"Use It Up" Tip

This is how those plastic squeeze bottles of mustard work out for us. The first 98% of the mustard squirts out perfectly. With the last little bit, we slap the bottom of the upside down bottle while simultaneously squeezing. The result is a spray of mustard all over the plate as well as the sandwich, hot dog or burger. But I can't just throw the bottle out while containing a small amount of product still. So that almost empty bottle goes to the back of the fridge, and we get a new bottle out to use.

To salvage that last 1% or 2% of mustard, I pour in about 1 tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice, put the lid on and shake it vigorously. I then take the lid back off and turn it upside down over a small dish or tiny canning jar. 

Why vinegar or lemon juice and not water? The primary flavor I taste in mustard is vinegar. (Vinegar is even the first ingredient on the label.) If I added water, I would be diluting that tangy taste and acidity. I use this salvaged mustard in homemade salad dressings, sandwich spreads, and marinades. So the vinegar or lemon juice is actually a plus in flavor and ability to break down meat fibers if used as a marinade.

Prepared mustard doesn't contain added emulsifiers, hence the need to shake the bottle before each use. Otherwise, the solids in mustard settle and leave a thin liquid at the top. In draining the salvaged mustard, this is much more obvious. The solids or thicker part sits in a mound surrounded by mustard-colored vinegar.

When I make a salad dressing or marinade with this, I try to pour off the liquid to use as the vinegar part of a mixture. I then use the thicker part in a mustard-mayo sandwich spread blend.

After draining the bottle for about an hour, I have about 2 tablespoons of useable product. I figure I've gotten near all of it out, and at that point I rinse the bottle with water to clean and recycle. And now, I've gotten rid of one more space-hogging item from our refrigerator.

Memories of My Nana: A Great Depression Era Breakfast That Didn't Short-Change on Protein

A lot of the everyday breakfasts of the Great Depression seemed terribly low in protein by today's standards. Growing up, my nana would tell stories of what my mother's childhood was like, often speaking of the foods she served and the playthings she and my grandfather made for my mother and her brothers. Everyday breakfasts were mostly starches with a little bit of protein. She and my grandfather had 3 growing children in the 30s, and my grandfather's income dwindled over the course of the decade to nearly nothing. 

They went from dining on breakfasts of thick slices of ham, a couple of eggs over easy, and slices of toast or some biscuits in the 1920s to a slice of bread or a biscuit in a bowl covered with warm milk by the mid to late-30s. Other starchy breakfasts included rice in warm milk, saltine crackers in warm milk, and oatmeal with milk. 

They were fortunate that they could get some eggs most weeks. On weekends, my grandmother cooked more elaborate breakfasts using these eggs. A family favorite (and one that actually gave them all a good amount of protein without too much extra cost) was creamed eggs on toast.

Creamed eggs on toast were hard-cooked eggs, chopped or sliced, stirred into a milk-based white sauce, and ladled over slices of toast or split biscuits. When the garden was producing, she would boost the nutrition of this dish with the addition of some fresh peas and green onions mixed in with the cooked egg and white sauce.

My grandmother was queen of the white sauce. She covered meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, potatoes, macaroni, and rice in white sauce. She even made a sweetened version of white sauce to top baked apples or baked peaches. White sauce was an easy way to add the health benefits of milk to meals suitable for growing children. During the Depression, milk was one food she could get plenty of for her family. Even in her later years, she still used milk liberally in her cooking.

I was curious about the protein content of creamed eggs on toast, so I calculated the nutrients based on my grandmother's likely ingredients. I discovered that the basic version of creamed eggs on toast contains about 12 grams of protein per serving and the green pea version contained about 13 grams of protein per serving. This is based on 1 boiled egg and 1 slice of bread per person, plus 1/6 of a recipe of white sauce that uses 3 cups of milk. I estimated she would have added about 1 cup of fresh peas to the entire family-batch (adding about 8 grams of protein). Even by today's standards, that's a fair amount of protein for a child's breakfast, and markedly more than the weekday starch-in-warm-milk breakfast.