What One Food Could You NOT Give Up?

I think it’s fair to say that I have a decent amount of food storage.  I keep shelf stable items on hand to protect my family in case of emergencies.  We eat a lot of shelf-stable items like beans, beans, and more beans, canned pineapple, peanut butter, gluten-free flour mix, tetra packed chicken broth, jams, spices, baking ingredients, and so much more.

For things that are NOT shelf stable, in most cases, I’ve found substitutions for almost everything that I eat on a regular basis.  If I want some sour cream, it’s no problem.  I found sour cream powder.  Yes, it takes a little tweaking to taste more like sour cream, but it’s definitely doable.  CHEESE…….is life worth living without cheese?  Okay, I jest – just a little.  Our family LOVES cheese.  Life would definitely not be as delicious if it didn’t contain cheese.  I found some really good freeze-dried cheese!  Need some ground beef?  No problem, I’ve found freeze-dried ground beef too! I’ve even found Worchestershire powder!  Talk about something tasty to spice up meals.

One Food I Would Miss

BUT there is ONE thing that I wanted that I didn’t have a substitute for.   If I don’t have access to farm fresh milk (and I don’t), I wouldn’t be able to make whipped cream.  Now that might not sound like a big thing to you, but for my family, we like our whipped cream.

Is it necessary for life?  No, but neither is cheese, and I’d sooner live in the middle of a big city than give you cheese.  We use whipped cream for fun and quick items like “Cherry Salad.”  It’s two cans of cherry pie filling, one tub of whipped cream, and one can of sweetened condensed milk.  It’s simple.  Kids everywhere eat it up, and I never go home with leftovers.  Win, win, win!

In my quest for a shelf stable whipped topping, I remembered something called “Dream Whip.”  It was an ingredient in my husband’s favorite birthday pie recipe passed onto me from his grandmother while she was still living.  But when I made up the Dream Whip, I remembered it being like whipped cream!  If Dream Whip can do it, so can I!

So after scouring the internet and after some tweaking of my own, I came up with the perfect SHELF STABLE whipped topping recipe.

Other dairy items that can be made with shelf-stable ingredients can be found here, here, and here.

Shelf Stable Whipped Cream

1 C Powdered coffee creamer

1/3 C Milk

1 T Lemon Juice

1 tsp vanilla

1/32 tsp stevia or 1 T powdered sugar

Directions:

1.)  Put your bowl and beaters in the fridge to chill them.

2.)  Put your powdered coffee creamer in the bowl and add your milk and lemon juice.

3.)  Whip using a hand mixer for 1-2 minutes.  Once peaks start to form, add vanilla and stevia.

*Note* If you like a even thicker whipped cream, try using just 1/4 C milk instead of 1/3 C.

It’s definitely thick enough to stay on a spoon held sideways.