homemade rugs.  The rugs were taken outside.  We lay them out on the grass and spread coffee grounds over them.  We rubbed the dry grounds over the rugs with a broom sort of like using carpet cleaner today.  Then the rugs were hung over a fence and pounded with the broom to shake the grounds off.  I remember Mama would dry rose petals too.  She added the dry petals to the coffee grounds sort of like a freshener is added to carpet cleaner today.

Meat bones of all kinds were saved.  Fish, raccoon, chicken, beef, squirl, rabbit, pork, it didn't matter.  The bones were roasted, then pounded to break them up a little, then simmered for hours on the stove to make stock and gel.  After straining off the stock and gel, the bones were ground to a powder which was then put on the garden as bone meal in the spring.  Papa did the bone grinding chore.

When Mama cooked potatoes she scraped them instead of peeling them.  She did the same for other root crops like carrots.  Scraping takes off far less of the usable part of vegetables.

Almost everyone has heard of using stale bread as an extender.  Like mixing for a casserole topping or a part of meat loaf.... right?  Well Mama also used stale cookies and muffins as extenders in her baking.  She didn't want to waste the sugar or honey she had used to make the first cookies sweet.  There were rarely leftovers of sweets in her house but when there were, she used them again as extenders in new dishes. 

I've renewed my commitment to honor the things my Grandmother (Mama) taught me.  For far too many years I've fallen for the commercial hype to spend, spend, spend.  I think she would be very proud of me for finally learning my lessons and living the way she always hoped I would. 

One of the things I've gotten from the food fairies is an abundance of cereal.  Far more cereal than I care to eat as cold cereal.  Have you ever heard of using corn flakes as a coating for chicken when cooking it?  Have you ever heard of using bread crumbs as a coating?  Ok, sure, you probably have.  Well, there are two types of cold cereal.  There are the sweetened types.

And there are the non-sweetened types. 

Rather than waiting until I have a need of cereal for a coating; then crushing only what I need at the time.  I decided to make it all at once and it's ready whenever I need it.  I took all the extra boxes of cereal and ran them through my new mixer's grinding attachment.  I made two types.  One sweet and one regular.

Four boxes of cereal were reduced down to two quart jars.  What a space saver that is!  The sweet cereal will be used as an extender in deserts like cake or pudding.  The regular will be used as coating mix for meat or used in dishes like meatloaf and casseroles. 

I call them sweet and savory.  I can add more to these as I get more stuff.  For example, when my bread gets stale, I can add to the savory.  When the commodity program starts giving us oatmeal instead of cold cereal I can add some of that to the savory too.  If the food fairies ever leave me too many cookies, I'll add them to the sweet extender. 

The most important thing about making the sweet and savory extender is..... USE IT!  It won't do any good to make extenders just to let them sit on the shelf. 

Dehydrating cheese

You ever buy mac & cheese in the little boxes?  Well, I've bought them because I really like the convenience of the powdered cheese.  I sometimes use the packets of powdered cheddar cheese for other dishes instead of just for the macaroni.  It's good on popcorn, as a topping for a casserole, and mixed in various other dishes.  For a long time I've wondered if I could make my own powdered cheese.  Let me tell ya.... I did it!  I'm so proud of me. 

To make powdered cheese I first took the boxed American cheese (from the senior commodities) and grated it.  I put some into the dehydrator thinking that should dry it out quickly.  Wrong move!  All I got was a melted and hard glob of cheese that had to be soaked off the tray. 

 Hmm.... you ever have a child put cheese into the refrigerator that's not quite wrapped and gotten a hard crusty edge on it or a dried out slice?  I thought to myself... ta da!  To dry cheese all that's needed is to put it into the refrigerator and let it dry.  So I did.  I put the grated cheese in an uncovered bowl into the fridge.  Every time I went near the fridge, I tossed the cheese to get more exposure for drying.  It took about a week to get really dry cheese.

Now let me explain that the next step wouldn't be easy without the new Kitchen aid mixer and food grinder attachment my daughter bought me a few weeks ago.  This could be done with a food processor or a blender if that's all someone has.  It would be more time consuming but could be done.  I put the really dry cheese through the food grinder and got powered cheese.  In the picture it looks like little cheese balls but that's just the way it came out of the grinder.  It really is fine powder.

Well hmm.... the next step is to see if it acts like the powdered cheese that comes in the mac & cheese boxes.  I cooked some macaroni to give it a taste test.  I did just like the box says to do.  A little butter and a little milk then the cheese.  It worked!  I couldn't tell the difference except my dry cheese is American cheese instead of Cheddar.  I had to experiment a little for the portion size.  I mixed in a little cheese, tasted, mixed in a little more cheese, until I got what I liked. 

What's really exciting is that I won't be getting rid of anymore cheese because it's long past the use by date.  In dry powder form it can be stored for a much longer time.  I can find many more uses for the cheese and not simply eating another bowl of mac & cheese or having grilled cheese sandwiches.  My powdered cheese will be only natural cheese, not something containing items like Maltodextin, Disodium Phosphate, Insoinate, Guanylate, and Silicon Dioxide.  Whatever those are.  Not even spell check knows those words.

Can you see the possibilities too?  Gosh, I'm excited knowing this is one more way of preserving foods to help with my budget.  Hmm.... I wonder what dehydrating Mozzarella would be like.  How would it work on pizza?  I might give it a try just to see what happens if one of the food fairies leaves me a package of Mozzarella.

Food, food, and more food

Here lately I've been getting food boxes left on my porch.  I don't know who is leaving the boxes but I  suspect it's a neighbor that goes to the food bank regularly.  This doesn't matter because I don't turn down food.  My grandmother always told me "if you like someone you feed them".  Well someone sure does like me alot. 

I never know what's going to be in the boxes.  Some items I know and use regularly.  Some are foods I've never tried before.  I'm willing to try new foods. 

I also get senior commodities once a month.

The problem I'm having is.... what to do with it all.  A storage problem and a what to cook with it problem.  There are only so many peanut butter sandwiches and only so many macaroni and cheese days I can handle a month. 

One of the problems with getting food from a food bank (or from food fairies) is that you never know what you're going to get.  It's a challenge to figure out recipes to use it all.  The workers at a food bank don't put idea sheets in the box, just random foods.  Food is donated to the food bank so they don't know what they are going to get either. 

At the rate I'm getting food, I won't need groceries for a very, very long time except for meat and fresh veggies.  (big ol' grin)  This should help my budget a lot.