Report on Cooking from Scratch Challenge

(Written yesterday, Sept. 15, 2010)

Today I woke up and took a shower and washed my hair. I was afraid to look at my email to see what the challenge was for today until AFTER I had taken a shower.

I looked at the email from http://FoodStorageMadeEasy.net/ , and it said the challenge is:

DAY TWO: Dietary Limitation: Cook all foods from scratch.

The rules were: Pretend you have an unknown allergy. Avoid ALL preservatives. Cook all your foods from scratch today, using ingredients you can pronounce. Do not use ANY pre-packaged or convenience-type foods.

I'm okay with this challenge, because I was afraid I would be told to evacuate or not use electricity today. I think this will be better.

For all seven days of the challenge, I can't go to the store or spend money or eat out. I am already out of milk, I made some powdered milk yesterday and it is in the fridge.

I was annoyed that I couldn't chew gum today. It has a list of unpronounceable ingredients a mile long.

Assignment: Cook breakfast from scratch.

I made Germade hot cereal (similar to Cream of Wheat). The ingredients list said "wheat farina, wheat bran, wheat germ". I boiled it with water, then added powdered milk and honey.

Then I did a ton of dishes from yesterday and watered my very dry garden.

Assignment: Cook lunch from scratch.

I had some cooked pasta in the fridge, was excited to make a pasta salad, but then looked at a similar pasta package and discovered a lot of unpronounceable ingredients. Had to skip the pasta.

So I cut up some mushrooms, and a cucumber (from my garden), added pine nuts and real parmesan cheese. Realized I have never made salad dressing before. So I decided to use vinegar and oil, but didn't know what kind of vinegar. I looked on the internet and found out I should not use white vinegar, they recommended red wine vinegar. Luckily we had some. It was a pretty good salad. And, I also ate some cooked carrots.

Assignment: Bake a loaf of homemade bread.
Baked 4 loaves of whole wheat bread.

Assignment: Make a delicious dessert from scratch.
Baked some Molasses Sugar Cookies.

Assignment: Cook dinner from scratch.
Ate canteloupe (my first canteloupe from my garden.) And homemade bread, and cookies. That wasn't a very well-balanced meal.

Assignment: Print out some of your favorite recipes to use in case the internet is down during an emergency.
All my recipes are printed out. Any time I use one from the internet, I print it. Plus, I have given all my favorite recipes in a book to my married kids, so if my copies ever gets destroyed I can get them back. I've heard that is one of the saddest things when your house gets destroyed, that no one can replace their favorite recipes.