Rita's Natural Meals In Minutes – A Book Review

Many years ago I bought three paperback books from Rita Bingham entitled Natural Foods, Sprouting Book, and Milk Cheeses. She has now combined her books into this one; Rita’s Natural Meals in Minutes. The individual books are hard to find now, but her new book is easy to buy here; http://www.internet-grocer.net/ritanatl.htm.

Here is some info on what each of the original books contained; now all combined into one easy resource:

Rita's Introduction to Natural Foods:
An introduction to basic foods and recipes for every meal of the day. Learn how to make delicious Quick Wheat Patties, Pita Pockets, Whole Wheat Flour Tortillas, Pineapple-Orange Fruit Cubes, Vanilla Yogurt, Honey Maple Nuts, Seafood Salad, Fresh Graham Crackers, and much more.

From Rita's Sprouting Book:
Fast Sprout Recipes for every meal of the day. Prepare nutritious meals from natural foods in 30 minutes or less! How to sprout in a variety of containers, valuable sprouting information and nearly 70 fast recipes: Eggs Ole', Sprout-filled Won Tons, Enchilada Casserole, Hearty Sprout Stir-Fry Salad, Pita Pockets and Whole Wheat Flour Tortillas, Frozen Banana Haystacks, No-Bake Cream Cheese Bars, and much more.

Rita's Powdered Milk Cheeses with Yogurt and Other Milk Recipes:
Nutritious meals from natural foods in 30 minutes or less. All you ever wanted to know and more about making non-fat cheeses from powdered milk; cheeses in only 8-15 minutes! Learn to make Cottage Cheese, Firm White and Pressed Cheeses, and an all new, original " cheese-burger" (a non-fat meat substitute made from powdered milk, used to make hamburger), Breaded Chicken Tenders, Fish Stakes, and much, much more.

Today, since we have been talking about making cheese, I want to talk a bit about the cheese making book (book 3 of the original series) entitled; Rita’s Powdered Milk Cheeses – with Yogurt and Other Milk Recipes.

In her original book Rita wrote: “Cheese making Made Easy might be a better title for this booklet, because the cheeses are so fast, easy, versatile and most often fail-proof. The tastes and sometimes the textures of powdered milk cheeses are slightly different than commercial cheeses, which makes them infinitely more versatile and definitely worth the small amount of time necessary to make them.”

I’ve been fascinated by this concept for 2 reasons: First, to be honest I never plan to drink the powdered milk I have stored. I will cook with it and use it to make Yogurt, soups and gravies, but I won’t drink it. So obviously, I am thrilled at the prospect of making cheese with it.
Second, I love the basic idea of being to have cheese available to me at any time just by using this book as a resource to make it.

I also love that Rita referred to the cheese-making process as not only easy, but also fail-proof and inexpensive. What a great resource to have at our fingertips.

In her book she talks about the different kinds of cheeses that can be made from powdered milk. These include cream cheese, cottage cheese, parmesan cheese, sour cream, evaporated milk substitute, and cream soup substitute; not to mention the basic cheeses such as cheddar and mozzarella. These are just the beginning of what you will learn from this book.

Not only does she teach how to make cheeses, she teaches how to use them. The book includes over 139 recipes for different meal and cheese ideas. This book contains such a great variety of recipes and I can guarantee you will learn to make something you never even considered before.

She also tells you about the tools you will need to have on hand to make the cheeses as well as other items in this book. She talks about the importance of cheese cloth, strainers and colanders, pots, pans and other cooking essentials. She suggests a thermometer, food grinder and many other items you probably have on hand. She also tells you which seasonings you might want to have on hand to try different varieties of cheese.

If you want to learn how to use the powdered milk in your storage as well as enrich your meals and save money on buying expensive cheese, this is the book for you. Check it out!