STUFFIN MUFFINS

Real food, it’s what many home cooks today are buzzing about. Real food, it’s what home cooks of the Great Depression were all about. It was a different time back then.

Real food of the Great Depression could be dandelion leaves from the yard. Bread was made without a bread machine with yeast, flour and water. If it went stale before the loaf was eaten, it was incorporated into soup. Nothing went wasted.

Cooking was all about using what one had on hand or what your neighbor had on hand to share. Meat bones were never used one time. Neighbors would share a meat bone to flavor water for soup.

During the Great Depression, food was portioned onto your plate. Fathers ate first. In some families, parents ate first and children ate whatever was leftover.

Dandelion leaves from the yard. In today’s terms, that would be “farm to table”. Real food dining is “farm to table”. No added preservatives or unpronounceable words on a box.

An inventory of the food in Old Mother Frugal’s pantry is a combination of “real food” and boxed items. There are ingredients to create real food and there are boxes.

How is the busy home cook to move from boxes to “real food”? After all, one of the benefits of boxed foods is the convenience factor. Are home cooks ready to exchange time and convenience for an alternative form of meal preparation?

Some hacks that Old Mother Frugal has used over the years include:

§  Making master mixes of dry goods and storing them in Ziploc type bags such as cookies/muffin mixes, cupcake/cake mixes, pancake/waffle mixes.

§  Prepare and store spice mixes for tacos; rubs for roasts in the slow cooker.

§  Make your own flavored oatmeal mix and store in Ziploc type bags.

§  Make your own rice/spaghetti and freeze.

§  Create your own pumpkin pie and apple pie spice mixtures.

Using the freezer to store prepared “real food” saves time and money. Feeding your family “real food” is possible with some advanced planning and batch cooking. They say what goes around, comes around.  Come around to real food meal planning and save time, wealth and health!

SOUND THE BUGLE! Today’s tip: Stuffin’ Muffins! Stuffing is a bread mixture that is inserted into meat. Dressing is a bread mixture that is baked in the oven as a side dish. If you have leftover corn muffins, make stuffing or dressing. It can be used in chicken breasts or pork chops. The mixture can also be “stuffed” into muffin tins and baked. The end result is stuffing that looks like a muffin but has that external crunch factor. As a bonus, it’s the perfect portion to accompany each dinner plate too!

 

BOXED FOOD VS REAL FOOD?