Making Awesome Sauce

It's like one of those "choose your path" books I keep hearing about but have never seen. First, pick apples or pears. Second, pick sauce or butter. Or don't pick at all, since I'll tell you how to make it all.

To make applesauce or pear sauce:

I used about 1/4 of a Walmart bag full of pears. Whatever you pick, core it and slice or chop it. Leave the peel on.

Then, take a big pot with a thick bottom and put about 1 inch of water in the bottom. Bring it to a boil, then add fruit and simmer until the fruit is tender enough to be squished.

I did the squishing the low-tech way with an old-fashioned colander and pestle, but I've heard there are fancy, potentially more expensive ways of doing this as well.

Add cinnamon to taste. Serve warm or chilled. You can also can this stuff for later use--it makes great baby food and has no added sugar, since the fruit has plenty to spare.

Hint: Orchards often sell their ugly/damaged fruit for super cheap, and ugly fruit tastes just as good!

-OR-

If you want to make this stuff into the butter version (apple butter or pear butter), which is a thick, spiced jelly-like critter that will make you, to use a colloquialism, "wanna slap yo momma," (Translation: it's delicious) then continue down the line.

Per quart of sauce you have, you will need the following:

1/8 t. nutmeg
1/16 t. cloves (a pinch)
1 allspice clove (half a pinch)
1/4 t. orange peel
1/8 c. orange juice (which I didn't have, so I doubled the orange peel and used the juice from the pears)
3/4 c. sugar (I'd skimp on this, especially if you have very ripe fruit. This will be very sweet even with less)

Add all of the above to the sauce and let simmer in a crock pot 6-12 hours, or overnight. The variables will be how thick you want it and how patient you are with these amazing fall aromas wafting about.

This is also can-able (not cannibal, that's not something you eat, that's something that eats you.) I just highly doubt that it will last long enough to be preserved anyway, with the bipedal hounds that ransack the refrigerator on a regular basis.

Enjoy! Happy Autumn!

POTATOES! Boil em, mash em, stick em in a loaded baked potato salad...

It's recipe time! My hubby and I brought this one to a birthday party this weekend, and it didn't last the evening. It was decently easy to make and would be delicious served warm or cold. Without further ado:

Loaded Baked Potato Salad

3 lbs red potatoes, pricked, brushed with olive oil, and baked in a 425 degree oven until fork tender
1lb cheap bacon (I discarded half of it in fat, so if you get good/turkey bacon, you only need half of a pound)
2-3 green onions, snipped
sour cream
sharp cheddar cheese
sea salt, black pepper, Morton's Nature's Seasons seasoning

I think you can see where the instructions are going. Everyone has their own preferences in amounts of creaminess or cheesiness, so pretty much everything is "throw it in there to taste." Mix and serve, or mix and chill and serve, your thing. You can cut up the potatoes with a knife while they're hot and melt it all together, that really disperses the sour cream and cheddar flavors well. I kept some of the bacon out and used it as a garnish on top, but you could do that with most of the ingredients.

3 DIYs for baby that I plan to use forever

There are quite a few things that are made for babies that are only useful for while the baby is little. These things, though, I plan to keep using until I wear them out, and I already have several applications for them.

One, pictured above, is the diaper bag. Far from being a baby print item, I made this to be functional. It has 6 pockets, one that is bottle or sippy cup applicable, stroller straps (pictured), and the other side has a detachable fold-out changing pad. The whole thing is washable, and I made a detachable messenger bag strap that could turn this into a laptop case, school bag, or multi-purpose tote with ease.

This is a lifesaver. The last of my Basmati rice got a bug or two in it, so I decided to make a heating pad. The fabric was an over-sized pair of soft terrycloth pajamas. A minute in the microwave, and angels sing. Any achy muscles for the rest of my life have met their match. The best part? It's big enough to stretch across my hips or over my spine, and it holds the heat for around 20 minutes.

These still need to be serged, but I pictured them anyway. That stack represents 50 small pieces of receiving blanket, and will be my homemade baby wipes. When they are no longer needed for that purpose, the surviving ones will become my dusting wipes, and generally multipurpose cloths.

What are some other DIYs that will be great for baby and beyond?