Homemade Applesauce

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

        

Recipe~ Makes 5 quarts of applesauce

30 Apples- a variety of different apples is best

4 Cups of R. W. Knudsen (Apple) Cider & Spice

1 Lemon

Instructions:

Core and cut the apples into chunks place in a large stock pot. Squeeze the lemon juice over the apples. Pour 4 cups of cider over the apples. cover with a lid and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer, cook  apples until tender, 10-15 minutes. Push apples thru a sieve. Taste your applesauce, if it is too tart return to the pan and add sugar and cook until dissolved. 

*If using a food processor to mash your applesauce it would be easiest to peel your apples before cooking them.

Add the apple sauce to hot sterile jars for canning. Make sure to leave 1/2" of head room in the jars and the lids are on nice and tight. Place in water bath, cover. Bring to a boil and boil for 20 minutes. Carefully remove jars onto the counter and let them cool for 24 hours, makes sure all the jars are sealed.

Enjoy applesauce all year long.

 

This applesauce is perfect for cooking with or just eating :) My little helper couldn't get enough of it. And it is just right for him since there is no added sugar, not even in the apple cider I used.

German Banana Pancakes

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons of butter

2 large eggs

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 thinly sliced banana

1. Pre heat oven to 400 degrees. Place butter in pie plate. Place pie plate in the oven. Once butter is melted remove from oven and spread around the pie plate making sure to coat the sides too.

2. While butter is melting mix the next 5 ingredients together in a bowl.

2. Sprinkle brown sugar evenly over the pie plate.

3. arrange your banana slices on top of the butter and brown sugar mixture.

5. Pour your pancake batter over the bananas, make sure to evenly distribute the batter.

6. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until puffy and deep golden brown. You can serve it as it is, use powdered sugar and a dash of lemon juice, or use maple syrup.

 

Colin and I had this for breakfast yesterday morning. It works up quickly and you just place it in the oven to bake. I don't think it's too fancy for a Wednesday breakfast :) We eat our pancake plain. It is surprisingly sweet from the bananas and brown sugar. I love the added crunch that the brown sugar gives the bottom of the pancake (pictured above). I will have to make these again this weekend so Brett can have some. Plus I wouldn't mind eating them again :)

Deceptively Delicious Muffins

I got this book a while ago from Marshalls. So far it's a hit in our home. I have only used two of the recipes but they are delicious. And I can't help being inspired by the very cool retro look of the book.

The Applesauce Muffins are fantastic.

The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of butternut squash. Which is great because I can not get Colin to eat anything that is orange. He loved sweet potato puree before but will have nothing to do with them now. I changed/substituted a few ingredients. I used Mayonnaise instead of an egg, I was out. Vanilla soy milk instead of nonfat milk and I added some vanilla extract. The muffins are super moist and really messy with the crumb topping. If you have a little one who is not that fond of veggies I highly recommend this book. We look forward to trying many more of the recipes.

Zucchini Brownies

Recipe from my Great Grandma Beth

Ingredients:

3 cups flour	4 tablespoons Cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt	1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon	1 cup vegetable oil
1 3/4 cup white sugar	2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla	1/2 cup buttermilk
2 cups peeled, grated zucchini	1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
Pre heat oven to 350 degrees

Sift flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon into a medium sized bowl. Set aside. Beat oil, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients, buttermilk, and zucchini. Mix two minutes. Pour into a 10"x15"" baking pan. Top with chocolate chips. Bake 25-30 minutes. Baking time may vary. I used a 9"x13" pan and baked for 35 minutes.

This is a great way to use some the the summer zucchini that is growing in the garden. I didn't peel my zucchini before grating it, the skin was very thin. I do give warning, these are delicious and almost more like cake, I made these last night and the pan is half empty. Enjoy :)

xo,

E

Tomato Goodness

This is my all time favorite food. I could eat it all day, everyday.

Ingredients:

5 sliced tomatoes (or as many as you want)

2 cloves garlic finely diced

2 green onions thinly sliced

3 basil leaves thinly sliced- I stack all my leaves up and then roll them and very careful cut strips with my kitchen sheers directly over the sliced tomatoes

equal parts Olive Oil, balsamic vinegar, and champagne vinegar for this amount of tomatoes I did 3 tablespoons. I normally do double the amount because I love to soak it up with bread.

A pinch of salt and sugar

A loaf of your favorite bread sliced into 1/2” pieces , mine is a soft French bread from our local market.

Arrange your sliced tomatoes on a platter, one that is relatively deep and can hold the dressing. Sprinkle the tomatoes with sugar, salt, garlic, onion, and basil. Then drizzle the Olive oil, balsamic and champagne vinegar over all the tomatoes. Let rest for 20 minutes or eat right away. The longer it sits the better it tastes.

I like to dip my bread in the dressing and then place a tomato right in the middle of my bread. Yummy! It makes me want to go in the kitchen and make some up right now.

Enjoy!

xo,

E

What a weekend

We had a busy weekend and got a lot of projects done.
I got the carpets cleaned. Sorry no before and after pictures :)

Finally got my Christmas present from two years ago painted and hung up. My grand father in-law made it for me, I think it's great and the paint matches with the rest of the bedroom set. I still need to get all of my jewelry put in it and I am thinking it should be moved to another wall. My husband, of course, wants me to wait a week in hopes that I will like it where it is. So I must keep an open mind about where it is hanging now. Unfortunately I don't have a before picture, I thought of it a bit too late. I used an antique black paint kit, the pictures don't really show the antique look but it looks great.


We use our old wood kitchen table and chair set for our out door furniture. It works great except here in the northwest we still get a lot or rain during the summer, especially this year. So the set is not looking that great. I talked the hubby into sanding it down and painting it. We had some left over cans of spray paint, espresso color, and the in-laws had some left over clear varnish for out door use. After we got started I thought it would be really cool if the top of the table were painted with the chalk board paint. Then we could doodle and keep score while playing cards right on the table. But we are not to sure on how well it would hold up being outdoors (only during the summer of course). And I would hate to put a lot of work into it to have it turn look like it does now. So if anyone knows about using chalkboard paint outside please share your knowledge because I would love it if we could use it. As of today, Monday, we have one coat of the varnish on and we are going to apply several more so for now I have a picture of the table with it's new paint and no varnish. Please ignore the sad looking flower pot in the background it used to be so beautiful but it's the end of summer and at its nearing its end life. We still have to do the four chairs, we haven't even started on them yet. We ran out of sand paper for the electric sander, hubby is supposed to pick some more up today. So hopefully I will have an updated photo with the complete set all done shortly.

I have been working on some cloth booties for Colin, pattern from here . Maybe it's just me but I have heard this from others, Amy Butler's directions are difficult to read and follow. I could be that I am a beginner but I have to read the directions over and over for each step. Especially since there is two booties each one consisting of an outer layer and a liner. I am now at the sewing part and I tried to sew the two layers together only to end up ripping the seam out. I am awful, truly awful at following curved lines. Normally I do everything in my power to avoid them, which is not good because I will never learn how to sew them if I avoid them. My new plan of attack is to mark out my 1/2" seam line then trying following that, since I am incapable of just following the edge of the fabric. If any one has some helpful hints I would love to hear them ;o)

Hmmmm..... what else was there?

Congratulations to me! I won my first giveaway. I am so excited and grateful for the great stuff that is going to be coming to me via snail mail ( I love mail espcially when its not bills). I won the linky love prize you can see it here.

And of course I tired out a new recipe featuring my moms home grown zucchini, Fried Zucchini Coins, from food network. You can get the recipe here and of course I added a 1/4 cup of grated Parmesan cheese.

We borrowd a jumper from our dear friends Rob and Sarah and I am pretty sure Colin likes it.
And I also have a picture from when we went and visted the sometimes crafter, the sometimes crafters mom, and healing techniques. We had a great time and I thought I would share is adorable picture of Sheila playing with her grandson. She is one happy grandma, too bad I didn't get the front of Brice's face he was having as much fun as grandma. I am really hoping that we can all get together at least one Friday a month for some crafting.

Drunken Cheesy Bread

It got this recipe from Real Simple magazine and I finally made it (picture from real simple' website, since our dear friends are borrowing our camera). It was delicious! It was especially good since I am a bread freak, I could munch on a warm loaf of bread by itself. Even the hubby loved it. I think it's supposed to be an appetizer but we had it with a fresh green salad (with cucumbers from our garden) and cantaloupe. My recipe differed from theirs so I figured I will share it.

1 baguette, sliced open and then cut into 2 inch slices
1/2 small yellow onion diced
1/8 pound deli ham, we used black forest ham
1/2 cup of white wine, use something you like to drink, we used Montinore Estate Muller-Thurgau 2006 (it's a German variety that is semi sweet that is made here in the Willamette Valley)
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 1/2 cups (6 ounces) grated white cheddar (may use Gruyere, Swiss, Monterey jack, or Fontina)

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Place half the bread in a buttered ovenproof dish (such as a skillet, or 9-inch square baking dish, or casserole). sprinkle half the onion and ham over the bread. Next lay a seconed layer of bread and spinkle with the remaining onion and ham. Pour the wine or the bread mixture and sprinkle with peper and cheese. Bake until the cheese is melted and it has begun to brown at the edges, about 20 minutes or 15 with speed bake. Let rest a few minutes and enjoy!