Loaves & Fishes

Bulk Recipes   /   Hospitality

 "If everyone thinks alike then no one is thinking."

Please use what works for you and ignore the rest.

This Web Page by Pauline Harding for Art Nurk, askpauline@comcast.net
Contents may be copied for personal use if credit is given.

Healthy Family Cooking

It’s getting harder to find nutritious food among all of the stuff at the grocery store.  Here’s a few quick and easy things to make at home. 

·         Real "Fruit-on-the-Bottom" Yogurt – Some ideas for making your own fruit-and-yogurt combinations at home!  Quick, cheap, healthy, easy – and the kids love it.  Doesn’t get better than this.

·         Turkey Provolone Roll-Ups – A good choice for dieters and great for lunchboxes too!  You can make a bunch at once and freeze them!  Includes quantities for making 4, 8, 16, or 32 at a time.

Bulk Recipes

Got a friend in need?  Help her out with some home-cooked food.  Lighten her load and share your love.  Here are some recipes for cooking in bulk for the freezer.  You can cook a meal for a friend while you cook a meal for your own family, or give both away!  I’ll put up these recipes as I get time…

·         Extra-Special Macaroni Cheese – good enough to give away!

·         Spinach Feta Crustless Quiche -- It’s a main course for lunch!  It’s a side dish for dinner!  Cooking for a whole family?  This goes nicely with the macaroni cheese – picky kids can have just the m&c, while the grown-ups will appreciate the veggies in the quiche.

·         Ham and Broccoli Quiche.  This one makes a fine meal for a couple with a new baby.  You can also freeze individual slices for a mom on bedrest to have for lunch.  And it’s great to take on a picnic.

·         Crumble Topping and Berry Crumble Kit – A very easy to assemble “kit” that makes a very delicious dessert.  If you want to bless a friend with some food, but you don’t have much time, this is the choice for you.  It’s also great to have in the freezer in case of unexpected guests.

·         Coming soon:  Burrito Meal Kit, Pizza Kit, Raspberry-Laced Vanilla Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting.

Containers for Freezing: 
You can freeze in all kinds of containers – zip loc bags, old yogurt or margarine tubs, etc.  For giving away things that will need to be re-heated, foil pans are great.  Try to find ones with the foil board lids.  Use Sharpie markers to write the contents on the non-foil side of the lid.  (The foil side goes on the inside.)  If it’s a gift, I like to add a nice message (“From our family to yours with love.”, etc.)  Nowadays the foil pans are often sold with clear plastic lids.  These look beautiful and are nice to present cupcakes or a quiche to a friend, but for freezing they’re not very good.  They take up a lot of space, they’re hard to stack (and easily crushable), they’re hard to label, and they don’t seal very well.  If you can’t get the foil board lids, just cover with foil.  If you will be using a lot of containers, check out the prices at www.wesellcoffee.com.

Hospitality

The more the merrier!  Feed unexpected visitors in a pinch with these ideas:

·         Slice and Dice - Almost anything can be cut smaller and shared.  Got two slices of leftover pizza and five kids?  Cut it into bite-sized “pizza bites”!  Got three sandwiches and four kids?  Cut into triangles and give each kid three. 

·         Make it smaller – mini muffins, brownie bites, finger sandwiches.

·         Display Matters – anything looks more bountiful when it’s arranged nicely.  Symmetry makes things attractive - Alternate slices of apples with slices of cheese, divide a plate into four wedges with a different type of food in each, put a mound of food in the middle with a few things arranged around the outside.

·         Take Inventory – Before you panic, take a good look at what you’ve got on hand.  Do you have eggs, cheese, and a vegetable?  Make a quiche!  Do you have butter, flour, and sugar – bake something!  Do you have pasta and spaghetti sauce – you’re set!

·         Raid the Pantry – Keep ingredients on the shelf or in the freezer to whip up your favorites.  Cookies, muffins, bread-machine bread, pizza – delicious treats from your pantry.

·         Supplement, supplement, supplement - If the main course is looking skimpy, add something else – apple slices, a salad, bread.