Category Archives: In my kitchen

recipes, tips,and knowledge gleaned over years of preparing thousands of meals

Garbage bag snack mix……a large family snack

That title doesn’t even sound appealing. But for our large family its a monthly item. With so many little ones we were always grabbing a bag of pretzels or snack mix for a quick treat for them. They grew tired of always having plain pretzels (but they were cheap) and they loved the snack mixes but at $4 a box we couldn’t afford that. So we came up with the garbage bag snack mix. I would purchase their favorite snacks–cheese balls, bugels, combos, etc but then I would throw in the boring stuff like cheerios, chex cereal, oyster crackers, and pretzels. Then we would have a snack mix that would stretch our budget.

First we gather all items

Image00004

Next we get a heavy duty trash bag

Image00005

Then we let each child participate.  Each child taking turns dumping their snacks into the bag.

Image00011

Image00020

Image00025

Then we let an older one roll the bag to mix it up.

Image00029

Doesn’t that look good???Image00033

 

 

Scoop into gallon ziploc baggies.

Image00035

We store ours in a cool basement, but you can store them in the freezer for longer than the month.  It will ensure the freshness of the snack mix.

Image00037

An easy to grab snack when on the go, don’t forget to bring small plastic cups for everyone’s portions.

You can use any combination of items you like.  Here is the ones that we typically use.

4 boxes crispy oats cereal
3 boxes rice squares cereal
3 boxes corn squares cereal
4 bags puff corn–buttered and cheese flavored
1 large box goldfish
2 boxes wheat thins
2 bags frito twists
1 bag multigrain crisps chips
1 bag nacho cheese chips
1 bag pretzles
1 bag combos
2 boxes cheese snack crackers
1 bag potato skins
1 bag cheese puffs
2 bags bugels cheese and regular

Kid friendly homemade tomato soup

Around our home, even though we try and teach our children to eat what we serve them.  We occasionally get the “What’s this green stuff in my soup?”, or the “I don’t like diced tomatoes.”  I have come up with a way to enjoy homemade tomato soup that everyone likes.

In a large stock pot over medium heat combine the following

  • 1 can of tomato juice
  • 1 teaspoon of onion powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
  • 2 teaspoons of salt
  • 4 teaspoons of raw sugar (or any kind of sweetener)

 Image00016

While that is heating, in a saucepan, melt 5 Tablespoons of butter.

 Image00008

After the butter has melted, add 4 Tablespoons of flour.

 Image00010

Continue stirring over medium high heat until you get a thick paste.  Careful to stay with this as it will burn quickly.

Image00011

After the tomato juice mixture has reached the boiling point, you can add your butter/flour mixture and stir continuously  to thicken and remove any lumps.  Turn down the temperature to a simmer.

 Image00016

Next you need to add your milk.  If you have 3 cups on hand you can add that to your soup.  I like to use powdered milk as it is very cheap for things like this.  But I need to make some up.

In a large pitcher measure out the desired amount of milk powder

.

Image00017

Add necessary amount of water.

 Image00018

Then whisk.

 Image00020

Pour 3 cups of this into your soup, continue heating until ready to serve.

Image00021

Easy kid friendly tomato soup and  grill cheese. Yum!

Image00022