Jan. 25, 2008 - A "MUST-HAVE" book!
This book was recommended by one of my dear online friends, who happens to live in Israel. It is simply WONDERFUL! (Thanks again, Jennifer, for sharing this wonderful book with me. It has really been a blessing to our family.)
It will give you recipes for making starter mixes for several things like brownies, muffins, cornbread, bean soup, granola, shake n bake mix, etc. It also has several mixes for meal starters. I haven't tried any of those because at the moment, my freezer is too full.
In the back of the book, there are several recipes for each starter mix. We have made the granola and the accompanying energy bars recipe a couple of times. (I use the energy when my sugar starts to drop too low.) They are DELICIOUS! Much better than the sweet-n-salty bars from Walmart.
For dd's sleepover last night, I made brownies. The girls said they were much better than a box mix. 
I also made the shake-n-bake chicken recipe. DD said my chicken was better than the chicken strips from Chili's, and I thought those were delicious! I modified that recipe a bit by removing the skin from the chicken, then covering it with mayonnaise before dipping in the mix. It gave it a crunchy texture, similar to still having the skin on it, yet w/o all of those extra calories.
I have made the cornbread, as well as the bean soup recipe. I have not been disappointed in any of the recipes I have tried.
Here is an idea of the money you will save by using the ideas in the book:
Brownie mix - Cost was $2.76 and makes 15 c. Since each recipe uses about 2-2/14 c. of the mix, you can get over 6 batches of brownies for the price of ONE box mix! 
Cornbread - Cost was $1.26 (though I won't use the entire container of cornmeal at once.) Mix makes 10 c. and will makes 8 batches of cornbread for the cost of 4 boxes of boxed cornbread mix.
Muffin mix - Cost was $.87 and it makes 11 c. It will make 5 batches of muffins for MUCH less than the price of ONE boxed mix.
Pancake mix - Cost was .97 and will make 4 batches of pancakes (12 four-inch pancakes) or 3 batches of waffles (3 to 4 large waffles). That is less than 35 cents per batch!
Bean soup mix - Cost was $4.67 and it makes 12 c. It will give you 6 meals, which ends up being about .78 each. One bag of 15-bean soup mix is over $2.00. Granted, this recipe only uses 6 different beans, but at least it does give you something to compare.
Granola - Cost was around $6-$7.00, though I did not purchase the coconut or sesame seeds. Makes 20 c. of granola. 26 batches of gran muffins which ends up being .27 a batch. Or makes 6 batches of energy bars (roughly 20-25 bars, depending on how you cut them) for $1.17 each, or .06 per bar. The Walmart sweet-and-salty bars are 6 bars for $1.97, which is .33 a bar.
There are several Make a Mix books on Ebay right now.
Comments
Jan. 25, 2008 - Untitled Comment
Posted by Nichole
After you sent out your email review on the book, I checked with my library and sure enough I was able to borrow it from there. I just picked it up yesterday evening and began to read through it. It is a great book! I see lots of mixes and recipes iin there that I am going to jot down to make. Thanks for the heads up on the book.
Jan. 26, 2008 - Untitled Comment
Posted by Anonymous
I loaned out my book and should be receiving a new any day. Now that you have a blog, I can just link a post to this one. I want to try a few things first.
Marilyn, Swap
http://mixedbouquet.blogspot.com
