Homemade Pop-Tarts

     I've had my eye on this recipe for almost a year.  Last year for Christmas, my brother and sister-in-law gave me this cookbook and I became obsessed with everything homemade.  Last Christmas was almost a year ago and 350 some odd days have passed where I hoped and waited for a pop-tart.  I was crazy to put it off for this long, but time, money, and life seemed to get in the way.  In my mind, pop-tarts are not vital for survival, but so many other groceries are actual necessities.  One Saturday I declared no more!  J.T. and I had just finished paying off a $40,000 student loan and I thought pop-tarts were the proper way to celebrate this financial accomplishment.  I sent J.T. to the grocery store and he purchased the $5.00 jar of organic strawberry preserves I needed to make my highly anticipated pop-tarts.  The pop-tarts were wonderful - better than I ever hoped or imagined.  Flaky, buttery, gooey strawberry filled bliss on a plate - gluten and dairy free.  

recipe adapted from The Homemade Pantry

Ingredients

• 2 ¼ cups multi-grain flour blend, plus additional for rolling out dough
• ½ teaspoon celtic sea salt
• 1 cup coconut oil, chilled and diced into chunks
• 2 teaspoons raw apple cider vinegar
• 4 tablespoons cold water
• 2 eggs, divided
• 1 tablespoon room temperature water
• 7 tablespoons organic strawberry preserves
• pure cane sugar, for dusting

Directions

1. In the bowl of mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, mix together the flour and salt on low speed for 2 minutes.  Drop the chilled coconut oil chunks into the flour and use a spoon to toss the flour and oil together.  In a small liquid measuring cup, whisk together 1 egg, the vinegar, and cold water.  Place both the flour mixture and egg mixture into the freezer for 10 minutes.  
2. Remove the flour mixture from the freezer and assemble the mixer with a paddle attachment.  Turn the mixer on low speed and beat the flour and oil until it begins to resemble a coarse meal.  Remove the liquid ingredients from the freezer and whisk again.  Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the mixing bowl.  Mix on low until the dough comes together, forming a large ball (you will still see large white chunks of coconut oil in the dough).  Dump the dough onto a board and divide in half.  Shape each half into disks and wrap each disk in plastic wrap.  Chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours.  
3. Whisk together 1 egg and 1 tablespoon of water and set aside.  Line a large sheet pan with parchment paper.  Remove the dough from the refrigerator and flour a dough board or the countertop.  Flour 1 disk and gently roll out the dough into a large circle.  If the dough begins to crumble, continue working with it until it softens, applying flour as needed to keep it from sticking.  Use a large biscuit cutter and cut 7 rounds, placing the rounds on the prepared baking sheet.  Brush the dough with the prepared egg wash and spoon 1 tablespoon of preserves into the center of each round.  
4. While you are rolling out the remaining dough disk, place the baking sheet into the freezer.  Roll out 7 more rounds.  Gently lay these rounds on top of the preserve filling.  Use a fork to seal the corners all the way around each pastry.  Poke each pastry three times, going down the center, and brush the tops and sealed edges with the egg wash.  Sprinkle with sugar.  Place the prepared pop-tarts back into the freezer for 10 minutes and preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  
5. Bake for 24 minutes, or until golden brown.  Rest on the baking sheet for 1 hour before removing.

Make ahead:  Prepare the pop-tarts as instructed above and refrigerate or freeze.  If refrigerating, arrange the pop-tarts in one single layer.  To reheat, preheat the oven to 375 degrees and reheat for 5 minutes.  If freezing, arrange the pop-tarts on a large baking sheet, in one single layer.  Freeze for 1 hour.  Stack the frozen pop-tarts in a freezer safe plastic bag.  Reheat in a 375 degree oven for 10 minutes.  

Multi-Grain Flour Blend

Ingredients

• 350 grams whole grain oat flour
• 350 grams sweet white sorghum flour
• 300 grams arrowroot starch

Directions

1. Whisk together the oat flour, sorghum flour, and arrowroot starch.  Store in a large (5 pound capacity) container in the refrigerator.  Use in place of whole wheat flour or whole white wheat flour.  

Whole Wheat Graham Crackers

    My how I have missed my cooking blog over the last few weeks!  A new full-time job plus a crashed computer hard drive equals no blog posts.  My sweet husband has been a saint and taken care of my computer issues.  I cannot count how much time he spent at the computer store getting my documents, pictures, and music recovered.  From now on, I will be backing my files up on another device.  Lesson learned :)  Also, my very gracious father gave me his old laptop computer which he no longer needed.  For $75 I have a new (used) computer with all my old files loaded on it.  

    I have yet to figure out a good balance between working, cooking, cleaning, laundry, and blogging.  Out of everything that must be done I know that blogging is not an absolute necessity, although, I do enjoy this creative outlet and miss it terribly.  For now I will leave you with these graham crackers.  They have become a new pantry staple in our household for J.T.  He prefers to eat them with peanut butter or ice cream (or both).  I have adapted the original recipe from The Homemade Pantry by substituting all whole white wheat flour and butter.  This removes the white refined flour and shortening - two things I avoid.  Before adapting the recipe, I followed the original version.  J.T. cannot tell a taste or texture difference between the two recipes.  I will warn you that these crackers are hard work.  Rolling the dough out takes some serious arm muscle power.  I hope to eventually adapt this to a slice and bake recipe, but for now the workout will not kill me.  One of the main reasons I love this recipe is that it can be made in advance and frozen.  You can then pull out however many you need and recrisp them in a 375 degree oven for 3 minutes.

Recipe adapted from The Homemade Pantry

Ingredients

• 2 ¼ cups whole white wheat flour
• ½ teaspoon kosher salt
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• 7 tablespoons butter, chilled and cut into cubes
• ¼ cup cold water
• 4 tablespoons honey
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

Directions

1. In the bowl of a heavy duty mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix together the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and brown sugar on low speed until everything is combined.  Add the chilled butter.  Start at the lowest speed possible and bring the speed of the mixture up gradually to a medium high.  Beat the dry ingredients and the butter until the mixture resembles a coarse texture.  
2. In a small glass measuring cup, stir together the water, honey, and vanilla.  With the mixer on low speed, slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry.  Gradually increase the speed of the mixer until the dough begins to come together.  The dough will be crumbly but should hold together.  Roll the dough into a ball and wrap it in wax paper.  Refrigerate for at least 2 hours (or the dough can be frozen at this point).  
3. Set the dough out of the refrigerator for one hour before you begin rolling it out.  Lightly flour two pieces of wax paper.  You will be rolling the dough out on a large dough board or pastry mat between the two pieces of floured wax paper.  Divide the dough ball into quarters (it is easier to work with smaller amounts of dough at a time).  Roll the dough ⅛ to ¼ inch thick.  Use a 3-inch biscuit cutter to cut out the crackers (or you can attempt to make perfectly symmetrical squares).  Place the cut out dough on ungreased cookie sheets.  Using a fork, poke several holes in the top of each cracker.  Bake at 350 degrees for 11 to 12 minutes.  Yields about 32 crackers.  Remove the crackers to a wire rack to cool completely before storing.  Keeps for up to one week in the pantry and for three months in the freezer.  

Brown Sugar & Cinnamon Instant Oatmeal

     A while ago, I got on my soapbox about milk and cereal being very pricy.  A gallon of Publix Greenwise organic milk retails for $5.99 and a 14 ounce box of Publix Greenwise organic toasted oats cereal costs $3.79.  J.T. likes big bowls of cereal and there is nothing tiny about the amount of milk he drowns his cereal in either.  Two boxes of cereal and a gallon of milk were costing $13.57 a week! This doesn’t include the ½ gallon of almond milk and container of oats I buy for my breakfast each week.  I talked to J.T. about possibly trying instant oatmeal.  As a kid, he wasn’t fond of oatmeal.  I am not sure any kid really is unless it is loaded with sugar and a bunch of other chemicals and additives, which are junk.  Once again, my Homemade Pantry cookbook came to the rescue!  I can attest that this oatmeal is delicious.  I sometimes eat a small bowl for a bedtime snack.  J.T. will actually eat this oatmeal and he enjoys it!  I was so relieved.  J.T. has cut his milk and cereal consumption in half.  This saves a little money that can be put toward other items which we really need at the store.  After being a cold cereal breakfast consumer for years, J.T. now rotates between cereal and this instant oatmeal recipe. I am thankful for a husband that is always willing to try new things J   

Recipe adapted from The Homemade Pantry

Ingredients

·         6 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

·         ½ cup packed brown sugar

·         1 tablespoon cinnamon

·         1 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions

1.      Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.  Spread the oats out in an even layer on the prepared baking sheet.  Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.  Set aside to cool slightly.

2.      In a food processor, fitted with a steel blade, pulse together the brown sugar, cinnamon, salt, and 4 cups of the baked oats.  Pulse the mixture until it is a powdery consistency.  Mix together the pulsed oats and the remaining baked oats.  Store in a large airtight container for up to a month.  To make the instant oatmeal, combine ½ cup of oats with 1 to 1 ½ cups of water (for thicker oatmeal add less water and for thinner oatmeal add more water).  Microwave on high for 2 to 2 ½ minutes (mine takes exactly 2 minutes and 15 secondsJ).   Add a splash of milk and serve hot.  Yields 12 to 15 servings.  

Whole Wheat Crackers

     Wheat crackers, second only to the cheese crackers, are J.T.’s other favorite snack.  This recipe is adapted from my beloved Homemade Pantry cookbook, which I am still ecstatic about!  I realize that many of you are probably thinking “who in the world has time to make crackers?” My answer to this would be that Saturday and Sunday are usually a baking and cooking marathon around our house.  I also love to make double and even triple recipes of staple items.  For example, this is a double recipe of the original version published in The Homemade Pantry.  It yields approximately 140 crackers, which is about a month’s worth of cracker snacks for J.T.  He eats the cheese crackers for a snack in the morning and the wheat crackers for an afternoon treat.  I was making Homemade Wheat Thins, but after I made a batch of these wheat crackers, he was hooked.   I also LOVE this recipe because the baked crackers can be frozen.  One Saturday a month, I gather all my ingredients and get to work.  For the remainder of the month, I pull from the freezer how many crackers I need for the pantry during the upcoming week.  Then, I recrisp the crackers in the oven for 3 minutes and I’m done.  It’s that easy.  

Recipe adapted from The Homemade Pantry

Ingredients

·         4 cups King Arthur whole white wheat flour

·         1 teaspoon baking powder

·         2/3 cup whole millet, uncooked

·         2/3 cup ground flaxseeds

·         1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for sprinkling

·         5 garlic cloves, minced with a garlic press

·         2 teaspoons dried rosemary, crumbled

·         1 cup plus 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

·         Freshly ground black pepper, from a pepper mill

Directions

1.      In the bowl of a mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, mix together the flour, baking powder, millet, flaxseeds, salt, garlic, and rosemary.  With the mixer on low speed, slowly stream in the olive oil.  Then stream in (very slowly once again) 1 ½ cups of water, until the dough comes together.  The dough should be very easy to work with.  Dump the dough onto a floured surface and roll it out with a rolling pin to ¼ inch thickness.  Use a 1 ½ inch biscuit cutter to cut out the crackers.  Repeat this process until all the dough is used. 

2.      Line the cut out cracker dough on ungreased cookie sheets.  Not much space is required between each cracker because they do not spread.  Sprinkle with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 18 to 20 minutes (20 minutes was perfect for my oven).  Once the crackers have baked, transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely before storing.  These can be stored in an airtight container for up to one week.  As I mentioned earlier, my FAVORITE thing about these crackers is that they can be frozen!  Store them in a Ziploc bag or freezer safe container in the freezer (up to 3 months).  Simply recrisp them for 3 minutes in a 375 degree oven.  Yields about 140 crackers. 

Publix – January 11, 2013

     I received the book The Homemade Pantry as a Christmas gift from my brother (Christopher) and his fiancée (Gill).  I will now refer to them as Christopher and Gill on this blog, because I am tired of typing out titles!  I must admit that I am currently obsessed with this book!  I have almost read it cover to cover and have made a few of the recipes.  If you read this blog, you know that I am passionate about making items at home that most people usually purchase at the grocery store.  Upon reviewing our budget at the start of the New Year, I came to the shocking realization that I am spending $13.57 a week for J.T.’s cereal and milk.  That is almost 23% of our weekly grocery budget.  I believe that there has to be a cheaper alternative.  The price of milk is a constant.  Since we buy organic milk I will always pay $5.99 for a gallon and maybe more in the future.  The cereal, at $3.79 a box, is the main issue and J.T. consumes two of these 14 ounce boxes a week.   The wheels in my head have been spinning over creating a cheaper and healthier breakfast alternative for J.T.  The first source I consulted for this issue was The Homemade Pantry.  J.T. is an avid lover of his cold cereal, but I asked him if he liked instant oatmeal – the kind in the packets that are normally much sweeter and softer in texture than regular rolled oats.  He kindly agreed to try instant oatmeal and luckily The Homemade Pantry had a recipe.  I will blog about the recipe later, but it is very simple.  Basically you toast a batch of oats and pulse half of them with a little cinnamon, brown sugar (which I made!) and salt.   That’s it.  J.T. tried the oatmeal this morning and enjoyed it, but I can tell that he misses his cereal.  Now, I am on a quest to figure out how to make dry cereal in my kitchen – preferably something that is similar in taste and texture to Cheerios.  After browsing the internet, I have concluded that there are very few recipes on homemade dry cereal (besides granola).  Any suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated J

 

·         Dairy

o   1 gallon Publix Greenwise Organic Milk @ $5.99

o   1 lb. Organic Valley Unsalted Butter @ $6.99

§  $1.00/1 manufacturer coupon - $5.99

o   Publix Greenwise Organic Eggs @ $4.29

·         Grocery

o   (1) Publix Greenwise Organic Toasted Oats cereal @ $3.79

o   (2) Publix Greenwise Organic Oats @ $3.98

o   2 lbs. King Arthur Organic Whole Wheat Flour @ $2.42

o   Publix Greenwise Whole Flaxseed @ $1.99

o   Florida Crystals Organic Cane Sugar @ $4.29

§  $0.55/1 manufacturer coupon - $3.74

·         Meat

o   Publix Greenwise Split Chicken breasts @ $3.50/lb. - $5.17

o   Publix Greenwise Chicken drumsticks @ $2.29/lb. - $3.80

·         Frozen

o    (2) Bird’s eye frozen Brussels @ $2.49

o    (2) Bird’s eye peas @ $1.99

·         Produce

o   Bananas @ $0.99/lb. - $2.48

o   2 lemons @ $1.33

o   4 ½  lbs. butternut squash @ $1.29/lb. - $5.70

·         Other

o   Reynolds muffin liners @ $0.95

Total before coupons              $62.52

Less: coupons used                   (6.55)

Total with Tax                        $55.97