Whole chicken pays for itself.

Last chicken we bought was only 6 dollars.  Generated about a gallon of polenta with only a few cups of corn meal. Polenta sells for about 4 dollars a tube or about 3 cups at most.. A tube is only a few cups of cooked cornmeal.

Military food slang.

army strawberries - prunes
battery acid - coffee
bokoo soused - very drunk
bug juice - Kool-Aid and other powder based drinks
bullets - beans
buzzard - chicken or turkey
cackleberry - egg
canned cow - canned condensed milk
canteen - a liquor store on base
chow - food, a meal
chow down - to eat
chowhound - first in line at the mess
"come and get it" - the time honored call of the mess sergeant
desecrated vegetables - dried or dessicated vegetables
fly light - to miss a meal
gut-packings - food, rations
hardtack - a baked mix of flour and water, soaked in water overnight, and fried in grease for breakfast
hooch - hard liquor
java - coffee
joe - coffee
kitchen police, K.P. - those assigned menial clean-up duties
lurp - Long Range Patrol Ration
meal refusing to exit, meal rejected by Ethiopia - meal ready to eat M.R.E.
moo juice - milk
mud - coffee
mystery meat - meat that lacks clear identity
rabbit food - greens, especially lettuce
repeaters - beans, sausages, due to the gas they produce
shrapnel - Grape Nuts
tube steak - hot dog

 

SOS

Toast some bread.

Add some left over chicken,

And potato like gravy.

and some green beans.

Topped with a bit of parmesan cheese and you are in heaven for a poor man's
meal.

Piadini = Quesedilla

Mexican quesedillas filled with mashed pinto beans and cheddar cheese.

Italian piadini filled with mashed lentils.and mozzarella cheese (or cheddar cheese).

Cheese piadini are good too.

Legumes

Most people say you do not need to soak legumes before cooking. Unless, we are in a hurry then we usually do not. Personally the yield seems to be larger when you do pre-soak legumes such as lentils.  We like to immerse lentils in warm water from the tap with a little bit of baking soda. Cooking time is reduced, therefore you save on energy. Be also sure to drain the lentils and use fresh water for boiling.

By the say, do not leave theme there too long or they will start to ferment. That is another story.

Pudding.

Normally you would think of pudding as having eggs or or what is known as a custard. You can have a real easy dessert and not have eggs. In fact, the look and feel of this dessert is that close to panna cotta. This dessert should cost you a lot less than panna cotta (cooked cream). It also sets in a fraction of the time of Panna cotta. Quick and easy. Hope is works for you.  A little banana bread with the pudding is a good combination for use as a dessert,

Preferred banana bread recipe: http://www.instructables.com/id/Pane-di-banane/

Step 1: Ingredients.

2 - 1/2 - cups milk.
Teaming 1/2 - cup white sugar. (brown sugar would be an interesting change).
11 teaspoons - corn starch. (approx. 1/4 cup)
1/2 - teaspoon salt.
1 - 2 teaspoons butter
1 - Teaming  teaspoon vanilla

This yields about four to five servings.

Step 2: Warm the milk.

in a two quart saucepan, add the milk and bring to a light bubble (do not Boil! Watch carefully.

Step 3: Adding the sweetness.

Mix the sugar, salt, and cornstarch in a bowl. When the milk has heated to having light bubbles around the edge add the mixture to the milk in small amounts. I usually use a teaspoon to spread the mixture over the top of the milk while I am stirring. Stir or whisk in the mixture well avoiding lumps. Again, do not let the milk boil.Continue stirring till it begins to thicken enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Step 4:

Take the milk off the heat. Add the vanilla and the butter. Stir well so everything is incorporated.  You can pour the mixture in separate serving dishes or just leave in in the pot. Refrigerate until chilled.

Step 5: Dessert.

Mixture even after a few minutes solidifies pretty quick. When finally chilled. serve your dessert. Adding fruit would be a nice touch/ You can not beat that for being easy.

Note if you use powdered milk or evaporated canned milk, this would be a great recipe when camping out. You could whip it up real quick for a picnic also .(Do not for get the ice! (to chill it.)

-----------------

Ingredients:
• 2 teaspoons plain gelatin (from 1 envelope)
• 1/4 cup water
• 5 tablespoons applesauce
• 1 1/2 - cups evaporated milk

Instructions:
1. Moisten the gelatin with the water in a small bowl. Let set for a minute.Heat in a microwave oven for 30 seconds to dissolve.
2. Mix the applesauce in a medium bowl until dissolved. Add the gelatin mixture and stir well with a rubber spatula, as the gelatin mixture tends to stick to the bottom of the bowl. Mix in the half-and-half.
3. Pour into four small cups. Refrigerate. The panna cotta will take 1 to 2 hours to set.
4. At serving time, set the molds on small plates.

 ----------------------------------

Variation: zabaglione

Ingredients

• 6 Egg yolks, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup dry Marsala wine
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• garnish (berries, mint)

Directions

1. In a medium-size copper or other heatproof bowl, whisk the egg yolks, Marsala, and sugar together until smooth. Place over, not in, barely simmering water and continue beating (switching to a hand-held electric mixer at medium speed, if you like) until the mixture is pale yellow and frothy and falls back on itself in thick ribbons when the whisk or beaters or lifted, about 8 minutes, or the egg yolks will cook and the mixture will appear curdled. Remove the sauce from the heat and serve immediately, spooned either into individual cups or over fresh fruit or berries.
2. Chocolate Zabaglione: In a small, heatproof bowl set over a pan of gently simmering water, melt 3 ounces chopped semisweet chocolate, stirring often so the chocolate melts evenly. Remove the pan from the heat but leave the bowl of chocolate over the water to keep it warm. Prepare the zabaglione according to the directions above. Remove from heat and fold in the warm, melted chocolate. Serve immediately

Chicken boil

Cover pot and bring to a boil for 15 minutes. reduce heat to a gentle boil and cook for about 60 minutes, or until chicken meat is falling off of the bone. Remove chicken, let cool and shred or chop the meat.

Simple salad dressing.

1/3 vinegar (apple cider vinegar is better.)
2/3 oil (olive oil is best)
1-2 tsp Salt
1-2 tsp Pepper
2-3 tsp Mustard. (table mustard works for me if you do not have the powdered stuff.
1-2 tsp garlic powder

-----------------------------------------------

Garlic infused oil.


1-  head garlic
1 to 2 -cups salad or olive oil


Remove wrappers form garlic cloves.
Cut cloves up finely/
Put chopped cloves into pan.
Cover with the oil
Put heat on low.
Let cook till you see bubbles.
Do not let the cloves brown. Remove from heat if required.
Chill.
Put into sealed container. Good for up to two weeks.

Second soldering hand in the kitchen,

Recipe cards.

Use tuxpaint to make quickie recipe cards.

Which becomes:

Tortilla press

Updated picture:

But the an old cast iron pan could do a good job too.

Pizza from scratch.

Quickie pictorial how we sometimes make pizza.

Piadini aka quesedillas

Makes 2 units or eight quarter sections.

Ingredients:

1 - cup flour.
2 - tablespoons oil.
1 - teaspoon salt.
1 - teaspoon baking powder.

Method:

In a bowl, Mix all the ingredients well.
Let sit in the fridge or cool place for 10 to fifteen minutes.


Heat a a pan to medium heat.
While you heat the pan, start rolling out the dough into large cicles.
(roll out, make a quarter turn, roll out, and repeat to the width of the pan.)

One at a time take each of the round circles and lay the in the hot pan (WITHOUT GREASE OR OIL).
Let set for 40 to 45 seconds. turn it.
Let set for 40 to seconds again, turn it
Let set for 30 seconds and remove from the pan.
Repeat with the other three pieces.

Set one piece and cover with your favorite cheese.
Take another piece an cover it.

Turn down the heat in the pan.  Put the unit in the pan till the cheese melts.
Remove and put on a serving plate.
Once both units are done, cut into quarter sections.

Livations.

Looking at making wine and beer.

Making wine:

Wine making can be a lot of fun and actually very easy. I do not really drink myself, but once or twice a year can not be too bad. You pretty much make wine the way you make bread (but without the oven. So it can not be that bad for you. Wine is a fruity delight that goes great with any home cooked meal from scratch.

Notice: Some places have restrictions on how much wine for personal use you can make. I think the rule of thumb at least was one hundred  gallons per adult living on the residence to a maximum of 200 gallons. We make only a few gallons and then maybe one every few years.

Step 1: What to Get.

The original way to make wine was to stomp the grapes and  use the liquid from that process. You can already get fruit juice in frozen concentrated and or juice in a bottle. So why reinvent the wheel. personally I like to use apple cider.

Per 2 litres or so.
2 litres apple cider.
1 teaspoon honey. ( Do not like to use sugar as it leaves more residue to filter out.)
1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon yeast per litre. ( i just use regular yeast. but wine making yeast will do a much better job.

Also need 1 balloon per bottle.

Step 2: Fermentation.

Take your materials an put them in a bottle (glass preferably.)
Stir them up well.
Take balloon and flatten it.
Take a simple pin and prick through both sides of your balloon.
turn the balloon ninety degrees and repeat for a total of four holes.
Take the balloon and securely place on top of the bottle.
Do this for each bottle.
As the wine ferments, carbon dioxide will be released so the bottles do not explode.
Place the bottles in cool dry place.
Fermentation should take about two weeks or so when the balloons stop being inflated.

Step 3: Filtering and Aging.

Once the fermenting is done, you will want to filter out the wine from what is in the bottom of the bottle. You may have to do this more than once. If you used giant vats, this would not be such a problem.

Remove the ballons and do that.
Then you need to reseal the bottles with the regular caps.
Refrigerate. (you may want to check on then and release any gas every so may days.)
Now let the wine age to gain some flavor.
The longer you wait the better the taste, but do not wait forever.
I have some that has been sitting in the fridge for more than a year.
Gosh it's good.

Step 4: Taste Your Wine.

You will want to pour some wine in a glass and let it aerate a bit.
Once you have done that take a sip and swirl in your mouth.
You know what to do next!

Making beer:

Yet Another Home Made Beer.

by davijordan in homebrew

Notice: Almost done: just have to add some pictures.

We have made wine before, but never made beer. To be honest, I detest the taste of beer. We set out to make something that could be palatable by all.  We have made several departures from the regular beer making method. We wanted to use what we had on hand. such things as the traditional hops are not used. In our research, we found this departure was done quite a lot.Beer and wine making ore sort of alike in an oversimplified way, but beer is a bit more involved.

Make beer  in a coffee make see:  https://www.instructables.com/id/Coffeemaker-meals-and-etc/

Step 1: Sweet Extraction Bath.

Traditionally from what understand is that 170 degree Fahrenheit water is showered over the base malts and raw meal which is then collected. Here we are going to give our base of good old fashion oatmeal a bath in 170 degree Fahrenheit water and then strain the liquid out of the mixture instead. probably need to strain it twice. once to get out the thick stuff and then a second time with filter paper to get out the residue so the liquid is as clear as possible.

Note: Throughout this whole process, make sure your equipment is clean!!!

Step 2: Flavor Bath.

Now we are going to use the strained liquid from the first step, but add some herbs such as oregano, basil, and maybe onion powder. Whatever the final ingredients, it should be very interesting. This mixture we will boil twice. First for the bitterness and secondly for the flavor.

We will boil this mixture sometimes known as wort for about an hour. We will add our ingredients in three stages.

At the start: 1 cup lemon juice.
Twenty minutes to the end, the spices all but the oregano. (we are using basil and several secret herbs.)
Five minutes to the end, we will add the oregano..

Note: Watch carefully or you might have a boil over accident.

Step 3: Fermenting.

At this point we will add the yeast for the mixture to ferment. We made a bit of sweetness to aid in the fermentation of the beer. This usually takes about two weeks. You will want to add an airlock to let out the carbon dioxide so the tank is less likely to explode from the pressure created during the fermentation.

Note: Plants love carbon dioxide. That is why when you talk to your plants they grow better. The plants are just feeding off the carbon dioxide.

Step 4: Carbonization.

Now the liquid mixture is transferred to the carbonization tank being careful not to transfer any of the remnants of the fermentation process.  Can be thought of as a second fermentation but no yeast is added. we might add a little sugar to get the last bit of additional taste.

Step 5: The Tasting.

Time to taste and the bottle the beer! Then right into the fridge.

Instructables will help you learn how to make anything!

Pasta!

Have not made pasta in a long time. Took some penne pasta and made my own quickie red sauce. The homemade chicken lard really made it good.

Sauce:
Can crushed tomatoes. (fresh is better).
Mushrooms.
Homemade chicken lard.
Garlic salt.
Oregano.
Basil.
Salt.
Pepper.

Using homemade fettucine.

Pasta machine with fettucine attachment or good knife skills.


Noodles:  (mix well into a dough ball)

1 - large egg
1 - cup flour plus some for dusting.
1 - teaspoon salt
1 - tablespoon salad or olive oil

2 - or so tablespoons water only if needed to make sure the dough goes together.

Some of our pasta recipes.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Pasta-2/