Homemade Chicken-Raspberry-Noodles-Jam

The title might be confusing but I'm just trying to efficiently mesh 2 recent THRIVE meal experiences. The post will be crystal clear!

Yes I'm making homemade egg noodles. It's an old family recipe I learned from my cousin when we were roomates at BYU back back back in the day.

It calls for one egg per person, flour and salt to taste. Very precise, I know. Through the years I've come to modify it a bit.

This time out I used all THRIVE ingredients. After all, if it's supposed to be able to feed my family in times of need/lazinessconvenience, I must use them in our favorite recipes. So out came the THRIVE FD (that means freeze dried for those new to my blog) chopped chicken. I love this stuff! It's already cooked, skinned, boned and chopped and rehydrates in about 10 min! Quick stuff! I used my THRIVE carrots, onions, celery and boullion which of course were added to the water in the pot. Next I rehydrated about 6 eggs. That's 1 TBS. of whole egg powder to 2 TBS. of water. Mix and you have liquid eggs ready to go! Then I added about 1 tsp. salt and flour until it was pasta like consistency.

Then they were rolled out very thin like in the first picture. Dust well with flour if you try this. Then roll up the pasta the short way. By that I mean you've rolled it in a sorta rectangular/oval type shape. Once it's rolled up, using a pizza cutter, slice through in about 1" sized pieces, unroll and add them too the boiling broth.

It turned out just as yummy and disappeared just as fast as if I had done it the way I learned in college and spent the WHOLE FREAKIN' DAY preparing this meal!! (There is no picture of the final product. It was fast Sunday and that large kettle of chicken and noodles was gone like the wind) So what about the raspberry jam mix thingie? I got some YUMMY fresh raspberries at the local farmer's market Wednesday. I had every intention of saving those fresh little sweeties for jam. But I saw then I noticed the ever shrinking bowl that no one claimed responsibility for. Anyway, I smashed up the 4 containers of berries. I needed 6 smashed up cups.

As you can or can't see here but trust me it's the truth, I am exactly 1 cup SHORT. I searched the freezer for some sign of frozen berry stuff. I did find some freezer burned strawberries which I took out and began to thaw. THEN I remembered that I had the bits, pieces and powders at the bottom of a large can of THRIVE freeze dried raspberries. Brilliant!

I pour the remnants into a measuring cup and added water just to rehydrate to a thick mush state.

As you can now see, my 5 cups of smashed raspberries now comes to 6 cups and I'm off to make my jam....Well I'm back and guess what? It's delicious and it's all sealed up just fine in my jelly glasses and put away in the pantry. So whenever you get in a pinch in the kitchen, remember your THRIVE products. They really can save the day even if it's not during a natural disaster!

Pizza on the fly

Okay I have to admit that I'm a lazy chef. REALLY L-A-Z-Y. I don't like to spend that much time in the kitchen. Even though chefery (is that a real word?) seems to be all the rage and helps people 'overcome stress', 'find their niche', 'master their demons' and ad infinitum, I am not one of those persons. I want to grab something tasty and quick and that's what I want to prepare as well. Cereal and milk? You get where I'm coming from! So yesterday after thrift window shopping for much of the day, I returned home and felt guilty about my hard working husband and felt I should at least prepare something good for him. So I took this.... Split it into two lengthwise, lightly buttered it and topped it with this... I used one can of tomato paste, one can of water from the tomato paste can, one tablespoon of THRIVE powdered tomato, large pinch of oregano, 2 tsp. of sugar, 1/2 t. salt, pinch of anise seed and a heaping tablespoon of Italian salad dressing and heated it in a pan. I used lukewarm water to gently rehydrate 3 cups of FD Mozzerella cheese. I also rehydrated about a cup of FD green bell peppers with 2 Cups of FD sausage crumbles (all THRIVE foods). So I spread the pizza sauce on both of the bread halves, topped it with the drained sausage/bell pepper mix, and then crumbled the softened cheese over the top of it all, spreading it evenly. Okay at this point it has maybe taken me 10 minutes!! I turned on the oven to 400 and put the pizza in for about 12-15 minutes. And this is what I got! And very soon it was gone. Gone, gone, gone (you have to say that like Jeff Bridges in True Grit). But it was yummy, quick, I was the hero of the night and now you can be as well. Pizza on the fly. That's just code for AWESOME LAZY-WOMAN MEAL.