Rainbow Cookies

Rainbow Cookies and gold Coins are the perfect treat for St. Patrick's Day!

They take a bit of work, but it is worth the smiles from the kids.

First, mix the dough according to the directions in the recipe that follows.

Next, divide the dough into 6 almost equal portions. You need just a little more red and orange than the other colors. Use gel food coloring to make the colors of the rainbow. I didn't do indigo, but you can try it if you want to - you'll just need 7 portions of dough. Allow the dough to chill an hour or more.

Begin by rolling the violet into a log about 10 inches long. Then roll out the blue into a flat rectangle so that it can roll around the violet log.

Notice my little helper - the kids were really excited to help. I had a pretty sleepless night last night so with my foggy brain I switched the order of my colors. Green should really be next, but our cookies have yellow. Continue doing this with all the colors. Finishing with the red. Red and orange need a little more dough in the beginning because your rectangles need to be a little wider for them to fit all the way around the log.

I carefully pinched the dough so it would fit. I also stole some off the end that was hanging over to fill in the gap you see here. When you have all your colors rolled into a layered log, wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill until firm. Slice into thin circles - about 1/4 of an inch and place on a cookie sheet.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 5-6 minutes - you don't want them to brown on top at all.

Cut in half immediately after removing from the oven and then cool on a wire rack.

Fun for St. Patrick's Day or any spring day. They would be great for a letter R preschool day also.

This dough can be made a few days ahead and stored in the refrigerator or you can also freeze it and make it a few weeks ahead. The cookies can also be frozen after cooking.

Cookie Dough

• 1-1/4 cups butter, softened
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2  teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• gel food coloring

Cream butter and sugars. Add eggs and vanilla. Add dry ingredients and mix well.

I was tempted to try substituting white bean puree for half of the butter, but I was baking them for someone who cannot have beans so that experiment will wait for another day.

Since you can freeze the butter and the eggs these can be part of your 3 month supply. To freeze eggs, crack them out of their shells and put each egg in a small freezer container. Thaw by placing the container in a sink of warm water. Frozen eggs work great in baking.  You can also fry or scramble them without being able to tell they were frozen first.

White Sauce Mix

Somehow this post disappeared off the blog so here it is again. I well be referring to this often - 

This is one of my very favorite time-saving mixes using powdered milk! I use this in so many recipes, especially for cream soups through the winter months. The original recipe that I found had butter in the mix which required that it be refrigerated. I decided to make the recipe without the butter and then just add the little bit of butter each time. I was making a large batch of Broccoli Cheese Soup one day because we were having company and I just didn't feel right adding 1 1/2 cubes of butter to the top of my soup and then watching it melt in! I decided I would taste the soup first and then add just enough butter to make it taste good. It turns out that we loved the soup without any butter. Now we use this fat free mix all the time.

You can see that I taped the recipe right to the side of my container to make it quick to mix up another batch when I am running low. I also included the recipe for making Country Gravy using the mix. Originally that was what I was using the mix for most often, now I have adapted many other recipes to use the mix and I don't have room on the side of the container for all the recipes. 

I will share White Sauce Mix recipes a little at a time here on the blog. I'm sure you will come to love this mix as much as I do.

White Sauce Mix
Mix up a large batch—believe me, you'll find a million uses for it. It will become a great time saver.
3 cups non-instant dry milk powder	2 tsp salt
2 cups all-purpose flour
Mix together and store in an airtight container. Use in any recipe that calls for making a white sauce using milk, butter and flour. It is a completely fat free alternative and tastes great! It will store for up to 5 years on the pantry shelf.

Basic White Sauce
Many recipes ask for 1 cup of milk, some flour and a little butter. You can use this white sauce in any of those recipes.
5 Tbsp white sauce mix	1 cup hot water
Whisk white sauce mix with hot tap water in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thick. Use in any recipe calling for 1 cup white sauce. Don't add any butter - it is not necessary.

Additional Blog Started

I have started an additional blog to focus solely on food storage. The URL is living-providently-today.blogspot.com. After making the decision to not do any marketing on this blog, I received a good number of responses that helped me know that many of you want to see my book made available here. It really is meant to be a great resource that you can have in your kitchen drawer or cupboard to refer to often as you prepare your family. I also felt a desire from many of you to have me share sources for items I stock up on and good emergency preparedness items. With this in mind, I think the best thing to do is write 2 blogs.

This blog will cover all areas of provident living and continue to share insights that will help you do a little at a time. My other blog will focus on supporting you through building a food storage meal plan that will be customized to your family's needs. I have started just posting breakfast ideas for now. I will follow up with lunch, dinner and snack ideas a little at a time. Some of the content will be repeated on both blogs but I will also share new things both places so you may just want to get in the habit of checking both sites.

Please feel free to check out this new blog and share the link with family and friends who may be interested. My underlying desire has always been to help families learn how to help themselves. I know that these blogs and my book can do just that in a way that will not feel too overwhelming or daunting. I am also hoping that more of you will begin sharing ideas or recipes with everyone through the comment section of both blogs so we can all support each other in this great endeavor.

Interest Never Sleeps or Takes a Vacation

Paying interest can greatly increase the cost of what you actually pay for an item. There are a few things in America that you can justify buying on credit. These would be a modest home, possibly a basic car, and limited expenses for higher education.

It is very easy to be talked into borrowing more than we truly need. Whenever we borrow money, we need to already have a plan in place for paying it back as quickly as possible. Any prepayments (paying more than the minimum payment due) will reduce the total interest you pay in the end.

This is one of my very favorite quotes on interest. Here it is shared by President Thomas S. Monson, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He also shares some other thoughts worth pondering. This talk was given in 2005 when the housing market and all the creative lending was just beginning to go a little crazy.

This is a day of borrowing, a day when multiple credit card offers arrive in our mailboxes each week. They generally offer a very low rate of interest which may apply for a short period of time; but what one usually doesn’t realize is that after that period has expired, the rates increase dramatically. I share with you a statement made by President J. Reuben Clark Jr., who many years ago was a member of the First Presidency. Its truth is timeless. Said he:

“It is a rule of our financial and economic life in all the world that interest is to be paid on borrowed money.
“Interest never sleeps nor sickens nor dies; it never goes to the hospital; it works on Sundays and holidays; it never takes a vacation; it never visits nor travels; it takes no pleasure; it is never laid off work nor discharged from employment; it never works on reduced hours. … Once in debt, interest is your companion every minute of the day and night; you cannot shun it or slip away from it; you cannot dismiss it; it yields neither to entreaties, demands, or orders; and whenever you get in its way or cross its course or fail to meet its demands, it crushes you.”

My brothers and sisters, I’m appalled at some of the advertising I see and hear advocating home equity loans. Simply put, they are second mortgages on homes. The promotion for such loans is designed to tempt us to borrow more in order to have more. What is never mentioned is the fact that, should one be unable to make this “second” house payment, one is in danger of losing his house.

Avoid the philosophy and excuse that yesterday’s luxuries have become today’s necessities. They aren’t necessities unless we ourselves make them such. Many of our young couples today want to begin with multiple cars and the type of home Mother and Dad worked a lifetime to obtain. Consequently, they enter into long-term debt on the basis of two salaries. Perhaps too late they find that changes do come, women have children, sickness stalks some families, jobs are lost, natural disasters and other situations occur, and no longer can the mortgage payment, based on the income from two salaries, be made.
It is essential for us to live within our means.
Thomas S. Monson, “Constant Truths for Changing Times,” Liahona, May 2005, 19–22


He offers sound advice that will bring blessings to our lives if we follow it.

I encourage all of you to look to your finances and determine how much is being paid out in interest each month. Create a plan to pay these items off faster than their required payment, if possible. The peace that comes from being out of debt is amazing!

Each Family Must Do Their Part

Last Sunday I shared a thought from Elder James E. Faust. Today I have chosen another one of his thoughts. It is important for us to understand that Church and Government Organizations can only do so much. As we have watched the news come in about the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, I couldn't help but wonder how many of those families had an emergency plan and enough food stored to survive until help could come. If you were in Japan at this time, would you have been ready? Just something to think about -

The Church cannot be expected to provide for every one of its millions of members in case of public or personal disaster. It is therefore necessary that each home and family do what they can to assume the responsibility for their own hour of need. If we do not have the resources to acquire a year’s supply, then we can strive to begin with having one month’s supply. I believe if we are provident and wise in the management of our personal and family affairs and are faithful, God will sustain us through our trials. He has revealed: “For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare; yea, I prepared all things, and have given unto the children of men to be agents unto themselves.” (D&C 104:17.)

James E. Faust, “The Responsibility for Welfare Rests with Me and My Family,” Ensign, May 1986, 20

Chocolate Crinkles

I have had fun experimenting with these cookies until I got them just right. My grandmother always had a cookie can at her house. It was an old gallon can with a plastic lid - definitely not fancy, but always full of cookies when we came to visit. If we emptied it during the few days we were there, we would get to bake more cookies with her. This is one of the recipes she wrote down to share with our family. She passed away when I was only 9 so the few things I have from her are precious. Making these cookies always makes me think of her and the special memories I have of being in her home.

I have finally figured out a way to make these cookies fully storable and more healthy by replacing the egg and oil with mashed black beans. I hope your family enjoys them as much as mine and that you can build some special memories as you bake them together.

Chocolate Crinkles
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour	¾ cup + 2 Tbsp thick black bean puree
2 cups sugar	2 tsp vanilla
6 Tbsp cocoa	2 Tbsp oil
½ tsp salt	1 Tbsp white vinegar
2 tsp baking powder	¼–½ cup water
1 tsp baking soda
Combine dry ingredients. Puree black beans with just a little bit of water to make a thick paste. Add to dry ingredients. Add the remaining ingredients. Add just enough water to make a sticky dough. (The amount of water you will add will depend on how thick your bean puree was.) Form into balls and roll in powdered sugar. Drop onto greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350° F 8–10 minutes. Allow cookies to cool for a couple of minutes on baking sheet before removing to a wire rack. Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

Hot Cereal

Hot cereal is inexpensive and easy to store. You can often buy it in bulk and then you can dry pack it in cans from the LDS cannery with the oxygen packs if you want to. We actually store oatmeal that way, but these other varieties I have just picked up at the grocery store. They store for 3+ years in their original packaging so I haven't worried about dry packing them. It also helps me feel I can have a variety of different kinds.

My kids actually request hot cereal on cold mornings. Some like to add brown sugar and others add white sugar once I put some in their bowls. Then we pour a little milk on it to make it creamy. Breakfast is done in about the time it takes to boil water.

As you think about breakfasts for your food storage meal plan, hot cereal is a great option! It does not cost very much per serving and it doesn't take much space to store. Try a few kinds and figure out which ones your family likes before stocking up on them. Also store some sugar and powdered milk to serve with it.

If you are trying to find money in your budget to purchase food storage, shift to eating hot cereal for a few weeks and spend the money you save on other food storage items.