Food Storage Friday: Homemade Bisquick Mix

Brittany again with a great food storage friendly recipe. Don't forget to go to Wednesday's post and leave a comment to be entered in the giveaway. Contest ends tonight at midnight EST.

Today we're talking homemade Bisquick. Buying those boxes of pre-made biscuit mix is, in my very humble and rather unscientific opinion, a waste of money and trees. Why not make it yourself? This is a recipe my sister-in-law gave to me, and I have used it innumerable times.

Ingredients: flour, shortening, salt, baking powder. Shocking, isn't it?

Mix 2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon salt, and 2 teaspoons baking powder together in a bowl.

You can sift it if you want to be fancy, but I never do. Baking powder doesn't seem to clump like baking soda. And while we're on the subject, why does baking soda have to come in such a lame box? Seriously--it never closes after you open it, and it's hard to open in the first place.

But I digress.

Add 1/3 c. shortening and use a pastry blender or two knives to mix together until even crumbs are made.

That's it! Use this mix to replace Bisquick in any recipe. You can store it in an airtight container in the fridge for several weeks, although it never lasts that long at my house--I typically make it as I need it.

Check out the Betty Crocker website for lots and lots of Bisquick recipes!

COMING NEXT MONTH . . . a fabulous biscuit recipe.


Homemade Bisquick Mix

2 c. flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 t. salt
1/3 c. shortening

Combine dry ingredients. Add shortening and mix with pastry blender until even crumbs are made. Keep in covered container in refrigerator. Use in any Bisquick recipe.

Or if you want to make a big batch:

Bisquick in Bulk

8 c. flour
8 tsp. baking powder
4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 c. shortening

Product Review: Part II

A little dialogue if you will...

Hannah: So, do you want to just post our reviews together on Wednesday?

me: Won't that be a little long?

Hannah: Not really, it's just a couple of pictures, right?

me: Ummmm....


Well, it turns out that I have a lot of pictures. My sister, who copy edits a lot of my posts (to cut out the really corny jokes--aren't you grateful), once asked me, 'do your readers like all of your pictures?'



To which I say, who cares?


Alright, so I care a little bit, but I can't help my obsessive need for taking lots of pictures.



I guess I'm the kind of person who learns visually, so I assume everyone else is the same.



Well. I put it all together, chuckling gleefully, because I was very chipper at the thought of having a Cansolidator pantry in my pantry. The only problem was it didn't fit in my pantry. It was too deep!

I cried and moaned for a while, but then decided to see if it would fit in one of my lower cupboards which are pretty deep.


This involved cleaning and organizing. Boo. I recommend measuring your pantry or cupboards where you are intending to place this bad boy or look into the Cansolidator cupboard which is not quite as deep and probably would have fit in my pantry.

Pretend that this picture isn't sideways and concentrate on the important thing: test out the rolling capability of the can before you snap on the top brackets. The bottom brackets are numbered in order to line them up, but unless you have x-ray vision, you won't be able to see the numbers to line them up. So pop a can in and roll it down and see if it can make it all the way without getting stuck or falling off, it either of those two things happen, you'll have to unsnap the row and try to line it up again.


I did like the fact that you can cater the width of each row to the type of cans you are storing. I've started storing the tomato sauce in 8oz cans which isn't a standard size but by golly if we don't always have leftover sauce when we make pizza or eat spaghetti when we use the 14oz cans.


I had originally tried the size for the tuna fish cans, but who am I kidding? Mountain Man hates tuna fish so it's not really practical to store.


Although we do have four cans of tuna in our 72 hour kit. But if he's not willing to eat it, he can just go hungry. Tough love baby.



By the way, have you guys ever tried this stuff, oh it's SO delicious.



So after I cleared out my bottom cupboard, I put the Cansolidator Pantry in it to see how deep it went and I noticed there was quite a bit of space behind it. There's no wasting space when it comes to food storage, so I had to find something to fit behind the cansolidator that I wouldn't need for a long time. Because once the cans are in it, I'm not about to move it. So, how about those cans of long-term storage! Wheat and dried beans that last for 30+ years? Sounds good to me.



Make sure it fits before loading it up.



I have to admit that rolling the cans down was very fulfilling. And enlightening: as in I need more green beans.

Thanks to Shelf Reliance for the Cansolidator Pantrys and for the great giveaway. Remember to win your own cansolidator, you must leave a comment on YESTERDAYS post. I love comments on my posts, but it won't do you a lick of good, so go here and leave a comment to be entered to win. Contest ends Friday at midnight EST. One comment per person please.



p.s. my sister didn't edit this post--so so sorry.

Product Review... with a GIVEAWAY!! ****CONTEST CLOSED****

Abbie and I recently received some Shelf Reliance Cansolidators for our food storage - something we've both been wanting to try out for a while. We each got the "Cansolidator Pantry", which holds up to 40 cans.

As you can see, I needed it! Below is a "before" picture of my food storage shelf. This is part of my three month supply. I've never been very good at stacking cans on top of each other, so it was pretty unorganized.

Thankfully, the shelves were really easy to put together and I was able to have it up and running within 20 minutes of opening the box. And it would have been much faster if my shelf wasn't so narrow... I kind of had to build it in the shelf so it would fit. Tomorrow, Abbie is going to show us lots more pictures of her Cansolidator - then you can see how easy it really is to set up.

See? Looks great! I really like it a lot. I feel like my shelf is being used much more efficiently, and I don't have to worry about stacks of cans falling over every time I go to get something out. As you can see from the picture, I need another one - my green veggies and my cream of chicken soup are overflowing! Mom... are you reading this?

And now....

The nice people over at Shelf Reliance want to give one of these Pantry Cansolidators to one lucky reader of our blog!!

All you have to do to is comment on this post. So tell us...

What do you have the most of in your longer-term storage? Beans? Rice? Powdered milk? Oats? Wheat?

Don't have anything in your longer-term storage yet? That's ok - just tell us! Admitting it is the first step, you know.

As for me, I have lots of rice. Not quite enough yet, but a lot. Which is great, because it's filling and really versatile. What do you have?

The comments are open until Friday the 13th (!!) at midnight EST. We'll announce the winner sometime on Saturday. One comment per person, please.

Finally... want to buy something now from Shelf Reliance? As our reader, you get a special coupon code: SGI20. This will give you 20% of any regularly-priced order sitewide (shelves, emergency kits, food storage, etc).