Which staple/bulk foods can you make at home?

[EnumaElish]

Bread? Yogurt? Beer? Wine?

Yogurt is easy to make. I've never tried baking bread. A friend of mine used to brew his own beer.

 

[Astronuc]

I used to make bread with my father, and we also made batches of marmalade from oranges and grapefruit. The grapefruit marmalade was very good.

My parents used to make preserves when we lived out in the country. We also had a vegetable garden and chicken coop. Many Sundays, we had a fresh chicken roast.


Otherwise, we collect fresh berries, vegetables and herbs when in season.

 

[Yonoz]

Two very easy staple foods that I regularly make and use: labane (strained yoghurt), which will last a while if you roll it into balls and put in olive oil. Tahini - made from sesame paste, simply add salt, herbs, garlic, lemon juice and water. The paste keeps for very long, and you can use it in dressings (try it on roasted eggplant with lemon juice). There are strainers that allow you to germinate grains overnight, so you can keep dry grains (I use whole lentils, chickpeas, fava beans and dark beans), germinate them and keep them in the fridge for a few days. They go well in salads with lemon juice and semi-hard cheeses.
I've one uncle that makes olive oil, another ferments just about anything with sugar in it. Had some really good self-brewed beer once, but the person who made it told me you have to make it in large volumes, and I'm not much of a beer drinker.

 

[_Mayday_]

Nothing better than some freshly baked bread, you know exactly what's in it.

 

[turbo]

My wife and I grow the bulk of our vegetables and I consider salsa/chili relish/pickles staples, and I make and can these at home while my wife is at work. We also gather and freeze a lot of wild and gardened foods and have 2 large chest freezers to hold that food.

 

[lisab]

Bread, easily. Beer, tried it a couple times...tasted a lot like the bread. Yeasty! I bet I could do better, but the process is really long. It would require a long attention span, and I don't like beer enough to go to the effort.

I've made pasta, with mixed results.

 

[EnumaElish]

Bread, easily.

Do you use any special equipment?

 

[_Mayday_]

Do you use any special equipment?

You don't have to, we but the ingredients to make a dough and then either bake it in a normal oven or in a bread machine. Done in an oven has an amazing taste fresh.

 

[lisab]

I used to do it all by hand. Now that I'm (ugh, I hate to say it...) middle aged I don't have the hand strength anymore, and I use a bread machine.

Does that make me wimpy...?

 

[Evo]

Two very easy staple foods that I regularly make and use: labane (strained yoghurt), which will last a while if you roll it into balls and put in olive oil. Tahini - made from sesame paste, simply add salt, herbs, garlic, lemon juice and water. The paste keeps for very long, and you can use it in dressings (try it on roasted eggplant with lemon juice). There are strainers that allow you to germinate grains overnight, so you can keep dry grains (I use whole lentils, chickpeas, fava beans and dark beans), germinate them and keep them in the fridge for a few days. They go well in salads with lemon juice and semi-hard cheeses.
I've one uncle that makes olive oil, another ferments just about anything with sugar in it. Had some really good self-brewed beer once, but the person who made it told me you have to make it in large volumes, and I'm not much of a beer drinker.

Yonoz, those all sound wonderful!

 

[EnumaElish]

A couple of years ago I boiled some fruits with sugar and lemon juice. It made a tasty cold drink, and part of it is sitting in the fridge, intact after 2 years.

 

[hypatia]

http://www.fda.gov/Fdac/features/1999/199_sprt.html#sproutchart
FDA gives the vlaue of sprouts.


I infuse my own oils/vinagar for cooking. I grow many herbs and hang dry about 50% of them and use the rest for my mainstay products. I also make my own soaps and lotions.

 

[Evo]

http://www.fda.gov/Fdac/features/1999/199_sprt.html#sproutchart
FDA gives the vlaue of sprouts.

Thanks hypatia!

 

[sas3]

When I was a kid we all use to help out with the canning of a cornucopia of fruits and vegetables that were grown in our garden.
We also would catch large amounts of fish and prepare and freeze it for storage, my dad would also bye live chickens and kill, gut, clean and freeze them.

 

[Yonoz]

Yonoz, those all sound wonderful!

I like putting a little effort into food, but I'm not a good cook. My previous flatmates are a different story though... I never saw so much effort put into something as simple as hot chocolate! Now I live alone so I need foods I can keep and use in small portions without much effort. I tried abducting one of them but he had a hard time cooking with the shackles and chains on. Besides, I don't think he was really trying.
You can also make "green tahini" which is just tahini with lots of fine-chopped parsley.

 

[Oerg]

http://www.fda.gov/Fdac/features/1999/199_sprt.html#sproutchart
FDA gives the vlaue of sprouts.I infuse my own oils/vinagar for cooking. I grow many herbs and hang dry about 50% of them and use the rest for my mainstay products. I also make my own soaps and lotions.

wow, wheat has about 4 times as much protein as any other sprout! i didn't know that.

 

[Math Jeans]

My wife and I grow the bulk of our vegetables and I consider salsa/chili relish/pickles staples, and I make and can these at home while my wife is at work. We also gather and freeze a lot of wild and gardened foods and have 2 large chest freezers to hold that food.

And I use turbo's recipes. The only thing I haven't gotten to do yet is make habanero laced pickles .

I guess I should wait for my new habanero plant to start blooming before I try anything else.

 

[turbo]

Pickles are great with hot chilies in them. I even made some dill pickles using jalapeno slices instead of cucumber slices, with nice Russian garlic cloves and fresh flowering dill heads. Mmmm! Wonderful way to spice up a tuna-salad or egg-salad sandwich!

 

[moe darklight]

My mom made a cake once.

It came in real handy when my dad had to nail a picture to the wall and couldn't find his hammer.

 

[Moonbear]

Bread? Yogurt? Beer? Wine?

Yogurt is easy to make. I've never tried baking bread. A friend of mine used to brew his own beer.

Yogurt, beer and wine are staples? I can bake bread, and if really forced to do so, could milk a cow and candle eggs, so could handle the bread, milk and eggs staples (just need a cow and laying hens). My vegetable gardening skills have been improving, and I do know how to freeze or can veggies to make them last the winter if I had a large enough garden, so I think I would be covered on the basics if I really had to do so.

 

[sas3]

Pickles are great with hot chilies in them. I even made some dill pickles using jalapeno slices instead of cucumber slices, with nice Russian garlic cloves and fresh flowering dill heads. Mmmm! Wonderful way to spice up a tuna-salad or egg-salad sandwich!

Stop it! You are making me drool, my mom used to make "dilly Beans" (pickled green beans with lots of dill). Every time I think of them I feel like one of " Pavlov's dogs ".
I have to go and clean up now.

 

[gravenewworld]

Depends on how "homemade" you want to go. Beer can be very difficult and time consuming to make. Wine is much easier to make than beer.

 

[Evo]

My mom made a cake once.

It came in real handy when my dad had to nail a picture to the wall and couldn't find his hammer.

 

[Quatl]

Pickles, I make em all the time. I usually have five or ten different verities hanging around at any given time. You can pickle just about anything you want, and there are lots of variations.

Google for a couple of basic recipes and you can make modifications once you know the chemistry (you can get nasty things growing in your pickles if the PH is too far off.)

I also like to make jellies and jams, ice cream (sorbet etc too), various breads, yogurt, young cheeses, dried meats/fruits/vegies, stocks and broths, vinegar (it's delicious but varies too much in acidity so look out for nastiness.) Then I use these things when preparing meals too of course, but you didn't ask about that :)

It's fun to learn to make your own food, and I find that learning to do all of these things has given me a greater appreciation for food in general.