A Homemade Life- Part 2

This is a continuation from my first post on this topic found here. 

When Brian and I got married, and despite the fact that I was working full time, we still managed to fall into somewhat traditional roles around the house. Due to me working shift work with a sporadic and changing schedule, I was often home during the week and able to do things around the house. I had time for things like cooking and baking, and I had an eager audience to practice on! Brian came home hungry and I was able to make a nice dinner for us to enjoy together- so much more fun than just cooking for yourself. I baked for our lunches, started to make bread from scratch, made granola for breakfast... and it all continued from there. Brian usually cooked for us on the weekends and we still do that now.

The groceries that I bought changed as well. Almost everything can be made at home! For example...

Salad dressing- there is a reason why those dressings keep so long on the grocery store shelves! You can make many different dressings with olive oil, vinegar, fresh herbs, maybe some mustard, and spices. Here are some examples. Delicious homemade dressing goes very nicely with greens from our garden in the summer.

Bread- Fresh, homemade bread is one of the simple pleasures of life. We very, very rarely buy storebought bread- the exception being hamburger or sausage buns.  I have tried making those too- it's just usually a last minute meal for us and there's no time to make buns. But I love homemade bread for a few reasons- it's healthy, it's fun and satisfying to make, its so much cheaper- but most importantly, it tastes amazing!
Making bread from scratch with yeast, kneading it and shaping it into loaves doesn't take as long as you might think. And the only ingredients are flour, water, yeast and salt. It takes about 4 hours including baking time, so a morning or afternoon at home is all you need- and most of that time is hands off! We usually make bread most Saturdays, and slice and freeze it right away for fresh toast and sandwiches all week. Since homemade bread has no preservatives, its best to eat it within the first couple of days, or freeze it right away. We buy flour from Costco in 10 kg bags for about $8.

Homemade falafel (deep fried chickpeas) on a homemade pita bread

Tortillas, pitas, naan- any type of flatbread- Also very easy to make! And much cheaper.. there are all sorts of recipes and they also taste delicious.

Bagels- On the topic of bread, homemade bagels are amazingly good. They are quite time consuming, but well worth it. I have tried the ones from this book and they were delicious.

Granola- I have a classic recipe and it's a quick and healthy way to start the day. There are all sorts of granola variations, depending on how sweet, crunchy, or clumpy you like your granola. We tend to go for mildly sweet, goldenly toasted, and minimally clumpy in our house. It's nice not to have to buy storebought cereal.

Yogurt- I was given a yogurt maker a couple of years ago and have given it a lot of use! I'm not making yogurt as much these days though, maybe once or twice a month... we discovered the plain Liberte yogurt at Costco was almost the same price as buying the equivalent amount of milk and turning it into yogurt. Milk in NL is expensive, $4.25 for a 2 L carton. Maybe I'll make more yogurt again when we live somewhere else.

Baking- the possibilities are endless! Mmmmm. I usually have a couple of types of baking in the house at all times. We keep it in the freezer for freshness and to slow down our consumption.

Granola bars and other snacks- I have tried granola bars a few times, and haven't quite perfected a recipe, but we aren't buying this stuff either.. too much packaging and not cheap either. When our kids are old enough to need packed lunches I'll probably experiment with this again.

Sandwich meat- Brian likes to have meat on his sandwiches, and after a while of buying deli meat every week we decided to try our hand at making sandwich meat at home-- success! We just buy a large cut of meat, for example a beef roast, and then have it for dinner one night. The leftovers get sliced thinly and put in the freezer, all ready for sandwiches! Delicious hearty meat, without all those nitrates, and a lot cheaper too- $3-4 per pound instead of $2 or more per 100g.

Crackers- This is something we just started recently. Who knew crackers were so easy to make! This is my favourite recipe right now.

Beer- Brian has been brewing his own beer for a while now, using grains, hops, yeast... all sorts of interesting combinations and the results have been great! I'm not much of a beer drinker, but even I can tell that he's getting pretty good at it.

I think there's more, but that's what comes to mind off the top of my head. A theme seems to be keeping to a budget, while not sacrificing taste- two things that are important for this graduate student household.

Next up.. why making all this stuff from scratch makes it easier to feed your little ones! Stay tuned for Part 3.

Brown butter toasted steel cut oats with roasted pears... Good Friday breakfast treat!

Our dinner guests... Easter Sunday 2014 (it was a potluck, we din't make all that food! :)