Reddit reviews The Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You Can Stop Buying and Start Making: A Cookbook

Peanut butter (or any nut butter) is literally just putting nuts in a food processor or blender and pulverizing it.

Butter is easy if you happen to have a Kitchenaid mixer. You just throw heavy cream in the bowl, turn it on with the paddle attachment and wait. Then just knead out all the watery stuff (keep it! It's buttermilk, which is awesome for pancakes and such) and boom, you've got butter.

[Check out this book] (http://www.amazon.ca/The-Homemade-Pantry-Buying-Making/dp/030788726X). It has mayonnaise, sour cream, ketchup, cheese, and a bunch of other awesome stuff.

Mayonnaise, many different kinds of pickles and jams, bread, rolls, and pizza dough (scroll down for magic dough recipe, it does just about everything!). Use dried beans and buy in bulk. Make your own stock bases using left over chicken, vegetables, pork bones, beef bones. It's not really that difficult to make your own mozzarella or yoghurt. Try blogs like this one for tips and to get you started. There are also books on the subject. I find it much more fun to make things at home, anyway. :)

I was given [this] (http://www.amazon.com/Homemade-Pantry-Foods-Buying-Making/dp/030788726X/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_pap?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1394808619&sr=1-1&keywords=the+homemade+pantry) cookbook through one of Reddit's gift exchanges. Everything I've made has been very tasty and relatively easy to make. Not sure I'd leave the kids on their own, but with some supervision, the cheese cracker recipe would be a great place to start.

Mine is from a cookbook called The Homemade Pantry. I found the recipe online through a quick search, so I think it okay to share it here.

You need 4 cups of milk and half a cup of plain yogurt. I started making yogurt because infants/toddlers need fat in their diets, and should be given whole-milk products, which are hard to find or very expensive (yo baby or whole milk greek yogurt is over $5 for very small amounts). So I buy whole, pasturized (not ultra pasturized) milk, and whole milk "all natural" yogurt that I requested be sold at my local grocery store. It is a brand called Axelrod. The important thing is that your starter yogurt must have live bacteria in it.

The Process:

1. Heat the milk to 185 degrees F. You can measure this with a thermometer, or you can do the brave finger test: dip a finger in and it should be too hot to touch, but not boiling. This process of heating and cooling the milk helps the yogurt to firm up when it cultures. I always use a thermometer.
   
   
2. Cool the milk back down to 110 degrees F (or comfortably warm on your finger). You can do this by just letting it sit, or you can place the pot into an ice bath.
   
   
3. Temper the half cup of yogurt with half a cup of your warm milk. Then pour the yogurt mixture back into the main pot and stir.
   
   
4. Pour the mixture into the container in which you’ll be culturing the milk. You want to keep this container warm so that the liquid inside can stay at about 110 degrees F for several hours. I use mason jars, wrapped in towels, in a small cooler.
   
   
5. Let it sit for 5 to 7 hours, or until relatively firm. Then refrigerate for at least 2 hours before eating.
   
   Edit: It can be tricky. A taste test will tell you if it is fine. If it tastes fine but is runny you've made a yogurt drink, and can use it in salad dressings. :)

Canning for a New Generation $17.76, Ball Preserving $15.39 The Homemade Pantry $18.20 as someone who makes homemade poptarts she needs this book. Adoption Book $11.33, And some tea to round it off.

Edited because I messed it up. :D

I adapted my recipe from The Homemade Pantry.

4 cups flour (I use 2 unbleached all purpose, 2 whole wheat)
2 Tablespoons butter (I use salted because I'm a salt fiend, unsalted works fine)
4 Tablespoons of shortening (OR, if I have bacon fat in the fridge I use that)
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons salt

Mix dry ingredients. Kneed in butter and lard/shortening by hand until it forms a pebbly texture. Slowly kneed in about 1.5 cups warm water until you have a wet dough, but not too wet. Let sit for 10 minutes. Form into balls (I usually get 9-11), let sit for 10 minutes. During this second rest I put my pan on the stove at 5 to get it pre-heated. Roll out on a floured surface to maybe 1/8" toss in a hot pan for one minute on each side. Put on cooling rack instead of stacking on a plate so they don't get mushy.

Let me know if that doesn't make sense. Explaining recipes is definitely not my forte.