100 % Food Storage Buttermilk Cornbread

A while ago I bought powdered eggs and powdered margarine. Today I put them to good use. I made sweet moist cornbread and everything I used was from my pantry and food storage except for the water. And no I did not use one of those gross premixed grocery cornbread mixes. Those always turn out flat and tasteless. This was completely from scratch.

Even the hubby was a little shocked that the cornbread was straight from the pantry. The kids went back for thirds and I went back for seconds. All I can say is operation make cornbread from only nonperishable food storage items was a success.

I am actually really excited about trying the dehydrated margarine and eggs in all kinds of baking now. I suggest you get them. I also suggest you stock up on dehydrated buttermilk powder. I love this stuff. I never have buttermilk on hand and I love that I can add water to buttermilk powder and have instant buttermilk.

The Recipe
1/2 Cup Margarine Powder
Scant 1/2 Cup Sugar
2 TB of Buttermilk powder
5 TB whole egg powder
1 Cup flour
1 Cup Yellow Cornmeal
1 TB Baking powder
1/2 Tsp salt
1 1/2 Cups water plus 5 TB water


Mix all ingredients together in mixer. Pour into greased 8" square pan and bake at 375 degrees f. for about 30 minutes

Substitutions. If you want to make this with regular eggs -- substitute 2 eggs for egg powder and do not add 5 TB water.

Use real buttermilk. Add 1 cup buttermilk. Reduce water by 1 cup.

Tomato Powder --My New Pantry BFF

A Quick Reminder: Don't forget to enter the giveaway for $50 in Thrive food products. Enter HERE

Who knew tomato powder was so awesome? I am pretty sold on the Thrive tomato powder I received to review from Your Own Home Store. I am a hoarder of tomato products. I store tomato sauce, paste, pizza sauce, stewed tomatoes and now tomato powder.

Tomato powder is cool because it has a ridiculously long shelf life and I don't have to worry about cans with puffy tops that have gone bad. Oh I am keeping my cans too but now I know I have something in my food storage that lasts longer and stays safe longer than canned liquids.

Plus -- So easy to use. Add water to achieve the desired consistency and spices to taste and voila a lovely paste, sauce or marinara. You can also use the powder in other ways but I was challenged to recreate my saucy egg recipe and so I did. I also got some freeze dried mozzarella to try with this recipe. That stuff is pretty cool melted too. I am not sure I am all for eating it just straight rehydrated. But it is awesome melted. I couldn't even tell the difference between my normal melted mozzarella and the freeze dried rehydrated in this recipe.

So here is how easy it is to use.

2 cups water
1/2 cup tomato powder.
Spices to taste.
I used basil, garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, salt, pepper. Sorry, I didn't measure I just kind of seasoned by eye and taste. That is pretty much how I roll with homemade marinara.
Still, here is a good recipe for marinara from tomato powder

Saucy Eggs Recipe

Mix powder, water and spices in large saute pan. Heat until  sauce starts to bubble around edges. Add eggs on top of tomato sauce. Add 1/2 cup freeze dried mozzarella on top of eggs and sauce.

Cover and cook until eggs are desired doneness. Do not overcook or your sauce will get to thick.
This tasted really good and the eggs were beautifully poached and saucy as always. I love that this is an easy and affordable meal I can make straight from the food storage. Add some waffles and you have a filling meal.

Mango Paco Challenge & Giveaway Announcement

I do so love a challenge. So when Your Own Home Store contacted me and challenged me to recreate my saucy egg and paco dinner (see here for the original recipe) with their Thrive food storage items, I was so excited to see if I could recreate these meals with freeze dried and food storage foods. After all, Pacos (pancake tacos) are a new favorite dinner in our house. It would be good to know I could whip up a unique breakfast completely out of my food storage.  Along with this challenge they are offering my readers a giveaway for a $50 in product of their choice from their Thrive products. More on the giveaway tomorrow.  Sorry for the teaser but I need a separate post just for the awesome giveaway.

So, I got an amazing care package on my doorstep full of these awesome foods to try from Thrive (A Shelf Reliance Product). Along with this remake of Pacos I will be reviewing all the following products over the next couple weeks, just so you can get an opinion on this product line. There are so many bulk food storage products out there. It is nice to get a chance to have a test run before you invest in them. A little note on price. All freeze dried items from any supplier are pricey. Thrive's prices seem to be in the same range as other freeze dried foods.

• Freeze dried yogurt bites (didn't even know you could store yogurt like this. I am the most excited for this product and will be buying some more for my own shelves)
• Freeze dried shredded mozzarella cheese. (will be reviewing next week)
• Freeze Dried Mangos (used in Pacos)
• Tomato powder (review coming next week)
• Instant Milk powder (review coming next week)
• 6 Grain pancake mix (used for Pacos)

Wouldn't you do a little dance of joy if you got a package like that to try? Well I certainly did. So we got busy doing some testing. We found that the freeze dried yogurt nuggets are tasty to eat straight from the can. My kids like them for a snack along with the freeze dried mangos. But we also wanted to see how they did once we reconstituted them with water.

Time to make Pacos.
Prepare your filling ingredients first since they require some soaking time.

The yogurt takes a little experimenting and here is what I suggest.
Measure out 1/2 cup of yogurt nuggets. Add water gradually by about 2 TB at at time and wisk until smooth and desired thickness.

Chill for 10 to 20 minutes. It will thicken a little more when chilled.

My kids loved the vanilla yogurt. It was super sweet. But it was nice to see how much they liked it. So far this is our favorite item.

For the mangos: The mangos really need to soak for at least 15 minutes to lose their crunchiness. Measure out a cup of mangos and soak in a cup of water.

There really is no way I can say these tasted like fresh mangos. They don't. But top them on a pancake slathered with the yogurt and some of your favorite jam and they really are pretty tasty and tangy. I actually really like them as a sweet tangy crunchy handful in their original freeze dried stage.

For the pancakes (which turned out light and fluffy) we simply added water to the pancake mix.
Umm so easy. I threw in a pinch of cinnamon. Taking this on the next camping trip.

We flapjacked those pancakes and then filled them with the paco filling.
Yogurt first, some of our homemade jam (we like pear pineapple or strawberry) and then top with mangos and a pinch of cinnamon.

Despite the fact that this meal came from cans, the kids still loved these pacos.

Now come back tomorrow to enter the giveaway for the $50 in Thrive products.