First off, when you first open your powdered cheese, dont be too shocked when it's not a full can. After things get packed they settel, there was probaby a good 2 inches of empty space when I first opened the can. Well, to get the full effect of our powdered cheese, I wanted to really taste it. What better way to use a cheese sauce than with Mac & Cheese! This is everything cooking, simple. Noodles in the pot, and 4 parts water 1 part powdered cheese for the sauce. I started off with 3 parts water, and after I had it stirred pretty well it still had lumps, but if you put all your lumps together and poor your 4th part of water (boiling/really hot) over them, and whisk it, most of them disappear. Differences between boxed mac & cheese, and doing it this way: 1)you have to make the sauce separately, you dont mix it with the noodles until the sauce is complete, 2)no milk or butter required, 3) you can make as much or as little as you want so you dont have wasted leftovers.
We didnt have any macaroni noodles, but I did have a huge bucket of whole wheat pasta that we used. Gavin was VERY interested in the noodles, he tried to eat them uncooked, but then decided that they were better as places to stick your fingers.
Me with the finished product. I had already tried it at this point. All it needed was a little salt. It didnt taste quite like boxed mac & cheese, but thats because we didnt use regular macaroni noodles. Whole wheet noodles have a different texture and take a little bit longer to cook. But in this house, we happen to like the whole wheat noodles, so we were totally ok with it. The sauce was EXACTLY like out of the box. We did add a little bit of salt to ours, but the sauce would have tasted just fine on broccoli (which we may do today), or you could add some salsa to it and dip taco chips in it. I've already got TONS of ideas for this stuff.
After I had tried it, I gave a bowl to the real critics. They were EX-STATIC! Lately we've been having either germaid or oatmeal for breakfast. The other day, Gavin wouldnt eat it by himself. He was hungry, but it made him sad to have to eat the SAME stuff again. In order to get him to eat, I had to force feed him. He didnt spit it out, cause he was hungry, but he cried the entire time I fed him. He really didnt want to have oatmeal AGAIN. When I place this bowl in front of him, he lit up like it was christmas. Gavin ended up eating 3 little kid servings of pasta.
One of the worst things that happens, when living off of food storage, is food complacency. You'd rather NOT eat, than eat the SAME THING over and over. Mac & cheese is a REALLY familiar food for almost every kid in America. We've still been living VERY cheaply and have been eating basic foods. So when we got mac & cheese, it was like we splurged for the kids. Every single one of them was happier. So one of my next goals for my IMPROVED food storage, is to have some "comfort food." Noodles are fairly cheep, especially when bought in bulk, and when stored properly...last FOREVER! we only ended up using about 1/2 a cup of cheese powder out of the whole number 10 can and it made a pot of mac & cheese large enough for our whole family. It takes 3 boxes of mac & cheese AT LEAST to feed all of us. So even if all we ever did with this powdered cheese was mac macaroni & cheese, it would be worth it. But the glorious thing is, it's SSSOO versatile. I will be putting this in soups to make them cheesier, poor it over chili, use it on baked potatoes, poured over veggies, shake the powder over popcorn, make nacho cheese, sauce on a cheese Pizza, and these are just the ideas that I have come up with to use it for. The list is endless.
As far as living off of food storage goes. Dont let your food be bland. Here in America we put cheese on EVERYTHING. And Cheese is something that is a little difficult to store. If you freeze it, it needs to be shredded, but then you MUST have the freezer space. Lots of homes, ours included, only have the small freezer on their fridge. The space in that freezer should be used for meats. If you dont have to freeze your cheese to store it for long periods of time, it frees up a LOT of space. When we were living entirely off our food storage, fresh cheese was one of the first things to go. If you have some powdered cheese, your family will not feel so deprived when you're down and out.
Marisa's Grade for Honeyville Powdered Cheese. A++!!
great price, great taste, smooth texture, extremely versatile, and a familiar food.
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