I recently had a craving for chocolate milk. I did not have in chocolate syrup in the house and don't buy it because my kids get to where they won't drink milk at all unless it has chocolate syrup in it or they use entirely too much. I did an online search and came up with a recipe for making Chocolate milk from scratch.
2 Tbsp of Sugar (I use 3 splenda packets)
2 Tbsp of Cooking Cocoa
3 Tbsp of Hot water
Stir until smooth and add milk enough to make 16 oz.
Do you have any similar recipes? I'm not asking for chocolate milk recipe, but any type recipe that you make from scratch rather than buy. For instance, Thousand Island Dressing, Italian Dressing, pancake syrup, ketchup, etc.
Splenda is so not good for you... I wish you wouldnt use it, it's a chemical. If you need something sweetened use organic sweeteners like sugar or honey.
If you wanted the actual dry mix to have on hand for this emergency craving:
1 c. cocoa
1 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
4 c. non-fat dry milk
Use 2-3 tablespoons of mix with 8 ounces of cold water for chocolate milk or 8 ounces of hot water for hot chocolate.
I'll melt down some Callebaut (double boiler) and add cream (about 1:1). Then just add to hot milk and stir with a whisk until it's smooth and frothy. For extra fun a pinch of nearly ANY spice (my 2 favs are cayenne pepper or garam masala). So yummy on a cold winter's day. If one wants to get really fancy one can use a molinillo, but really, any kind of whisk works.
Cocoa powder, btw, is just ground up chocolate & powdered milk. When companies use low quality chocolate they add sugar. (High quality chocolate doesn't need extra sugar). The water part is to make the milk liquidy. It's also why cocoa powder doesn't stir into milk very well. In order to actually be considered "chocolate" chocolate products have to be at least 11% cacao. (Hershey's is at guess where?). If below 11% it has to be categorized as candy or "chocolaty" or cocoa. Cacao is quite expensive, so companies use fairly bland fillers like oils. Hence the need for extra sugar. (one also finds fillers in high quality chocolates, it's the only way to turn them into "bars", otherwise all chocolate is in nib, powder, or liquid form... and it tastes ghastly. There's already quite a bit of sugar and flavorings added to even the best chocolates. But the best chocolates are almost never lower than 60% chocolate. The "ideal" range for bar chocolate is 60-85%, excluding milk chocolate). But a medium quality chocolate (like ghiradelii) or high quality (like callebaut or valhrona) doesn't need the extra sugar when making ganache or syrup... because the chocolate is already quite sweet, and because of the high cacao content, very flavorful.
Mmmmmm.... chocolate!!!
Teriyaki sauce to use for making stir fry.
1/4 cup soy
1/4 cup oil
2 Tbsp. ketchup
1 Tbsp. vinegar
garlic
ginger
Just mix it up, and add with your meat and vegetables near the end and heat through. Delicious and soo easy!
I've been thinking about this recently, too. I bought one of those Ceasar Salad "kits" at the store a few months back. The one that has the dressing and the croutons in it. When I got home and opened the bag, it was...a bag of romaine lettuce! No dressing, no croutons. So I made my own. I'm never buying these items again! For croutons, just cut up bread into bite sized pieces, toss with olive oil, salt, pepper, parmesan. Spread out onto a cookie sheet and bake at 300 degrees til nice a crunchy; kind of move the croutons around a little bit every 15 minutes or so. For the Caesar dressing, blend together: Dijon mustard, red wine vinegar, Worcestestire sauce, parmesan cheese, pepper, a little mayonnaise if you like creamy dressing, garlic...then add a little olive oil and mix well. No anchovies but we don't really miss them. Have fun!
We make cocoa (the recipe is generally on the back of the cocoa tin), all our salad dressing (that is a little mustard, garlic, black pepper, pinch of salt, couple of grinds of pepper, any herbs, add a couple tablespoons of any vinegar you want, whisk in olive oil (or other if you prefer) until emulsified and tastes right), our own macaroni and cheese (that way you can use whole grain pasta, real cheese and skip all the garbage in the box), have made ketchup (don't really think this one is worthwhile as it's now pretty easy to find organic). We make a syrup substitute for pancakes by simply cooking fruit with a little sugar until it is syrupy (berries, peaches, apricots, plums all work well).
We make everything that we can from scratch. Even bread.
here is our Pancake syrup recipe. We do NOT use white sugar in anything
2 cups brown sugar
1 cup water
2 teaspoons vanilla
1.5 tbs butter
Hummus, baba ganouj, you name it and we make it from scratch.
ALL SOUPS!
start with a full onion
3 stalks celery
2 bay leaves
sea salt and pepper
then add whatever else you want!
We buy pasta but make our own tomato sauce. We make our own pizza, bread, buns etc (the bread maker is going daily)
We stay away from C.R.A.P as much as possible (caffeine, refine sugar, additives and preservatives)
B.
Family Success Coach
hillybillyhousewife.com is a great site if you are interested in from-scratch stuff. There is a bunch about food, but she'll even teach you to make maxi pads from old flannel shirts if you're interested! Why stop at cloth diapers?! :D
Have fun.
I make a lot of things from scratch. Probably one of the things I make most is cream of chicken soup. I use it in casserole recipes and other types of dinners. It's really easy to make and so much better for you then all the other ingredients they add to campbell's soup :)
1tbsp of butter
3tbsp of flour
1/2 cup of chicken broth
1/2 cup of milk
salt and pepper to taste
Melt butter over medium low heat. Stir in flour until mixed well. Slowly add milk while whisking to dissolve clumps. Let heat up for a few minutes while mixing until it becomes thick. Add salt and pepper to taste. Makes 8ozs.
I also make my own cheese sauce for mac and cheese and nachos.
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Nacho-Cheese-Sauce/Detail.aspx
