Baking and Cooking ahead

I went on a baking spree this past week. The reason? We have three weekends in a row of soccer tournaments. Two of these tournaments are an hour and a half away and the other one is in town.
Traveling like this always means 2 things:
1) You crash your budget with eating out.
2) You crash your diet because of eating out.

I decided that I would make some food that travels well and that everyone likes. Peanut butter and jelly doesn't always cut it on days like these.

Take a look at some of my efforts:

Homemade soft pretzels. I got this recipe off of a blog I follow called Heavenly Homemakers. This recipe was posted with all whole wheat flour. I made it that way a few weeks ago and they turned out very heavy and we didn't like them real well. This time, I used all white flour. AMAZING! Next time I might use 1/4 of whole wheat to add a little more nutrition. Serve these with some cream cheese to dip in, yogurt, fruit and veggies and you have a filling lunch for on the go!


These are frozen fruit medleys. I made this recipe more for at home meals. These are great for those meals that you need one more side dish to complete the meal. You can also use these as a dessert. It will serve my family for 6 meals. Take a fruit cup out and place it in a small custard cup 20 minutes before your meal. My kids love them! I'll post the recipe at the end of this blog for anyone interested.


Hot Pockets! My good friend Kathy gave me this recipe years ago! Kath, I hope you read this post to see that we are still making and eating your pizza pocket recipe! My kids love these too! I made turkey and cheese, ham and cheese and pizza pockets. You can eat these warm from the oven or cold for an on the go meal.

I also made some muffins for a breakfast in the car but it was at 7:30 in the morning and we had to be out the door at 8:00. I didn't have time to take a picture of those. They were apple cranberry muffins.

Recipes:
Frozen Fruit Medley
1- 17oz. can apricots (drained, reserve juice)
1- 20 oz. can crushed pineapple (drained, reserve juice)
1 c. drained juice (from above fruit)
1/2 c. sugar
1- 16 oz. whole frozen strawberries, partially thawed
3 bananas
1- 6 oz. frozen orange juice, thawed
2 T. lemon juice
Drain first two fruits. Cook 1 cup reserved juice with 1/2 c. sugar till sugar dissolves. Add a little bit of your ingredients to a blender and puree till slightly chunky. Pour into big bowl and continue till all the ingredients are used. Stir your puree to mix well. Pour into lined muffin pans and freeze till solid. Once solid, take out of liners and store in a Ziploc bag in freezer. Remove from freezer 20 minutes before serving.

Pizza Pockets (Hot pockets)
2 1/2 t. yeast
1 c. + 3T. very warm water
Dissolve.

Add 1 1/2 t . sugar, 1 t. salt, 2 T. butter melted (1/2 t. pepper if desired, I don't use) and mix. Add 2 1/2 c. flour. (I used about 1 cup of that amount as whole wheat)

Mix till a dough forms then knead for 8 minutes. (I put mine in my kitchen aid, remember how I can't live with out it?)

Turn into a greased bowl and cover. Let rise about 1 hour. Punch dough down. I pinched mine into small balls, half a baseball size or smaller, because I wanted to make a lot. You can roll them bigger, you just wont get as many. Roll each ball into an oval and fill with desired toppings. fold over and press edges with fork. Poke holes in top for steam release. Bake @ 350 for 20 minutes. (Less if smaller)
Watch till they are slightly golden and sound hollow when tapped. These don't always brown real dark so rely on the hollow sound more.
Filllings - Pizza, Ham and cheese, Turkey and cheese, Taco meat, cheese and salsa, etc.

You can also put these ingredients into a bread maker and put on the dough setting. Which is what I did all the time till my bread maker died. Sniff. I loved it because you could put it on a delay cycle - dump ingredients in, get finished dough when you are ready to start rolling! Make sure you follow your bread makers directions on the order of ingredients.