Pancake, Matza Ball and Cake Mix: I find myself wondering why anyone would buy pancake mix. If you have to add eggs, oil and water, what is in there aside from flour, baking powder and maybe some salt and sugar? Quite frankly, once I have to add all those ingredients, I don’t see any value in buying pancake mix and the same goes for matzah ball mix that consists of just matzah meal and spices, leaving you to add in eggs, water and oil. As for cake mixes, I rarely buy them for the same reason and unless I am really in a major rush, I just make my own, having googled recipes for both chocolate and white cake mixes, which are stored in my giant recipe loose leaf.
Granola: Walk through your supermarket and check out the price of granola, which shows up so often these days as a topping either on yogurt, muffins or as a yummy snack. It is far from inexpensive and really doesn’t consist of too much more than oatmeal, brown sugar, oil or margarine and add-ins like sunflower seeds, craisins and the like. Having made it myself, I promise you that it doesn’t take more than five minutes to mix all those items up on a cookie sheet and pop them in the oven for 20 minutes. The results are equally delicious and cost almost nothing to make.
Pie Crusts: Pie crusts are one of those items I tried cutting out of our diet years ago for health reasons, and most of the quiches and kugels I make are crustless. But there are times when you just need a pie crust and it is worthwhile investing in a pie pan or two so that when you need a crust you can just throw one together easily. I confess to having an aversion to margarine-based pie crusts, not for dietary reasons, but out of sheer laziness and an aversion to taking out my mixer unless I really have to. Yet you can make a perfectly yummy pie crust using oil which means you don’t need more than five minutes, a fork, a bowl and some basic and inexpensive ingredients. Just google “oil-based pie crust” and you will have plenty of options that you can throw together in no time at all.
There are other things that I hear are incomparable when you make them at home, like mayonnaise, but it isn’t something I have ever experimented with. Not only do I try to avoid raw eggs, the shelf life of homemade mayo is much shorter than that of the stuff you buy in the store. Similarly, I have no interest in trying homemade ketchup, when Heinz is the Holy Grail for ketchup around here and my forays into the world of homemade pickles and marshmallows, just to name two examples, haven’t yielded stellar results. But start experimenting and see what works best for your crew.
Finally, be sure to check out websites like topsecretrecipes.com and kopycat.com which are both treasure troves of “tastes just like” recipes, giving you the ability to recreate your family’s favorites at home, saving you endless trips to 7-11 for Slurpees and to Starbucks for Frappuccinos, among others.