Friday, May 21, 2010

It's Cannery Time

I was feeling domestic yesterday - something that doesn't happen very often. With the cannery coming up tomorrow I thought it would be a good thing to share what I did and learned yesterday. I made 4 different foods made from products from the cannery and it was so easy.

First I made granola. I shared a couple of recipes for making granola back in April. Yesterday I made the Heart Healthy Granola, only this time instead of using honey I used maple syrup. I am not much of a maple fan, but this granola was yummy with only a light touch of maple.

Then I got on a roll thinking I would make granola bars. For some reason I always thought this would be complicated. It's not. It's even easier to make than the granola because your don't have to turn it midway when cooking. I made Easy Granola Bars posted at allrecipes.com. I didn't add the melted butter.

While making the granola bars I discovered that I didn't have any more sweetened condensed milk. I've seen several recipes for this and I always thought I would try it, but haven't yet because I don't use it all that much and because I thought it would be hard or time consuming. So yesterday I pulled out the recipe and told myself that from now on I'm going to have to read the recipe right away because sometimes things are so much easier than you would assume.

Sweetened Condensed Milk

1 cup water
2 T butter or margarine
2 cups sugar or splenda
1 cups dry milk powder(non-instant and not Moo's Milk) OR 4 cups instant

Bring water, butter and sugar to a boil. Add milk powder and blend till smooth in a blender. Refrigerate. Makes 1 quart. Will store in refrigerator for up to one year.

And last I have been thinking I really ought to see if I can use those dried carrots from the cannery. I've been worried that they would taste nasty so I've had in mind I only had them if worse came to worst. Yesterday I was in the mood though. I had been thinking of a dish I had some time ago with chicken and carrots, but I could find the recipe. I can't even remember where I found it. So I looked through recipe books and online and came up with a mix of several I found. I got real creative with the name.

Chicken Carrot Rice Dish
4 chicken breasts
2/3 c dried carrots
2/3 c brown rice
1 pkg dried mushroom onion soup mix
2 t basil
2 2/3 c chicken broth
1 c water
1 c onion
1 T oil.
pepper and salt to taste

Saute onion in the oil. Place all ingredients in a slow cooker. I was going to cook this on high for 4-6 hours in the slow cooker, but realized after 2 that it was going to be done in time before I had to leave the house. I finished it off with 10 minutes on high in the pressure cooker. If you should try this in the slow cooker I'd love to hear how it turned out and if the 4-6 hours was a good estimate on time.

If you see me at the cannery tomorrow never fear. I haven't given up on my month long experiment. I'm just concerned about getting to the cannery in June and I'd like to replenish what we are using now. We'll just not be using it yet.

Things on my list after this experiment:
good can opener - those big cans are harder to open than the small
more oats - we use more oats than the year supply lists call for
more spices
more dried fruit
more nuts

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