Cornbread

I don't like to cook using packaged items. I prefer scratch cooking where possible. I have fond memories of Jiffy cornbread and milk when I grew up. It was a favorite Sunday night meal. I've tried many cornbread recipes looking for a good substitute. This recipe is not at all like Jiffy, but I just love it. I'm told you can grind popping corn to make cornmeal using my wheat grinder, but I haven't tried that yet. I do like to keep a couple of bags of cornmeal in my food storage pantry. One day I will try grinding the popping corn.

Corn Bread

1 Tbsp. butter
1 Tbsp. oil
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup flour
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups plain yogurt (I generally use homemade)
2-3 Tbsp. honey (you can sub sugar, but I like honey best)

1. Preheat oven to 425.
2. Combine butter and oil in 9 inch baking pan and place in oven to melt the butter while oven is heating up.
3. Mix remaining ingredients together and pour into the hot baking dish. Return to the oven for 25 minutes

By the way, now is a good time to pick up extra baking supplies. The sales are best now and around Easter. You should purchase roughly 25 lbs/flour per person for your year's supply. Flour is on sale at Super Fresh for 1.38/5 lb. bag. I generally purchase my honey from Sam's. You should stock around 3 lbs/person in your family. You should stock around 1 lb/person of Baking Soda and Baking powder. You should purchase around 5-8 lbs of salt per person. I keep containers of Sea Salt in my pantry as well as a large sack of Mortons purchased from Sam's.

I hope this helps in your Food Storage preparations.

Pancakes

This recipe is a wonderful staple to have in your recipe book. It's whole grain, but you can substitute white flour if you must. I don't like whole wheat flour from the store. The oils in whole wheat begins to go rancid very quickly. Instead, I buy whole wheat kernals (wheat berries) from the cannery and grind up what I need for the week. What I don't use that day is put in the freezer to preserve the vitamins. Whole foods also sells wheat berries in the bulk food section. To grind my wheat berries, I use is WonderMill http://www.amazon.com/Wondermill-WonderMill-Grain-Mill-110V/dp/B000CPJKWC/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1289746153&sr=8-4 . Fresh ground flour is amazing. I highly encourage you to invest in the grinder. We use both white wheat berries and red wheat berries. If you're new to whole wheat, I would purchase the white wheat. Your family will not be able to tell the difference with white flour.

I buy egg powder for my food storage at http://store.honeyvillegrain.com/powderedwholeeggscan.aspx . You can also find it at Emergency Essentials and Blue Chip Group. For my family of four it is recommended that you have 4 # 10 cans in your food storage.

Pancakes

Nonstick Spray
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup quick oats
1 egg or 1 Tbsp. egg powder and 2 Tbsp. water
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 heaping teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup cooking oil
pinch of salt

Preheat a skillet over medium heat. Use a pan with a nonstick surface or apply a little nonstick spray.
In a blender or with a mixer, combine all of the remaining ingredients until smooth.
Pour the batter by spoonfuls into the hot pan, forming 5-inch circles.

When the edges appear to harden, flip the pancakes. They should be light brown. Cook on the other side for same amount of time, until light brown.
Makes 8 to 10 pancakes.

Homemade Buttermilk

Homemade buttermilk is easy, cheap and so convenient to have on hand. Buttermilk can be used in making salad dressings, biscuits, breads, pancakes and buttermilk syrup. It can easily be made with powdered milk.

1 1/3 cup milk powder (if using cannery milk, it will be half this amount)
4 cups water
1/4 cup buttermilk ( you have to start out with storebought buttermilk, but can use homemade buttermilk for the next batch.)

Pour in a quart size jar. Gently stir to mix. Close jar and place in a dark cabinet for at least 7 hours. When it's thick, it's done and when it is done, just place in fridge. It's ready to use.