As I write this, our fridge is looking a little bare and our pantry, somewhat pathetic. When we did our massive grocery shop three weeks ago, I committed to not setting foot in the grocery store again for the rest of the month. Most of it was for the sake for our budget–we tend to go into the grocery store for milk and come out an hour later with half a paycheck spent on things we “need”–but I also wanted the challenge of planning wisely and getting creative with what we have. Now we’re in the final stretch and our meat is gone, our freezer supplies are slowly being depleted, and I am making anything I can from scratch with our pantry items.
Really, I absolutely love making food from scratch, but goodness gracious, it is not quick.
I console myself with the fact that once I’ve made these recipes more than once, they’ll take significantly less time to prepare. I just have to not give up.
Besides the fact that food from scratch is very budget friendly and a fantastic way to save money, it’s also far healthier. Admittedly, I love to splurge on unhealthy foods such as chocolate cake and ice cream–I’m just making sure that when I do it, I’m doing it with indulgences made from real ingredients.
Processed foods are linked to all sorts of diseases and health issues, including cancer, and they simply don’t taste as good as food made at home. Is it realistic to make everything from scratch? For many of us, no, but I’m currently at a stage in life where I have the time and it’s really important to me that our family eats whole foods so this week was the first week where I branched out and started experimenting with some new from-scratch deliciousness.
One day we did chocolate gelato. Another night, gyoza (also known as potstickers or dumplings,) and finally, a simple but very special meal of bagels and diary-free tomato soup.
I’ll start with my favorite, dessert–there’s something about ice cream that’s irresistible to me. Usually, we spend lots of money on expensive, natural ice creams from the grocery store, but not this month! This month I was doing it myself.
Here is the recipe for the fantastic chocolate gelato I made, with a few simple recipe modifications. First off, I used only whole milk–no 2% or cream–and I used raw cacao powder instead of regular processed cocoa. The recipe took me about an hour to prepare and then it took all night for it to completely freeze, and the wait was painful.
Painful but so, incredibly worth it. My husband even told me it might be the best chocolate ice cream he’s ever had.
Next time, I plan to use coconut milk instead of cow’s milk and swap out regular sugar with coconut sugar or sucanat. I think chocolate and coconut are a fantastic combination so I fully expect this to be a successful healthification of this amazing gelato. Oh–and I didn’t even have an ice cream maker. I just poured it in a pan, stuck it in the freezer, and stirred it every once in awhile. Sadly, there are no pictures of this one as it was gone far too quickly. When I do this again, I’ll certainly be making a double batch.
Another favorite in our family is gyoza, the Japanese version of potstickers. My parents made them from scratch when they lived in China, but growing up, we would buy them in bulk from Sam’s Club and I still remember how I much I loved those gyoza.
After I moved back to the US following nine years overseas, I discovered Trader Joe’s carries gyoza…for cheap. Once again, gyoza because an easy family favorite and three years later, we eat them multiple times every month. But this week is the first time I ever attempted them from scratch.
Most “from scratch” recipes tell you to go buy wonton wrappers from the store but that wasn’t good enough for me. Also, I made a commitment not to go to the grocery store, so homemade gyoza dough it would be. Thankfully, I found this extremely detailed gyoza recipe and we had everything we needed so it was a go, and while it did take three hours of work, it was one of most satisfying and filling meals I’ve had in a long time. PS. The dough turned out great even using half whole wheat dough for a little more nutrition.
First, the recipe takes about 20 minutes to read through, plus it took ages to figure out how to assemble those little nuggets of goodness. Next time it will go a lot faster. Second, we made four different fillings of our own using the scraps in our fridge. It was overly ambitious and took way more time than it would have had we stuck with one, but it was fun!
- German- leftover roast beef, leftover turkey, pickles, sauerkraut. Sounds very weird but it was delicious.
- Asian- more leftover turkey, cabbage, sambal, soy sauce, and mango chutney. Mango chutney–what? This sweet and spicy Asian combination was my favorite for sure.
- Mexican- scrambled eggs, salsa, and cilantro. Kind of like a mini breakfast burrito.
- Buffalo turkey- more turkey (can you tell what meat we had left?) plus spinach, kale, and buffalo sauce.
Interestingly enough, it seems that making gyoza is in my Asian genes because when I read the instructions on how to assemble gyoza, I was confused out of my mind, and then when I started it was like my hands just knew what to do. Within a minute I was pleating like a boss! Being a quarter Asian certainly comes in handy for meals like these.
After the gyoza incident, I had to inform my poor husband that we are indeed out of all meat except for canned tuna. I knew it would be a difficult conversation for his carnivorous soul to handle, so I tried to lighten the load by coming up with a consolation meal for him. But how could I console him without meat?
Cheese.
Cheese covers a multitude of sins.
So cheese it would be–grilled cheese bagels with tomato soup. From scratch, because we had neither bagels nor tomato soup. So the scratch-making was beginning again…
Thankfully, I found a recipe for two-hour homemade bagels, and I have my own tomato soup recipe, so it seemed manageable.
The bagels were ridiculously fantastic. I made them with 1/3 whole wheat and didn’t notice any extra density so next time I’m going to try it with half. At first, I was concerned because the bagels didn’t seem to be rising during all the resting time, but when they came out of the oven they were perfectly light and fluffy. It was hard not to finish all eight for dinner.
Bagels are something I’m going to start making regularly after seeing how simple they are. There is a lot of waiting time, but with proper planning, it would actually be very easy. Oh, and we don’t have a stand mixer so I kneaded the dough by hand for 20 minutes and then I had my workout too–double win there.
The tomato soup is so simple and easy but yet so flavorful as well. I always make sure I have canned tomatoes and coconut milk in my pantry so this is something I could make anytime.
Dairy-free Tomato Soup:
- 1 small red onion
- 4 carrots
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1 28oz can of whole or diced tomatoes
- 1 can coconut milk
- 1 cup of stock liquid, we used leftover homemade turkey gravy because that’s what we had but I would also recommend bone broth or chicken/vegetable stock
- 1 sprig fresh rosemary (2 tsp dried)
- 1 1/2 tsp salt to taste
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 drop Basil essential oil
- 1 drop Oregano essential oil
Chop up carrots, onion, and garlic and saute in medium large saucepan until browned. Add all other ingredients and bring to a boil, then simmer for 15-30 minutes. If you’re using essential oils, do not add until after the cooking process as heating can ruin the health benefits. Blend with immersion blender or regular blender (careful–very hot liquid!) or leave chunky if that’s your thing. Super simple!
The hardest part of making these ostensibly complicated recipes was trying to figure out what on earth I was doing. However, now that I’ve done it before, I’m confident I could cut the prep time in half. There are certainly days when I don’t have a lot of time, but these are all relatively simple recipes where the longest time comes waiting for dough for rest or gelato to freeze.
Am I a firm advocate for making everything from scratch? Umm, no, because we’re all wives and mamas and our sanity and time to rest matters too. But if you enjoy being in the kitchen and have the time–go for it!
We all want to do what’s best for our families and for some of us that’s spending hours experimenting with new recipes so they can eat delicious, special meals made from whole foods. For others of us, we do the best we can with our budget, buy food as whole as possible, and spend our free time taking care of ourselves because tired, stressed women are not best for families. Whole food is important but whole mamas are more important.
Have you been experimenting with any new recipes lately?
Let me know, and as always, if you have any suggestions or a recipe you think we would love, leave a comment and share!