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!
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Sunday, August 5, 2012
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.
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
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
3 DIYs for baby that I plan to use forever
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.
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?
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Dinner on the Last Night of Spring
Gardening is paying off! The work that began in February is now beginning to culminate. 3 quarts of yellow squash is the most obvious iteration, but there is much more as well!
For this post, I thought I'd go through recipes and how I made tonight's dinner with a hooray when appropriate to celebrate that an ingredient came from the garden:
Eye of round:
4 eye of round steaks, cut into strips and sprinkled with pepper and onion powder
1 sprig of fresh basil, chopped (HOORAY!)
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/4 c. vinegar
Heat up lemon, basil, and vinegar to a boil, place steak strips into it and cook until done. Reserve the juice, as this is the basis for the gravy. Reserve the steak, as this goes into the green bean dish.
Green beans:
1 quart green beans (HOORAY!)
2T butter
1/2 onion
1 clove garlic, minced (I have garlic growing, it's just not ready yet)
Saute all until green beans are done. I added 1/2 cup of water at the end to steam the beans. Add the steak strips at the end and serve together.
Gravy:
Steak juice (see above)
1-2 T flour
1-2 cups milk
Salt and pepper to taste
Put flour into steak juice and whisk until hot and bubbly. Add milk and whisk until thick, about 10-15 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.
Mashed Potatoes:
1 yellow potato per person
Milk, sour cream, butter, salt, and pepper to taste
Fresh garlic snips (the green bit off the garlic growing HOORAY!)
Cook potatoes, add other ingredients to taste. The snips give a mild garlic flavor that is delightful.
Roasted squash:
Zucchini (HOORAY!)
Yellow squash (HOORAY!)
Olive oil
black pepper, sea salt, and Parmesan cheese to sprinkle on it.
Roast at 425 on parchment paper on a baking sheet until it starts to brown on top. I put it in the oven to cook while everything else was going.
Believe it or not, there were no leftovers. Go figure.
For this post, I thought I'd go through recipes and how I made tonight's dinner with a hooray when appropriate to celebrate that an ingredient came from the garden:
Eye of round:
4 eye of round steaks, cut into strips and sprinkled with pepper and onion powder
1 sprig of fresh basil, chopped (HOORAY!)
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/4 c. vinegar
Heat up lemon, basil, and vinegar to a boil, place steak strips into it and cook until done. Reserve the juice, as this is the basis for the gravy. Reserve the steak, as this goes into the green bean dish.
Green beans:
1 quart green beans (HOORAY!)
2T butter
1/2 onion
1 clove garlic, minced (I have garlic growing, it's just not ready yet)
Saute all until green beans are done. I added 1/2 cup of water at the end to steam the beans. Add the steak strips at the end and serve together.
Gravy:
Steak juice (see above)
1-2 T flour
1-2 cups milk
Salt and pepper to taste
Put flour into steak juice and whisk until hot and bubbly. Add milk and whisk until thick, about 10-15 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.
Mashed Potatoes:
1 yellow potato per person
Milk, sour cream, butter, salt, and pepper to taste
Fresh garlic snips (the green bit off the garlic growing HOORAY!)
Cook potatoes, add other ingredients to taste. The snips give a mild garlic flavor that is delightful.
Roasted squash:
Zucchini (HOORAY!)
Yellow squash (HOORAY!)
Olive oil
black pepper, sea salt, and Parmesan cheese to sprinkle on it.
Roast at 425 on parchment paper on a baking sheet until it starts to brown on top. I put it in the oven to cook while everything else was going.
Believe it or not, there were no leftovers. Go figure.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Hand Soap/Body Wash DIY
Recipe and tutorial source: http://www.thefarmersnest.com/2011/11/liquid-hand-soap-diy.html
Ingredients: 1 gallon distilled water, 1 8-oz bar soap (NOT Dove or any "moisturizing"), 2T liquid glycerin (band-aid section at Walmart)
Nutshell version: Grate bar of soap. Add everything else. Melt in pot. Let sit 12 hours. Beat if necessary.
Cost: Liquid glycerin costs about $4.00 for enough to make around 10 recipes, so $0.40/recipe. Distilled water costs about $0.80/recipe, and the other variable is your soap. I spent about $3.80 on a bar of goat milk soap that smelled glorious and not too girly so that my husband can enjoy the body wash and hand soap as well. This brings my total per recipe to $5.00.
*I do have to note that I bought less than 8 oz of soap, so it made a little over 1/2 a gallon, whereas getting a bigger bar or two bars would have cost a little more and yielded more. If you get a cheap bar of soap you like, you can make this cheaper. I wanted a luxurious soap, so I paid a little more.
This whole project is perfect for a rainy day and smells tremendous! I used Goat Milk Red Jasmine Rice soap, which is a rich red-orange color and has a slightly sweet, clean smell. I bought it at World Market and used my birthday coupon to bring down the price a little. The hardest part for me was grating the whole bar of soap on a grater not entirely made for that kind of punishment. I dumped everything in a pot on the stove, making approximate adjustments for the fact that I was using under 6 oz. of soap instead of 8. I heated it up until it was all melted, really only a couple of minutes, then took it off the heat and the waiting began.
In a couple of hours, it started to cloud. When we went to bed, I brought the whole pot in the bedroom and set it on my printer so that I could wake up to a wonderful-smelling room. Though it did smell great, the consistency when I woke up this morning was downright odd. The soapy part had separated from the watery part and settled on the bottom to cool, making for a pretty goo. I heated it up for about 30 seconds on the stove, then blended it with an electric mixer on low for about 30 seconds. That did the trick, and I had a pour-able liquid soap that smelled great and made my hands feel nice and soft. It's not very thick, but each soap works differently, and I would rather have a thinner soap than a thicker one, anyway, so I can squirt it from our existing body wash bottle with ease.
David's mom washed the dishes in the pot I had used, and the remaining soap on the beaters and funnel I used to pour the soap into the used milk jug was enough soap to clean the dishes and leave the kitchen and her hands smelling fresh.
Verdict: I would totally make this again, it's just that I doubt we'll be finished with this much soap by the time we're too old to remember how to make it! How amazing is that?
Ingredients: 1 gallon distilled water, 1 8-oz bar soap (NOT Dove or any "moisturizing"), 2T liquid glycerin (band-aid section at Walmart)
Nutshell version: Grate bar of soap. Add everything else. Melt in pot. Let sit 12 hours. Beat if necessary.
Cost: Liquid glycerin costs about $4.00 for enough to make around 10 recipes, so $0.40/recipe. Distilled water costs about $0.80/recipe, and the other variable is your soap. I spent about $3.80 on a bar of goat milk soap that smelled glorious and not too girly so that my husband can enjoy the body wash and hand soap as well. This brings my total per recipe to $5.00.
*I do have to note that I bought less than 8 oz of soap, so it made a little over 1/2 a gallon, whereas getting a bigger bar or two bars would have cost a little more and yielded more. If you get a cheap bar of soap you like, you can make this cheaper. I wanted a luxurious soap, so I paid a little more.
This whole project is perfect for a rainy day and smells tremendous! I used Goat Milk Red Jasmine Rice soap, which is a rich red-orange color and has a slightly sweet, clean smell. I bought it at World Market and used my birthday coupon to bring down the price a little. The hardest part for me was grating the whole bar of soap on a grater not entirely made for that kind of punishment. I dumped everything in a pot on the stove, making approximate adjustments for the fact that I was using under 6 oz. of soap instead of 8. I heated it up until it was all melted, really only a couple of minutes, then took it off the heat and the waiting began.
In a couple of hours, it started to cloud. When we went to bed, I brought the whole pot in the bedroom and set it on my printer so that I could wake up to a wonderful-smelling room. Though it did smell great, the consistency when I woke up this morning was downright odd. The soapy part had separated from the watery part and settled on the bottom to cool, making for a pretty goo. I heated it up for about 30 seconds on the stove, then blended it with an electric mixer on low for about 30 seconds. That did the trick, and I had a pour-able liquid soap that smelled great and made my hands feel nice and soft. It's not very thick, but each soap works differently, and I would rather have a thinner soap than a thicker one, anyway, so I can squirt it from our existing body wash bottle with ease.
David's mom washed the dishes in the pot I had used, and the remaining soap on the beaters and funnel I used to pour the soap into the used milk jug was enough soap to clean the dishes and leave the kitchen and her hands smelling fresh.
Verdict: I would totally make this again, it's just that I doubt we'll be finished with this much soap by the time we're too old to remember how to make it! How amazing is that?
Summer Pinterest Challenge
I absolutely love summer! I love the first warm days in March (we're in Georgia, so yes, it can get mighty warm in March) all the way through the last few afternoons in October before the cold really sets in. The rest of the year, I'm more just surviving than anything else.
This winter, I did something unexpected and conceived a child. So the entire summer this year will be spent in my 3rd trimester of pregnancy. Hello, activity restrictions. I have been tending my garden (which deserves its own post entirely) inshort, 2-hour increments and keeping the tanning to a minimum, especially since it's been raining stinking every other day.
But I've come to face that, once the heat sets in and I get another few weeks along, doing much outside for extended periods is not going to be easy. After I mourned for my normal summer routines, I decided to give myself some challenges to look forward to. The internet came to my rescue!
My Pinterest has a list of things I want to do. These are all DIY projects I'd seriously love to give a good try, and I used a little money to gather some ingredients. My mom bought a few more for me and saved me a lot of money!
1. The first on my list was an easy one--I want to make my own cleaning products. It turns out that this is a bit too easy, because baking soda, vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, and lemon in different combinations will clean pretty much anything for ridiculously cheap. And, since my living space right now consists of one tiny bedroom, there isn't much to clean.
2. I want to make my own toiletries. This includes shower gel, hand soap, shampoo, and toothpaste. I have recipes for each of these things, and now the ingredients!
3. I want to make my own detergents. This will be laundry (liquid or powdered) and dish detergents, both sink and dish washer. Aside: God has randomly provided us with a free working dishwasher! How cool is that? This one may have to wait a little for me to have my own home so I'm not trying new products on my in-laws' appliances.
4. Finally, I want to make my own baby stuff. This will include cloth and paper towel wipes, shampoo, and soap. These I want to be fragrance-free as Raiden will likely have sensitive skin if he takes after his mommy. I have a pretty bad case of eczema and don't want my little bundle of joy to be a bundle of rash. Personal opinion, of course.
First up--hand soap/body wash
This winter, I did something unexpected and conceived a child. So the entire summer this year will be spent in my 3rd trimester of pregnancy. Hello, activity restrictions. I have been tending my garden (which deserves its own post entirely) in
But I've come to face that, once the heat sets in and I get another few weeks along, doing much outside for extended periods is not going to be easy. After I mourned for my normal summer routines, I decided to give myself some challenges to look forward to. The internet came to my rescue!
My Pinterest has a list of things I want to do. These are all DIY projects I'd seriously love to give a good try, and I used a little money to gather some ingredients. My mom bought a few more for me and saved me a lot of money!
1. The first on my list was an easy one--I want to make my own cleaning products. It turns out that this is a bit too easy, because baking soda, vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, and lemon in different combinations will clean pretty much anything for ridiculously cheap. And, since my living space right now consists of one tiny bedroom, there isn't much to clean.
2. I want to make my own toiletries. This includes shower gel, hand soap, shampoo, and toothpaste. I have recipes for each of these things, and now the ingredients!
3. I want to make my own detergents. This will be laundry (liquid or powdered) and dish detergents, both sink and dish washer. Aside: God has randomly provided us with a free working dishwasher! How cool is that? This one may have to wait a little for me to have my own home so I'm not trying new products on my in-laws' appliances.
4. Finally, I want to make my own baby stuff. This will include cloth and paper towel wipes, shampoo, and soap. These I want to be fragrance-free as Raiden will likely have sensitive skin if he takes after his mommy. I have a pretty bad case of eczema and don't want my little bundle of joy to be a bundle of rash. Personal opinion, of course.
First up--hand soap/body wash
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Speculoos has nothing to do with doctors
Speculoos, as I learned today, are actually Belgian spiced shortbread cookies. For those of us who fly Delta, think Biscoff cookies. Yeah. Delicious. This is the recipe I found online:
Ingredients:
2c AP flour
2 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. nutmeg
1/4 t. ginger
1/4 t. allspice
1/4 t. cloves
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. baking soda
1/4 t. baking powder
1 c. butter, soft
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. brown sugar
1 t. vanilla
(it called for additional sugar to sprinkle on top, but I omitted that)
Instructions:
You combine everything before the butter in one bowl, then everything else in another, then add the two together. Roll out the dough and cut with cookie cutters or press it into a cookie sheet. Bake at 350: shapes bake for 12-15 min, a sheet for 20-25 min. Cool on a cooling rack and serve!
Because we don't fly often, I thought I'd try to make the cookies from scratch as a treat. My husband had a hop flight to Raleigh, NC from Atlanta for a conference. He remembered how much we enjoyed the Biscoff cookies we shared from our flights to and from Honduras last summer. So he brought me his pack of cookies and we shared them over cups of tea while listening to a sermon we had missed from church. <3 (Yes, I've been dubbed a "theological flirt" and it fits.) He said that he thought about eating them, but knew he'd enjoy sharing them with me more than eating both himself. So thoughtful!
Ok, before you all get sick from our sappiness...the verdict on these cookies?
They're make-you-drool delicious. Would I say they taste "just like" a Biscoff? Hmm, pretty close. They taste like the wholesome, not mass-produced version, which in some ways is actually BETTER than the processed variety. They're true-buttery, flavorful, and crisp. I'd definitely make them again, especially around Christmas.
Here's the original link to the blog where I got the recipe. http://matzoandrice.wordpress.com/2010/02/06/speculoos-belgian-spice-cookies/
Ingredients:
2c AP flour
2 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. nutmeg
1/4 t. ginger
1/4 t. allspice
1/4 t. cloves
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. baking soda
1/4 t. baking powder
1 c. butter, soft
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. brown sugar
1 t. vanilla
(it called for additional sugar to sprinkle on top, but I omitted that)
Instructions:
You combine everything before the butter in one bowl, then everything else in another, then add the two together. Roll out the dough and cut with cookie cutters or press it into a cookie sheet. Bake at 350: shapes bake for 12-15 min, a sheet for 20-25 min. Cool on a cooling rack and serve!
Because we don't fly often, I thought I'd try to make the cookies from scratch as a treat. My husband had a hop flight to Raleigh, NC from Atlanta for a conference. He remembered how much we enjoyed the Biscoff cookies we shared from our flights to and from Honduras last summer. So he brought me his pack of cookies and we shared them over cups of tea while listening to a sermon we had missed from church. <3 (Yes, I've been dubbed a "theological flirt" and it fits.) He said that he thought about eating them, but knew he'd enjoy sharing them with me more than eating both himself. So thoughtful!
Ok, before you all get sick from our sappiness...the verdict on these cookies?
They're make-you-drool delicious. Would I say they taste "just like" a Biscoff? Hmm, pretty close. They taste like the wholesome, not mass-produced version, which in some ways is actually BETTER than the processed variety. They're true-buttery, flavorful, and crisp. I'd definitely make them again, especially around Christmas.
Here's the original link to the blog where I got the recipe. http://matzoandrice.wordpress.com/2010/02/06/speculoos-belgian-spice-cookies/
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