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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Food: making yourself vs. buying processed
Hi girls,
I buy a small amount of processed foods compared to the norm, but I am still looking for ideas of other changes to make.
Other than fruits and vegetables (I can and freeze all of my own our garden and local farms), what food items do you make yourself that many people buy processed?
I already make my own bread, seasoning mixes like taco seasoning, pancake/waffle mix, soak my own beans rather than buying canned, all soups...that is all I can think of right now.
What other things can I DIY rather than buying processed?
TIA!
Re: Food: making yourself vs. buying processed
Peanut butter
Pasta (the noodles) - although I will admit that we don't make fresh pasta every time. It's pretty time consuming.
Salad dressings
I don't used canned pumpkin very often but making it fresh is sooo much tastier.
I'd really like to make ketchup and BBQ sauce when we run out of our current stuff.
Tired after a long morning of hiking and swimming.
Not exclusively on some of these, but we try to make over buying packaged...soup, pumpkin puree, BBQ sauce, salad dressings, frozen waffles/pancakes, pizza, broth, breakfast bars, frosting, sundried tomatoes, individual-size microwave brownies, salsa, hummus.
I want to try tomato sauce (we'll grow the tomatoes for the first time this year) and pasta.
I make my own protein bars and Larabars for pre- or post-run snacks.
My Clean Eating Blog
Green Living Reading List
Man you guys do a lot! I make our own soup, pumpkin puree, bread, hummus, guacamole, salad dressing and pizza. Plus all the standard stuff we used to buy processed shortcuts for, like french fries, mashed potatoes, and prepped fruit.
New this year we'll be growing our own tomatoes to make pasta & pizza sauce, diced tomatoes (use these a ton in recipes), and sundried tomatoes. We'll also grow and make our own jelly. We'll be making stock for the first time in a day or two, we finally saved up enough veggie scraps!
Lots of what you guys make I get for a good price from someone at the Farmer's Market who knows how to make it well, like BBQ sauce, fresh pasta, and cheeses. Since they make it well and I only have so much available time, I'm happy with that.
I do granola, granola bars, chicken stock, bbq sauce, ice cream, salad dressing, pizza, cookies and cakes, season mixes like taco, I also make and freeze pancakes and waffles for the kids breakfasts. I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting.
This year I want to start making my own bread. And I want to buy extra tomatoes and fruits to make jams and tomato sauces.
Can you share your receipe?
We make salad dressing, BBQ sauce, humus, bread, stocks, frozen waffles, pesto, we smoked our own turkey breast a few weeks ago. I've done pasta and ricotta cheese, but I will buy those often. Mozzarella cheese was difficult, and the texture was off.
Recipes in my blog (link in sig) for stock, granola bars, bread. Really this is about all my blog is.
My favorite right now are pita bread and bagels. Both are really simple and quick (as yeasted breads go).
There's a lot of good ideas in this thread! I've been working on trying to make more things by myself too. So far I make bread, pizza, baked goods, granola bars, and just made alfredo sauce last week.
I'm wanting to start making butter and ricotta cheese. I'm also excited to make jams and tomato sauce from the plants we are growing this year. I want to try pasta at some point too.
I make pizza dough and hummus every week.
Ohh, I'd love the recipe for this/these!! Are they easy? I'm trying to learn how to bake bread but I love bagels!!
I'd also be interested in getting the recipes for granola bars!!
I don't have them on me, but they were both from Joy of Cooking if you've got a copy. Super easy, both. They only have one rise, so they don't take forever. Baking the pitas is a little tricky because they're only in the oven for maybe 4 minutes tops, so there's lots of opening and closing the door, and I'm always afraid I'll loose temperature. Also, getting them flat on the pan in the oven isn't a walk in the park, but they're forgiving of a little wrinkle here or there. I don't worry if they don't puff up, 'cause we use them for pizzas instead of as sandwich pockets. I thought the boiling of the bagels would be some kind of tricky magic and that was really easy too, just make sure you use parchment paper or something when you go to bake 'cause they are sticky.
Here are my granola bars:
http://littleapartmentinthesuburbs.blogspot.com/2008/11/granola-bars.html