Stroganoni

As promised, here is a recipe using the FD Ground Beef that is on sale. I've been wanting to experiment with making Beef Stroganoff from THRIVE foods for some time now. I had an Open House at my home a few weeks back and did a cooking demo, and it was a complete experiment I whipped up on the spot. Thankfully, my husband and my guests agreed that it was good enough to put on the blog, so now you get the recipe!

It doesn't taste quite as stroganoff-y as I would like. A little more beef flavor, perhaps some Worcestershire sauce... I think those would enhance the flavor. But it was still pretty darn tasty, and oh so easy. I started cooking it when the guests came in, and when I handed them the bowl to sample, they couldn't believe it was already ready.

In a large pot, cook your choice of pasta. I used some THRIVE Macaroni, because it's what I had open. And because then I could call this recipe Stroganoni instead of just plain Stroganoff. But Thrive Egg Noodles would be great with this as well. How much to cook depends on your preference of sauce - noodles. I always cook extra because my hubby will eat plain noodles with butter and salt any day. I'm guessing you'll want appx 3 cups cooked noodles. 

While your noodles cook, in a separate saucepan, combine the following:

1/2 cup THRIVE FD Cooked Ground Beef

1/2 cup THRIVE FD Mushroom Pieces

2 Tbsp THRIVE FD Celery

2 1/2 cups water

Bring to a boil, cover and let boil for 5-10 minutes or until beef is tender. There should be about 1 cup of liquid remaining. 

In a separate bowl, combine:

1/2 cup magic mix (See the link for recipe)

3 Tbsp THRIVE Sour Cream Powder

2 tsp THRIVE Beef Bouillon

When Beef and veggies are done cooking, dump in your powdered ingredients all at once and stir. Reduce heat and stir for 1-2 minutes, or until sauce is fully thickened. You may want to add more water to thin sauce out if its too thick for your taste. 

It makes for a tasty meal, and the whole thing is done as soon as your noodles are. No thawing, no chopping, just measuring and dumping. What could be easier? So if it's 5:00 and you don't know what's for dinner, now you do. If you don't have a home store built up with these ingredients, talk to me and I will get you set up on a monthly budget so you can build up a home store of healthy meats, fruits, and vegetables that won't spoil in your fridge or take up space in your freezer, and that will help you be sitting around the dinner table as a family in 20 minutes or less. 

Creamy Beef sauce and our giveaway winner...

The winner of our giveaway who will be receiving a free pouch of THRIVE freeze-dried Strawberries is.... Gina B. of San Tan Valley. Congratulations!

But if you didn't win, (or didn't enter) the giveaway, you can still be a winner with this recipe for creamy beef sauce using the magic mix I blogged about last time.

Creamy Beef Sauce
1/4 cup magic mix
1/2 cup - 3/4 cup water
2 tsp Beef Bouillon (THRIVE sells a great one)
1/2 tsp dried Parsley

Whisk together the magic mix, seasonings, and water in a saucepan. I started with 1/2 cup water, and like I've mentioned before with the magic mix, it thickens beautifully while it cooks. However, the sauce was done before the Salisbury steaks were, so the sauce thickened even more as it cooled. It was a little too thick for what I wanted, so I just added an extra 1/4 cup water, turned the heat on again, and it worked great. Magic mix is very forgiving that way.  So adjust the water according to your preference.

For dinner, we made some Salisbury steaks, topped them with a blanket of caramelized onions, and then this creamy beef sauce. Way better than just a brown gravy. This sauce TOTALLY made the meal. Thanks again THRIVE for making this magic mix sauce possible!

Magic Mix and White Sauce 101

We are long overdue for a recipe post, and today we're getting one of my favorites. Before I jump right into it though, let me remind you that there's only 4 days left to enter the FREE giveaway, and so far only 2 people have entered. So give Stephanie and Jennie a run for their money (that's just an expression...it is really FREE to enter) by visiting the GIVEAWAY Post and getting yourself entered! Remember you must leave a separate comment for each entry.

And now for our recipe. I am a big fan of the basic white sauce (also known as a Roux sauce for the more culinary-inclined).  To make a basic white sauce:

1. Add equal parts melted fat (shortening, butter, oil, etc) and flour in a sauce pan. This will form a roux, essentially a ball of flour and fat.
2. Slowly add milk and the roux dissolves into your liquid, thickening the liquid. (Don't add the milk all at once or you're more likely to get lumps).
3. Continue adding milk (or other liquid) until the sauce is at your desired consistency.
4. Add other ingredients and seasonings to turn into whatever dish you're working on.

Simple enough, and oh so versatile. I use this in making all my cream soups (chicken corn chowder, cream of cauliflower/broccoli, etc), in making my pot pie gravy filling, my cheese sauce for mac and cheese, and I know you can make custards and other desserts with it as well. So this is one tool you definitely want in your cooking arsenal. And the best news is, you can do it COMPLETELY with food storage! THRIVE sells butter powder, powdered milk, and flour. Everything you need to make your basic white sauce. Just add water and away you go. Now, this isn't a Whitney Hemsath original idea... it's been around for quite a while under the name of "Magic Mix".  But thanks to THRIVE, you can make your own Magic Mix at home.

Here is the basic ratio for Magic Mix:

1 part THRIVE butter powder
1 part THRIVE flour
2 parts THRIVE powdered milk (Non-Instant)

Many people love to mix up the above ingredients into a big batch of Magic Mix, keep it in their pantry, and then use it as needed in their favorite recipes. If you do that, I suggest 1 cup butter powder, 1 cup flour, 2 cups powdered milk. You'll wind up with 4 cups of Magic mix to use in your favorite recipes.

If you've pre-made your magic mix, for a white sauce you'll simply need 1 part magic mix to 2 parts water. Whisk them together in a sauce pan, removing all lumps, and it will thicken as it cooks.

If you don't have magic mix in bulk and want just a single serving white sauce recipe, here you go:
1 Tbsp THRIVE butter powder
1 Tbsp THRIVE flour
2 Tbsp THRIVE powdered milk (Non-Instant)
1/2 cup water.

Mix the dry ingredients in a saucepan with a whisk. Whisk in water, and cook over medium heat. Sauce will thicken as it cooks, and this will yield about 1/2 cup of white sauce. I love this recipe for white sauce. I added my liquid all at once, it only took about 15 seconds of whisking to get rid of any lumps, and in 3-4 minutes it was thick and warm and wonderfully done. I made it today for lunch, and decided to add:

• 1 Tbsp light cream cheese
• 1 Tbsp Parmesan
• 1.5 Tbsp THRIVE FD Spinach
• Garlic Salt to taste

Cooked it in the pan till the cream cheese was melted and the spinach had reconstituted. Poured it on top of some leftover noodles, and here was my lunch. The sauce could probably have served two people, but I love me some alfredo, so I ate it all myself. I will probably add more Parmesan next time, because everything tastes better with more cheese. But it was yummy and very filling as is.

More "magic mix" recipes to come in the future, so order your Butter Powder and Powdered Milk now by visiting www.WhitneyHemsath.ShelfReliance.com or by contacting me directly for the lowest prices.

Cornbread

This recipe comes from the THRIVE Sample pack recipes that they give consultants. It uses powdered milk, powdered egg, powdered butter, cornmeal, and lots of other great THRIVE ingredients. So lets get down to it. My camera battery was dead, so I had to borrow the hubby's cell phone to take some pictures. They aren't the highest quality, and because I didn't have a flash, I had to hold some of them at weird angles so the light from the window would reach it. But the recipe is pretty straight forward, so hopefully you  don't need too many pictures.

Ingredients
2 tablespoons Thrive powder milk (non-instant ), not reconstituted
1 cup water
1 tablespoon vinegar
½ cup Thrive butter powder
2 tablespoon Thrive egg powder
¼ cup plus 2 teaspoons water
2/3 cup Thrive white sugar
½ teaspoon Thrive baking soda
1 cup Thrive cornmeal
1 cup Thrive white flour
½ teaspoon Thrive salt

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease an 8 x 8 inch square pan.
In a small bowl, Whisk 2 T powder milk into 1 cup of water. Add vinegar, mix, and let sit for 5 minutes.
Meanwhile in a large mixing bowl, whisk the butter powder and egg powder into ¼ cup plus 2 teaspoons of water.
Add milk mixture into the egg/butter mixture. Mix together.Add the rest of the ingredients in and stir until few lumps remain.
Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Serve warm.

Review
Well, lets just say the Jiffy boxes in my pantry are going to have to be donated to a food bank, because my husband will never let me make a different cornbread again. He rates this a 10 on both scales.  And everyone who has tried it at my parties loves it as well.

When you add the vinegar to the milk, it will foam up and get a few chunks in it - don't worry. That is how it is supposed to look. It may not look appetizing, but it is a way of creating buttermilk, and it makes the recipe so much better than just using plain milk.

Vinegar + milk = buttermilk substitute. When little chunks form, you're doing it right.

All the other ingredients mix together very easily, so nothing to comment on there. I personally love to cook mine in mini-cupcake size. I simply grease the pan (don't use paper liners), put 1 Tbsp of batter in each cup, and then bake for 10 minutes. It makes 48 snack size corn muffins that are great for parties or just feeding my family, and they come out of the pan super easily.

This recipe has become a permanent staple in our home. Order some butter powder or cornmeal today and start enjoying it yourself!

THRIVE Homemade Ice Cream

I saw this recipe on the THRIVE website from a fellow THRIVE consultant and was very excited to try it. Let's just say it did NOT disappoint!

What you'll need:

Ice Cream Maker (I borrowed a Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker that requires no rock salt)
8 cups (2 quarts) THRIVE Instant Milk, prepared
1 1/2 cups THRIVE Butter Powder
1/2 c + 1/8 c water
2 cups sugar
2 1/2 Tbsp Vanilla

1. If using an ice cream maker like this one which requires no salt, the key is to having everything very cold. Put the Ice cream bowl in a plastic bag (helps form frost) and stick it in the freezer overnight.

2. It also helps if you prepare the milk ahead of time and chill it. 8 cups water + 1 1/2 c Instant Milk Powder = 2 quarts milk. It's important to know that this will NOT work with the powdered milk. It MUST be the Instant Milk. I had chilled my water in the fridge over night, then I added my milk powder this morning and stuck the pitcher back in the fridge while I prepared the butter.

3. Put the butter powder into a large mixing bowl. Whisk in a 1/2 cup water. Then whisk in the 1/8 cup water slowly until the butter is a pancake consistency. Whisk in the sugar and vanilla.

4. Pour in the 8 cups (2 quarts) of prepared, chilled, instant milk.

5. Put the frosted ice cream bowl into the machine, and pour in about half of the ice cream mix. (I filled mine up a little too full the first time and it started over flowing and spilling. Even filling it all the way up, I still had 2 cups of mix left over for a second batch.) So I would recommend pouring in half for the first batch, and keeping the other half chilling in the fridge until you're ready for it. Or cutting the recipe back a third (I'll do the math for you at the end)

6. The Cuisinart Machine has an open hole at the top so you can see how its thickening up as it goes along. I put the first batch in and after 17 minutes, it had already started thickening up to the point it was over flowing again, so I had to take it out.



The frothy goodness when I first poured it in.



After 17 minutes! Look how thick and yummy!


7. It was thick and creamy, about the consistency of a Wendy's frosty. I decided to dump the whole batch into a Tupperware and stick it in the freezer to further harden while I put the second batch into the machine. The bowl wasn't as cold anymore, and there wasn't a risk of it overflowing, so I left the machine on for 30 minutes. Here's how thick the second batch turned out to be. Frosty consistency again.

8.I added it to the first batch in the freezer (which still wasn't hard enough to maintain a scoop). After about 2 and a half hours, it loosely maintained a scoop shape. So I left it in for a few more hours.

9. After 6 hours, it had crystallized a bit more, and here's what the scoops looked like in my bowl. 

So that's how I made it, but how did I enjoy it? Tremendously!!! I had a small bowl with caramel sauce, another small both with chocolate chips, another small bowl with strawberry freezer jam mixed into it... you get the point. My husband said its one of the best THRIVE items I've made and rated it a 9 as an everyday and 10 as an emergency. He said it isn't as creamy as store bought ice cream (which is to be expected since its made with fat free Instant milk, not Heavy whipping cream) but that the flavor was very rich, and overall, he called it excellent. I was impressed with how creamy it was given that I made it with ingredients from my pantry! Dustin agreed this would be PERFECT on top of pie, cobbler, brownies, etc.

The next day I had some, it had hardened even more from being in the freezer over night. At that consistency, it was more like shaving ice than scooping ice cream. But it was really yummy vanilla shaved ice, and if I got some chunks out and let them soften and mixed it all up with my spoon, it was creamy ice cream like the night before.  So we love this recipe and I'm thinking I might buy an ice cream maker just to keep making this with my food storage items.

For those who want a reduced quantity recipe to make only one batch, here you go:

5 and 1/3 cups (1.5 quarts) THRIVE Instant Milk, prepared
1 cup THRIVE Butter Powder
6 and 1/2 T water
1 and 1/3 cups sugar
5 tsp Vanilla

*Side note* I pureed some strawberries from my freezer and tried adding those to another batch, but after an hour, it never thickened up. I think the weight of the berries kept the butter/milk mixture from whipping up into the cream. I think I should have waited for the mixture to thicken up first, and then added the strawberries. Still not sure if would have worked even then, but for sure, if you're attempting variations of the recipe, wait until the mixture is almost done before adding anything else.

Cheese Blend - the quest for the perfect Mac and Cheese

THRIVE makes a product called "Cheese Blend" that I have been curious about for a while. So I bought some with the intent of making some Mac N cheese with it and seeing how it fared. Here's what the Cheese Blend looks like when you open it up:

(Mine seemed a little brighter orange in person than shows in the picture)

So I had the Cheese Blend, now I just needed a recipe. Well, between the THRIVE Cookbook, THRIVE website, the Cheese Blend pantry can and the Elbow Macaroni #10 can, I had 5 different recipes to try. I could tell that the one on the website submitted by a woman named Lindsay Budge was not going to be any good just by the reviews and the amounts of the ingredients. But the other four were worth trying. So here's the four I tried in order:

1. THRIVE Cookbook recipe
2. Natalie Riley recipe from website
3. Cheese Blend pantry can reconstitution instructions for "cheese sauce"
4. Elbow Macaroni #10 can Mac and cheese recipe


#1 - THRIVE Cookbook Recipe

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup THRIVE cheese blend
• 1/8 cup THRIVE Butter Powder, dry
• 1 1/2 cups THRIVE Instant Milk, rehydrated (9 T powder + 1 1/2 cups water)
• 3 cups THRIVE Elbow Macaroni

Instructions

* Cook pasta in boiling water until soft.
* Combine Cheese blend, butter powder, and milk in a saucepan over medium heat.
* Add cooked macaroni to the sauce pan, stirring until noodles are coated.

Review:  First of all, if you use 3 cups dry noodles and then cook them, you wind up with WAY too many noodles. I think I had close to about 8 cups of cooked noodles by the time they expanded. So that was a flaw in the recipe. Convenient for me, because I had plenty of cooked noodles to use in the rest of my recipes. As for the rest of the ingredients, they mixed up beautifully into a nice smooth orange sauce. I had high hopes, but it never thickened up. It stayed incredibly liquidy.

I tested a little taste and it wasn't too great. I thought if I let it cook longer, it might thicken up, maybe the flavor might improve. But I left it on too long and it started to boil.

I removed it from the heat, and surveyed the damage. The rapid boiling had changed the texture and caused it to separate into a more clear orange liquid with little yellow clumps. I added a tsp of flour mixed into a tsp of water to try and thicken it. It thickened, but the separation caused by the boiling was irreversible.

It looked so unappealing, I just tossed it and started on the next recipe. So the THRIVE Cookbook Recipe was a disappointment. Even if it hadn't boiled, I still think the sauce was WAY to liquidy. So the next recipe down, instead of calling for 1 1/2 cups milk, only called for 6 T.  I was eager to see if that made a difference.

# 2 - Natalie Riley Website recipe:

Ingredients

• 1⁄2 c thrive cheese blend
• 1⁄4 c thrive butter powder or 6 tbsp butter
• 6 T thrive powdered milk, prepared
• 3 c cooked thrive elbow macaroni

Instructions

* Combine cheese blend, butter or butter powder, and milk in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir and heat to the desired consistency.

* Add cooked macaroni to the saucepan, stirring through until noodles are coated

Review: I used the 1/4 cup butter powder rather than the actual butter. Following the recipe, the sauce came out a perfect consistency. You can see how thick and creamy the sauce was, because the hole I scooped away at the bottom of the pan didn't fill back in right away. We added the the 3 cups of noodles and here's how it looked.

Following the recipe as is, it was a little too saucy and the flavor was... different. Not bad, but not Kraft Mac N' Cheese.  My husband described it as a subtle sweetness (which may result from the milk or butter rather than the cheese blend) As is, he rated it a 3 out of 10 as an every day food and maybe a 5 as an emergency meal. I probably would have rated it a 5 out of 10 myself on the every day scale.

Modifications to recipe: I added another cup of cooked noodles, and that helped a lot because before the sauce was a bit too prominent. My husband added some salt, and he said that helped A LOT. Just by adding more noodles and some salt, he said he would easily bump this up to a 5 out of ten as an every day. I added salt, and shook some Parmesan on top, and to me, that made it a 7/10 for me for both everyday and emergency. (and I'm not that crazy about Kraft Mac N Cheese to begin with). The real test though was to see if my son Jason would like it (he's my picky eater). He polished off his bowl, asked for seconds, polished those off, and asked for thirds but there wasn't any more.

So in my opinion, with a little salt and some extra noodles, this is a pretty decent recipe. And my kid LOVES it, so its a keeper!

3. Cheese Blend Can Reconstitution for Cheese Sauce:

Instructions: To make cheese spread, combine equal parts water and cheese blend. For cheese sauce, gradually combine 1 part cheese blend with 2 parts hot water. stir together until smooth and creamy.

Review: Since I was wanting cheese sauce, I did the 1:2 ratio. I put a 1/2 cup cheese powder into 1 cup hot water. The result was hot orange water. Very disappointing. It looked more like a drink than a sauce. I didn't see any point to adding noodles to it as it was just way too liquidy.

I tried mixing it 1 part cheese blend to 1 part water, and it was also very liquidy. Not sure what they mean by spread. I'm going to have to write in and get them to change the label. I even tried 2 parts cheese to 1 part water, and it still was very liquidy as well as gritty. A lot of the cheese powder didn't dissolve into the water at the high a ratio. So just cheese blend + water is disappointing as a sauce no matter what the ratio.

4. Elbow Macaroni #10 Can Recipe (Halved):

Ingredients:

• 1/2 pound  THRIVE Elbow Macaroni
• 1/2 T oil
• 1 T butter
• 1 1/2 T flour
• 1/2 c milk
• 1/2 c THRIVE Cheese powder
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
• salt and pepper to taste

The recipe also calls for seasoned bread crumbs as a topping at the end and then has you broil it. I skipped that step to make it more comparable to the other recipes.

Instructions:
*Cook Macaroni. (I just used the left over 3+ cups of noodles I still had. Not sure how that equates to 1/2 pound dry noodles)
* Whisk together cheese blend powder with 1 cup hot water or milk (I just used the 1/2 cup powder I had previously dissolved in hot water from recipe #3.) Let stand 5 minutes.
*Heat oil and butter in saucepan until butter melts. Whisk in flour, stirring until smooth. Let butter, flour and oil cook for about 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Slowly add milk, continuing to whisk. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly until milk has thickened. Add cheese sauce mixture  and cook until heated through. If sauce seems to thin, add 1 tsp corn starch stirred into 1 Tbsp cold water and bring to a boil. Add nutmeg, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper. Add in noodles.

Review: So for those who aren't familiar with cooking, this recipe starts with what is called a "basic white sauce" or a "Roux" sauce. 1 part Fat(oil or butter)+ 1 part flour + milk to desired consistency. It's a lovely foundation for many a recipe. You can use oil or butter interchangeably, as long as its 1 1/2 T worth. Once you've added the milk (I used a 1/2 cup prepared THRIVE Powdered milk) and it's thickened, it'll look like this:

And once you pour in your cheesy water, you'll get a beautiful orange sauce like this:

I didn't feel the need to add cornstarch to thicken the sauce up at all. I forgot to try the sauce before adding the nutmeg and cayenne. I wish I had, because the nutmeg adds so much to the flavor, its not fair to compare to the others. The nutmeg and cayenne gave this one a little more sophisticated taste. I think next time though, I'll just stick to salt and pepper. I think that with salt and pepper only, this Roux sauce recipe from the Macaroni can will be the best of the four recipes for a traditional bowl of feel good mac n' cheese. The consistency was great, the flavor was smooth and mild and cheesy. Dustin hasn't rated this one yet, because he hasn't tried it (That was a lot of Mac N Cheese to make in one night!) But I gave it to Jason for lunch today, and he cleaned his bowl. I also had it for lunch today with a little ground beef mixed in and it was a great meal. I would give it a 7 as an every day and an 8.5 as an emergency.

SUMMARY: The Cheese blend can make a pretty decent bowl of Mac N' Cheese, if you find the right recipe. I recommend Recipe #4 personally, though Recipe #2 is decent as well. If you're interested in buying some Cheese Blend, a #10 can is only $22.79, or a Pantry Can is only $8.49. Or you can buy the Kid's Special 6 pack, which gives you 6 #10 cans - 2 of Cheese Blend, 2 of Elbow Macaroni, 1 of Powdered Milk, 1 of FD Strawberries, all for only $52.99. (Buying them individually at the lowest price each would cost you $105.84, so that's a GREAT deal if you're looking for those items!)