Crumble Kits

Crumble Kits

I love anything that makes life easier, but I certainly don't like to pay the price for convenience.

Instead I MOO as much as I can and one of the things that makes my life a lot easier and saves us a lot of money is crumble kits.

We've fallen out of the habit of having dessert after our meals and it was showing in my grocery budget. The fridge fairies were striking overnight and food that was planned for another meal was disappearing.

A quick survey of the troops and I realised they were hungry and missing dessert after their dinner.

I try to make our desserts as healthy as possible without going overboard, so we have things like apple and rhubarb crumble or peach cobbler or fruit salad cake, steamed fruit pudding, lemon delicious, baked rice custard, fruit pies, and they're usually served with a boiled custard or cream (or in Wayne's case both), or  fruit salad, fruit platters with dip and so on.

I've shared before how I make up MOO packet cake mixes and how they are so convenient.

Well, I make up crumble kits too and they are really convenient as well.

When I want to make a crumble I take the fruit off the pantry shelf or out of the freezer, grab a crumble kit from the pantry, add the melted butter, dump it all in a pie dish and bake it. Easy! I can get a crumble in the oven in under five minutes, fantastic for busy nights.

I use my big baking dish to make crumble. It makes enough for at least two nights of desserts and a couple of lunches - about 14 serves. I just put the leftover crumble into a Tupperware container and keep it in the fridge. The next night I reheat however many serves we need in the microwave.

As a bonus, crumble kits are great for camping. I make them up in large ziplock bags and they store flat in the tucker box.

Crumble Kits

Into a large ziplock bag add:
1 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup plain flour
3/4 cup brown sugar (packed)
3/4 cup coconut
1 tsp mixed spice

Seal the bag.

On the front of the bag write:
To make up melt 125g butter. Add to dry ingredients. Mix well. Spread evenly over the top of fruit. Bake 30 - 40 minutes until topping is browned and fruit is bubbling.

I usually make up a dozen or so at a time and keep them in the pantry. Without the butter added they are shelf stable for months.

If you have freezer room you can add the melted butter and make the topping. Store the packets in the freezer so the butter doesn't go rancid - it will if you keep them in the pantry.

To use the frozen crumble kits just take one out of the freezer. It will be a solid block. Let it sit for a few minutes then either crumble it over the fruit with your fingers or use the coarse side of a grater to grate it over the fruit. Add 5 - 10 minutes to the cooking time.

MOO Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup

Which would you prefer? Two jars (tins) for 50 cents (just 25 cents each!), or paying over $2 a can?

My favourite MOO** mix at this time of year, when the weather is cooling and casseroles are featuring more on my meal plan, is the MOO Condensed Cream of Chicken soup - so easy to use instead of a tin and much, much nicer.

I have a lot of recipes, mostly inherited from my mother and Wayne's Granny, that use tinned soup, especially condensed cream of chicken soup. It's a great casserole base, very versatile. It goes really well in chicken and rice casserole or a tuna bake. It makes a lovely version of scalloped potatoes too.

The problem is the tinned version you buy at the supermarket isn't particularly healthful and it is very expensive. Tinned cream of chicken soup is over $2 a can - this recipe makes the equivalent of two tins and costs around 80 cents to make if you have MOOed chicken stock, about $1.50 if you have to buy it. It is cheap! Really, really cheap. And it is good! Really, really good.

It is the easiest thing to make at home, and there are no special ingredients in it other than a stock cube if you don't usually use them.

MOO Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup

This is the equivalent of two tins of cream of chicken soup, much cheaper than bought and far healthier too.

Ingredients:
1-1/2 cups chicken stock (if you don't have your own, a bought stock is just fine, but adds to the cost)
1 Vegeta chicken stock cube (you can use another brand if you like, I prefer Vegeta)
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp parsley
1/4 tsp paprika
1-1/2 cups milk
3/4 cup plain flour*

Method:
Put chicken stock, 1/2 cup milk and the seasonings in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Boil for one minute.   Whisk the remaining milk and flour together until there are no lumps. Add to boiling mixture, whisking continually until mixture boils and thickens.

Yield:  approximately the equivalent of two tins of Cream of Chicken soup. Freeze immediately or keep in fridge for up to 5 days. This soup mix freezes and thaws beautifully. Use to make soup or in place of tinned soup in recipes.

*I use plain wholemeal Spelt flour to make this mix. It gives it a nutty flavour. If you don't use white flour plain wholemeal works just as well.

**MOO - Make Our Own

So what is your favourite cream of chicken soup recipe? Mine is Slow Cooker Chicken and Rice Casserole, a favourite from my childhood when Mum made it in her trusty original burnt orange Crockpot :)

MOO Bisquick and the Convenience of MOO Packet Mixes

MOO Bisquick Banana Bread - the nicest and easiest banana bread ever!

I love the convenience of mixes ready to go. At the moment I have chocolate cupcakes, tea cake, sultana muffins, cranberry muffins, cream of chicken soup, taco seasoning, spaghetti seasoning, pizza dough, doughnuts, instant custard, white sauce mixes all in jars (I love them too) or ziplock bags. I print the ingredients and method either onto a label or straight onto the jar or bag with a Sharpie so anyone can take a mix and make it. Means Wayne or the children can help me with baking or meal prep without my supervision or even input.

Annabel, over at The Bluebirds are Nesting (Blue Wren in the forum) is doing a series on pantry preparedness. She posts a new topic each week and this week it was mixes.

I love mixes. They are a vital component of my pantry, my stockpile and go a long way towards helping to keep our grocery bill to $320 a month.

I can't remember the last time I bought a cake mix. Hannah bought a couple last year and made them, red velvet cupcakes if I remember correctly. We HATED them - they tasted so fake, had a horrible after-taste and left a greasy, thick feeling in our mouths. And they were expensive.

During MOO Month I shared my go-to chocolate cake mix recipe.

A few years ago I put together a small ebook of mixes, called Make Our Own….Mixes. It's one of the more popular downloads in the member's centre, having been downloaded almost 32,000 times since it was first published! That's a lot of people MOOing mixes, or with the knowledge to MOO them.

Annabel was asking for a Bisquick recipe. Bisquick isn't a common ingredient in Australian recipes, but as the Internet makes it so easy for us to find and try recipes from other countries, and as it is a popular product in the USA and Canada, knowing how to MOO it means we can try these recipes, save money on the packets and keep the nasty ingredients out.

This is my Bisquick recipe. I use it to make biscuits, scones (if we are camping, otherwise I make Lemonade Scones), crumble topping, shortcakes, pancakes, pastry, as the base in impossible pies and quiches - it's very versatile.

MOO Bisquick Mix

Ingredients:
6 cups plain flour, sifted
3 tablespoons baking powder
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 cup cold, unsalted butter

Step 1.    Measure the sifted flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. Use a wire whisk to blend thoroughly.

Step 2.    Cut in cold butter using a pastry cutter until thoroughly incorporated. Store refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 4 months.

This makes 6 cups of mixture. I pack it in 2 cup portions in ziplock bags in the freezer because I don't have room in the fridge.

I keep most of my mixes in the freezer. Why? Well firstly because I don't have the shelf space for them. Secondly, some of them contain butter or oil and need to at least be refrigerated.

They can be used straight from the freezer, if there are any clumps just break them up before you add the wet ingredients.

Here are two of the ways I use it.

MOO Bisquick scones, hot and ready to enjoy

MOO Bisquick Scones

Ingredients:
2 cups MOO Bisquick mix
2/3 cup milk.

Method:
Mix to a dough. Gently press out to about 2cm thick. Use a glass or scone cutter dipped in flour to cut into rounds. Place on a baking paper lined scone tray. Bake at 210 degrees Celsius for 12 - 15 minutes or until risen and golden.

MOO Bisquick Banana Nut Bread

This delicious banana bread uses MOO Bisquick as a shortcut. With the addition of cream cheese and walnuts you have one of the easiest and nicest banana breads you've ever tasted.

Ingredients:
2 cups MOO Bisquick mix
1 cup sugar
250g cream cheese, softened
3 medium bananas, mashed
2 eggs
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Method:
Pre-heat oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Grease and line the base of a loaf pan. Beat sugar and cream cheese together until smooth (it's easier if you use the mixer for this step). Add in the mashed bananas and eggs, and beat until well combined. Gently stir in Bisquick and walnuts, until just moist. Spread evenly into the loaf pan and bake for one hour. Cool completely before serving.

This is a very moist banana bread, it doesn't rise to a high loaf, and it's just great for using up brown or black bananas. It also makes a great Gift in a Jar - just pack the dry ingredients in layers in a jar, add a label with the ingredients needed and the method. Add a pretty jar topper and a ribbon and it's ready to go.

Mixes are great. MOO mixes are even greater. If you haven't tried to save money, time and energy with MOO mixes, give them a go. I'm sure you'll love the convenience and the cost.

31 Days of MOO NO. 16 MOO Cake Mixes

Boxed (or packet) cake mixes are convenient - to a point.  You still need to add the wet ingredients, usually egg, water or milk, butter or oil, so what you're paying up to $9 for is basically flour, sugar, a rising agent, flavouring of some kind and then a whole lot of things you can't pronounce and really shouldn't be eating.

That cake mix convenience ends up costing you up to $11!

If you make a cake from scratch you'll use flour, sugar, butter or oil, milk or water, an egg or two, flavouring of some kind and if you didn't use self-raising flour, a rising agent (baking powder or bicarb soda, depending on the recipe). And your cake will cost you under $2!

Now cake mixes are supposed to be convenient time savers because you just dump the contents into the mixer, add the wet stuff and beat for 3 minutes.

If your recipe is a one-bowl mix, like the I've shared below, you do the same thing - dump all the ingredients into the mixer and beat for 3 minutes.

It may take you a minute to measure out the flour, sugar and flavourings so a from scratch cake will take you 1 or 2 minutes longer to get to the baking stage. At a saving of up to $9 a minute or two is nothing.

And they will both take about the same time to cook too, so no saving there.

If you really love cake mixes, and I confess I do, you can quite easily make your own.

When I'm baking a cake I get out a half a dozen ziplock bags and measure out the dry ingredients for 7 cakes, the one I'm baking and 6 to put in the cupboard. The bags are labelled with the type of cake the ingredients will make - chocolate, coffee, butter, sultana, cherry or whatever, a list of wet ingredients and the instructions. I do this a lot so I have marked the bags with a Sharpie. Once the mix has been used the bag is washed and dried and put away ready to use again - and the instructions are already written on it.

This is a quick chocolate cake I make into MOO Cake Mixes.

Quick Chocolate Cake

Dry Ingredients:
3 cups SR flour
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup cocoa

Wet Ingredients:
2 cups cold water
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp white vinegar
3/4 cup vegetable oil

You can double, triple, quadruple the quantities (I measure out 7 lots at a time). Put the dry ingredients into ziplock bags and seal. Label the bag and add a list of the wet ingredients and the instructions.

To make a cake add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Stir until just combined.

One quantity will make 2 dozen cupcakes or two 20cm square cakes. Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 25 - 30 minutes for 20cm cake (or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean). Bake for 12 - 15 minutes for  cupcakes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

31 Days of MOO No. 7 - MOO Bulk Taco Seasoning

Our taco seasoning recipe is very popular, one of the most popular recipes of all time in the Cheapskates Recipe File.

The only downside to that recipe is that it only makes the equivalent of three packets of taco seasoning and if you use it as often as I do you may feel, like I did, that you are always mixing up a jar.

So here is a bulk recipe.

Bulk MOO Taco Seasoning Mix

Ingredients:
1/2 cup chilli powder (add more to taste if you like your tacos hot)
1 cup dried onion flakes
1/2 cup oregano
¾ cup ground cumin
¾ cup garlic powder
3 tbsp paprika

Method:
Combine all ingredients in a screw top jar. Shake well to combine. Use 3 tablespoons per 500g of mince or beans for tacos.

MOO Monday: Cream of Anything Cup-a-Soup

Ingredients:
4 cups skim milk powder
1-1/2 cups cornflour
1/2 cup chicken flavoured stock powder
4 tsp dried onion flakes
2 tsp thyme
2 tsp dried basil
1 tsp ground black pepper

Method:
Combine all ingredients together and store in an air tight screw top jar. This mix will keep for twelve months in a cool, dry pantry.

To Use:
Add 1/3 cup of cup-a-soup mix to 1 coffee mug of boiling water. Stir well to dissolve soup mix.

Variations:
Add half a cup of one or more of the following with the boiling water:
Sliced mushrooms
Asparagus pieces
Cooked broccoli or cauliflower florets
Thinly sliced celery
Cooked, diced chicken or beef

From the Cheapskates Club Recipe File

31 Days of MOO No. 30 - MOO Onion Soup Mix

This will make the equivalent of one packet of onion soup mix. I suggest while you have all the herbs and spices out that you make up a few 'packets' by either doubling, tripling or quadrupling the recipe. Store them in clean, dry, glass jars, small Tupperware containers or in ziplock bags.

Onion Soup Mix

Ingredients:
3 tablespoons dried onion flakes
1 teaspoon parsley flakes
½ teaspoon onion powder
½ teaspoon turmeric
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon celery salt
¼ teaspoon ground pepper
⅛ teaspoon garlic powder

Method:
 Place all ingredients into a small resealable container or bag and shake.

That’s it, onion soup mix  without MSG, thickeners, anti-clumping agents, artificial colours or flavours.

To use as a soup add the mix and 4 cups of cold water to a pot and slowly bring to the boil. Turn the heat down and simmer for 2 minutes.

Use as you would the packet soup in casseroles, meatloaf, rissoles, sauces, gravies, dips etc.

31 Days of MOO No. 14 - Alfredo Pasta and Sauce

Pasta and sauce is such a convenience food. You just add the contents of the packet to a pot of boiling water and/or milk and let it simmer for 12 - 15 minutes. And you have a tasty side dish.

Doesn't matter that the tasty side dish is way over-priced, or that it has no real food (perhaps the pasta?) in it. It is quick, and easy and just about everyone loves it, and the variety of flavours.

I've been making the Curry Pasta and Sauce for years. In 2007 I did a breakdown of the ingredients on the packet of Continental Curried Chicken Pasta and Sauce and decided it was much easier, tastier, healthier and cheaper to MOO it. And it has been MOOed ever since.

But we have a certain young lady in the family who doesn't like spicy food, including curried anything. She prefers plainer, milder flavours and adores the Alfredo style, so, to keep her happy, I went through the ingredients on the packet and came up with this version. It isn't identical. It is better. And healthier. And a whole lot cheaper.

Alfredo Pasta and Sauce Mix

Ingredients:
250 g pasta (fettuccine, twists, macaroni)
2 tbsp plain flour
2 tbsp instant milk powder (skim or full cream)
1/2 tsp basil
1 tsp lemon pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup parmesan cheese (the dried parmesan in the packet, not fresh)

To make the mix put all ingredients into a ziplock bag. Seal. Shake to mix well.

To prepare the pasta: Bring 2 cups water to a boil in a large saucepan. Add the Alfredo mix to 2 cups milk. Whisk together. Pour into boiling water. Stir to combine. Reduce heat to a simmer. Cook for 15  minutes or until pasta is tender. Remove from heat and allow to cool 5 minutes before serving. Sauce thickens on standing.

A Mixed Up Kind of Day

 I like Friday. It's my puttering day. I putter around the house and garden, tidying up,  doing little cleaning jobs and getting the house ready for the weekend. I often do extra baking and cooking so I don't have to do any over the weekend, after all I like some time off too.

Today was no different. I tidied up the kitchen after breakfast and folded some washing. Put another load on. Had a walk around the garden and checked up on my seedlings, they're doing well, even after this week's frosts. Swept and mopped the kitchen floor and tidied the lounge. 

And at 11 o'clock I put the kettle on for a hot chocolate and realised the jar was empty. If I wanted a hot chocolate for morning tea I would have to make some more mix up, which is what I did. While I was fishing around for the cocoa and milk powder I realised I had enough Weetbix crumbs to make some more shake'n'bake. While I was getting the ingredients for the shake'n'bake out the KFC coating container felt a bit light on so I thought I'd make some more up seeing I was making mixes.


Now all the containers are full of fresh mixes and I did enjoy my hot chocolate. Tom came in just as the kettle boiled so he had one with me and we chatted about the week and the coming weekend. He's really enjoying his studies and we are so proud of the smart, independent young man he has become. He's forming opinions and planning his future and that old saying about watching what you say in front of your kids is true, they do parrot it back to you. He was talking about buying a house and how he'd furnish it. I suggested he might like some of the more modern furnishings only to be told in no uncertain terms that he wasn't wasting his money on cheap modern stuff - he wants what we have. He knows how much it's worth and how to buy it at auction or garage sales, what to look for and how much to pay. Yes, my constantly talking about buying quality second-hand being good value has come back to bite me, but in the nicest possible way.

After our chat I put a load of washing on and realised it was time to make more washing powder. This time I made a double batch and filled the container up. That will see us through winter and spring.

And then I sat down and checked the forum. The excitement about Miracle Spray finally had me itching to make some so now there's a big bottle sitting on the sink, all ready to use for cleaning. I tend to use the Super Six and microfibre cloths for cleaning.  I'm not a huge fan of commercial cleaners but the rave reviews about Miracle Spray have me curious so I am going to test it out - on the boys' shower and the kitchen floor. If it can get those two clean I will be forever a fan. I don't know how the boys manage to get their shower into such a mess, it's cleaned thoroughly every Tuesday, but it's always a scrubbing job.

And of course the kitchen floor just gets grimy from everyday cooking, eating and living. Oh, and from my "experiments", they tend to be messy, but it's all in the name of research.

Ok, I have time to do the shower and the floor before I zip out to pick up Hannah so I'm off to try out the Miracle Spray!

Tip of the Day 4 August 2009

Homemade Ready-Made Convenience Foods

We love ready-made foods for their convenience. This Shake 'n'Bake coating is one my favourite homemade versions of a ready-made convenience foods. It's perfect for coating chicken pieces, lamb cutlets, sausages, fish cakes, in fact just about anything that requires a coating. You can bake in the oven or fry in a pan sprayed with cooking spray (there is oil in the mix). I’m sure you’ll love the convenience and the price.


Shake’n’Bake Coating
Ingredients:
4 cups plain flour
20 weetbix, crushed
2 tbsp salt
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp onion powder
3 tbsp sweet paprika
1/4 cup olive oil

Method:
Process weetbix in a food processor until fine crumbs. Add to other ingredients and using your hands mix thoroughly. Store in container in fridge. This lasts almost indefinitely. To use dip food pieces in beaten egg, milk, yoghurt etc and then dip rissoles, chicken pieces, sausages, cauliflower and broccoli florets etc just as you would use breadcrumbs. Bake in a moderate oven until the food is cooked through or fry in a pan coated with cooking spray.