Easy and Tasty Bread Pudding

This is my last post of 2011 so I thought I'd share a really good one. This is my mom's recipe for Bread Pudding that she created just a week ago. It won first place in a contest at her work but it has stolen the hearts and stomachs of all who has tried it. This is super simple because most of the ingredients are pre-made. It's super sweet and full of that homey goodness that everyone craves during the holidays. Now - my mother is not one who uses recipes so she was kind enough to attempt to create a recipe. This is what she sent me and what I can't wait to try sometime over the next week.

Three LARGE almond poppy seed muffins. Would have been better if they were a little drier. And maybe not as much muffin
2 1/4 cups eggnog
5 eggs
1 cup sugar (or it might have been half a cup)
a teaspoon of orange zest - fresh
1 T or so of Countreau - or however you spell the orange liquor
1/4 c butter (1/2 stick)
about 1/2 to 1 cup walnuts

Cut up muffins into bite size pieces, set aside
In a large bowl mix (with mixer) eggnog, eggs, sugar and liquor
In a saucepan or frying pan melt butter, add walnuts and orange zest.
Mix egg mixture, muffins and walnuts (but not butter) together, gently to not mush the muffins.
In an ovenproof bowl pour butter and spread all over bowl to keep pudding from sticking
Pour or place in the rest of the ingredients.

Preheat oven to 375, using a roasting type pan (rectangle) fill about 1/3 with water and place
bowl with the pudding into so that it is cooking in a water bath.

Cook until done in center. This is like 30 to 60 minutes. While cooking it will crust but still be jiggly inside until it is done.

Serve warm.

Hard Sauce
1 cup brown sugar
1 stick butter
1/4 cup brandy
2 T butterscotch schnapps (optional)

Cook in saucepan, bring to a boil but be careful not to scorch.
Turn down heat. Cook to slightly thicken but
not so that it hardens. Spoon over pudding in bowls. Also serve warm or hot.


Okay, that is the best I can do.

Coquito or Puerto Rican Eggnog

I came across this blog post about Coquito or Puerto Rican Eggnog. It intrigued me but I knew I didn't quite have the ingredients. I thought about it some and rifled through the cupboards and came up with a version that is amazing. The alcohol will take your breath away (and we only used half) and the drink needs to mellow atleast 24 hours. We tasted it right after I made it and it was okay. But when we tasted it last night after the 24 hours, it was much smoother and so many more flavors came out. My version has less sugar and alcohol and maybe less fat. It's not meant to be a reduced version - it just came out that way. I still think it's going to be quite the treat at our holiday parties this weekend.

Coquito
1 cup powdered milk
3/4 cup water
1 can coconut milk
1 1/4 cup half and half
1 1/2 cups gold rum
1/2 cup sugar
2 cinnamon sticks
1 tsp gd cinnamon
4 cloves
1/4 teas cardamom seeds
1 teas orange extract

Using a funnel, pour the powdered milk and water into a large bottle (we used a half gallon ice tea bottle). Put on the lid and shake until the powdered milk is fully incorporated into the water (it's okay to have a few lumps but remember to shake often and break them down before serving). Add remaining ingredients to bottle and shake to incorporate. Don't feel like you have to be gentle - shake with vigor.
Feel free to taste to see if it's sweet enough but remember this will not be the final flavor. Let sit in refrigerator for 24 hours before serving. We actually made this three days early to give it the most time to mellow. Should keep for about a week.

Peanut Butter Fudge

Every now and again, I go through my posts and add them to a file so I can easily find what recipes I have posted so I don't repeat them (unless they have undergone dramatic changes). I discovered I forgot to share the Peanut Butter Fudge recipe. I made it the same day I made the chocolate fudge. I think this recipe is the family favorite. The chocolate was good but they have been devouring the peanut butter. We are peanut butter sort of people so it makes since (their favorite cookie is my gluten free peanut butter cookies).
I made it with homemade evaporated milk.
Just a note about next week - I will not be posting next week but I will be experimenting and will have lots to share after the holidays.

Peanut Butter Fudge
¾ cup evaporated milk
2 cups sugar
2 TB butter
1 1/8 cups peanut butter
1 7oz marshmallow cream
1 teas vanilla
In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine milk, sugar and butter. Bring to a rolling boil, stirring constantly and let boil 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in peanut butter, marshmallow cream and vanilla until well incorporated. Spread into greased 8x8 dish. Let cool completely before cutting into squares.

Chocolate Covered Cherries

There's not many recipes I have made this week that I haven't shared at some point on this blog. Here is one I haven't made in a few years because it's time consuming. It's not exactly difficult - just takes time. The result is well worth the effort.

Chocolate covered Cherries
½ cup butter, soft
2 cups marshmallow creme
1 teas almond extract
4 cups powdered sugar
1 jar maraschino cherries, well drained
2 cups chocolate chips
2 TB shortening
Cream butter. Add marshmallow creme, extract and sugar, mix well. Knead into a large ball, chill for 1 hour. Roll into 1 inch balls and flatten into 2 inch circles. Wrap circles around cherries and carefully shape into balls. Place on lined baking sheet, cover loosely. Chill for 4 hours to overnight. Melt chocolate chips with shortening in a double boiler. Dip balls in chocolate, place on lined baking sheet to harden. Refrigerate in covered container 1-2 weeks before serving.

Peanut Brittle

My husband really wanted peanut brittle this year. I was able to get unsalted roasted peanuts (no raw) and thought about how to go about this. I decided to use my toffee recipe. We used Nucoa to make him a dairy free version. Because of this - I believe that the recipe needs stirring. Normally, one does not stir the toffee as it cooks but the nucoa did not exactly meld with the sugar. Stirring would have helped.

Peanut Brittle
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
3 TBS water
1 1/2 cups peanuts

Bring butter, sugar and water to a boil. Boil for 10 minutes until the color turns amber (290 on a thermometer). Stir in peanuts and pour into a greased cookie sheet. Let cool completely. Break into pieces and enjoy.

Chocolate Fudge

I needed a good easy fudge recipe that didn't have too many ingredients since we had to stay within budget for the month. This recipe comes from Eagle brand sweetened condensed milk. I made my own with the recipe I posted earlier this week. The only problem I encountered is that the powdered milk stayed a little lumpy. I made this a second time and beat the milk more reducing the number of little milk lumps. You can't taste the powdered milk and my husband is convinced they are nuts (I didn't add any nuts and have told him several times). We used milk chocolate chips since the semi-sweet that were on sale were gone. The result was a wonderful and rich candy. I, also, found that cooking it for just a few minutes after the chips were melted resulted in a firmer less sticky fudge but either way is great.

Chocolate Fudge
3 cups chocolate chips
14 oz Sweetened Condensed Milk
¾ cup chopped nuts
1 ½ teas vanilla
Melt chocolate chips and milk in a pan over low heat. Add nuts and vanilla. Pour into greased 8x8 inch pan. Chill for 2 hours.

Microwave Caramel

I can't remember where I found this recipe but I couldn't wait to try it. The flavor of this caramel is wonderful but I just couldn't get it to firm up in the microwave. I ended up taking the two batches I attempted and putting them in a pot on the stove until they firmed up. The result was amazing caramels and I had used the homemade sweetened condensed milk.
I do think this would make amazing (but soft) caramel corn. Which would be perfect for a quick evening snack. I didn't add anything to the recipe after I took it out of the microwave.
*make sure your microwave is really clean - this does bubble over and if it lands on a clean surface you can scoop it back into the batch.


7 Minute Microwave Caramels or Caramel Corn
Yield: About 50 individually wrapped caramels, or 15 cups of caramel corn
Make the Caramel:
Note: If making individual caramels, have an 8x8 dish lined with parchment paper at the ready. If making caramel corn, prepare 12-15 cups of popped kettle corn and place in a large bowl. (1 1/2 standard size bags of microwave popcorn popped equals about 12 cups. This is the amount I used.)
4 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1 cup light brown sugar, tightly paked
1/2 cup corn syrup
2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk (not low fat)
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
In a large microwaveable bowl or 8 cup glass measure, combine the butter, brown sugar and corn syrup. Microwave at 100% power for 2 minutes. Stir mixture well. It will be a little grainy. Microwave for another 2 minutes and stir well. Add 2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk. Microwave for 3 minutes. Watch carefully, it is prone to bubble up at this stage. Remove from microwave and stir in vanilla extract. Be very careful at this stage, the caramel is extremely hot and sticky!

For Individual Caramels:
Sea salt for sprinkling
Pour hot caramel into the parchment lined pan. Lightly sprinkle with sea salt. Let stand until set, but still slightly warm. Lift caramel block from pan and cut into individual squares. Wrap in wax paper squares.*Note: My caramels held their shape quite well without being wrapped.

For Caramel Corn:
1 cup peanuts or cashews
Sea salt for sprinkling
Pour nuts over popped kettle corn. Pour hot caramel over popcorn, turning popcorn over with a large wooden spoon to coat. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper, set aside. Microwave caramel coated corn for 4 minutes, stopping after each minute to stir. Pour onto prepared baking sheet and sprinkle with sea salt. Let stand at room temperature until hardened. Break into pieces and store in an air-tight container.

Sweetened Condensed Milk

I found this recipe in a Joanne Fluke book. I like the simplicity of this recipe and the fact that I have everything in my cupboard. This year's holiday baking seems to need lots of sweetened condensed milk so I am playing with this as I go. Tonight I am making fudge and last weekend I made caramels. So far so good.

Joanne Fluke Sweetened Condensed Milk
1/3 cup boiling water
4 TB butter
¾ cup sugar
½ tsp vanilla
1 cup powdered milk
Whisk water and butter until the butter is melted. Add sugar and mix until dissolved. Add vanilla. Whisk in powdered milk until smooth and creamy. Equals 14 oz can of SC milk.

Licorice Cookie Strips

Before you discount this cookie because it has licorice in the title, note that the licorice flavor comes from aniseed that dots the cookie. It's really a sort of butter/sugar cookie. This is a staple in our house when the holidays come. My family loves it (and they hate all things licorice). The cookie really needs a new name but this is what it came with. The dough doesn't look like much but it makes about 10 dozen cookies. They are light crispy cookies so when eating them it will not feel like dozens of cookies. My guys were hanging around just to get cookie scraps since I was making this for a cookie party. This is an easy cookie to make but the dough will be really soft. It firms up some if you let it sit (the last ones cooked will be rather easy to work with compared to the first). I use a rubber spatula sprayed with cooking spray to press these cookies down instead of a fork. They do spread so no more than 3 logs on a cookie sheet. With mine spaced about 2 inches apart they did touch when done cooking but I just used the cutter to seperate. Cut the cookies while they are still warm - I use a hard plastic cake froster to cut them. Also, I don't think I have ever added nuts to this cookie and was actually surprised to see them listed in the ingredients last night. It's up to you. If you do - chop them really fine because these cookies come out thin.

Licorice Cookie Strips
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
2-½ cups flour
2 teaspoons aniseed
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
½ cup chopped nuts
In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars. Beat in egg. Combine dry ingredients; add to creamed mixture and mix well. Stir in nuts. Divide dough into 10 portions; shape each into a 12 inch log. Place 3 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets. Flatten with a fork to 1/4 inch thickness. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown. Cool for 5 minutes; cut diagonally into 1 inch slices. Remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Chocolate Jelly Truffles

This recipe is thanks to Joanne Fluke except I changed the name. I wanted to open it up to more flavors than just raspberry. This is the easiest truffle recipe out there. I doubled her recipe for convienence but feel free to cut it back in half.

Chocolate Jelly Truffles
1 package chocolate chips (2 cups)
4 TBs fruit jelly
cocoa powder
Melt chocolate chips and jelly in a double boiler until thick and smooth. Let cool. Roll into balls and refrigerate. Remove and re-roll until small smooth balls (they will spread and soften when warm in the beginning but chilled they will hold their shape well). Roll in cocoa powder. Store in refrigerator.

Pancake Cookies

This is one of those recipes that we developed in our house from pancake mix. My mother found a multigrain pancake mix and for a few years these cookies were our standard treat. We gave them up when we went gluten free because we just didn't think about purchasing gluten free pancake mix until we reached the end of our GF diet. The other day my son asked about these cookies because he missed them. At this point in time we have homemade gluten free pancake mix that should go well with this recipe especially since we've been making so many applesauce treats. I apologize for the vagueness of this recipe but it's really easy - everything goes in the bowl and you mix it until it's all smooth (unless you add nuts or chocolate chips which you should wait until the batter is smooth before adding). This is so basic that you can experiment with all sorts of flavors. Tonight I am making these with some leftover apple pie filling that needs to be used up.

Cookies
2 cups pancake mix
1 1/2 cups applesauce
1 egg or 1/2 cup oil or 1 cup peanut butter (or to taste)
1 tbs. molasses
1 teas vanilla
Goodies
Bake @ 350 for 10-15 minutes

Krispy Scotcharoos

This is one of those recipes that my mom made when I was growing up. As an adult I looked for the recipe because she had gotten off a box of rice krispies. The recipe had changed over the years so you will notice that there is an alternative to the recipe - that is how my mother made it all those years while the recipe I have is the one rice krispies had during my search. It's been years since I found it so there is the possibility it has changed again. The only problem with this recipe is that it doesn't hold together as nicely as a rice krispie treat but they taste so good it doesn't matter.

Krispy Scotcheroos
1 cup corn syrup
1 cup sugar
1 cup peanut butter
6 cups rice krispies
6 oz chocolate chips
1 cup butterscotch chips
Melt sugar in corn syrup over med heat, stirring until begins to boil. Remove. Add peanut butter, mix, add krispies. Stir until well coated, press into greased pan. Melt chips together, stir well. Top cereal mixture, chill until firm.
-alternative: add butterscotch chips to cereal mixture with peanut butter, top with plain chocolate.

Peanut Soup

This is a weird recipe but the finished result is so good that my family just devours it. It's so easy that a kid can put this together and it doesn't take long to cook.

Peanut Soup
2 TB oil
2 large onions, finely chopped
4 lg tomatoes or 13 oz diced tomatoes
6 ½ oz peanut butter
3 ½ pint chicken stock
Sauté onions until tender but not brown. Add tomatoes, cook slightly. Add peanut butter and chicken stock. Cook until heated.

Lentil Chili

I plan on making this family favorite this week. It's easy to dump in a crockpot or cook over an open fire. My son used this recipe for his first Dutch Oven contest.

Lentil Chili
4 cups dried lentils
6-7 cups water (more as needed)
3-4 large tomatoes chopped or 1 pound canned diced tomatoes
1 medium onion, chopped
1-2 green bell peppers, chopped
1 1/2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 can tomato sauce
2 tablespoons Balsamic vinegar
black pepper to taste
Place lentils and 6 cups water in Dutch oven. Bring to boil and let simmer until the lentils are tender. Add chopped tomatoes, onions, peppers, garlic, cumin, and thyme. Let cook 30 minutes, adding water as necessary. Add tomato sauce, stir and let simmer another 10 minutes. Stir in vinegar and black pepper.
Serve hot.

Holiday Squash Soup

I made this soup last Christmas and it was a hit. The entire family loved the flavor and the texture. This is a crockpot recipe but I made it on the stove and I did not use the blender. I got the recipe from a Joanne Fluke book.

HOLIDAY SQUASH SOUP
2 ten-ounce packages winter squash (the kind that’s in a solid block and already pureed)
½ cup chopped onion
2 teaspoons chicken bouillon beads (or whatever measure it gives to make 2 cups of chicken broth)
2 cups heavy cream
¼ teaspoon pepper
8-oz package cream cheese, unwrapped and softened in the microwave for 1 minute
sour cream and/or parsley for toppings
Cook the squash according to package directions, drain it and put it in a blender. Add the chopped onion and the chicken bouillon beads. Add the heavy cream. Zoop it up in the blender and make sure all the onion pieces are pureed and the mixture is smooth. Add the pepper and the softened cream cheese. Zoop it up again until it’s all smooth and then dump it in the crockpot you’ve sprayed with Pam. Once your soup is in the crockpot, give it a final stir and taste a little bit for seasoning. If it needs more salt, DON’T ADD IT. Add another teaspoon of bouillon beads instead to make it really chickeny. If you want to make your soup sinfully rich, this is the time to cut a half-stick of butter (4 ounces, ¼ pound) into little pieces and throw them in the crockpot. Turn the crockpot on LOW and cook for 4 hours. (This can go an hour or two longer if your company doesn’t arrive on time.) Check for seasonings again right before serving. When you dish it into the bowls, you can top it with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkle of fresh parsley if you like.
Yield: approximately 4 cups.

Evaporated Milk (dairy and dairy free)

My family has a bug and it's a doosy so my cooking has been rather limited. I hope to take some time tomorrow to rest up and gather my strength and do some cooking in the afternoon.
Last night I made two impossible pumpkin pies. As I am pulling out the ingredients I realize I don't have anymore evaporated milk. I thought this was a perfect time to pull out those substitution recipes I have been holding on to. The pies came out great and you couldn't tell I hadn't used real evaporated milk.
I used powdered milk this time but you can substitute soy milk powder for a dairy free version.

Evaporated milk
1 cup powdered milk
3/4 cup water
Blend well

I just added the milk with the dry and the water with the wet but the instructions for this recipe say to blend in a blender. The milk powder was very visible in the batter but completely gone in the final product.

Sweet Potato Casserole

I couldn't wait to try this recipe. It's so unique and different when compared to the typical overly sweet marshmallow laden dish we normally serve for Thanksgiving. My dad had bought me an organic pie pumpkin on my birthday and I thought this was the perfect dish to highlight the beauty of that squash. The small pumpkin equalled just over 3 cups when cooked so I used it all. I substituted apple juice (homemade, of course) for the orange juice concentrate and shelled pumpkin seeds for the pecans. I wish I had taken a picture. The green of the seeds against the bright orange was amazing. We had one slight problem. I assembled the dish and took it to my dad's to bake it. The topping fell into the pumpkin but the taste was divine. I can't wait to make it again. I have a few sweet potatoes sitting on my counter that may just need to casseroled.

Sweet Potato Casserole
2 1/2 pounds sweet potatoes (3 medium), peeled and cut into 2-inch chunks
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 tablespoon honey
1/2 cup 1% milk
2 teaspoons freshly grated orange zest
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
For the Topping
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
4 teaspoons frozen orange juice concentrate
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1/2 cup chopped pecans (1 3/4 ounces)
FOR THE SWEET POTATO CASSEROLE: Place sweet potatoes in a large saucepan; cover with lightly salted water and bring to a boil. Cover and cook over medium heat until tender, 10 to 15 minutes. Drain well and return to the pan. Mash with a potato masher. Measure out 3 cups. (Reserve any extra for another use). Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat an 8-inch-square (or similar 2-quart) baking dish with cooking spray. Whisk eggs, oil and honey in a medium bowl. Add mashed sweet potato and mix well. Stir in milk, orange zest, vanilla and salt. Spread the mixture in the prepared baking dish.
FOR THE TOPPING: Mix flour, brown sugar, orange juice concentrate, oil and butter in a small bowl. Blend with a fork or your fingertips until crumbly. Stir in pecans. Sprinkle over the sweet potato mixture. Bake the casserole until heated through and the top is lightly browned, 35 to 45 minutes.

Impossible Pumpkin Pie

When I saw this recipe a week or so ago on one of the blogs I follow, I was intrigued. The author said this pie makes it's own crust. The one thing I struggle with is crust. I'm not a crust fan and making it is not on my list of favorite things to do. This pie was simple enough to slip it into my Thanksgiving cooking and was a hit with the family. What I loved about this pie is that it doesn't really have a crust but it's not so soft that it loses it's form when cut. Most of the family thought this was the perfect pie. I plan on playing with it some to make a gingerbread/apple version.

Impossible Pumpkin Pie
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup biscuit mix
1 can (16 oz) pumpkin
2 tsp. butter
2 1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1 can (13 oz.) evaporated milk
2 tsp. vanilla
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 9 inch pie pan. Beat all ingredients until smooth. Pour into pan. Bake until knife inserted in center comes out clean, 50-55 minutes.

Applesauce cake

I'm sitting here eating cheese, crackers and pickled pears playing on the computer when I remembered I still hadn't posted today's recipe. Last weekend I decided to make a cake with just fruit - no sugar, no oil. I ended up skipping the eggs too. The only fat that comes from the cake is in the Walnuts and the sugar is all fruit based. It's not an overly sweet cake and has that slightly gritty texture of pears. It's rather dense and not very flavorful. That would seem like a poor description for a cake but what I found is this cake is the perfect base to showcase a great topping. Hot out of the oven we served it with a little bailey's irish cream and a few chocolate chips. Today I ate it with a "frosting" of all natural chocolate peanut butter. Add a little rum when the cake first comes out of the oven to help preserve the cake and extend it's shelf life. I put a little cocoa powder in the cake, I'm not sure how much flavor it lends. Feel free to add spices such as ginger and cinnamon to make it more gingerbread like (might be the next version).

Applesauce Cake
3 cups applesauce
6 cups apple or pear juice boiled down to 4 cups
3 cups flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 teas baking soda
1/2 teas baking powder
2 TB dark rum (or vanilla extract)
1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts
Extra Rum, optional
Mix apple sauce and juice. Add flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and baking powder. Mix well. Add extract or rum and walnuts. Mix until incorporated. Pour into greased 9x13 pan (we used a cooking spray). Bake at 350 for 60 to 75 minutes until a toothpick comes out mostly clean. The cake is so moist that the toothpick will not be completely clean. Drizzle over rum (or other alcohol). Serve hot or cold.

Food52

Last week I had the privilege of reviewing the Food52 Cookbook. I was immediately in love. All the recipes from the book are on their website Food52. It's an amazing site. They have a section called Dinner and a Movie. The author pairs older movies with recipes from the website. I don't necessarily agree with all the choices and I might be moved to start my own dinner and a movie post once a month just because.
I recommend visiting the site and sign up for free membership so you can save the wonderful recipes you find.
I know sharing a website is a bit of a cop out but I am in the middle of experimenting with recipes and just don't have anything to share with you today. Tomorrow I will share my applesauce cake. It's a good base cake and still needs some tweeking but I think as a recipe it works. I'll have some recipes for you Monday through Wednesday next week but will be taking Thursday and Friday off. I'll resume the normal schedule November 28th and should have a bunch of new things to share.

Tomato Soup

Tomato Soup has always puzzled me - I love it in restaurants but I hate it at home. I got to thinking about the types of tomato soup that I would get in restaurants and realized it's not the same. The soup I get out is a thin broth with chunks of tomato and a variety of other things, usually pasta. Where the home (canned) version is a thick pasty cream of tomato soup. I decided that tomato soup would be a good use of the ever-ripening pile of tomatoes on my counter. I did a quick search and could not find a recipe that I liked. I made mental notes and headed for the kitchen. What I created, not only satisfied my soup craving, but was so good my son ate several bowls (my tomato hating son). I tried to keep exact measurements but wasn't so successful with the tomatoes. I use cherry tomatoes and cut them in half.

Tomato Soup
1/2 onion, minced
3 stalks celery, thinly sliced
2 tb minced garlic
oil
4 cups chicken broth
4-6 cups chopped tomatoes
2-3 teas. Basil
Cover the bottom of your dutch oven or pot with a thin layer of oil. Saute the minced onion until somewhat translucent. Add the celery and garlic. Saute until tender or you get bored. Add chicken broth. Stir to bring up the bits that may have gotten stuck at the bottom. Add tomatoes and basil. Let come to a boil, then reduce to medium low to simmer. Add water as necessary. Cook until the flavor of the tomatoes have over-powered the flavor of the chicken broth (about 20 minutes). Serve hot.

Cinnamon Apple Ornaments

Making all that applesauce coming up on the holidays makes me think of cinnamon apple ornaments. These are a family favorite for gifts and decorations. They are super easy to make - I either roll it out and use cookie cutters or press the dough into cookie molds. This year I plan on making some miniature gingerbread houses out of the dough.
After making all that applesauce and starting to brainstorm ideas to use it, I was reluctant to use it for inedible ornaments. However, when I was getting to the end of the apples, I had a few going bad. I thought what a perfect experiment - use the waste apples to make applesauce for the ornaments and then I have less waste. I still threw out a bit of apple waste (we need to look into composting at our complex) but I managed to salvage enough for the ornaments. I made a quadruple batch of dough from the waste apples, cheap bulk cinnamon and school glue. At this moment, it cost me nothing to make the ornaments because I bought several pounds of cheap cinnamon last year and I stocked up on glue one year when it was 20 cents a bottle. We often decorate the ornaments with glitter glue and ribbon.

Cinnamon Apple Ornaments
1 cup cinnamon
3/4 cup applesauce
1/3 cup white glue
Mix together with a spoon until most cinnamon is incorporated. Knead remaining cinnamon into dough. The dough will be stiff and dry. Roll 1/2 inch thickness and cut into shapes with cookie cutters or press into molds. Make a hole at the top for a hanger using a toothpick or straw.
Lay on racks until completely dry (I use my dehydrator for this). Decorate as desired.

Apple Lasagna

I meant to post this Friday but the holiday messed me up. I injured my wrist yesterday so I am finally getting around to this. I made this Apple Lasagna last weekend using my homemade apple pie filling. I used about 4 cups of filling per 20 oz can. I also only used 3 noodles per layer instead of 4. This was great and everyone loved it.

Apple Lasagna
12 lasagna noodles
2 (21-ounce) cans apple pie filling
2 cups (8 ounces) shredded Cheddar cheese
1 cup ricotta cheese
1 large egg, beaten
1/4 cup granulated sugar
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons butter
6 tablespoons light or dark brown sugar
1/4 cup quick oats
Dash of ground nutmeg
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook noodles to desired doneness; drain and set aside. Coat a 9- 13-inch baking dish with cooking spray. Layer 4 noodles on bottom of prepared dish. Spread 1 can of apple pie filling on top, slicing any extra-thick apples. Layer 4 noodles over the apples. In a large bowl, mix together the Cheddar cheese, ricotta cheese, egg and granulated sugar; spread them evenly over the noodles and top with the remaining 4 noodles. Spoon remaining can of apple pie filling over noodles. In a small bowl, crumble together the flour, cinnamon, margarine, brown sugar and quick oats. Sprinkle over the apple filling. Bake 45 minutes. Let stand 15 minutes then slice into serving-sized pieces and serve warm or cold.

Apple Pie Filling

This past weekend, I made a recipe called Apple Lasagna. It's like an apple pie with noodles (will post recipe tomorrow). The recipe called for apple pie filling. There was no way I was going to buy filling when I had a ton of apples. So I went to my trusty Ball Canning book and found a recipe. If you want to follow that recipe, you can find it here. I didn't quite like the recipe so I made up my own version.
Since the lasgana is cooked, I didn't cook the apples. I used about 4 cups of filling to equal a 20oz can and made 2 lasagnas. I still ended up canning 2 and 1/2 quarts.

Apple Pie Filling
12 cups of cubed apples (I wash and cube, removing stems, seeds and bad parts but leave them peeled - drop in cold water with lemon juice while cutting all the apples to keep them looking good)
2 3/4 cups sugar
3/4 cup cornstarch
1 1/2 tsp gd cinnamon
1/2 tsp gd nutmeg
2 cups apple juice (I used pear juice because I had just juiced pears)
1 1/4 cups cold water
1/2 cup lemon juice

Mix sugar and cornstarch in large pot. Add spices. Add apple juice and water, mixing thoroughly. Bring to a boil over medium high heat, stirring frequently. As it boils, stir constantly until the syrup is thickened. Add lemon juice. Bring back to boil and cook 1 minute. Remove from heat and add drained apples. Stir well to coat apples.
Use in pie or other recipe.
To can - ladle into quart jars. Clean rims and cover with lid and rings. Place in lukewarm water in water canner. Bring to boil. Boil for 25 minutes, adjusting for altitude.

Easy Granola

I got this recipe from Food in Jars but I've once again altered the recipe. I was so impressed with the idea of using fruit butter to make granola that I had to try it. The family loves it and my son had to share it with everyone he could. I'm not a granola fan but this was great. We eat it dry but I did try it with milk. I didn't mind it (we've switch powdered milk brands and I don't like the taste).
I doubled this recipe and it took nearly an hour to get it to dry out. You can double it but spread it out really thin using 2 baking sheets if necessary. I had mine too thick. We did break it up and re-cook it on two baking sheets and it came out beautifully. I added a small package of dried cranberries which might have been slightly over a cup of berries.

Easy Granola
2 cups oatmeal
1 1/2 cups nuts and/or seeds
1 cup fruit butter
Dried fruit, optional
Mix together. Lay out on a baking sheet. Bake at 325, stirring every ten minutes, until the granola is dry. Add dried fruit.

Apple Butter

This week my recipes are two part. I made apple butter several weeks ago and made it into granola this past weekend. The apple butter can be made with apples or pears (I will be sharing some pear butter recipes later this month as well). I sauced the apples and then measured it for the apple butter. This stores well in the fridge or cans beautifully.

Apple Butter
12 cups apple sauce/puree
3 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp gd cinnamon
1/2 tsp gd cloves
In a large stainless steel pot combine all ingredients. Stir until sugar dissolves. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring frequently. Reduce heat and boil gently, stirring frequently, until mixture thickens and holds it's shape on a spoon.
If canning, prep jars, lids and rings. Pour hot butter into jars, leaving 1/4 inch head space. Boil in water bath for 10 minutes (adjust for elevation).

Fried Green Tomatoes

One dish my husband looks forward to every fall is fried green tomatoes. I was able to get some green tomatoes from a local organic farm. I paid more than I would have normally ($1 a pound) but I felt this was a special request and a gift for my husband.
Making fried green tomatoes is really easy and I have finally found a breading that everyone loved. The only thing about the frying is that I use little oil and it gets dirty so after every 3-4 batches I would have to clean out the pan. I don't have a good solution but it didn't really detract from the process. I set up a funnel with a coffee filter in a jar to dump the oil into and used a paper towel to quickly wipe away the crumbs left behind.
I don't have measurements because this is not really a measurement sort of recipe - it's more a technique.

Fried Green Tomatoes
Large, firm green tomatoes (at least the size of a tennis ball)
Flour
Milk
Eggs
Cornmeal
Seasoning Salt (I used New Orleans Seasoning)

Slice the tomatoes into 1/2 inch slices, try to keep them uniform but it's okay if there is some variation. Set out four bowls. Pour milk in the first bowl. Place 3/4 cup flour in the second and add seasoning, mix with a fork. Add 2 eggs to the third bowl and beat until combined. In the last bowl put about 3/4 cup of corn meal.
Take a deep skillet and add about 1/2 inch of oil. Let heat up while prepping the tomatoes.
Dip the tomato in the milk. Let drip until not dripping anymore. Cover with flour. Shake of excess. Dip in egg - make sure the entire surface gets egg on it and stays. Let excess drip off. Dip in cornmeal.
Set tomato in oil and let fry until golden. Flip and fry until golden. Let tomato drain on a baking rack layed over a baking sheet.
Serve with gravy or ranch dressing and enjoy.

Toffee

Yesterday's post made me think of toffee. For those of us in Washington, this toffee recipe is often called Almond Roca after the popular candy (made in Tacoma Washington - some day I will visit that factory). This recipe can easily be converted into the toffee topping for the Chewy Toffee Almond Bars. Omit the chocolate and the almonds, then break up the toffee for the bars.
If you aren't interested in doing that much work - then just make the toffee as instructed and enjoy. We love this candy and I think I'll be putting together a batch this weekend.

Toffee
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
3 tbs. water
1 tsp. vanilla or corn syrup
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup finely chopped almonds
Boil butter, sugar and water (and corn syrup if using) until mixture browns and pulls away from side of pan (about 10 minutes/ 290 degrees). Add vanilla and 1/2 cup nuts if using. Pour onto buttered cookie sheet and place chocolate on top of hot mixture. Spread evenly as it melts. Sprinkle nuts over chocolate. Cool and break into pieces.

Chewy Toffee Almond Bars

As part of our mad baking day on Sunday, my dad was trying to clean out his pantry. We found a bag of toffee bits and a recipe for chewy toffee almond bars. I made two major changes to the recipe. We had whole almonds so I smashed them up with a rolling pin instead of using sliced almonds and when it was all done we topped it with chocolate chips. We let the chocolate melt a little and then spread it over like a frosting. I think our toffee bits were a little stale or we over cooked them because the toffee was rock hard. It was a fun contrast to the soft cookie and made a great but tasty mess. After they had sat for a day, the cookie hardened and they were a little less tricky to eat but the toffee was still really hard. However, the taste was amazing. I really like these and think it wouldn't be hard to make a version with homemade toffee.

Chewy Toffee Almond Bars
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1-3/4 cups English Toffee Bits
3/4 cup light corn syrup
1 cup sliced almonds, divided
3/4 cup Sweetened Coconut Flakes, divided
Heat oven to 350°;F. Grease sides of 13x9x2-inch baking pan. Beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Gradually add flour, beating until well blended. Press dough evenly into prepared pan. Bake 15 to 20 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Meanwhile, combine toffee bits and corn syrup in medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until toffee is melted (about 10 to 12 minutes). Stir in 1/2 cup almonds and 1/2 cup coconut. Spread toffee mixture to within 1/4-inch of edges of crust. Sprinkle remaining 1/2 cup almonds and remaining 1/4 cup coconut over top. Bake an additional 15 minutes or until bubbly. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Cut into bars.

Pear Chutney

I found this recipe on the Food in Jars blog. It's a wonderful way to use up those pears we foraged. I was lucky enough to find all the ingredients sitting in my pantry. My aunt had given me a 2 pound bag of dried cherries from her senior food baskets and all the spices are ones I had in my pantry. I used ginger juice from GingerPeople instead of fresh ginger. I served this with zucchini fritters. My fritters were far too dry so I will need to work with them some more before I post the recipe (I think I wrung out too much liquid in my zucchini).
This recipe took almost no effort to make - the most being cutting up the pears. Since the pears we foraged were small, I cut up more. The only substitutions I made were I used pomegranate vinegar and amaretto in place of red wine vinegar and apple brandy. The taste was amazing.
I plan on trying a version with apples because we have so many of them leftover as well.

Pear Chutney with Dried Cherries and Ginger
makes 3 half pint jars

3/4 cup dried cherries, chopped roughly
1 cup boiling water
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup chopped yellow onion
1 teaspoon sea salt
3 tablespoons freshly grated ginger
1 tablespoon yellow mustard seeds
1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons apple brandy
4 cups roughly chopped Bartlett pears (4-5 medium pears)
2/3 cup sugar

Place dried cherries in a heat-proof bowl or measuring cup and pour boiling water over top. Set aside.
Heat a large, non-reactive pot or skillet over medium heat. Add oil and heat until it shimmers. Add onion and sea salt and cook until the onion softened and develops a bit of color. Add ginger, mustard seeds and cardamom and cook until spices are fragrant and the mustard seeds begin to pop.
Add vinegar and brand to pan and use a wooden spoon to work up any bits of fond on the bottom of the pan. Add dried cherries and their liquid. Add chopped pears and sugar and stir to combine.
Reduce heat to low, put a lid on the pan and let pears simmer gently for 30-35 minutes so that they soften.
When the pears can be crushed with the back of a wooden spoon, remove the lid from the pot. Increase the heat to high and cook quickly, stirring regularly, to help reduce any remaining liquid.
When chutney is no longer at all watery and looks deeply colored, take a taste. Should it need it, add a splash more vinegar, a pinch more salt or a spoonful more sugar. Do make sure to taste for adjustments before canning, as ingredients can vary from kitchen to kitchen and it’s the only way to ensure that you’ll wind up with a product that you like.
When chutney is fully cooked down and tastes good to you, ladle it into three prepared half pint jars. Wipe rims, apply lids and process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes.
When time is up, remove jars from canning pot and let them cool on a folded kitchen towel. Any unsealed jars should be refrigerated and eaten within a week. Sealed jars can be kept in the pantry for up to one year.

Turkish Delights - Blackberry Jellies

Between here and the mountains is a small town called Cashmere in Washington. It's not a significant sort of place except for one thing - Aplets and Cotlets. Aplets and Cotlets are a mass produced sort of Turkish Delight. They are amazing candies and quite popular in Washington. I hear they have some popularity all over but in Washington they are famous. We stop at Cashmere to enjoy the factory and the gift shop every couple of years or so.
One year I wanted to learn how to make them at home. Several failed attempts later, I pretty much gave up on the idea. Then last Christmas I came across a recipe for something called Blackberry Jellies. These were different but had so much potential. I undercooked them and created a really tasty jelly for sandwiches. I decided to try again this past weekend and they were perfect. The recipe is not difficult, it requires patience. I, apparently, lacked that patience last Christmas. The candies are wonderful. I haven't taken the time to dredge them in sugar so they are really sticky but I plan on trying them dredged in powdered sugar to see how they compare to Aplets and Cotlets. I, also, plan on trying an apple version (with and without walnuts) to see if I can, indeed, replicate the candy.
I didn't start with frozen blackberries. When we go blackberry picking, I run the berries through my food mill to remove all the seeds and anything else because the berries are often too soft and mushy by the time we return home. I freeze this juice and used that to make this candy. It takes 2 cups of fruit puree so I used 2 cups juice and will use 2 cups apple sauce when I make an apple version.
This recipe has you dredge with granulated sugar, Turkish Delights uses powdered sugar - either will work.


Blackberry Fruit Jellies
1 bag(s) frozen blackberries
2 teaspoon(s) powdered pectin
2 3/4 cup(s) sugar, divided, plus additional for coating
1 tablespoon(s) lemon juice or lime juice
Puree fruit and 1/2 cup water in blender until smooth; strain out seeds.
Place 2 cups puree in a heavy-bottomed medium saucepan. Thoroughly mix pectin and 1/4 cup sugar, whisk into fruit puree, and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Add remaining 2 1/4 cups sugar and cook mixture until it reaches 225 degrees F, stirring constantly. Stir in lemon or lime juice; cook 30 seconds more. Pour into a lightly oiled 9" x 13" baking pan, sprinkle sugar on top, and allow to set, about 2 hours. Cut into 1-inch squares, or use a lightly oiled cookie cutter to make other shapes. Dredge in sugar and dry on a cooling rack overnight. Scraps can be remelted and reset. Store in a box or paper bag at room temperature for up to two weeks.

Catching Up and Caramels

I wasn't feeling all that well last week but I did manage to get one more weekend of foraging two weekends ago. All those apples and pears and elderberries need to be used up so I'll be posting recipes soon. We had a day of candy making and I'll have some fun ideas on that too. I love this time of year because baking ingredients go on sale and we take every opportunity to share food with friends and family.
I'm still struggling with the end of this bug but I wanted to share Mary Jane's Caramel recipe. I made this nucoa and half and half.
In the pan it was gritty and I wasn't sure how it would come out but it finished beautifully. The trick is to not skimp on the time you cook the caramels. Make sure you get them hot enough before taking them off the stove.

Pumpkin Seed Brittle

This has just been one of those weeks so I'm going to keep this short. I discovered this brittle recipe years ago. The brittle was a garnish for a larger dessert but we loved it so much that it became a family favorite. It's quick and easy. The brittle part is more of a candy coating on the pumpkin seeds. I use shelled store bought seeds though you can use ones you roast yourself.

Pumpkin Seed Brittle
In heavy 6-8 inch frying pan over med-high heat, stir 1/3 cup sugar and 1/4 cup water until sugar is dissolved. Cook without stirring, shaking pan often, until mixture is a deep amber brown color (5-10 minutes). Remove from heat and stir in ½ cup hulled and roasted pumpkin seeds. Pour onto 12x15 piece of buttered foil and spread thin. Let cool until had (6-10 min) break into ½ inch pieces.

Potato Soup

I have recipes for potato soup and yet I seem to make it without one every time. Last night's pot was one of the best versions I have made and thought it was worth trying to preserve a recipe.

Potato Soup
4 ears corn
8 smallish potatoes or 4 large, washed and cubed
1 onion, chopped
1/2 stick butter
2 quarts non-fat milk (ours is instant)
3/4 cup half and half
1 cup sour cream
salt and pepper (I actually used cajun seas salt and pepper)

Place corn in a pot and cover with water. Bring to boil and turn off. Let corn cool to handle and cut kernels off (if using canned or frozen then it's about 3/4 cup corn per cob). Melt butter in stockpot. Add onions and stir over med-high heat until starting to turn clear but not brown. Add corn and roast a few moments. Add potatoes and cover with milk. Let cook on medium heat, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are tender. Can season while cooking or wait until just about to serve. When potatoes are cooked, add half and half and sour cream. Stir to melt sour cream. Turn off heat and let set for 10 minutes and serve.

Great with rolls or seasoned breadsticks.

Halloween Party Planning Part 4 - Beverages

When it comes to drinks my family is fairly basic - they drink water or soda but mostly water. When we have family get-togethers water and soda are more often what we serve so I often forget to think about beverages. When winter comes we do pots of spiced cider or wine, occasionally a special coffee but rarely anything more. (unless you could our endless consumption of tea which is like water).
On Halloween, I would often serve Bug Juice which is the only punch I ever make.
However, you don't need a recipe to dress up your Halloween drinks.
You can choose to go more traditional with hot drinks such as cider or hot chocolate. The adults might like a bit of spiced wine.
The real trick is to alter the perception of the drink. Give your drinks Halloween names - Cauldron punch, larve shake - whatever. Then dress them up. Use gummy bugs, body parts, worms, mice - the varieties are endless. Drip blood from the glasses - mix corn syrup with red food coloring and dip the opening of your glass. The syrup will slowly run down the glass (this does stain so be warned).
Add dry ice to give it a steamy effect.
Create spooky ice cubes - freeze green olives for eyes and creepy toys if you are not serving to small children. Freeze different colored Kool-aids in ice trays. You can use black cherry and orange to make Halloween colored cubes.
The ideas are really endless if you open up to them.

Halloween Party Planning Part 3 - Things to Dip in Blood Sauce

When planning a holiday party it's really fun to plan the desserts. Desserts just seem to be more party like but you can't have a meal of all desserts, especially on Halloween when the kids will already have an assortment of treats to choose from. For me, I try to plan healthy snacks and a solid meal for the day so that when my son does trick or treat, he's not gorging on sugary stuff. I'm grateful that he's not huge on the sweets (well wasn't as he gets older he eats more candy). I can fill him up with good food and since I always make too much, there's always some waiting for him at home if he gets hungry. He would prefer to snack on the "food" than the candy. He's also one who likes it when houses give out apples and he snacks on those.
One fun thing to add is finger food with sauces. You can make pretty normal sauces sound really gross with a few signs. Chicken strips can become werewolf or witch fingers (add an almond sliver to the pointed end for a fingernail if you so desire). Ketchup can become blood drizzled over the top. Or you can use sweet and sour sauce. Mustard, ranch or sour cream can become pus.
Slice up apples and serve them with raspberry, cherry or strawberry sauce/syrup for bloody fruit. A quick and easy fruit sauce - thin jam with a little water.
I, personally, avoid artificial colors. There are a variety of reasons why and everyone has their own - me, I figure there's enough junk in the candy that it's my job to balance it with good wholesome foods.
Creative labeling, and even some arranging, can make your every day dish something spooky.
Any red sauce can easily become blood. Don't forget spaghetti sauce. You can make breadsticks and twist them to give them a gnarled appearance and dip in spaghetti sauce. Decorate a pizza with large plastic flies and spiders and call it something yucky (a cheese pizza could become bloody bandage pizza - just don't make it so gross no one will eat it).

Halloween Party Planning Part 2 - Brains

No Halloween party is complete without a dish of brains. Over the years I have experimented with a varity of techniques that are rather tasty and just goulish enough to be fun.
For years I made a lumpy brain dish out of rolls that I stuffed with pepperoni and cheese. I used the rolls to make a monkey bread version of a brain and would paint them with red and blue food coloring. For added gore, I would drizzle pizza sauce over the top (serving with pizza was a must).
Last year, we bought a zombie brain mold for about $4. I used it to make panna cotta and served it with raspberry sauce. If you are not familiar with Panna Cotta, it's a white milky gelatin dish that molded beautifully. It was gruesome.
Here are two more ideas.
Brain cupcakes - this is more a technique than a recipe since you can use any cupcake to make these.
Melon Brain I'm tempted to try this but fruit carving is not my thing.
Purchasing an inexpensive brain mold can open possibilities but you don't have to let that limit you.

Buttermilk Panna Cotta
3 teas gelatin
3 1/2 tbs. cold water
1 cup cream
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup + 2 tbs. sugar
1/2 vanilla bean
2 cups buttermilk
Sprinkle gelatin over cold water in med bowl. Let stand untouched for 3 minutes. In small saucepan - combine cream, milk, sugar, and vanilla. Bring to a boil over med-high heat, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and pour over gelatin. Stir well to dissolve gelatin. Let cool to room temp. Remove vanilla bean and add buttermilk, stirring to mix. Strain mixture through fine sieve and pour into grease mold. Cover and chill 6 hours.

Spaghetti and Eyeballs

This recipe was a favorite for Halloween dinner for years. It's quick and easy for those Halloween dinners that fall right after work. The eyeballs can be made ahead of time and reheated. This was the only time I made meatballs to go with our spaghetti so it was a double treat. Put the leftover olives in an ice cube tray and fill with water to make eyeball ice.

Spaghetti and Eyeballs
2 lbs. lean ground beef
1 1/2 cups seasoned bread crumbs
2 tbsp. ketchup
2 eggs
1 tbsp. fresh basil or 1 tsp. dried
1 7-oz. jar pimiento-stuffed olives
1 26-oz. jar prepared pasta sauce
1 lb. spaghetti
1 tbsp. olive oil
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Mix the ground beef, bread crumbs, ketchup, eggs and basil in a large bowl. Using the meat mixture, form about 30 small meatballs.
To make the eyeballs, press an olive into each meatball, pimiento side out. Place the eyeballs in a baking dish, cover with the pasta sauce and bake for
45 minutes.
Meanwhile, cook the spaghetti in boiling salted water. Drain and rinse the spaghetti, and toss with 1 tablespoon of olive oil to prevent strands from sticking together. Put it on a platter or in a large serving bowl.
Spoon the eyeballs onto the spaghetti, irises up, and spoon the pasta sauce around them.

Halloween Party Planning Part 1 - Meatloaf Spider

Since our theme this year is Mad Entomologist, we wanted all the food to be bugs or mad scientist oriented. My son announced that we needed to have meatloaf. He wanted a meatloaf mummy but I suggested making a meatloaf spider. We haven't worked out all the details yet but were able to get a decent price on hamburger last week.
Because Halloween is further away then the hamburger will stay fresh, we froze it. I want to make a note here - frozen hamburger will not mesh together after it is thawed. I don't know why but something about freezing the meat reduces it's ability to form a patty without help. Adding eggs and breadcrumbs (crackers or oatmeal work too) is the only way to get it to form a patty. This is fine for our meatloaf but won't work if we want hamburgers (just for those who plan on stocking up).
Now my husband makes meatloaf so I don't have a recipe. Any meatloaf recipe will do. To make it into a spider form a round ball of meatloaf and bake. You can create eyes using a little sour cream and a black olive that has been split in half the long way. Legs can be made from long thick pretzals or breadsticks (which we are going to try). The legs won't be the same color but we figure it all eats the same.

Souppa Avgolemono (Egg-Lemon Soup)

I'm craving soup so this weekend I am going to try this recipe. I've carried it around for years and I like the idea of lemon and eggs. I think it will be a good complement to whatever we opt to make with it.
I, also, plan on making garlic soup since I have several heads of garlic that need to be used. Both soups are filling and rather low cal so that'll be good.

Souppa Avgolemono (Egg-Lemon Soup)
6 cups chicken broth
3/4 cup rice or orzo pasta
3 eggs
1 lemon, juice of (or more)
Bring broth to boil in saucepan, and add rice or orzo. Cover and cook on medium low heat for 20-25 minutes (rice) or 10 minutes (orzo). While the rice cooks, lightly beat the eggs and the lemon juice together. Remove the broth from heat. Slowly mix about one cup of the hot broth into egg-lemon mixture. Add to the soup gradually while stirring. Place saucepan back on the heat, and stir until soup is heated through (DO NOT BOIL).

Chapatis

Chapatis are an Indian version of a tortilla. They are made from flour and water, rolled into a circle and fried. Traditionally they are fried in a little butter but last night we used the griddle with no oil on it at all. We still got great results and the "tortillas" were low calorie. I used AP flour as a "control" but over time we'll experiment with using whole white wheat flour and maybe some whole wheat pastry flour.
The recipe is simple but give the dough some time to rest. I've made them without resting and that's okay but they are tougher. Cover with a moist cloth or plastic wrap to keep the dough from drying out.

Chapatis
2 1/2 cups flour plus more for dusting
1 cup water

Mix flour and water into a soft dough. Let rest 30 minutes. Divide the dough into 12 pieces. Roll each out to a thin tortilla like disk. They do stretch easily so be careful. Set in hot skillet or griddle and fry until lightly brown, flip and fry until lightly brown.
Can brush on melted butter while frying.
Serve with some sort of saucy dish - we made fajitas out of ours.

My son took one and wrapped it around sliced onions and peppers before frying. It was so beautiful I wish I had taken a picture. He said it tasted good but he should have tucked in a piece of steak.

Skipping Meals

For some people the idea of skipping meals is the perfect plan for losing weight and maintaining a grocery budget. Not only is this an unhealthy plan but it's bound to backfire.
If you skip a meal, you are more apt to indulge in less nutritious foods like candy and junk food. The reason is your body craves fuel and junk food offers the quickest solution. They are often calorie dense with high sugar so the body can get back on track.
If you manage to sidestep the cravings, it is a good possibility that you will overeat when you finally have a meal.
If you manage to keep that under control, your body will take over and start changing how it stores energy.
That's a lot of ifs. The truth is our body is basically a machine - it requires fuel to function. Fat stores occur when the body gets too much fuel (calories) so it tucks it away for future use. This worked perfectly when we were a hunter/gatherer sort of people. When food was plentiful, we ate and created fat stores which would be used up when food became more scarce. However, food is now always plentiful because we have grocery stores. This means that fat stores are not as necessary as they once were.
To lose weight you need to reduce your calorie intake. However, the body prepares for this. If we don't take in enough calories, our body goes into defense mode. It prepares for starvation or a great lack of food. Our bodies want to survive but they don't really care what our motivation is - they have a job to do. When fuel becomes scarce the body becomes super efficient. This means that when we took in calories before our body utilized them in sort of a lazy way. The body knows more is coming (especially if you are good with eating on schedule) so if there's a little extra calories they'll store them away but it's not using calories to their fullest potential. Some just get dumped because they are not needed.
When the calories decrease drastically or stop, the body reacts by squeezing every little bit of energy it can from each calorie. Because the routine has been disrupted the body is less apt to use the stores and just work harder to utilize what comes in. This is where people get really frustrated with weight loss. They can't drop the weight because the body is holding on to it with all it's might.
On top of that, the body starts obsessing about getting more calories. The nose becomes hypersensitive to food smells. The mouth waters more easily. The brain dumps more chemicals to make us want food (that is if the system is working correctly and the lack of calories is not due to illness). The cravings become so intense that we dump all our diet plans and start bingeing. This pattern is what leads to Bulimia, even if you are fat and society says you need to lose weight. This is unhealthy, period. However, our society supports it which is very sad.
The healthiest way to lose weight is to restrict your calories to a reasonable amount. For me, it should be about 1500 calories (but I've stretched a little to just over 1600). I'm flexible. I eat anything I want, just in moderation.
Moderation is the key and so is eliminating wasteful calories such as soda (which helps the budget because have you seen the price of soda). I do want a SodaStream and that is a dream I will continue to have until I see an opportunity to get one without breaking the bank. But then I will have control over the drinks and I just happen to love seltzer so it's a winwin for me. I make my junk food from scratch. This allows me to have my cake and eat it to.
Hope some of that helps.

Sweet and Sour Sauce (take 2)

I shared my recipe for sweet and sour sauce back in March. It's one that I have made my entire adult years and sure it's the same my mom made as I was growing up. It's a great recipe that has only two faults - it's a little complicated (mostly lots of chopping veggies) and it makes a ton. When I make this we eat it for days. So when my friend Carol put up a really simple Sweet and Sour sauce recipe on her blog I couldn't wait to try it. Of course, I can never follow a recipe so I did my best impersonation of hers. I substituted the water and the tomato paste for 1 quart of homemade canned diced tomatoes. I used about 1/2 of a 20 oz can of crushed pineapple since that was the only size at the store. The result was amazing. This version is slightly less tangy than my home version and it was so quick and easy. I highly recommend it (it tastes just like the sauce in a restaurant).

Portion Control

More often than not, you will discover that the problem with weight is in direct correlation to the portion size. We live in a nation of supersize and more for your money. We seek out deals that often offer us more food for less money. We have allowed economics drive our diet.
For me, my diet is rather well balanced (could use more fresh fruits and veggies) but my problem is I eat lots of it. I love food. I love good deals. And I am not one to leave food on my plate because that's a waste of perfectly good food. One thing I want to note is that my parents were not the sort that made us clean our plates, this is a habit I developed all on my own.
In my house, the rule is you don't have to eat all your food but if you want seconds then you must clean your plate. This ensures my son eats his veggies before going back for more rice or pasta.
We're also carb lovers. I can live off of bread, pasta and rice. I love vegetables so that's good but I'm not big on fruit necessarily. Meat I can take or leave most of the time. I love starch and this shows in my food diary. I often lack in my protein and go over on my carbs.
How does this all translate to weight loss and budgeting? Easy - portion control means eating a set amount of food. For me, this means measuring the food so I know how much I am eating and so I can accurately record it in my diary on Sparkpeople. Knowing exactly how much food I should eat encourages me to cook less. Cooking less save on my budget.
Now you may feel that bulk cooking works best for you. Great, so long as you are watching your quantities. More food encourages us to eat more. That stems from a time when food was more difficult to regulate. Bigger plates encourage us to dish up more because we want to feel like we are eating.
For my house, cooking in bulk means one of two things - my 14 year old son eats all the leftovers because they are there or we throw out the leftovers because we forgot about them. This is not always true but it happens more often than I like. Cooking enough to feed everyone reduces waste.
Am I hungry? The honest answer is yes. My body is getting adequate calories and nutrients but I'm hungry because my body is used to eating more. Our stomach is flexible, it stretches and shrinks to accomodate food cycles (back when we were hunters and gatherers). Just because I am hungry doesn't mean I'm starving.
Hunger is a tricky thing. If I allow myself to get too hungry then I will overeat when I have the chance. I might sneak in a snack which, more often than not, will be something with little nutrition.
The beginning of retraining my body to eat less is hard which is why most people fail at their diet. I don't deny myself a type of food but I limit how much I eat. I don't feel deprived but I feel hungry. I'm working on teaching my body to eat differently than I did before. It sucks, I'm not going to lie, but it's the same as if I was training to do anything. If I wanted to run a marathon - I would ache, I would be tired. I know I would wake up some mornings and question my whole reason for doing the marathon and wonder if it's really worth it. It's all worth it when you cross that finish line.

Steak, Cabbage and Onions

That's a terrible name for the recipe but I made this up last night so there's no great title. We sprouted some broccoli sprouts and thought they would be good with the cabbage we go for 39 cents last night. We love fried cabbage and this recipe is low cost and healthy. I don't recommend broccoli sprouts though. They are pricey and smell horrible. They tasted fine but for a week we were sure something was rotting in our kitchen as they sprouted. We threw them in this dish but you can use any sprout or none at all.

1 petite sirloin steak
1 large onion
1 head cabbage
1 cup sprouts
oil

Oil pan and heat (we use cast iron so you can omit if you use non-stick). Slice steak into 1/4 inch strips. Fry in pan until well seared. Chop onion and add to meat. Chop cabbage and add to pan when onion and steak are caramelized. Fry for 2-3 minutes and then top with a lid and turn off heat. This will steam the cabbage but prevent the bottom from burning. When cabbage is soft, turn heat back on. Add sprouts and heat thoroughly.
We serve with soy sauce and rice.
Can subsitute chicken, tofu, etc for steak.

Weight Loss on a Budget Part 2

As I get to thinking about my plan the more I realize that the tricks I can use to reduce my caloric intake are ones that will help maximize my grocery budget. Once again, all this takes is a little creative thinking.
I mentioned before that omitting unnecessary ingredients helps stretch the budget but it also reduces wasteful calories. I used cheese as an example because it's one I see a lot. Cheese can be heavy on calories and should be treated like a condiment instead of a meal (except that's not always possible in cases of mac and cheese, pizza, quesadillas, etc but I'll talk about that in a moment). Where I see this most is with pasta and with sandwiches (hamburgers included). More often we add cheese because we believe we need to but it doesn't actually add to the dish. We love parmesan cheese on spaghetti but when our budget got tighter we moved from fresh shredded parmesan to the grated powdery stuff that comes in a can. Doesn't matter what brand you buy, they all barely have any flavor. Not using the cheese reduces calories and when you stop thinking about it, you won't notice any difference.
The same goes for most sandwiches. Cheap processed cheese has little flavor but is not calorie free. Eating your hamburger without the gooey glop makes a calorie difference that you won't even taste. It's tough to convince someone that investing in higher priced, higher quality cheese is actually saving your budget (and your waist line). A good quality cheese requires less because you can taste it. I like sharp cheeses - sharp cheddar, blue cheese, feta, because they all encourage using less.
The same goes for butter/margarine. Often times we use too much. A light smear of butter on a piece of bread still offers the flavor without all the extra calories. I had to teach my son that 1/2 cube of butter for a can of vegetables was just a waste. One can add a little or none at all and still have a good tasting side dish.
Vegetables are tough for some people. If you are one who can't eat them without a ton of butter or cheese sauce - there is a way to curb that habit. Each time you eat them, use less. I got my family away from using cheese sauce for vegetables by sprinkling on a good sharp cheddar or parmesan on the vegetable when I served them. Eventually, they didn't even need that. I just cut a bunch of calories and stretched our monthly allotment of cheese and butter.
We've moved from microwave popcorn to air-popped corn which is so much better (too much controversy over the safety of microwave popcorn for me). I found I don't mind it plain but sometimes a little flavor is nice. I'm returning to a trick my grandmother used to use - spray the popcorn with butter flavored cooking spray and sprinkle on some spices. She often used taco seasoning on the popcorn. It's a great low fat, low cost snack (popcorn kernals often cost less than a three pack of microwave popcorn and makes soooooo much more).
Back to the cheese for a moment, since I am easily distracted. When it comes to foods like mac and cheese, pizza and quesadillas - how do you reduce the amount of cheese and still feel like you have a good dish. It goes back to buy a good quality cheese. Mac and cheese can be made with less fat by using oil instead of butter to make the roux, using a lower fat milk (the jury is out on whether low fat milk is good for you) and a sharp flavorful cheese. It will take less cheese to flavor the sauce. Same goes for quesadillas - less can be more if you use a good flavor cheese.
As for Pizza - use lots of vegetable toppings and less cheese or omit the cheese all together for some varieties. We love pizza crust with potatoes and onions. Cheese is nice but not necessary.
Making food flavorful with herbs and spices will help reduce cost and calories because you are not adding things to flavor the food.
A tip I learned from my mom when I was younger (that I am sure she has since forgotten) - use salsa as a salad dressing. Salad dressings are often laden with fat and add little nutrition. Using salsa gives the salad flavor and extra veggies. I like to mix it up and use blue cheese or feta as a toppine (about 1 TB is all I need). Sometimes a little crumbled bacon (about 1 strip fried and crumbled). They are fatty foods but they offer more than just fat (well except maybe the bacon). I like adding avocados when I can get them. They have good fat and lots of nutrients so it adds an extra punch to my salad.
I'm sure there's more in the recesses of my brain but that will have to wait for another post since this one is long enough.

Pina Colada Jar Cake

Sorry about the cake post right after the weight loss post but in reality cake is still part of a balanced diet. Everything in moderation. I mentioned I had lost this recipe. When I did a google search I found several sites with this recipe but, thankfully, they were all the same recipe so I believe it's the same. This recipe got me thinking, jar cakes might make great rum cakes, just bake them in the jar and let cool. Pour over alcohol of choice and let sit. I'll have to pull out a rum cake recipe to get instructions but I think it can be done and how cute to give out little rum cakes at the holidays.
I don't think I ever pureed the pineapple in this recipe because I'm a little lazy and I love the chunks of pineapple. I, also, use unsweetened coconut because I prefer it.

Pina Colada Jar Cake
1 can (20 ounces) crushed pineapple in natural juices
11 tablespoons butter, room temperature
3 1/2 cups light brown sugar, packed
4 eggs
1/2 cup dark rum
3 1/3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup coconut, sweetened flaked
Preheat oven to 325°. Wash 8 wide mouth 1-pint canning jars with lids in hot, soapy water. Let dry on clean paper towels or dish towels. Generously grease inside of each jar. Drain crushed pineapple a colander, squeezing to get as much of the juice out as possible; reserve juice. Put the well-drained pineapple in a food processor; pulse until smooth. Measure out 1 1/2 cups of the puree. If necessary, to make 1 1/2 cups, add a small amount of the reserved juice. Set puree aside. Discard remaining juice or freeze to use as liquid for a cake or other dish. With an electric mixer, cream butter and brown sugar until light. Beat in eggs, beating well after each addition. Beat in pineapple puree and rum; set aside.
Into another bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Gradually add the dry ingredients, about 1/3 at a time, to the pineapple batter mixture, beating well after each addition to make a thick batter. Stir in coconut. Measure 1 level cupful of batter to spoon into a jar. Repeat with remaining batter and jars. Carefully wipe rims clean, then place jars in center of preheated oven. Bake 40 minutes. Cake should spring back when lightly touched with finger. About 10 minutes before cakes are done, bring a medium saucepan of water to a boil. Put in jar lids, cover, and remove from heat. Keep lids in hot water until they're used. When cakes are done, remove jars from oven. If jar rims need cleaning, use a moistened paper towel. Carefully put lids and rings in place, then screw tops tightly shut. Place jars on a wire rack; they will seal as they cool.

Weight Loss on a Budget

I've been debating about writing a section on dieting on a budget. I have some strong feelings about dieting and the "obesity" epidemic. I, also, worried that it would add just another layer to an already overwhelming change. It's difficult to maintain a grocery budget and a balanced diet. Adding the addition of "dieting" can completely cause the entire system to crash.
The weight loss industry has convinced the American public that losing weight is hard and you can only do it if you spend a lot of money in the process. More often than not their systems are designed to fail for if you succeeded then you would no longer require their products. I'm not going to say that all programs are designed for failure but many are - especially those that come in pill form. Most people want everything right now. Rapid weight loss results in what is called Yo-Yoing. Yo-yoing is losing weight, gaining it back, losing weight, etc. This is the result of most weight loss programs.
Why do most programs fail? The answer is simple, they don't change the underlaying problem. For example, you have a house. The exterior siding is stained so you spray paint it a dark blue to cover it up. Over time the paint fades and you're back to yucky siding. So you paint it green when what you need to do is scrape away all the old paint, prime and then paint it a color that you like instead of something that covers up.
The same is with losing weight. We don't want to take the time to do it right, we want to fit into that outfit for our class reunion which is next week or get ready for summer vacations on the first warm day after winter. We want quick, easy and something that doesn't require a lot of thought. But that doesn't spell success.
When it comes to weight (losing or gaining) there's a simple equation - calories in vs calories out. To lose weight your calories in have to be smaller than your calories out. Easy as can be - in theory.
Now we're looking at food on a budget. This is where I have some real issues with the fighting obesity programs. I don't believe education is THE answer. I believe it's a part of the answer but no amount of education is going to change the price of food and people's access to it. If I had unlimited funds, you can bet I would buy fresh organic fruits and vegetables to serve at every meal. I might even make that the majority of my meal but I can't. I have to be creative when it comes to fruits and vegetables through foraging and gardening because to buy them in the store would financially ruin me. I'd love to buy organic farm raised meat and eggs - I can barely afford what I do buy. This is not a pity party just reality. To buy the foods that are best for maintaining weight just are not affordable. What is affordable is calorie dense foods. That is why the poor have always been portrayed as fat, cheap foods are calorie dense. That doesn't make them lack nutrition, in fact many provide great nutrition but also excessive calories.
How does one maintain a budget, provide good nutrition, and lose weight to keep it off permantently? The truth is - I'm going to find out. My doctor has demanded I lose weight for my health. My blood pressure has been creeping up along with my weight over the last year and it's time to focus on becoming healthy.
One tool I am using is Sparkpeople. Sparkpeople is a free website with lots of tools, trackers and support. I have used it in the past but not really as a committed weight loss tool. What I am going to use and used in the past is the Nutrition Tracker. This is the best tool out there. Enter what you eat and how much (a little tricky for those who make everything from scratch but not impossible), the system tells you how many calories, carbs, fat, protein you have eaten. If you set up a weight loss goal, the tracker will also give the parameters you need to meet to lose weight and still be healthy. My goal is to lose 100 pounds in one year. Sunday was my birthday so by my next birthday I want to be 100 pounds lighter. This might be a slightly too big of a goal but we'll see. It means slow weight loss - 2 pound a week approximately. Slow weight loss is tough because you can't see it right away but it's the perfect plan for keeping the weight off. I am giving myself a year because in that time I can learn to make better choices. I'm not planning on overhauling my diet, just learning to eat less of calorie dense foods and more of the lower calorie foods. Tracking my diet will mean greater success.
I have lots of ideas but I have already talked too much so more thoughts tomorrow.

Chocolate Applesauce Jar Cake

I'm just posting a recipe today. I'm working half day today and then my afternoon is filled with various appointments so I'll be on the run. I know I had three recipes for Jar Cakes but for the life of me I can't find number three. I just remembered what it was so maybe I can find it for Monday. This is a tasty cake but I do want to mention that the jar cakes are a little on the dry side so a little extra applesauce will not hurt (and the reason for serving with a good sauce over the top).

Chocolate Applesauce Jar Cake
4 oz + 3 tbs. unsalted butter, soft
3 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 tbs. vanilla extract
1 teas almond extract
2 cups unsweetened applesauce
3 cups flour
3/4 cup cocoa
1 teas baking soda
1/2 teas baking powder
1/2 cup chopped pecans or other nuts
8 pint jars
Preheat oven to 325, generously grease jars. Beat butter and 1/2 sugar, beating in eggs and remaining sugar and extracts. Beat in applesauce. Add dry ingredients. Stir in nuts. Spoon 1 cup batter in each jar. Carefully wipe rims clean, place in center of oven, cook 40 minutes. 10 minutes before done prep lids and rims. When cakes are done, remove jars from oven. Carefully put lids and rims in place, screw tightly shut.

Pumpkin Spice Jar Cakes

I started making jar cakes when my son was little. They were an interesting concept - baking cakes in canning jars. You can serve them right away or seal the jars. They make fun gifts and a great way to preserve a cake for those winter munchies. Now that I think about it, I'm adding some canning lids to my shopping list so I can make and preserve some cakes. I get the munchies and I hate baking like that and I've thrown out a couple of cakes so far because I'm the only one in the mood for cake. These jars are perfect because they come out to about 2 servings (probably more like 4 but who can only eat one slice). I like serving them with hard sauce and I think I could make a good Rum cake in a jar (ohh I feel a cooking experiment coming on). I have three varieties so I'll make sure to share them all with you.

Pumpkin Spice Jar cakes
4 oz + 3 tbs. soft unsalted butter
3 1/2 cup brown sugar
4 eggs
2 cups pumpkin puree
3 1/3 cup flour
1 1/2 teas baking powder
1 teas baking soda
1 teas cinnamon
1/2 teas ginger
1/4 teas mace
1 cup chopped walnuts
8 sterilized wide mouthed pint jars with lids
Preheat oven to 325. Generously grease jars. Beat butter and 1/2 sugar. Add eggs, mix, add sugar, mix, add pumpkin, mix. Add dry ingredients and mix. Add Walnuts and mix. Spoon 1 cup batter into each jar. Carefully wipe rims clean then place in center of oven to bake 40 minutes. When cakes are done remove jars one at a time and lid. Let cool - jars will seal as they cool.

Grocery Shopping - October

I do my shopping on the 10th of each month. So now is the time to start planning my trip. October is the beginning of baking season so that's something I need to remember. It's possible this month we'll have a little extra money. If there is enough I want to stock up on baking supplies and do a SF Herb order. Taking this into account I need to budget accordingly. I understand that planning on having extra money feels like a good time to blow the budget. The problem with that thinking is that plans fall through. Sometimes money doesn't stretch as far as we hope so I need to plan my budget around the potential for not having the extra (however, I will know what extra amount we have before I do my shopping).
I have two plans going on - my grocery shopping under my normal budget and my wishlist with a budget of it's own. There are some things I want to stock up during the baking sales - those are the items I plan for the extra money. If we end up not having extra money then I don't get to stock up but it doesn't hurt my monthly planning.
So onto the plan. It's the 6th, giving me 4 days to plan my shopping trip. That might seem like too much time but actually I am starting late this month. I need to take in account that this month has Halloween. With our son in high school, we no longer have to worry about class parties but we do throw a Halloween dinner party for family and some friends as a before trick or treating meal. I need to take into account my menu for that. (same as next month in planning for Thanksgiving - might want to think about that now since I'll need to plan money and freezer space for a turkey).
The first thing I need to do is go over my kitchen inventory. I've been meaning to do this for two days but off the top of my head I know we are out of several items - canned corn (no freezer space so has to be canned), mustard, tortillas, cheese. I know we'll need eggs even though we still have some. I pull up my kitchen inventory. The one on my computer is not as up to date as the printed one I keep in my kitchen but I can remember what we have run out of - somewhat but it also gets me thinking.
Tonight, I'll sit down with my family and ask them what they want in terms of meals and groceries. I will, also, run through my kitchen inventory to make sure it's up to date. The most important counts will be the items we go through the fasted - canned foods, fridge and freezer. I will need an accurate count of meat in the freezer - this will tell me how much we ate over the past month and how much I'll need for the next. If I started the month with eight bags of chicken (3 chicken thighs a bag) and I still have 4 then I can skip buying chicken. If I have 1 then chicken was something we liked but then my son made a comment the other night when I made chicken that he didn't really like the chicken anymore so maybe we had too much this month.
I start thinking about the items that went fast - tortillas are a big thing in our house. I buy packages that have 30 tortillas but they never make it through the month. I bought more english muffins this month but everyone seems content with homemade bread for toast so maybe I'll skip them this month and focus on buying more tortillas. The cheese still didn't make it to the end of the month but we did have a few meals where cheese was our protein so I think I'll stick with buying two 2 pound bricks. If we do have extra money then I will invest in more cheese and maybe something other than cheddar.
When I have the list somewhat narrowed down, then I start looking at ads. Most often, I don't find the items on my list on sale but we're moving out of fresh foods season and into more staple type food season for sales so I might get lucky. Both of the grocery stores in Pullman have online ads (I usually shop at a store in Moscow which does not) so I can check the ads easily. Because I keep notes about the prices at the other store I can compare but I have to realize that some prices at my favorite store will have gone up. I know I stopped in with my mom on a trip and in a week the eggs had gone up 50 cents so I'm going to budget an extra dollar.
Nothing in the Safeway add made me go ohh and ahh but it did remind me that I should probably look into getting a pumpkin. Here's where some thought needs to come into effect. I can get just any ole pumpkin, we carve it and roast the seeds. Doing that I lose a pumpkin because after we carve it - it's no longer food. If I use my food budget to buy the pumpkin then I have taken food away. Most carving pumpkins are not great eating either. They are edible but not as tasty as smaller pumpkins. So I could look into buying better tasting pumpkins, painting them and then roasting them later. That would do double duty but it would all depend on price. When it comes to squashes - bigger is not better. The smaller squashes are sweeter and have better flavor so I have to keep that in mind. We've been trained to believe that pumpkins need to be huge so they can make great jack o'lanterns.
Another thing to think about is that this weekend is fall festival and pumpkins and apples will be available for picking. They may be less expensive than the stores. Dissmore's has honey crisps for 1.59 but WSU has apples for about .75 a pound.
That's a lot of food for thought. How's your grocery planning coming?

Splurge: San Francisco Herb

San Francisco Herb is a great resource for baking ingredients, herbs, teas, spices and other odds and ends. It's a splurge because they require a $30 minimum order and it throws off my budget for the month. However, I take caution to only buy that which we use on a regular basis and take comfort in the fact that I am getting a great deal.
I've been using SF Herb for nearly ten years and have loved everything I have gotten from them.
I started buying from them as a way to get spices at a low cost. There is a disadvantage to ordering your herbs and spices from them - nearly everything comes in a 1 pound bag. A pound of some herbs is a lifetime amount and tough to go through. Sharing helps (both for amount and for cost) but sometimes the deal is so good that it's worth the waste. I try hard not to waste.
Things I buy from them on a regular basis - cocoa powder (*7.40 a pound), Cinnamon (ground and stick - between $2-3 a pound), essential oils - Eucalyptus (2.70 for 1 oz), Peppermint (6.10 for 1 oz), Spearmint (5.60 for 1 oz) and Rosemary (3.10 for 1 oz).
In the past we purchased their pill making kits and made our own herbal supplements. The cost was low but the work was not cost-effective. We found ordering pre-made supplements from Swanson Herbs gave us better quality for a similar price.
I purchase herbs still from SF Herb to make salves, oils and teas. The quality is not the best for everything but I still find quite a few high quality herbs for low cost. Their essential oils are culinary grade so I can use them for salves and cooking which will be nice when I get to making my own sodas.
I'll be putting in an order over the next few months. One thing to remember is that the cost constantly changes as SF Herb gets in shipments. They strive to provide the best cost and if they can lower the price they will but since they depend on harvests the prices fluxuate. Currently Cardamon is high but as the next harvest comes in the price should drop again.
* prices on 10/05/2011

Fried Tofu

I love fried tofu and opted to make it for the first time at home. Frying tofu creates a chewy, crispy foundation for sauce. We made Almond Sauce and served it with rice.
As a note, this was the day I received my Lawry's Bzzkit from Bzzagent. We used the seasoning salt in the breading for the tofu and added it to the water for the rice just for fun. The flavor is nice.

Fried Tofu
1 block firm or extra firm tofu
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup flour (we used AP but you can use any)
1/2 teas seasoning salt
Black pepper, opt
oil

Slice the tofu into 1/4-1/2 inch thick slices. Pat dry with towel. Mix together cornstarch, flour, and seasoning salt. Add black pepper if desired. Heat 1/2 inch of oil in a deep skillet. Dip tofu in flour mix, shake off extra (this is very important because the mix will create a slurry at the bottom of your oil). Fry tofu until crisp and golden. Flip and fry other side. Remove from oil and drain on paper towel.
Serve with sauce and rice.

Foraging: Acorns

I had a foraging weekend planned - acorns and chestnuts, pears and elderberries.
We got a 5 gallon bucket of pears that have just begun to ripen and found several other places to get pears if they turn out to be a good variety. We got some elderberries but were trying new areas so not as much as before (so many berries in locations we just couldn't safely get to). We collected a handful of chestnuts to experiment with since they just weren't quite ripe only to discover that the variety in our area are poisonous so out they went.
We got a small bucket of acorns to experiment with as well. Acorns have the potential to be a really good food source. Historically, they made up a large chuck of the diet. A large acorn tree can produce thousands of pounds of acorns throughout the winter. The variety of acorns run from sweet to bitter but all are edible with work. The more bitter the variety the more work. The trees we found are Red Oak and not all that prolific at the moment but we got a good sampling for experimenting.
I will say they are work but we watched movies while we worked on shelling and prepping so it wasn't a bad job. Being new to the process, I'm sure we wasted a lot more time than someone who is experienced. Thanks to Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, I had good instructions on preparing acorns. We've got them ready for cooking but I haven't decided on a recipe yet.
I do want to explain why I want to learn how to use acorns and why I would consider adding them to my foraging routine. The flavor is not one we are accustom to and we will have to learn how to enjoy them. The work is difficult so most people would figure it's a waste of time. I wanted to share with you my thoughts on this before I talk about how to process them. As I sat with my bucket of acorns, I got to thinking about my reasons for wanting to learn to use them. There's a historical aspect. I like re-enacting the lives of my ancestors in small ways. I feel like I honor all the work they put into living so that I could live today. I like the simplicity of their lives and the work that I no longer have to do (makes chores seem so much easier if I remember how it could be). I feel more connected to them and to the earth they revered. Then I got to thinking about why it's important to me now.
I know that talks about the world ending usually are in jest. No one really believes the world will end. Me, I don't know. I don't know if war will happen or a natural disaster and life as we know it will end. It's possible that nothing will happen but I believe in being prepared. If I can learn to use the foods we forage, I am creating a skill that will save our lives if a disaster changes our access to readily prepared foods. I am teaching that skill to my children with the hope that it will continue to be passed down. To me, foraging and learning to use the foods is just as important as learning to create a shelter or distill water in an emergency.
So, off my soapbox and on to the technique. Acorns have a fairly soft shell. I still found that a nutcracker helped split the shell (using a knife or hammer is what is recommended but that came across as too dangerous for me). Using a nut pick I tore the remaining shell until I could easily remove the nut. The nut is surrounded by a soft fabric like coating. That should be removed before dropping the nut into a pot. The instructions had you drop the acorns in a pot containing water. I didn't use water because I worried it would take too long to peel the nuts leaving the nuts in the water open to spoilage. I did end up with some nasty looking nuts at the end so water might be a good idea (they looked fine when I was done processing them). I cut away bad parts and excessively wormy parts. This took the most work and I might not be so picky next time.
When peeled, cover the nuts with twice as much water (if 1 inch of nuts in the pot, add 2 inches of water). Bring to a boil and strain the water off. Cover with water and repeat. Depending on the type of oak, the number of boils will vary. It took us about 10 times to remove the bitterness from the acorns. I tasted the acorns at the beginning and bitter was an understatement. I repeated the boiling process until they tasted pretty good.
Spread strained nuts on a cookie sheet and roast at 300 degrees for 30-60 minutes depending on size and variety. When ours cooled, I put them in a ziplock bag and stuck them in the freezer so I can come up with a recipe. I'll let you know what we make with them.

Taco Soup

Fall means soup. It's crisp cool days that leave you rushing indoors to enjoy something soothing and hot. Here in the Palouse region of Washington, we're still warm. Tomorrow is the first real cool day with a predicted high of 59 degrees. Today we're in the 70's. The amount of rain we have gotten over the past few months hasn't been a good full day's rain. Our trees are still so green and my garden is trying to eek out the last of the summer produce. Apple picking is just beginning. My internal clock can't believe it's October. I'm having conflicting feelings. I want soup but it seems too early in the year. I'm trying to get into the Halloween spirit but my brain still wants camping and can't understand why the public pool is closed.
I'm forcing soup on myself and my family starting with this quick, easy and wonderful Taco Soup. It's open to interpretation so feel free to pull out what you have in your cupboards and try your own variation. We ate this with Quesadillas (cheese melted between two tortillas in a skillet) but it would be great with tortilla chips.

Taco Soup
3 chicken thighs
1 can diced tomatoes (mexican flavor is best but plain is fine)
1 packet taco seasoning
1 can corn
1 can carrots
water
cheese

Peel skin off chicken but leave in bones. Boil in water until fully cooked, for best flavor let boil for awhile and then let sit but not necessary. Remove chicken from broth. Pull meat off bones and chop. Feel through the chicken for cartilege that may have come off bone. Return meat to pot and discard bones. Add taco seasoning, tomatoes, corn and carrots. Swish the tomato can with water and add to pot. Bring to a boil and then simmer until ready to serve. (The soup just needs to be warmed thoroughly before serving, simmering just increases the flavor).
Serve hot with cheese sprinkled on top.

The Cost of Food

I had plans to share foraging with you today but when I read Vinobaby's post for today I realized there was another topic better suited for today. She shared the USDA Food Plans: Cost of Food. The Thrifty Plan is what the USDA uses to determine food stamps for families. What I found interesting is the huge amounts they use. I have to be grateful that they use such a high number to determine food stamps but is it realistic?
For my family of a 14 year old male, an adult male and an adult female the total is:
Thrifty Plan - 504.80
Low Cost Plan - 661.80
Moderate Cost Plan - 821.00
Liberal Plan - 999.99

Those numbers are staggering to me. The USDA bases these plans on their food pyramid and what Americans should be spending to meet those food requirements. It makes me want to ask what they are shopping for and where they are getting the costs of food. I know they have an explantion for these numbers but do they really reflect the cost of feeding a family nutritiously. If so, perhaps this has the answer to the US's obesity problem. Is nutritious food too expensive for the average family? I worry that I won't have enough nutritious food for my family. As we go into winter the access of fresh produce in my area will decrease. To buy produce in the store will become expensive and what we get is wilted, bruised and unappealing foods.
For me, to have $500 a month for groceries would mean eating more than healthy, we'd be eating in luxury. It would mean organic meat for every meal, raw milk, beautiful cheeses. Purchasing fruit and vegetables by the bushel for canning, drying, freezing. It would mean a full-time job just to use the food, let alone afford to buy it.
To me, this just shows how out of control our nation is. If this is truly what we need to purchase good food then the cost is too high and we need to do something about it. If this amount is what we believe we need then we need to relearn how to eat and cook because it's unrealistic.
I'd love to hear your opinion.