Homemade Hoisin Sauce And Sweeten Condensed Milk Are Cheap

Photo: sugarapron.com

I don't know why certain foods are sky high when their ingredients are dirt cheap. Sometimes it's the labor involved in making them, but not always. Condiments costing more than meat, which consist of few ingredients that take little time to pour together I will make myself from now on. Plus I'll use top ingredients!

Allow me to illustrate with savory and sweet examples. Let's start with a recipe for the savory condiment. Since it's so easy to prepare, why buy it?:

Homemade Hoisin Sauce

On amazon here

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons peanut butter
1 tablespoon honey (molasses, or brown sugar)
2 teaspoons vinegar (I use cider or white)
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon hot sauce (I use Sriracha)

Directions:

Pour the ingredients into a bowl and whisk them together. Done!!

Hoisin sauce is used in Chinese stir fry dishes. 

For a fast meal, I stir fry 16 ounces of cut broccoli, 3 chopped carrots, 3 sliced stalks of celery, one sliced red pepper, 1 medium chopped onion and  2-3 cloves of minced garlic. I toss the ingredients directly into a Wok pan, stir-fry and cover with a lid to let the vegetables tenderize on low heat while waiting for 1 cup of brown rice, or quinoa to cook on a 2nd burner. The liquids from the vegetables and Hoisin recipe will make enough sauce. When the vegetables are nearly done, cube 16 oz of of tofu and toss into the stir fry mixture. After the vegetables are no longer raw, simply turn off the burner and wait for the rice to catch up on the 2nd burner. Brown rice, or quinoa requires 1/2 hour to tenderize. Delish!



My 2nd recipe requires a little bit of prior planning, but the savings of homemade are substantial:

Sweetened condensed milk is a condiment often used to make cookie bars or boiled caramel, but why is it so ridiculously expensive? A 14 ounce can sells for over $4; yet the 2 ingredients used to make it are relatively cheap. I don't think making it is so labor intensive, it justifies such a steep markup:

Homemade Sweeten Condensed Milk

On Amazon here

Ingredients:
For each cup of finished sweetened condensed milk --

2 cups milk
2/3 cup sugar

Directions

1) Completely dissolve the sugar into the milk by whisking it before you heat the sauce pan.

2) After the sugar is completely dissolved into the milk, turn on the flame and the second the mixture simmers, lower the heat so it never boils. There is no more need to stir it, just let the pot simmer on a low heat.

3) Simmer it for 30 to 40 minutes until the liquid thickens into condensed milk. 

4) Remove from the stove and skim off any cooked milk skin or brown edge that you see.

5) Let the mixture cool in order to use, or store into a jar for later.

Until this year, I never tried to make these condiments myself. But why not? It's silly to pay $3 per pound of meat and nearly $5 for a can of condensed milk. (As you can guess that one irks me the most! Dear Milk Robber Barons, from this day forward, my money stays in my pocket.). 

After we know how simple and cheap a few condiments are to make, ignorance is no longer bliss! What did you buy before you leaned how to make it?


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