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 Hi again, everybody! Hope you
all enjoyed the Valentine’s ideas for your family. I want to apologize
if you didn’t get your February News… we’ve been having problems with
the server that we send the News out from. February’s actually got sent
twice! Don’t feel left out if you didn’t get yours… I didn’t either!! If
you missed the February News, go to the “Free e-Newsletters” link on the
left side of our home page, and click to read previous issues. You
definitely won’t want to miss the Oreo Truffles recipe!
It’s starting to feel a lot like spring around here, and we are lovin’
it!! The snow has mostly melted, and the crocus are starting
to peak through the dead grass. The bright green leaves and colorful
flowers are a very welcome sight about now! Spring is just around the
corner, and just in time, I think!
My husband coaches our oldest son’s soccer team, and he got a call about
getting ready for spring soccer a couple of days ago. It’s about time to
start thinking about those spring sports schedules again, huh? Which
means snacks and dinners on the go. I’ve got a couple new recipes this
month that should help out. My family really enjoyed them, and I’m sure
yours will too!
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I didn’t plan on having so many bread machine recipes this month, but it kinda worked out that way! If you don’t have a bread machine, you can still use bread machine recipes. You just have to do the “work” yourself!
The dough cycle on my bread machine mixes/kneads the dough for 7 minutes, lets it rise for 5 minutes, kneads for 18 minutes, and then rises for 50 minutes. Then the dough is ready to go. If you’re mixing up dough by hand, or with the help of a heavy-duty mixer, follow these basic steps…. Mix the warm water and yeast, until the yeast is softened. Add the rest of the ingredients, part of the flour and mix well. Add the rest of the flour and mix until evenly combined. Let the dough rest for about 5 minutes. Knead the dough by hand or with the dough hook on your mixer. Grease a bowl, and put the kneaded dough in it. Cover the bowl with greased plastic wrap, or a towel. Let rise until doubled. Punch down, and the dough is ready to make your recipe.
Soft 'n Chewy Pretzels If your kids like the “heat-n-eat” pretzels you buy from the freezer case, they should enjoy these! I had to try a few different recipes to get one that I was happy with. When I told my neighbor I was going to be trying some pretzel recipes, she wanted to know how I was going to make them brown. She said her mom made pretzels when she was a kid, and they really enjoyed them. A couple years ago she and her siblings decided to make them again. They found mom’s recipe, and after reading through it, decided they weren’t going to make pretzels after all! Because mom’s recipe called for them to boil some water, drop 3 crystals of Lye (a chemical? used to make soap, that is strong enough to burn your skin!) in the boiling water, and dip the raw pretzels into the lye-water to turn them brown. They promptly accused mom of trying to poison them!
A couple recipes I was looking at said to brush the raw pretzels with a beaten egg. That didn’t work! They didn’t turn brown, they were too soft, and had an egg flavor too. Not what I was looking for! I found a safer version of the lye-water, and it works like a charm! You dissolve baking soda in hot water, and dunk the raw pretzels into it before baking. It was a bit messy at first, and awkward too, until I got the hang of dunking and d raining. But it was worth it! The pretzels had a nice light-brown-all-over color, and a light “crust” too.
 
 The second challenge of making pretzels was shaping them. That was more of a challenge than I thought! If you’ve ever seen the “Auntie Anne’s” pretzel stands in the mall, they make shaping pretzels look SO easy! I was halfway done with my third batch before I finally got it down! I took some pictures, and hopefully, it will be easier for you than it was for me!
 To shape the pretzels, after you get the dough rolled out, grab the ends and lift the rope completely off the counter. Touch the middle of the rope to the counter, and lay the ends down from it, in a U shape. Put the bottom of the U closest to you, with the ends out straight in front of you. Cross the ends of the rope over each other, about 3” from each end, to make an X. Grab the ends, and twist them again, so that the end that was on the left side is now on the right, and the end that was on the right is now on the left. If you twist them the wrong way, it will un-do the X you’ve already made. Pick up the ends and the twist, and bring it towards you, touching the ends onto the bottom of the U, about 2” apart. And that’s it… you did it!
Click here to view/print this recipe!  Garlic Pizza Crust
The original recipe for this is from the Friendly Freezer Group. I “tweaked” it a little for the bread machine. It’s great pizza dough for making snack-size or personal-size pizzas. The original recipe said it would make 6, but I could have easily gotten 8 or 9 snack-size pizzas out of it. My 6 were better sized as a meal for me or the kids. You can see from the picture that my pizzas were kinda big for a snack, compared to the 4” rounds they sell in the freezer case! I flash-froze the cooked and cooled pizzas, and then put them in a freezer bag. It was so easy to grab a couple out, throw them in the oven for 10 minutes, and it was time to eat! And, my husband really liked this pizza crust too! (More about that under the Recipe of the Month!)
The fresh-crushed garlic adds wonderful flavor to the crust. I smelled the dough while the bread machine was going, and I thought it was going to be too much garlic. Turns out it was perfect! Someone said you could add a little more garlic, some Parmesan cheese and some Italian herbs to the dough, and make some pretty awesome breadsticks!
A single recipe fits in my bread machine, but it would be worth it to make 2 or 3 times the recipe by hand to get that many snack/personal pizzas in the freezer. I could see this being an easy “on-the-go” dinner that everyone would enjoy. As well as being great for snacks, late nite munchies, summer lunch with the kids, etc. I also plan to make a few just for me, using the BBQ Chicken Pizza in the Feb04 News, since no one else in my house eats it. It will be a perfect lunch for me, whenever I get hungry for it, and am home alone. Yummmm…. I’m tasting it already!!
Click here to view/print this recipe! This recipe has been one of the 50 Free Recipes for years. And a fan favorite too! So Nanci decided to include it in the Fourth Edition manual. I’ve gotten a few emails from people asking for the recipe. They printed it from the 50 Free, made it a couple of times, and then lost it. So they went to the website to print another copy, only it isn’t there anymore! So, by including it in the newsletter, it will be on the website for those who have an older manual. These are quite addictive… enjoy!
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 Healthy Freezer Cooking: A Guide to Creating Nutritious Meals is
finally here! Carol Santee (author of our Freezer Lunches to Go
ebook) has written another winner. After her husband was diagnosed with
Type II diabetes, Carol entered the daunting world of healthy cooking.
She has since mastered assembling and freezing foods that taste great
but work well for all types of restricted diets. Want to learn how to
reduce fat, sugar, cholesterol, and salt in recipes? Then this is the
ebook for you! The book includes tips on how to reduce fat and sugar in
a recipe, information on all of the different sugar substitutes
available and tips on menu planning. Includes 25 great tasting healthy
recipes – 21 recipes with 10g or less of fat per serving! Nutritional
analysis included for all recipes.
Order yours now! Just $6.95 for the download version. $8.95
(+shipping) for the CD. Nutritional info and files for Advantage Cooking
software users included.
Free sampler also available including three recipes for you to try out!
Updated Members Section
Those of you who own a Freezer Cooking Manual or our software are
entitled to access the Members section. It has been recently updated and
there are lots of recipes there for you to download.
Click
here to check it out!
Are you an "apron" person?
I never used to be. Now I find a weird kind of pleasure in tying on an
apron whenever I'm working in the kitchen. Remember - this is coming
from a woman who spent most of her life hating to cook! Now I LOVE being
in my kitchen. Last night I popped a Chicken & Broccoli casserole in the
oven while I made an apple pie for my hubby and a triple batch of
No-Bake Cookies for my kids and I had one of those "ahhhhh" moments. I
LOVE MY LIFE! Okay, maybe that wasn't all about the apron but I think it
helped. So if you don't have an apron, we sell 'em ya know? I've washed
mine a zillion times and it still looks great!
Check 'em out here.
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The message boards continue to be popular! We had 91 posts in
February.
Do you like fresh baked sweet potatoes, but don’t always have time to
make them? Try freezing them instead!
Click here.
When a recipe calls for cooked, cubed chicken, how do you cook the
chicken?
Click here to check out ideas from others’.
Have you introduced yourself on our “Where is everyone from?” thread? If
not, please do! We’d love to meet you!
Click here.
Check out the rest of the message boards when you get a chance… they are
a great source of ideas, recipes, tips, and encouragement! If you have
any questions about the message boards, please email me! You can reach
me at tammy@30daygourmet.com.
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This month’s Recipe of the Month winner is Lori McClure, of Mackinaw,
IL. Her recipe is a master mix for Pizza Dough. We love pizza at my
house. But my hubby would rather have no pizza than eat homemade pizza.
So I’m always on the lookout for a “different” recipe that he might
like. And I found one here! The mix of flours and cornmeal give it a
slightly different texture, which is what makes the crust. You mix up
the dry ingredients, measure 3 C. into each zipper baggie, and in the
freezer it goes. Then when you want pizza, grab a bag of dry
ingredients, add it to water, oil and yeast in your bread machine, press
start, and you’ll be ready to go in no time!
The recipe, as Lori posted it, calls for 16 C. bread flour, or a 5 lb.
bag. Lori and I had an interesting discussion about this. I asked which
she used. Because my bag of bread flour said it should hold
approximately 19 C. of flour. But I measured it out, and got just over
17 C. And I measured it just like they said to on the bag… fluff the
flour with a spoon, spoon it into a measuring cup, and level off the
top, without tapping the cup to settle the flour. Lori measures by
scooping her measuring cup into the flour, tapping to get air pockets
out, and then leveling off. She gets 16 C. from her bag of flour that
way. Lori pointed out that equivalency charts say 1 lb flour = 4 C,
which means a 5 lb. bag should have 20 C. of flour in it. So, based on
those discrepancies, we went with 16 C. for the recipe.
Let’s meet Lori:
“I
became introduced to the Freezer Cooking method almost 4 years ago when
I attended a one-night class offered at a local junior college. I came
home and ordered the 30 Day Gourmet book that night and had my first
cooking day right away. I am an at-home-mom of 3 kids ages 11, 8 and 4.
My husband works 2nd shift so the afternoons and evenings are left to me
for getting the kids to practices, appointments, and all the other
nightly routines done...plus still trying to have a good dinner in there
somewhere. 30 Day Gourmet has definitely been a life saver in that
department!”
Click here
to view/print the March Recipe of the Month.
You too can get in on the winning! Just post your favorite freeze-able
recipe on the message boards. Congratulations, Theresa!
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Esther Morse, Colorado Springs, CO.
“Several years ago, my girlfriend and I decided to
form a Girl Scout troop for our daughters, Amanda and Elizabeth. After
taking the camp training, we packed up and hauled our troop, of about 8
girls, on a camping trip. While on a short hike, Carol and I noticed
wild onions growing; what a great addition to our dinner of goulash!
Pick! Pick! Pick! After a couple hundred feet or so... wild daffodils!
What a great addition to our base housing gardens! Pick! Pick! Pick!
Upon arriving back at the campsite, Carol laid down because of a severe
headache, and I was left in charge! “Okay, Girls, peel those wild
onions, slice ‘em up, and let’s get them sauteeing in butter”...mmm mmm
mmm!
Carol reappeared just as the goulash was being served up. As she
groggily came over to the picnic bench / cooking area, she held up some
plants and said, “I thought you were going to put these onions in the
goulash?”
Well, I’ve read that daffodils are some of the un-edible flowers...
guess we were just lucky!”
Congratulations, Esther! The e-books you’ve chosen as your prize are on
the way! To enter the Freezer Cook of the Month contest, post your:
crazy cooking story, favorite freezer cooking tip, assembly day story
(success or disaster!), good deed cooking story, etc. on the Message
Boards.
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| Q. |
What kind of freezer labels should I use? Ones I’ve tried
don’t come off all the way and make a mess on my dishes and
plastic containers. Any ideas? Leslie |
| A. |
Well, Leslie, help is on the way! You can
buy freezer labels from our on-line store. They’re 2”x3”, with
room to write the recipe name, the date and instructions for
serving day. They stick to plastic or glass containers, as well as
freezer bags. I’ve never had one come off in my freezer. But, when
it’s time to take the label off, it comes off easily, in one
piece. They come 50 to a roll, for $4. They’re very easy to keep
at hand and use. Glad you asked about this, Leslie… it reminds me
that I need to order some more!
Click here to order yours. |
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 I’ve received a request for the Advantage Cooking software to print
recipes in “column” format, similar to the Freezer Cooking Manual. It is
helpful to have ingredient amounts calculated and easily accessible when
cooking multiple quantities of a recipe, and it is possible to use the
software to generate the same information for any recipe entered. Here’s
the process.
Unless I’m trying a meal for the first time, I always cook multiple
quantities of a recipe. Depending on the nature of the recipe, I will
assemble the ingredients in one of two ways.
The first method is used when the recipe ingredients are difficult to
divide into individual meals. Marinades are the best example. Instead of
combining six times the quantity of one recipe in a bowl and then trying
to separate the “layers” when I’m done, I’ll use six different bowls and
assemble one recipe, six times. In this case, I don’t need to multiply
the recipe ingredients while I’m cooking; the original recipe has all
the information I need. The critical step is to make sure I buy the
correct amount of each ingredient! When planning for my Cooking Day, I
must be sure to enter a quantity of “6” for this particular “Cooking Day
Recipe” before generating a Grocery Report.
A good example of the second method of assembly would be meatballs. I
don’t want six different bowls; I want one bowl with six times the
recipe. To print a recipe with the ingredients already calculated, use
the “Scale” option in the Recipe Manager. Select the desired recipe and
click the “Scale” button. When the scaling window appears, enter the
desired multiplication factor (“6” in this case), check the “Copy
Recipe” option, and click “Scale”. A new recipe will be added using the
same recipe name, followed by the quantity. All the ingredients are
automatically multiplied by the scale factor! Print this new recipe and
use it, instead of the single version, when assembling the recipe.
Please note: when planning for the cooking day, be careful when
selecting the “Cooking Day Recipes.” If you select the single version
recipe, enter a quantity of “6”. If you select the scaled version of the
recipe, enter a quantity of “1”. Either method will calculate the
correct amount of ingredients on the Grocery Report. (An easy mistake
would be to select the scaled version of the recipe, enter a quantity of
six, and come home ready to make 36 recipes of meatballs. Oops!)
You will notice that scaling a recipe can result in some unusual amounts
and measures of ingredients. Use the “Change Measure” button at the
bottom of the window to quickly convert to equal, but more easily used,
measures (e.g. 12 tablespoons = ¾ cup).
If you haven’t tried our Advantage Cooking software,
click here
for a 30 day free trial or to order your own copy.
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Our consultants are having classes in the
following cities. Click on the city name to be taken to their website
for details.
Austin, TX
Brooklyn Center, MN, Hopkins, MN & Osceola, WI... Beth’s website isn’t up yet… email her at
beth@bethbergren.com
Rockford, MI
Sparta,
MI
Tualatin, OR
Wilsonville, OR
White
Bear Township, MN
Interested in becoming a
consultant? Looking for a way to make a little extra money? Our
program is very “laid back”. No minimum party requirements, no
paperwork to file and no pink Cadillac giveaways?
But you can make good money talking about something that you love to
do and something that a lot of other people haven’t figured out yet.
What could be easier?
Click here for more info.
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Lots of our consultants and
"regular" cooks are being featured in their local newspapers as word
about their "unusual" cooking plan spreads. Please let us know if you
are one of them! Here's what we have coming up.
St Louis Post-Dispatch Food Section - March 3rd
30 Day Gourmet Angie Copple is one of those brave gourmets who cooks
with her husband. :) She also cooks with her two brothers and their
wives. Wow! That's a kitchen full! When a local Food Editor heard
about "that cooking thing they do" she came out (with a photographer)
to see it for herself. The result was a large front page article
featuring the cooking couples.
Click here
to check it out!
Working Mother Magazine - May issue
An article about Dinnertime Shortcuts is slated to run in their May
issue featuring 30 Day Gourmet. Watch for it!
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With April Fool’s Day coming
up, take some time to plan a surprise meal for the holiday. This help
from Family Fun magazine should have you well on your way to having the
winning prank at your house this year!
Click here to check it out!
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Let’s look at organizing our
recipes next month.
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The church gossip and self-appointed arbiter of
the church’s morals kept
sticking her nose into other people’s business. Several church members
were
unappreciative of her activities, but feared her
enough to maintain their silence.
She made a mistake, however, when she accused George, a new member, of
being drunk after she saw his pickup truck parked in front of the towns
only
bar one afternoon. She commented to George and others that everyone
seeing it
there would know what he was doing.
George, a man of few words, stared at her for a moment and just walked
away. He didn’t explain, defend, or deny; he said nothing. Later that
evening,
George quietly parked his pickup in front of her house... and left it
there all night.
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Thanks for
all your support of what we do here at 30 Day Gourmet!
Without you all, I wouldn’t have a job I love, and get
to work from home too! Please let me know if there’s
anything we can do to help you with your freezer
cooking. Besides coming to your house and doing it for
you!! Email me at
tammy@30daygourmet.com with any questions,
ideas, suggestions or problems. I enjoy hearing from
you all!
Have a great month, and we’ll be talking again soon!
Tammy
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