Food Storage Friday #5 - TVP, What does it mean to me?

If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably found yourself walking down the aisles of your local Honeyville store or surfing the pages of store.honeyillegrain.com and, when coming upon the TVP products, have asked yourself: “What is TVP, and why should I buy it?” Today, we’re going to discuss TVP and the what’s and why’s to this interesting and sometimes misunderstood product.

Santa Fe Chicken Pizza Recipe

 

Have you noticed a Southwestern theme occuring this week on the blog? Well I thought I'd continue that theme with my recipe today.

One of the things I remember most about summertime were Friday nights. In my family, Friday night was always pizza night. This meant that mom would get a much needed break in the kitchen while dad picked up a couple of pies from our local pizza joint. Well now that I’ve grown older and have a family of my own, I’ve found a fun way to still have pizza night without breaking the bank at the local pizza delivery place. Unlike the typical pepperoni and cheese, this pizza has a southwestern kick that can only be brought to you by Honeyville. Here are the ingredients to get you started:

Black Bean and Corn Salsa Recipe

This is another family favorite recipe!  We've been making and chowing down this recipe for years.  We call it "Corn Salsa" for short.  My family enjoys watching college football and this will always make an appearance on game day or family BBQ.  It's easy to throw together and makes a bunch--perfect for crowds!

How do you Honeyville?

 

**This Giveaway is Closed**

Congratulations to Kris Bradley for winning a 6-can combo pack of his choice.

 

Do you think have the best cookie recipe using Honeyville's Almond Flour? Or the perfect birthday cake recipe using Honeyville's Yellow White Cake Mix? How about the perfect family meal that uses more than one Honeyville Freeze Dried product? Well, this is your chance to prove it!

Show us how you use Honeyville products in your everyday cooking and your recipe could be featured on the Cookin' Cousins blog and also entered for a chance to win our grand prize, a Honeyville combo pack of your choice!Those combo packs include our Freeze Dried Fruit, Vegetable, Meat, Emergency, Dairy, TVP, or make your own.

Just email us your favorite recipe using as many Honeyville products as possible, along with a photo of the finished product, to blog@honeyvillegrain.com by midnight (PT) on Monday, Sept. 3rd. We will  choose the 5 most interesting recipes to feature and post the photo's of those recipes on our Facebook page, as well as feature each recipe on our blog Tuesday, Sept. 4th. Fans will vote for their favorite recipe by "liking" the photo on Facebook. The photo with the most "likes" by Friday, Sept. 7th at 5 p.m. (PT) will be the winner!

Pull out the flour and measuring cups and warm up the oven, because this is your chance to answer the all-important question: "How do you Honeyville?"

Amazing Nacho Bake Recipe

This recipe I decided is one of my favorites! It was super easy, but really yummy! I even thought the leftovers got better and better! I used chicken, but I would bet ground beef and beef chunks would even be tasty.

Food Storage Friday #4 - Storage Products

 

I can remember as a young boy playing hide and seek in my grandma’s basement and finding, what I thought at the time, was the perfect hiding spot. It was a small unfinished room that had the water heater on one side and built in shelves with my grandma’s food storage on the other side. I remember looking up in amazement at the rows and rows of canned jars that seemed to hold every type of food imaginable. For my grandma, food storage meant canning her harvest from her small garden every year in ½ gallon jars.

My oh my how storing food has changed. While many of us still enjoy canning many fruits, vegetables, jams and jellies in mason jars, the ability to increase our food storage needs has grown because of the advances in the products we use to store that food. Today we’ll highlight just a few of those products and how they can greatly increase your food storage capabilities, as well as the conveniences they bring to your everyday cooking.

Chef Tess with An Easy Cheesy Condensed Soup and a Meal in a Jar

Hello my Darlings! This is Chef Tess, your crazy neighborhood chef-mom and friend. I love being a guest on the Cookin' Cousins and I think you'll be seeing a little more of me! I'm just full of cheese today. This is a cheesy post. I'm just Oozin' with it. Actually...I should never really use the word "oozin'" when I'm talking about food right?  Is oozin' a word? If it is then it is a word that should only be reserved for medical journals. No. I think it applies to food. I think cheese can be (and should be) oozin'...but in a totally delectable non-weird Patch Adams kind-of-way. For instance, in a proper mess of Green Chile-Bacon Baked Macaroni and Cheese when it is in its golden perfection straight from the oven with a crisp crunching topping and the cheese is melty and gooey and divine with smoky nibbles of bacon and chunks of spicy green chilies...there is certainly some remarkable, life-changing oozing going on. Am I right?

Creamy Peanut Butter Milkshake Recipe

As the summer starts to end and the heat starts to trail off, make a milkshake with the family and enjoy a night outside. I have to say this milkshake was quite refreshing for a hot day and really good! Here is what I did:

Freeze Dried vs. Dehydrated

When it comes to food, are you a Freeze Dried or Dehydrated type of person? Before you answer, let me ask you another question: What’s the difference between the two? If any of you are like me, you’ve probably had the same questions pop in your head when thinking about Freeze Dried vs. Dehydrated: Is there a difference in quality or taste? Does one store better than the other?

Today we’re going to discuss just a few of the differences between Freeze Dried and Dehydrated foods and how we can make them work better for ourselves and our families. We’re going to look deeper into the following questions in order to get the answers we’re looking for. Those questions are: What does Freeze Dried and Dehydrated mean, How does it affect my food, and Which one is better for me.

Deep Dish Pizza Recipe

Pizza, a food for all ages any night of the week!  Delicious, easy to make, and doesn't dirty a lot of dishes.  Totally a winning combination!  This recipe was adapted from MyHomemadeLife.

Food Storage Friday #3 - Cooking My Food Storage

Over the past few weeks we’ve talked about the different types of foods and supplies that we should all have in our personal food storage pantry. We’ve covered topics like Mylar Bag Meals with Chef Tess and have examined everything from Freeze Dried Chicken to First Aid Kits. However, in all these discussions, debates, and recipe dissections, there is one topic we haven’t touched on. How are we going to cook all this food, especially if we have no electricity, gas, or heat?

Today’s post we'll be taking a look at three cooking products that every food storage and emergency preparedness kit shouldn’t be without. Not only can all of these items be used without electricity or gas, but they all can be found at any of our Honeyville Retail Store locations. So let’s get started!

Options for the Gluten Free Lifestyle

To gluten or not to gluten? Many ask this question everyday when it comes to their diet. There are many reasons why one would choose gluten free products, ranging from wheat allergens, sensitivity to gluten, celiac disease, diabetes, or even just health and diet preferences. But for many, the question isn’t why to go gluten free. Rather, it is what options are out there that meet a gluten free lifestyle. Here at Honeyville, the gluten free possibilities are endless!

Today we’re going to take a closer look at three of our most popular gluten free products and some of the best ways to use them in your daily cooking. We’ve also got a fantastic recipe from Chef Tess that we’ve included at the bottom.

Mexican Chicken Recipe

This recipe can be served in a couple different ways. Yay for leftovers that are disguised! We tried it served over rice and it was good, but I think it would also be delicious in a tortilla as a burrito or over chips as nachos.

72-hour Kit and Emergency Preparedness

So we’ve all seen the news lately. It seems like you can’t turn the television on without hearing about floods, fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and other natural disasters hitting places all over the world. If you’re anything like me, the first questions you ask when hearing this news is: “Could this happen to me? Could this happen in my town?”

The answer to both of these questions is not necessarily if it could happen, but if we have prepared ourselves for it. Preparation can mean many things for many different people, so today I just wanted to talk about creating a basic plan of preparation in case of an emergency situation.  Today we’re going to take a basic look at a 72-hour kit, or as some people have come to call it, a “bug out” kit. We will discuss why you need it, what you need to put in it, and what additional plans you need to make after preparing one.

Sausage Wonton Bites Recipe

These Sausage Wonton Bites are dangerously good. Like the "I can't believe I just ate 5 but I still want a few more" type of good.  It doesn't hurt that I think they look fancy and impressive when you serve them.  These bites of goodness would be great as an appetizer at your next party or serve everybody a few extra and you've got dinner.  This recipe was adapted from tasteofhome.com.

Food Storage Friday #2: Chef Tess and Mylar Bag Meals

I've had a lot of requests for the detailed tutorial on how to make homemade mylar bagged meals for camping, convenience meals, and emergency preparedness. Below you will find an in depth tutorial on packaging meals inside mylar bags. This is a perfect post to use with the 52 Method meals that I've done in the past and that I'm currently writing the book on as well! These meals are great for :

• new mom baby shower gifts
• foreign missionary care packages
• home-cooked meals from home for military troops
• anyone living in tornado or earthquake zones
• meals-from-home for college students

"Splash" into Honeyville's 15% off Summer Sale

Looking for the perfect way to cool off this summer? Well Honeyville is here with a sale that will help you "splash" in the summer savings!

Starting today, August 9th and running until Tuesday, August 14th, when you shop at store.honeyvillegrain.com or any of our four retail store locations and enter/mention the code SPLASH at checkout, you'll get 15% off your entire order! That's 15% off of all of your Honeyville favorites, including all of our Freeze Dried Fruits and Vegetables, rice, grains, baking supplies, and gluten free items such as our delicious Almond and Coconut flours. This sale cannot be combined with current offers and coupons. In store discount excludes our Honeyville 1 year Food Kits as they are already sold at a discounted price.

Hurry and take advantage before this sale ends.

Easy Pizza-dilla Recipe

I bet you are beginning to think I only cook easy meals.  Well you'd be right, as most days I think "what is the easiest and fastest thing I can make?"  However, sometimes I make something super awesome with multiple sides but then I am spent for a couple of days and just dream of making dessert for every meal. Funny, I'm always in the cooking mood for dessert. I am sure my heart pumps chocolate. My 2 year old and I thoroughly enjoyed these for lunch.  Plus it's adorable to hear her tell her daddy that we ate "pisa-dillas".

Stunning Taco Ring Recipe

 Here is a family favorite recipe for you today! We like to call them Taco Rings but you can re-name them however you like. They are a great, easy meal and the best part is, you can easily make enough to feed a small family or a crowd!

Food Storage Friday #1: Emergency Supplies

Hello and welcome to our first official “Food Storage Friday” post. We kicked things off last week with our special Food Storage 101 segment and introduced six basic Honeyville items that everyone should have in their own food storage.

Well today we thought we’d take the “food” out of “food storage” and focus on those non-edible products that are perfect for anyone's emergency prepardness. There are many non-food items that should always be kept in mind when it comes to continuing the shelf life of our food, such as Oxygen Absorbers and storage buckets with Gamma Lids. For our discussion today though we'll be focusing on products we use every day, which we've seperated into these four categories: Paper Products, Personal Hygiene, Medicine/First Aid, and Lighting/Power.

Summer is for Camping!

Is there anything more summer than camping? I can remember as a kid some of the best summer weekends I had were spent camping with my dad. Whether that was settled up next to a gorgeous mountain lake or just sprawled out on a sleeping bag in the backyard, it was always a great time to just relax by a fire and count the stars and satellites passing by.

However, anyone who has ever camped knows the joys and also heartaches that can be associated with camping food. So today, I thought we’d take the basic three meals that everyone needs for an overnight camping trip and see if we can find the easiest, and even tastiest, solutions out there. Those meals are Dinner, Breakfast, and a snack.

Stuffed Rolls Recipe

Do I have a quick and easy recipe for you today! This recipe can be used for a quick side (any meal), small meal, or snack on the go. Hubby and I just had a midnight snack with it. Grab your favorite Honeyville Freeze Dried Meat and your favorite Honeyville Freeze Dried Cheese, toss it onto a cressant roll and bake. SUPER EASY and TASTY! You gotta test this one out!