Pantry Staples and Homemade Seasoning Mixes

At the beginning of the month we talked about ingredient labels. I told you my goal was not to scare you or make you feel overwhelmed, instead bring awareness to what types of ingredients are unfortunately in our food in the United States. I didn’t want to leave you hanging, so left you with a couple of references.

• Fooducate, which allows you to scan / search products and basically does the ingredient dissection for you, giving each product a letter grade and talking about the good and bad of each product.
• List of ingredients you could print for reference, if you want to start trying to avoid some of the bad ones. The list included ones I spoke about in the post plus many more.

Since I have been talking for the last 7 months about changes you can make in your home, I thought it would only be appropriate to show you what we do at our house, with complete transparency. With that said, I promised you I would share what my fridge, freezer and pantry staples are. Also, each week I will share easy tips of things you can make or do at home to avoid buying products with junk in them.

For us, a well stocked pantry, fridge and freezer helps keep us on track. Also, I plan our meals to help us stay focused at the grocery store and only buy what we need, because buying higher quality food can be more expensive. Check out how we meal plan here.  

We have covered the fridge and freezer and are now finishing in the pantry. You might have seen a sneak peek of our pantry when we first moved into our new home last fall. I am pretty sure people think I am crazy, but I embrace it and love it!! Hehe. Lets get started.

Cereal:  We buy Whole Foods 365 organic brown rice cereal. This cereal is a 100% whole grain and only has three ingredients. They are great for my granola bars. I am not a big cereal and milk person, but this would be a better alternative to some cereals out there. You will likely want to add some sugar, which is fine because you get to control how much instead of the manufacture. We usually have one more box of cereal but the type varies. We try to do organic and watch the sugar content.

Organic oats: We buy these from the Whole Foods bulk bins and store in a large glass jar. They go in my morning smoothies, granola, energy bites, and granola bars.

Whole grain crackers: We typically have three different brands and none of them are organic. Similar to what I said about the ice cream last week, sometimes I prefer to have a non-organic product because it has less / better ingredients. The first, Back to Nature Harvest Whole Wheat Cracker, only has three ingredients: whole wheat, safflower oil and sea salt. This is my favorite cracker. I use it with cheese, peanut butter or by itself. The second cracker, ak-mak, is made with also only a few ingredients: organically grown whole wheat flour, clover honey, sesame oil, dairy butter, sesame seeds, yeast and salt. I particularly like this cracker with tuna or egg salad. Finally, the third, Back to Nature Golden Honey Oat Graham Crackers, is not as great for you and has a bit more ingredients, but it is still a whole grain due to the whole grain wheat flour and oats. This is something I use for my dessert fruit crisps or s'mores

Brown rice noodles: We buy Annie Chuns. There are a few varieties and are 100% whole grain, but not organic. These are great for asian dishes.

Grains: We have a ton of 100% whole wheat organic pasta varieties. While they all probably taste relatively the same, I think certain types are better in certain dishes. Plus, having a variety keeps things interesting for us. We also have a short and long grain brown rice, quinoa, and couscous, which are all purchased from the Whole Foods bulk bins. All of the grains are stored in large glass jars. Read more about whole grains here.

Raw organic honey: We buy the Whole Foods 365 brand and it is used as a primary sweetener in our house. Read more about sweeteners here.

Cacao powder: We buy Navitas Naturals and it is great for homemade hot chocolate or desserts.  Read more about chocolate here.

Various oils:  We have a variety, most all organic, including, extra virgin, peanut oil, coconut oil, and walnut oil. More on oils next week.

Various vinegars:  We have a variety of organic options including balsamic, red wine, white wine, apple cider, rice and distilled white.

Various dried seasonings: We have tons and tons. This is fun for me when cooking. We usually buy them in small quantities, because despite popular belief they don’t last forever. We get them at the City Market by the spoonful or Whole Foods has a bulk area where you can buy what you need.

Various canned / bottled products: We buy Whole Foods 365 organic pasta sauce, fire roasted tomatoes and tomato sauce. We also usually have some tuna on hand and occasionally a can of organic pumpkin puree, especially in the fall. I hope to start making homemade tomato sauce in the future and freeze.

Organic broth: We buy boxes of Whole Foods 365 chicken, beef and veggie broth. Once a box is opened it lives in our fridge until gone. Broth is great for adding extra flavor while cooking veggies and grains.

Panko breadcrumbs: This is not a whole grain product and is definitely processed, but sometimes panko breadcrumbs just make the dish. We like them because they make a nice crispy coating. Check out my stuffed peppers and twice baked potato crisps.

Tea and coffee: Nothing special to say here. We do try to do organic when we can, but thats really all we look at at this point. I am sure there is more we can learn about, but not there yet.

Miscellaneous: We stock organic cornstarch and cornmeal, along with baking soda and baking powder. If buying corn products we always do organic to avoid GMOs. My husband loves fish and my favorite way to make it either as a fillet or in tacos, is coated in cornmeal. Check out a recipe for crispy tilapia here.

Chips: My husband loves chips. This is a hard one, because trying to find a better chip can be tricky. We do a lot of kettle chips that only have ingredients of potatoes, oil and salt. Also, veggie chips and pretzels are always on hand. Finally, we have organic corn chips and taco shells for Mexican dishes. Again, we make sure when buying corn products, they are organic or at least non GMO verified.

Organic popcorn kernels: We buy from the Whole Foods bulk bins. Check out how we make it here.

Unreal: More chocolate!  We can’t and don’t want to withhold ourselves, so instead it is important to have better options available at our house. Read more about unreal and chocolate here.

Trends today - we are not perfect! We still buy canned foods and some processed foods. I hope you realize I have never tried to portray we do everything perfectly and you don’t need to either. The goal is to try to make better choices as often as you can. Please remember that!

Now onto the tips for this week - homemade seasonings. Most packaged seasonings have maltodextrin (a GMO), artificial colors and flavors, corn starch, etc. Today I am sharing a homemade chili, taco and fajita seasoning mix you can make at home to avoid all that junk! Plus, a yummy ranch dressing you can make at home!

Lets start with the chili, taco and fajita mixes.

Homemade Chili Seasoning Mix:

Ingredients:

Chili powder, 2 T

Cumin, 1 T

Smoked paprika, 1 T

Garlic powder, 2 tsp

Onion powder, 2 tsp

Sugar, 1 tsp

Salt, 1 tsp

Whole wheat flour, ½ tsp

Makes approximately ⅓ c seasoning. Mix with 1 pound ground beef and your other favorite chili mix ins (beans, onions, garlic, etc)

Homemade Fajita Seasoning Mix:

Ingredients:

Chili powder, 1 T

Cumin, ½ T

Cayenne pepper, ¼ tsp

Garlic powder, ¾ tsp

Onion powder, ¾ tsp

Oregano, ¼ tsp

Coriander, ½ tsp

Salt, 1 tsp

Pepper ½ tsp

Makes approximately 3 T seasoning. Add mix to ¼ c water and add marinade to 1 lb meat - I like half steak, half chicken.

Homemade Taco Seasoning Mix:

Ingredients:

Chili powder, 2 T

Cumin, 1 T

Chipotle ½ T

Onion powder, ¾  tsp

Garlic powder, ¾  tsp

Salt, 1 tsp

Cinnamon, ¼ tsp

Makes approximately 4 T.  Brown 1 lb ground meat. Add seasoning and ¼ cup water. Mix and cook for a few more minutes until combined and water absorbed.  

Better Bonus Tip: This has some bite to it, which is how my husband likes it. If you don't like it this way, consider using less or no chipotle. 

Now onto the ranch dressing.

Homemade Ranch Dressing Mix:

Ingredients:

Dried parsley, 1 tsp

Dried dill, ½ tsp

Dried onion powder, ¾ tsp

Dried garlic powder, ¾ tsp

Salt, ¼ tsp

Pepper, ⅛ tsp

Add mix to ¼ c mayo, 3 T milk and juice from ½ fresh lemon. Makes ½ c (4 servings of 2 T each). This is a runnier ranch than what you might be used to. I don't use this necessarily for dipping with veggies, but works great in salads!

Better Bonus Tip: Check out your local farmers market for cheap dried herbs. Our main large City Market lets you buy in bulk, usually $1-2 per scoop. Feel free to double, triple, or quadruple the seasoning mix ingredients and store in your pantry in a glass jar. Make sure to stir up mix before scooping out what you need for each serving.

~Ashley

Freezer Staples and a Tip!

At the beginning of the month we talked about ingredient labels. I told you my goal was not to scare you or make you feel overwhelmed, instead bring awareness to what types of ingredients are unfortunately in our food in the United States. I didn’t want to leave you hanging, so left you with a couple of references.

• Fooducate, which allows you to scan / search products and basically does the ingredient dissection for you, giving each product a letter grade and talking about the good and bad of each product.
• List of ingredients you could print for reference, if you want to start trying to avoid some of the bad ones. The list included ones I spoke about in the post plus many more.

Since I have been talking for the last 7 months about changes you can make in your home, I thought it would only be appropriate to show you what we do at our house, with complete transparency. With that said, I promised you I would share what my fridge, freezer and pantry staples are. Also, each week I will share easy tips of things you can make or do at home to avoid buying products with junk in them.

For us, a well stocked pantry, fridge and freezer helps keep us on track. Also, I plan our meals to help us stay focused at the grocery store and only buy what we need, because buying higher quality food can be more expensive. Check out how we meal plan here.  

We talked about the fridge last week. Onto the freezer today, starting with the yummy desserts!

Homemade Popsicles: I had been wanting to make my own popsicles for a while, so a few months back I purchased these. Having a few popsicles on hand really allows me to get my sweet fix but still do it smart. Right now I have a basil creamsicle variety. My husband didn’t really care for these, but I thought they were refreshing. I will probably try a few more recipes before I start experimenting on my own, but maybe I’ll have a post soon dedicated to them.

Ice cream: The ice cream we buy is not an organic ice cream. In my opinion, sometimes there are better options. I would rather have an ice cream with only 6 ingredients than an organic variety with 15. We buy Whole Foods brand, one pint of strawberry and one pint of coffee. My favorite is just having a few spoonfuls in the evening after dinner, straight from the container!

Frozen yogurt covered berries: Check out how to make them here. Great for snacks!

Chicken: We buy and freeze proteins simply for convenience. A lot of people would probably cringe and I agree fresh is best, but for me to be successful I need a well stocked freezer with proteins.  My frozen chicken breasts are actually not organic, but they are antibiotic free - we buy Nature’s Rancher brand. I do however, buy a few whole chickens and these are organic. I still have some room for improvement in this department and hope to start sourcing from a local farm soon.  There are times where you can source from a farm that practices organically, but doesn’t go to the effort to get the USDA label - this helps with cost. Remember, it is illegal to use hormones in chickens, pigs, turkeys, so don’t let a hormone free label trick you into buying a more expensive brand.

Beef: We always have ground beef and steaks from a local farm, raising grass fed cows. We are actually about out, so will soon be looking for a new farm to source from soon. My friend told me about one guy that you can buy as much or as little and pick up from the downtown Kansas City Market. I hope to get in contact with him soon.

Pork: We like to have a few chops and tenderloins on hand also. We buy Whole Foods family packs of chops to save money and then use my food saver to vacuum seal in individual packs of 2.  Again, remember, it is illegal to use hormones in chickens, pigs, turkeys, so don’t let a hormone free label trick you into buying a more expensive brand. Check out how Whole Foods uses a rating system to help the consumer know about the animals environment that they were raised in.

Seafood: We buy bags of shrimp, tilapia, scallops, but by far go through the shrimp the quickest. Same theory as above on frozen vs. fresh.

Cooked ground beef: We always have cooked taco seasoned ground beef stored in a large pyrex for quick Mexican meals. Also, we do the same with some unseasoned cooked ground beef which is great for pasta, pizza or stews.

Frozen anytime burritos: These are great for keeping us on track. Read about what I do here.

Cooked meatballs: Another item keeping us successful when we need a quick meal. Either eaten by themselves, on sandwiches, or pasta. Get the recipe here.

Brown rice: Since brown rice takes so long to cook, we make a huge batch and freeze in individual pyrex containers for easy dinners. Check out my tips here.  

Beans: Over the past year, we have started making our own beans. BPA is found in most canned food packaging, plus making your own saves you money, so this was a no brainer for me. See my tips below. All you need is time (although I know that is sometimes easier said than done). I typically have a lot of black beans, and also some kidney and garbanzo beans stocked.

Organic frozen fruits and veggies: We have tons of organic frozen fruits and veggies on hand. Literally, six types of fruit (usually a combination of peaches, bananas, mangos, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and cherries) and probably give or take six types of veggies (corn, baby peas, snap peas, artichokes, okra, edamame, squash) . We buy Whole Foods 365 brand. The fruit is primary for my morning smoothies, although is great in fun summer drinks. The veggies are great for dinners. Frozen is always better than canned because the produce is frozen at its peak freshness and is not mixed with other liquids (juice, salty water, etc). I don’t use pyrex for these because I found I was getting into these containers frequently and the lids weren’t working as well. Instead I use these glass containers.

Nuts and seeds: Tons of variety here that we buy from Whole Foods bulk bins. We store them in mason jars and put them in the freezer to increase shelf life. My husband loves to just snack on these, but they are also great for salads, granola, energy bites, homemade peanut butter, chocolate nut clusters.

Chocolate cacao chips: We buy these in the Whole Foods bulk bins and they are stored in a mason jar. Again, great for a snack by the handful or in my energy bites or chocolate nut clusters. Read more about cacao here.

Wheatgrass: We buy the Amazing Grass Green SuperFood Original blend. When we need more, we search health websites or amazon for the best deal. While I don’t think this is the only reason, consuming this I do believe has contributed to me not being sick in many years! I use one scoop in my smoothie each morning.

Ground flaxseed: Purchased from the Whole Foods bulk bins. Make sure it is ground or you will not get the benefits. Great to add into baked goods!

Organic whole wheat flour: We buy from Whole Foods bulk bins and store a large mason jar in the fridge. The remaining is stored in the freezer in a larger container. Whole wheat flours will not last as long on a pantry shelf.

Organic butter: We buy Kalona Super Natural unsalted butter which is hormone and antibiotic free and from grass fed cows. We usually only keep one stick in the fridge and the rest in the freezer.

Breadcrumbs:  We use almost old bread to make bread crumbs and store them in a mason jar in the freezer. Check out how here.

Breads: We freeze our bread products to increase shelf life. Some people hate this, but it works for us. We have Ezekial sprouted grain hot dog buns, bagels and english muffins. We then use Whole Foods 100% whole wheat sandwich bread. Check out more about sprouted and whole grains here.

Trends you probably noticed this week are use of bulk bins for saving money and using glass containers / jars for storage.  Also, we freeze a lot! Yes, you are probably wondering, we do have a deep freeze and this is a must to fit all we need!

Areas for us to continue to improve are our proteins. These can get very pricey if choosing high quality, so sourcing from local farms as often as possible is what has helped us so far. I hope to do this with most all of our meat in the near future.

Today’s tip is how to cook your own fresh beans, instead of buying canned.

The cheapest can of organic beans at my store is $1.25. I can buy dried organic beans for $1.99 per pound. This particular time I bought 2.25 pounds for $4.50 (that ended up allowing me 4 cups to cook with and still some left overs I stored in a mason jar in the pantry - I get carried away sometimes at the bulk bins with the dispensers). Once I cooked the beans, I ended up about 14 cups cooked beans.  So basically if I bought 7 cans from grocery store (2 cups of beans in each can) I would have spent $8.75. Instead I got double the beans and spent basically half of that. So......

How to cook dried beans

Do a quick pre-soak by adding dried beans and water to a large pan. Bring to a boil and remove from heat. Let sit for 1 hour. After the pre-soak they will have plumed a little.

Now to start cooking, drain the water and add fresh water to cover the beans by 1 inch. Bring to a boil, remove scum that forms on the top (white foamy stuff) and then cook until the beans are tender (can be mashed with a fork or spoon) at a reduce simmer. For me it takes about 1 hour. Make sure to continue to watch the beans and add more water if needed to keep the beans covered the entire time. If you add more than 3-4 cups beans it might take you longer, so just keep that in mind.

Once done cooking, drain the beans and let cool. Add to whatever storage containers you want. I store beans in two sizes of pyrex - some 2 cups (equivalent of 1 can of store bought) and some in 1 cup containers for when I need a little less.

General rule is 1 cup dried equals approximately 3 cups cooked.

Better Bonus Tip: Now that you have cooked your own beans, give my beer bean tostada or hummus a try.

See you next week, where we will finish the tour in the pantry.

~Ashley