One More Apple Post

This will be the last picture of apple related stuff. I promise.

Today I made the first apple pie I've ever made.

It got a thumbs up from dear Hubby. :)

More on Applesauce

I tackled the applesauce today. Last year I broke down and shelled out the $25 or so and bought one of those apple peeler/corer/slicer thingies. After I used it once, I questioned why I had avoided buying one for so many years. It works well and cuts the time that I spend peeling and coring and cutting up apples significantly.

Plus! It's red! If I have the option of buying anything for the kitchen in red I go for it!

I just had to take a picture of the pile of the peels.

 

I used all sorts of types of apples. I love all the flavors that come through in the applesauce.

I over filled my 7 quart slow cooker with the apple slices, added some lemon zest, lemon juice and a couple of cinnamon sticks. No water. No sugar.

This cooked down to about half this volume. I set the slow cooker on low for about four hours. 

Then I totally forgot to take a picture of the finished product before I scooped it up into containers for the freezer.

(...and Kathy...aka Nana...it is really easy to make!)

Let's Make Applesauce!

I have this giant pile of apples that will become applesauce tomorrow.

  Our daughter and son-in-law gave us a bunch of apples a couple of weeks ago and today I bought

 a bunch of different varieties. I love the flavor that many kinds of apples give the applesauce.

The Recipe

A friend asked for the recipe of this yummy meal that Hubby made a few nights ago:
(The recipe comes from a stir-fry cookbook that we've had for more than twenty years.)

Hot Beef & Watercress Salad (serves 2)

1/2 pound lean boneless beef, sliced thinly

4 cloves garlic, minced or pressed

2 teaspoons soy sauce

1 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon oil

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

1/4 pepper

1 small white onion, thinly sliced and separated into rings 

About 1/2 pound watercress

In a bowl, stir together garlic, soy sauce, 1/2 teaspoon of the sugar, and 1 teaspoons of the oil. Add beef; stir to coat. Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or until the next day.

In another bowl stir together remaining 1/2 teaspoon sugar, remaining 2 teaspoons oil, vinegar, and pepper. Add onion and mix lightly. Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or until the next day.

(Hubby couldn't find any watercress. I don't know if it's seasonal or if our small town grocery store just doesn't carry it. He just used some mixed greens and it was very good!)

Shortly before serving, add whatever greens you choose to use to the onion mixture. mixing lightly to coat. Arrange on 2 dinner plates.

Place a wok over high heat. When wok is hot, add beef mixture and stir-fry until meat is browned (1 1/2 to 2 minutes). Arrange meat evenly atop the greens.

There ya go! Pretty simple and quite delicious! Let me know if you try it and how it turns out!

Month of Thankfulness - Day 10

Gadgets.

I am a sucker for kitchen gadgets. Send me into a store that has kitchen gadgets and I can get lost for a long, long time as I look everything over.

Last month I made a huge batch of applesauce cooked in my crockpot. I spent a little more than an hour peeling, coring and cutting up apples.  And ended up with yummy applesauce and a sore hand.

After that hour I made a momentous decision. I decided to buy the ultimate kitchen gadget. I bought one of these:

This is the slickest thing ever invented!  I know, I know. It's been around forever and ever. I've eyed them (for over 20 years) whenever I looked through a Pampered Chef catalog. I just finally decided I would put it to good use. Today I bought a ton of apples. I like to use a lot of different varieties. I probably had 6 or 7 different kinds of apples. I set up my nifty new apple peeler/corer/slicer and went to town.

Here's what left after a few turns of the handle:

In LESS THAN THIRTY MINUTES this is what I had:

I know it's overflowing, but it will all cook down. Those brown sticks are cinnamon sticks. All I add to the apples is cinnamon sticks and lemon zest. Well, I would add lemon zest if I had a lemon. I didn't, so today I just added a splash of lemon juice. I don't add any sugar.

I am looking forward to...
...kitchen gadgets
...apples
...a hubby who works hard on little jobs around the house to keep the house in tip-top shape
...a warm Saturday in November

Month of Thankfulness - Day 5

Today was kind of a fun day for me even though it was Monday. I went out for a late breakfast with my book and enjoyed some reading time and some pumpkin pancakes. Mmmm. After breakfast, I picked up a few things from the grocery store and came home to work in the kitchen while I listened to blues music.

My culinary project was a cherry pie. Why? Because a few weeks ago Hubby and I went out for some pie and the restaurant didn't have any cherry pie. He was bummed. So this morning I decided to make him one.

Whenever I mix up pie crust I think of my mom because the recipe I use is her mother's recipe. So as I was rolling out the crust I stuck my Bluetooth (such an awesome invention) in my ear and gave my mom a call. Mom and I ended up chatting for and hour and a half or so. Fun to chat and get caught up. (Mom is 80 and had a major heart attack three years ago, had by-pass surgery and some other bad complications. I am glad I can still call her to chat.)

For supper I made some chicken nuggets that are a copy-cat Chick-fil-A recipe. (I found the recipe here.) I made them a couple of weekends ago when my son and daughter-in-law came to visit and ended up burning the bajeebers out of a couple of my fingers from jumping hot oil. (Oh. That reminds me. I haven't blogged about their visit yet. Hmmm. Some day this week I will do that.) Anyway.... I made those chicken nuggets tonight with nary a bit of jumping oil. It helped that I wasn't hurrying. Lesson learned: never hurry when hot oil is involved.

I am thankful for...
...cherry pie for dessert that was still warm. Mmmm...
...my grandmother's pie crust recipe
...phone conversations with my mom
...unburned fingers
...a dishwasher to clean all those dirty dishes

Sketti Sauce Anyone?

Yesterday I set out to make a little spaghetti sauce from few the tomatoes we got from my parents' garden and our garden. I like to have some in the freezer for a quick meal of spaghetti with some browned italian sausage or use for some pizza sauce for homemade pizza.

I made a whole lot more than I thought I would.

Maybe I shouldn't have added those two cans of tomatoes I bought at the store. Oh well.

Like my label?

I think I'll fix spaghetti for supper tonight.

Cooking

I like to cook.

Lately I have been working on using up some things I've had on hand for a while. Last week I made some brownies and realized after I had it all mixed together that the chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, butterscotch chips and chopped walnuts (those were all in my freezer and needed to be used) were supposed to be a topping. As in put on the top of the batter after it is poured into the baking pan. Oops. (They still tasted quite good.)

Tonight I made "Gingery Pork Meatballs with Noodles."(It was amazing!)

 After I had the meatballs in the oven, I saw that the recipe said to refrigerate the meat mixture for 30 minutes. And after we had finished eating I saw the sliced green onions that were to be a garnish sitting on the counter. Oops again!

That reminds me of a M*A*S*H* episode where Hawkeye and Trapper John are diffusing a bomb. They are following directions that someone is yelling across the compound to them. The directions are something like "Locate the red wire. Snip the red wire. {they snip it} But first, cut the black wire." They dive away to have the bomb explode with propaganda papers.

That's how I've felt like I've been reading these recipes lately. **Sigh**

I Can't Be Trusted

The toaster oven and I are not friends. Lately it seems as though whenever I put something involving a piece of bread in the toaster oven I burn it. Last week I prepped some pretty awesome looking garlic bread, complete with butter I made flavored with Italian seasoning and Parmesan cheese, popped it in the toaster oven, turned on the broil, then next thing I knew it was burnt. Sigh...

Today I was heating up a left-over pasta dish for lunch and thought I would make some toast to go with it. I ended up burning THREE pieces of bread. Evidently toast is a very difficult food to make. .

I guess I just cannot be trusted with a complicated kitchen appliance like a Toaster Oven.

This whole disorder may or may not have something in common with the fact that I almost always burned one side of the kids' grilled cheese sandwiches when they were growing up

I Forgot a Really Cool Thing...

As I was writing the post yesterday about my wonderful weekend with old college friends, I totally forgot a really cool thing Chuck and Carol did for me.

Back in May Chuck and Carol represented the Ohio Pork Producers (they are hog farmers in Ohio) and attended an event with Guy Fieri (a Food Network star). I was excited for them and followed Chuck's comments on Facebook leading up to and during the event. I thought that would have been a fun thing to do.

Last week when we saw each other, Carol pulled Guy's cookbook out of her suitcase. They had gotten a copy of it for ME and had it autographed for ME! How cool is that? I think it was the sweetest thing someone has done for me in a long time. Thanks so much, friends!

Did they know how much I love cookbooks? I'm so excited to cook through this!

Egg-In-A-Hole (Pioneer Woman)

**My daughter, daughter-in-law and I are cooking our way through Pioneer Woman's cookbook and writing about it here. Today's entry is from my daughter-in-law, Amanda.**

This is a really yummy and easy breakfast recipe! Since I made it six months ago (oops), I've made it for my husband several times again because it's a good hearty recipe for when you don't want cereal.

Here's the huge amount of ingredients:

First, cut a hole in the bread. Use a biscuit cutter if you're sophisticated, but if not, use a knife and cut a wonky hole.

Pretty!

Butter and cast-iron are a beautiful thing. Toast the bread and crack the egg in the middle. Or, put the egg in a hole! So clever.

Yums!

Potato Salad Memories

This afternoon I made Potato Salad. Not really earth shattering news. Not even Facebook Status worthy. (Although I considered it.)

There are a few things I won't order in restaurants because they aren't like my mom made, namely Coleslaw and Potato Salad. My mom made Coleslaw with Italian Salad Dressing. I like that so much better than the sweet creamy dressing on most Coleslaws that are sold in restaurants. And Potato Salad? I try to model mine after my aunt Johnnye's. My mom would make it and my dad would always say it wasn't quite like Aunt Johnnye's. (Tsk, tsk, Dad! Don't you know that the 1st rule of husbands? Don't compare your wife's cooking to someone else's.)

So anyway... this afternoon I made Potato Salad. When I make Potato Salad, I am flooded with memories. I realize that is strange. (But hey, if you heard me telling my hubby what I dreamed about last night and what I was fretting about at 5:30 this morning, you wouldn't be quite so surprised at how my mind works.)

Since I try to make Potato Salad like my aunt Johnnye's, of course I think of her. She passed away 4 1/2 years ago, although Alzheimer's took her long before that. Aunt Johnnye didn't have a recipe for her Potato Salad, so I have to guess at what she put in her's.

I also think of Charlotte's Web. Remember that wonderful children's classic book by E.B. White? I loved that book when I was little. I read it multiple times. I remember that the little girl in the book fed Wilbur the Pig potato skins. So when I peel the potatoes, I think of that wonderful book.

Another memory that comes back to me when I make Potato Salad is...

(I wonder if I'm setting the record for how many times the words Potato Salad are written in a blog post.)

Where was I? Oh yeah, memories and Potato Salad...

I think of when I was in 4H when I was a kid. Why? Because Aunt Johnneye's version has hard cooked eggs in it, of course! Back in 1973 or so I gave a short demonstration about How To Cook Hard Cooked Eggs at a 4H meeting. I have the little speech written up on a piece of paper stuck in an old cookbook. I refer to that whenever I make hard cooked eggs.

Every single time I boil potatoes, it boils overs and makes a stinky, burnt mess. (Anyone else do that?)

At last, but not least, I think of my grandma. One of the main reasons I decided to make Potato Salad is because I wanted the water from boiling the potatoes. My sisters and I are trying to recreate the yeast rolls that our grandma used to make. No one has the recipe (if she even used one). My dad seems to think that she used potato water in the rolls his mother made. So now I have four cups of potato water to experiment with. (I'll let you know how they turn out.)

The Potato Salad? It turned out very good. And it was yummy with the brat, grilled asparagus and watermelon. :)

What do you make that triggers memories for you?

PW Cinnamon Rolls (Pioneer Woman)

**Another great addition from Amanda for our Cooking Through PW Cooks Adventure.**  

These cinnamon rolls are fantastic... and that is all that needs to be said.
Ingredients...
I decided to make the dough the night before and finish the rolls in the morning. I'm a morning person and my wonderful husband isn't, so I figured I would finish the rolls just in time for him to wake up to the glorious smell of fresh-baked, gooey deliciousness.

The only problem with being a morning person ... I don't always function at my best later at night. Example number one... Making a half-batch doesn't include adding the full amount of the flour. Oops.

I eventually got the proportions right after I made a trip to the store for more flour. The dough aged to perfection (?) overnight, and in the morning this wonderfulness happened.
What a delicious sight!!! And a delicious bite!!! (hee hee)
I put extra love and goodness vitamins in these rolls, so I'm sure eating 14 of them is healthy.

Warning: This recipe makes a ton of rolls. Sharing is encouraged.

Iny's Prune Cake With Buttermilk Icing (Pioneer Woman)

Here's another recap of one of Pioneer Woman's recipes from her book The Pioneer Woman Cooks.

This recipe caused great anxiety for me. Well, maybe not so much anxiety as sneakiness. Are those close to the same things? Maybe not.

When Megan and Amanda (daughter and daughter-in-law) and I sat around on New Year's Eve splitting up the recipes in Pioneer Woman's cookbook and came to this one, we all paused. No one said the name of the recipe. We all looked at each other, and I said I would make it and be sneaky about it. You see, none of our guys like prunes.

I bought the prunes more than a week before I made the cake. And hid them in the cupboard. I read through the recipe and laughed at Ree's commentary. Evidently her husband has issues with prunes. She says she has made this cake for him multiple times and never told him what is in it.

Late in the afternoon I started the deed.

Too late in the afternoon, because not 10 minutes into starting, hubby called to say he was coming home. Ahhh!!

He is a good sport, because I asked him to not look at the recipe and not ask what was in the Coffee Cake **cough cough**  and he didn't. What a guy.

The pile of ingredients:

(Yes, I like Tupperware.) (See those 3 eggs sitting there? I forgot I intended to make half of the recipe and went ahead and broke open three eggs, realized my mistake and proceeded to remove 1 1/2 eggs from the bowl. Now I have 1 1/2 eggs in the fridge [yes, in Tupperware] waiting to be used for something.)

 So if you were thinking that Prune Cake meant a cake with big hunks of prunes, nope, you were wrong... you boil them to soften them up so they can be mashed and blend into the cake almost undetected. They help make the cake very moist.

The cake itself has yummy spices in it like cinnamon, nutmeg and ground allspice. (I am amazed that I did not have any ground allspice and had to actually buy it. If you saw all the spices I have in a drawer [in Tupperware, of course], you would be surprised too.)

This is the beginning boiling stage of the Buttermilk Icing. It is supposed to be cooked until it has a light caramel color. And, oh boy, is it GOOD!

Ta Da!! The finished product! The icing melts down into the hot cake and just makes it scrumptious. It kinda reminded me of a spice cake. After he tasted it, Hubby said he liked it and then asked if it had carrots in it or brussel sprouts. (He doesn't like vegetables in cake) The really good news is he didn't gag after I revealed the secret!

(Can you see my new tablecloth in the very upper left corner of the picture? I used a birthday gift card to buy that and I love it!)

Katie's Roasted Corn Salad (Pioneer Woman)

Hi! I'm Megan, the third contributer to the "Pioneer Woman" blog.

I actually made the Roasted Corn Salad a couple weeks ago for dinner. But I've had a few distractions in the past two weeks that prevented me from getting this written. One being this adorable little guy:

His name is Charley and my husband and I brought him home just two weeks ago. So while the Roasted Corn Salad was extremely simple to make, it took me significantly longer than I expected since I had to keep one eye on him at all times.

Here's the vegetable ingredients:

As I was picking these out at the grocery store, I was dreaming about picking all of these delicious vegetables straight from the garden. If you want to try this recipe I would highly recommend doing it during the summertime. Although, even in the wintertime it was amazing.

I used our cast iron grill pan to cook the corn, squash, onions and pepper. The recipe said to just cook them on the stove for approximately eight minutes, but I found that they weren't fully cooked, so I popped them in the oven on broil for a few minutes. That did the trick!

The next step was to mix up the delicious dressing!
Here are the ingredients:

Ree suggested to chop up the basil by cutting into the chiffonade (aka tightly rolled leaves). It gives you nice thin strips of basil. I've been cutting my basil this way for a while, but now I know the name! :)

The finished product was delicious. My brother even said he didn't really notice the squash and tomatoes (he's not a fan of those). We served it with tortilla chips and tacos, but I can imagine that it would be wonderful with steak or chicken.

COMING SOON: Hot artichoke dip. Yummmm.

A List of Recaps

I have much to blog about, and a lack of creativity, so a list is ahead.

1. Our kids were able to come to our house for Christmas Day. (I can count on one hand the number of times we have been able to to that as a family.) (It was also the first time we had all been together in this house.) We had such a fun day together complete with eating lots of food and exchanging gifts.

Getting ready to dig into our feast. It was all very yummy! 

I love this family of mine sooo much!

2. Hubby read us the Christmas story from Luke 2. He also led us in a time of prayer and praise for what God has done for us by sending His son, Jesus to earth.

3. A couple of days after Christmas we headed to Iowa to see both of our parents. We weren't able to mesh our schedule with my side of the family, but we were able to spend a day with my parents and to surprise them with Caleb and Amanda. 

This quilt was on the bed we slept in and I marveled at how beautiful and well made it is. My grandmother made it 50+ (?) years ago. I wish I could have talked quilting with my grandmother.

4. We made a road trip to Kansas for the New Year's weekend. Hubby and I got there sooner than we had thought we might, so we decided to have a date night.

We had a hard time deciding on a restaurant because there are so many choices. (Choices is not what we have in this small, rural Minnesota town.) Kind of on whim, we choose a Japanese Steakhouse. It was excellent! I really enjoyed the evening.

Dates with Hubby are always good. :) (And no, I did not eat the tofu)

5. We spent our New Year's Eve at Megan and Zach's. They did a great job of hosting and we had a lot of good food and and played some fun games.

6. I would say the funnest, most fun, best fun, coolest thing that happened over the Christmas vacation was the result of a movie we watched with Caleb and Amanda. I had seen Julie & Julia in the theaters and recently bought the DVD on a whim. We sat down to watch it with Caleb and Amanda the night before Christmas Eve. (If you have never seen it, you should! Go here to watch a trailer of the movie.)

Basically the movie is about how Julia Child came to be, well, Julia Child. (Meryl Streep does an awesome job of protraying Julia.) Paralleled with that story is a story about a woman named Julie who was trying to find some purpose in her life. Julie decides to cook through Julia Child's cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year's time and blog about it.

Amanda (my daughter-in-law) and I started talking after the movie about how it would be cool to cook through a cookbook, but neither of us wanted to try out French cooking. (Maybe it was the aspic that did us in...). Since we both had a copy of Pioneer Woman's cookbook, we talked about working our way through that. When Megan (my daughter) got here, we threw the idea at her. 

What was the idea? The three of us are going to cook our way through Pioneer Woman Cooks AND blog about it here! We split up the recipes New Year's Eve and even made our first dish. (I'll blog about that in a few days.)

I am soooo excited about doing this. We'll attempt to post about once a week. I say attempt, because, while I have nothing better to do in this frozen trundra but cook and blog, my daughter is studying to be a Pharmacist and my daughter-in-law is studying to be a Doctor. They are kinda busy. But they excitedly agreed to work on this and I couldn't be more thrilled!

The Cooking Threesome. I think Hubby suggested we call ourselves "The Kan-Sota Connection" or something cheesy like that. :)

Here we are working hard at splitting up the recipes. (and no, this photo is not at all staged....) The dividing of the recipes consisted of comments such as, "My husband won't eat that, will yours?" And, "Ooo, I want to make this! Me too! Me too!"

So keep coming back here for some yummy food pictures and great blogging!