Made in the kitchen

Have you started reading ingredients labels at the store yet?

This is my warning that once you do, it's a slippery slope! Before you know it you’re an ingredients household, shopping bulk food stores, and setting aside a whole afternoon just for snack prep each week. It started for me when I had to get serious about my dietary health postpartum. The more I recorded what I was eating and how it made me feel, I started to connect the dots that it was often the additives that made me feel worse. If I ate ready made cookie doughs, I felt it more than If I just made them myself. Bottled oat milk kept me inflamed when home-blended oats offered relief, etc. That's when I started really exploring what I could actually make in my own kitchen. Turns out most recipes are actually really easy, too.

I'm not always great at staying on top of making everything, or eating it before it goes bad once it’s been made. I think it'll be a work in progress to build some of those habits still. And don’t get me wrong, there are still plenty of snacks we buy at the store to have for quick and easy treats for our busy days. No matter how many recipes we get through or learn to make at home, it's always so satisfying when we put a jar of fresh chocolate syrup or a bottle of simple oat milk in the fridge.

Here are some of the things we’ve replaced with at-home recipes so far.

Chocolate syrup

2 parts water

2 parts sugar

1 part cocoa

A pinch of salt, and a splash of vanilla

Add that all into a saucepan and simmer it to thicken. Stir just enough to keep it from burning on the edges of the pot, or bubbling over. Let it cool, then bottle it up and stick it in the fridge.

Oat milk

1 part oats

3 parts water

Drizzle of honey, and splash of vanilla

Blend in short bursts, then filter out “milk” from the oats. I bottle it up, stick it in the fridge, and try to use it within a week.

Energy bites

3 parts oats

2 parts peanut butter

1 part flax

1 part chia

1 part coconut

1 part chocolate chips

A strong drizzle of honey

Combine in a bowl, mix thoroughly, then roll into tbsp balls. Refridgerate and grab a bite when you don't know what it is you’re hungry for.

Thinks I like to make in bulk for the freezer:

Cookie dough balls. Make a big batch of you favorite cookie dough, then roll into balls and freeze flat in a bag. I like to just bake them a few at a time straight from frozen.

Muffins. Bake a big batch of your favorite muffins and freeze the extras in a bag for later. Defrosting muffins in the microwave only takes a minute or two, or let them thaw in the fridge overnight.

Homemade bread of any kind freezes well, but I haven’t found a way to keep it from freezer burning faster than I can use it all up. That doesn't stop me from making big batches of pumpkin or banana breads to freeze and snack on all winter, though.

Things i’m excited to try next

Sweetened condensed milk

Microwave stuffed hasbrowns

Pop tarts

Dinner rolls

Frozen pizza

I'll post updates as I experiment with these, too! Feel free to drop your favorite at-home convenience food replacement in the comments below.