Bread

I've been making bread lately; a lot of bread. I found this recipe on line and adapted it to my way, changed the ingredients a bit too. I made bread like this 30 years ago when I didn't have a good mixer or a bread machine. Now I have both and although I changed my method a bit (the kitchenaid can handle more flour than my old mixer could) the idea is the same.
In Gallup, New Mexico I went to the grocery store and purchased my souvenir of our stay there.

That's right, a 5 lb bag of flour. (I immediately saw in my mind some kind of wall hanging made using that flour sack) Now I've got to use this flour up so I can have the bag!

* I washed the bag and the bird faded terribly. My sister has the same bag, she washed it and it didn't fade. It must be the water alkalinity or acidy or something. I threw mine away.

Apples

I've spent the week trying to can 3 bushels of apples. We got it down to what will fit in the produce drawer of the refrigerator...

The dehydrator was filled 2 1/2 times. I think I'll do another load this evening. It is easier to pack some dried apples for a lunch than applesauce. I dried some extra apples yesterday, I was thinking about the pink pearl apples and wondered how they dried. So I tried them, 4 apples;

LIKE EATING CANDY! If only they weren't so expensive, $2.49 @lb here. One reason I enjoyed doing the apples so much;

The help!
This was one of their experiments; Juicing lemons from our tree.(And the only time I got the camera out.) I'd read that putting a teaspoon of lemon juice on the top of each jar will eliminate the top of the applesauce turning brown. So instead of squeezing the lemons we juiced them. It worked. We did them before the apples so we wouldn't have to clean the strainer. Last night we finished and the enthusiasm had waned... just a bit. And the purist had died, we juiced one lemon after the apples and just used a teaspoon of the resulting lemon flavored applesauce for the top bit of each jar. Now I get to figure out where to put the 23 quarts, 6 liters, 5 small jars, and 9 half jars, 3 bags of dried apple slices that we got. :)

What WAS I thinking?

Where I live it is a little tough to find real bargains on produce. So when a friend asked if I'd like to go in with her and a bunch of others to get a truckload of apples I was in. I ordered 3 bushels of apples. That's a lot of apples. She ordered more. I'm a wimp! A canning WIMP. Three bushels scared me and she with her 8 and 7/8 month pregnancy got 8! And canned 4 bushels of apples into applesauce in ONE DAY! I'm on day 4 and have 2 bushels to go. We are clearly less efficient.
I have a Victorio Strainer, it hasn't been out of the box since I used it on corn (to make corn soup-absolutely divine recipe) possibly 2007. A Victorio Strainer makes applesauce a breeze. I do not think I have used all 4 burners on my stove at the same time since we moved into this house 16 years ago. I have now. And it is crowded with the canner, 2 pots of apples, and an extra pot of water for the lids simmering away.

Since we also have some oranges...well not exactly but some orange fruit that is easy to peel and is small but has seeds...we decided to put that through the strainer first; got 4 bags, about 2 cups each to put in the freezer.

(This is the lemon tree after the first picking!)
Then we did some lemons, got 7 cups of lemon juice that I put in the freezer in cup portions to make lemonade later. We have a loaded lemon tree this year; last year I froze about 7 cups in 2 Tablespoon ice cube tray cubes. This year lots more lemons. :) I figured we didn't have to clean the strainer between those projects so there are bits of oranges in the lemon juice and in the applesauce. It still tastes good, maybe even better  with the addition. (I have not read anywhere that this is the way to make juice....but it worked.)

So this is one bushel of apples. The tall jars are 1 liter Weck jars. The little ones? Weck jars but not sure how much they hold; found them on sale in September so thought I'd try them. Not sure I like them, the only things that did not seal? Two of those that I had applied the seal to wrong.
Oh, we dried a few too, That will be repeated and repeated and repeated....
So now you know why I have no progress to report on my wool leaves.

Farewell to Jeffrey

My son left this morning to visit my parents in Denver. He will soon be gone for 2 years serving a mission for our church; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Yesterday we had a 'farewell' get together for him. I spent all last week getting ready. At 10:30 P.M. I realized I had taken NO PHOTOS! I was just busy and stressed enough that I never thought of it. But I can tell you about it. I'll blog the recipes later.
Menu: Salsa made by Jeffrey. A spicy version and a mom version, very mild.
           Chips purchased.
           White Queso made by me.
           Reuben Dip recipe located by me but made by friend. (No mustard in our version.)
           Rye and pumpernickel bread toast made by Roger and Andrew.
           Fruit tray, brought by Mary. 
            Cookies and Muffins brought by friends. :)
            Cupcakes baked in jar, made by me. 4 different recipes; close to 130; 34 left. 
            Water bottles iced down and in a cute metal tin borrowed from Becky. 
            Punch found via pinterest a year ago. 

We started at 7 but several young adults came early to help. A friend, Becky, came with a few of her autumn decorations and spruced up a few places and we set up a shelf with cards for people to write Jeffrey a note about something they remembered about his life. We had a full house during most of the party. A small group played ping pong, there was singing of hymns around the piano. Jeffrey sang his solo from Les Miserables, Bring Him Home. A lot of hugs. A lot of talking.
About 9 I noticed some of the young adults washing dishes! They washed everything! Then one of the young women found the broom and swept! Wow! I had so much help doing this party. There are a few names I need to write down and invite them to EVERY get together we have. ;)

Make the Bread, Buy the Butter

Another cookbook I've been reading this summer;

' Make the Bread, Buy the Butter' by Jennifer Reese. Love this book, funny stories and useful information....did you know how to make your own bacon? And that it is cheaper to make it than to buy it? There is a lot of information here that I may never use; duck prosciutto anyone? but it was fun reading it and if we ever start eating meat again I'll try some of the cured meats. (I did make summer sausage in college!)
Many of her recipes are of things I've already done like; bread, granola, yoghurt, bread crumbs, cocoa mix, creme fraiche...etc Many things I had never thought of doing; bacon, pastromi, Canadian bacon, pop tarts.
I've thought of making Fig Newtons; (I've had figs in the freezer from a friend for a year), now I have a recipe. I 'm shopping for pink grapefruit (for sorbet), cucumbers, and dill (for pickles) tomorrow.  (I've also located the grape leaves I need for the pickles.) I've done things she hasn't covered but I never analyzed the cost breakdown like she has.  Now I've started collecting prices of things I make just for the information...($5. worth of chocolate goes into a single batch of these chocolate cupcakes and I haven't added the cost of the cocoa or the eggs....)
We tried her pesto recipe, loved it even without the cheese.
I started her sauerkraut Saturday night (takes at least 5 days). Really was very easy, I was sure I would have 2 jars of it though. There is a lot of cabbage in that jar.

Those are carraway seeds in there...I hate carraway seeds, why did I buy them and then put them in even when I smelled them and remembered that I hated them? Everyone in this household might not hate carraway seeds although Jeffrey and Andrew may have never tasted them. I found out I hated them before they were born!.
Andrew and I started our own ginger ale last night (12 more hours until we can taste it). After all we had some of this in the refrigerator;

It did not take Andrew very long to grate 2 Tablespoons of ginger, but my part took even less time.

Reading about her goats made me laugh; then I read it out loud to my children and husband, and sister. (each separately, so I've read it 5 times; still funny.)
The author, Jennifer, has a blog here.

Cooking for Mr. Latte

Here is a cookbook I read this summer... 'Cooking for Mr. Latte' by Amanda Hesser published in 2003.....(I bought it at our library's book sale) not exactly a cookbook, but it does have recipes... and stories about the recipes in it. I enjoyed it and have tried ....one of the recipes. I am eager to try a few more. Her Chocolate Dump-it Cake sounds like a winner (I found the recipe online here.http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2003/jun/latte/) and it should be easy. Then there is the Rigatoni with White Bolognese that sounds wonderful and the corn salad I plan to make as soon as Jeffrey leaves home. (He does not like corn.)

Now I discovered I can continue to read articles written by Amanda Hesser on line at the New York Times. Here.http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/amanda_hesser/index.html No pictures though, I want to see the pictures! Now I want to try a few more recipes....

Then I tried Food 52 (a web site she co-produced and there are pictures there) and found some Salted Pumpkin Caramels that I'll have to try closer to Thanksgiving....

I'll never have time to try them all.

Apple...not quite pie

I have recently started going through these magazines again.I've had a subscription in the past but since my family went vegan I did not continue. Now I just want to have fun in the kitchen again. So I bought this:

and made their skillet apple pie. I turned out fabulous. I've been wanting to make an apple pie but it seems like a big job to do in the summer. This took less time and the part I dislike about an apple pie is missing...the soggy bottom crust and waiting till it is cold to cut it. I used a combination of granny smith and golden delicious apples, maple syrup, apple cider...I'll repeat this recipe.

So good.
Now I'm collecting the ingredients to make their;

• chocolate pots de creme
• best french onion soup..(hunting my dutch oven, haven't seen it since the remodel)--very good
• fluffy yellow layer cake with chocolate frosting,
• pumpkin pie...I didn't even know there was a problem with the recipe on the can...clearly I have done it wrong for 30 years , I'll get it right soon though.
• ultimate banana bread...I bought a bunch of bananas but getting overripe ones takes time and my husband keeps eating them....
• multigrain pancakes...need muesli; checked 3 grocery stores so far
• roasted cauliflower --very good
• make ahead green beans, the green beans looked lousy, so I'll wait to make these.
• a bean soup with kale, making that tomorrow--very good

So many recipes, so little time.....Then there is the beer bread and the pie crust with vodka that certainly sound interesting....but I don't do booze...

9/2/13 Made it again with help from 3 young adults....so much easier when 3 pair of hands are doing the peeling!

Polenta

While my son and his family (vegan and gluten free) were here I fixed homemade polenta. We loved it! It was easy! Why haven't I fixed this before?
I know why; I'd read that you had to stir it constantly on top of the stove for a very long time to make it. I don't like to do that so I don't make things that require that amount of dedication. First I had a mishap making some corn bread; it was a strange recipe but basically I made polenta with regular cornmeal with sugar in the water. It was supposed to cool before turning it into cornbread but when I got back to the kitchen it was gone....eaten completely by my sons; well maybe only one son. So the next day I made a double batch so they could eat it AND I could try the corn 'puffs' bread recipe. The recipe did not puff but they ate the corn cookies anyway and I learned I could make polenta. I started looking for coarse ground cornmeal and saw this:

In the cereal aisle, not the baking aisle with the other cornmeal. I bought 2 bags and made it that night. I used the recipe on the bag; 3 parts water 1 part cornmeal, some salt and I added some garlic powder. I cooked 3 cups of cornmeal and should have fixed more for 7 main dish servings.) After cooking on the stove for 5 minutes! Stirring occasionally! I dumped it into 2 loaf pans and let it cool. When cool (really it is better if it is cool completely, it is easier to slice cool, but I had to work with it warm the first 2 times I made it...planning ahead really helps) slice it and fry it. Let the pan and oil get nice and hot before adding the polenta. (I've used olive oil, vegetable oil, and peanut oil...all good although I liked the olive oil the best. The polenta bubbles and pops when it is boiling and then the oil spatters....the stove is not still a mess; I promise!)

 The crispy bits are the best on each slice. I served it with our new favorite spaghetti sauce;

with a side of onions and mushrooms. (You're right not all the kids like mushrooms and onions but Roger and I do, I did not fix the mushrooms the first night, a can of green beans worked fine for a group of kids.)

You can add cheese if you want. It is verrrry good.

I know I haven't blogged much lately but we are doing well. I've tried some new recipes, read some new cookbooks and done some quilting. School starts Monday and I'll have more time to blog. Why do 2 kids take up so much time? I know I have a hard time settling in with my own projects when I keep thinking about what they are doing and what I should be getting them to do.....

Wonderful bread!

I don't eat much bread, but yesterday was a bread day with pretzels being baked, so I made a loaf of bread. We were out of bread and Roger was going to need something for lunch today..... (We were out of bread and potatoes and lettuce and....)  Fresh bread and all my bread rules went out the window...

• I usually only allow myself 1 slice of homemade bread. (I don't eat any of the store bought stuff)
• I usually only allow myself a thin smear of jam.
• I usually will not eat after 5 P.M.(I like to be able to lay down when it is time to go to bed)
• I usually avoid tomato anything at night .

HA! the bread wasn't done until  6, there was marinara sauce out from the pretzel project so we dipped our bread in that; so good! (That's one slice for me.)
Then I remembered some cream cheese that needed to be used...and this jam has been in the pantry for months...

 I warmed the cheese in the microwave for 12 seconds and combined it with some jam...

 I toasted the bread...

Then had to share with Andrew....so I justified fixing myself a second slice.

Pretzels

Jeffrey has been wanting to make pretzels for 2 weeks... We made them today.

 Can you tell which ones were made first? We definitely got better. Unfortunately we only got to eat the ugly ones, the rest go to his friends.

We made a triple batch of Alton Brown's recipe that we found here 
The only change we did was to put a drop of water on the dough to get the 'ends' to stick to the 'round' part. We got a system going; working with 6 at a time (the number that fit on the cookie sheet) we would roll one bit until it quit stretching, leave it and roll the next, and then another, then go back to the first and roll it some more. Each log went through about 4 rollings to get to the 24 inches.

These look so much better than the one's I made with my young family about 20 years ago. But they don't taste any better! Unless you count the marinara sauce we dipped portions of the last pretzel in; that was fabulous!

Thanksgiving

We had a fun Thanksgiving, thanks to my family and Mary's. I hurt my back Tuesday (as far as I can tell I hurt it getting out of a chair!) so did not do much but supervise. I made a pumpkin dip Monday. Tuesday I managed to do the marinated mushrooms.  Wednesday Andrew made the cranberry sauce. Thursday I sat at the table and peeled 12 oranges, that Andrew picked from our tree, and took the membrane off (that will probably never happen again-it took 2 hours-but I couldn't walk so it was a good job for me) for the fruit salad. Andrew made fresh lemonade, from our homegrown lemons. Then I cut up the vegetables for this;

Put everything in bags and constructed it at Mary's. Turned out cute but we brought home most of the vegetables. Just too much for 12 people to eat when there were yummier options.
After dinner we played a game called spoons, rules found here. It was a fun group game although being played on the floor I did not get down and play.
After pie we played another game, Nerts, at the table. We played the couple version, and after every 2 rounds the couples changed, the worst player put with the best player and so on.  I'm pretty sure we have played this game at Liz's. I lost at -101!  It was a fun evening.

My new favorite way to fix RICE

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Using your saucepan, I used one that could go in the oven, bring 5 cups water to a boil and salt and rice, 3 cups brown rice. Cover with foil and move it to the oven. Take it out 60 minutes later. (This method is shared by Alton Brown here.) THEN right before it is finished in the oven zest a lime, juice it, chop some cilantro then add half of the rice, or use 2 limes and do the whole batch of rice. So good.

It is Jeffrey's 17th birthday party and he wanted a VEGAN meal. So I made the bits for a build your own burrito party.

• black beans-scratch made
• lime cilantro rice
• salsa (fresh tomatoes-so good)
• diced tomatoes (Froberg's homegrown)
• cilantro
• diced jalapenos (Jeffrey prepared these, I put 2 in, and it is too mild, even for me!)
• tortillas

So good. Now blueberry pie for dessert! (I sort of made the pie...canned blueberry pie filling, frozen pie crust.)(The pie was disapointing to me but J ate 4 pieces.)

muffalata

In 2007 our daughter flew from Los Angeles and met me and her little brothers in Denver. While in Denver we drove up to Echo Lake with more cousins and 2 of my sisters. Melissa made sandwiches for our picnic and today Grandma asked for the recipe. We found a picure of the creation also.
If you look real close you can see the sandwich in front of my Dad. Then notice the pile of olives on my Mother's plate...turns out that she likes olives, just not mixed with other foods, so she pulls them out and eats them by themselves. Verna fixed the jars of watermelon to eat. It looks like there were some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches there too. Here's the link to the recipe she used.
Here's a picture of the cute kids that went;

Ok, it's not a great picture, but at least the 2 that are looking at the camera are cute....It's the best picture of the lot!
2 parents, 3 daughters, 6 grandchildren, and1 great-grandchild went on this excersion. (I'm one of the daughters).

New Whole Wheat bread Recipe

Last week I picked up one of my favorite magazines. Cook's Illustrated. They had a different recipe for Whole Wheat bread that worked out beautifully.
The night before you're going to make bread combine the wheat flour and wheat germ with the water. Set it in the refrigerator over night; that's called the soaker.
Also mix up the 'Biga' A mixture of water, flour and yeast. It sits on the counter overnight.
The next day you combine the 2 and more ingredients and let it rise, and rise, and rise.
After baking we got 2 incredibly high light 3/5 whole wheat bread. In fact my family doesn't like their bread this light and fluffy...(but it is almost gone, less than 24 hours out of the oven-that's how much they don't like it.)
If you are inspired to get the recipe...in the mag. I did do a couple things different:

• I used water, not milk
• I used all-purpose flour with 2 tablespoons of gluten added
• I added 2 tablespoon of dough enhancer to the final mixing
• used olive oil instead of butter
• added 1/4 cup of whole wheat flour

Interesting experiment and tonight when I start bread again I'll use the concepts but change the proportions of wheat to white to make it a bit denser.

pumpking pie

My boys love pumpkin pie...I'm tempted to mess with it this year and add a few more calories...I think everything is improved with a few nuts so check out this pie recipe and let me know if you think it will ruin the meal.

I think one of the great pumpkin pie traditions in our house is pumpkin pie for breakfast the next day....it has egg and vegetable so it has to be healthy, right?

buttermilk

I decided not long ago to keep fresh buttermilk in the refrigerator all the time. In the past I'd buy it if a recipe called for it; then wait and wait to use it; then Roger would finally drink it, yuk, and then I'd look for it to use. So since I have several recipes that I love fresh buttermilk in I buy it every week now. I just finished making our new buttermilk pancake recipe (this one also had 1/4 cup sour cream, which was free at HEB this week) for the third time since Thursday (my shopping day). The grandkids eat a lot of pancakes and are not hungry for at least an hour.

I also made raspberry syrup. OH my word, I love raspberry syrup. Since I am a lazy bum I did not strain it and there are actual lumps of raspberries occationally. Andrew is the only kid that will eat it and he is very verry careful to not get any seeds or actual berries. In fact his pancake looks like it is slightly sunburned, his portion is so small. On the other hand I have more syrup than pancake.

The pictures are for Angela.

baking....

My Cub Scouts are having a cub cake auction tonight so I baked.

finished:

• raspberry pecan brownies
• apricot oat squares

still to glaze;

• lemon pound cake

I wish I could figure out great names for these cakes. The 'sock-it-to-me cake' is always a big winner and it is a great cake but it's name influences the bidders to. So quick what should I name these?

my son suggested

• superb brownies
• chocolate brownies

My idea;

• past your prime apricot oat squares
• 8 lemon cake

Roger's

• lascivious lemon cake
• delight in fatness lemon cake

edited;

I looked up lascivious and it's not a good choice for a church activity. I decided 'Pucker-Up Lemon Cake' would be a good name for one. It sold for $50. I got a call on Mother's Day from the recipient prasing the great lemon cake. I won't make the apricot oat bars again or the raspberry brownies....well if I make the brownies I'll up the raspberry presence to a layer of jam under the frosting.

oatmeal

Is this what it looks like? Yes it is. My friend, Mary told me years ago that she got her kids to eat oatmeal by serving it like this. So I decided to try it. It's pretty good. So cook old fashioned oats, serve it in a bowl; plop a scoop of ice cream on top. EAT. Andrew likes it. We had it last Sunday so today Jeffrey wanted his oatmeal plain so he could have his ice-cream in some root bear later. (Andrew gets ice cream in his oatmeal and his root beer.)

ike food

So I'm sure you're interested in what I cooked while at Camp Ike. 

• The first day we really did live on banana bread. 
• We had individual containers of chicken spaghetti I had frozen for Roger's lunches that got dumped in the fry pan and heated up for dinner. 
• We had leftover bean dip to eat, one of my kids favorites. 
• Chili; to use up the ground turkey.
• The biggest hit was bacon. I don't normally have bacon but there was some left over from a campout and so had wonderful artery clogging bacon. What a treat for me.
• Chicken and cheese sausage links; easy to cook and serve just wrapped in a piece of home made bread.
• Smoked turkey and crackers.
  
• Homemade macaroni and cheese; I dumped all the bits and dabs of cheese I'd found in the freezer.
• Uncooked cookies; yes I really did cook cookies. The boys were really working hard and I had butter, oats, and chocolate chips, so why not? I should have some unmeltable candy in the 72 hour kits as the kids needed some sweets. (granola bars were available but they just didn't sound very good.)
• We had eggs to eat so we had scrambled eggs one morning then
• Omelets with smoked turkey and leftover cheese sauce from the mac and cheese another morning then
• a new Jewish egg dish I'd read about;Matzah Brei I wasn't crazy about it but I'll have to try it again since Andrew had 3 servings of it! The above link is the recipe I followed but from a cookbook.
• Barbecued chicken with green beans. We did not eat enough fruits and vegetables since we had so much meat from the freezer to use.

frozen yogurt

My favorite ice-cream is Blue Bell Brownie fudge nut. So good. Not even made by Blue Bell all the time. It's probably been 6 months since I had any Blue Bell so I tried this; Ben and Jerry's FroYo. 170 calories per serving and 4 servings per container. I hid it in the freezer and got 5 servings out of it; which makes it ONLY 136 calories per serving. That works for me.
all gone!