Apple Butter, My first attempt

Ah, fall...colored leaves, crisp air, and beautifully juicy apples. A long time ago, there was an apple orchard near my house in the Kalamazoo area called Hillcrest Orchards. And somehow it became a beloved tradition for my Abuelito and Abuelita to take me apple picking. I wish I knew where my chord to my scanner was so that I could post of a picture of a two year old me with my Abuelito, standing next to our basket of apples and me attempting to take a huge bite of an apple, completely oblivious of the camera in front of me..or perhaps just too distracted by the apple. Anyhow, through the years we spent a lot of time there not only picking but buying cider, eating fresh apple cinnamon donuts, and just enjoying the fall weather.

Over the years we continued to visit the orchard with my dad, aunt, and cousins picking apples to our hearts content so that we could make apple pie. It was during one of our last visits, as we were checking out, when we got asked "Would you like to use your employee discount?" My dad and my abuelita looked at the cashier for a minute, confused..and then it clicked...she looked at us, a whole bunch of mexicans wearing our "work" clothes, jammed together in a car...why of course we were migrant workers! My dad graciously declined the "offer"...Unfortunately, we only made it back to Hillcrest a time or two before it was bought out and then closed. But nonetheless I still have many found memories.

Wow, I just rambled on for quite a while didn't I? Anywho, some of our friends from our small group asked Brad and I if we wanted to go apple picking with them and of course I jumped at the chance! However, when we got there is started raining which put a little damper on our escapade (haha...hey look, I made an unintentional pun!) but we still left with about 15lbs of apples, some apple cider, homemade honey, and fresh donuts. We almost left with a jar of apple butter, which Brad thoroughly enjoys but we had already spent more than what we had wanted to. Anyway, Erin then came to our rescue and told me that I could make the apple butter with our newly acquired apples and that it was super easy. So of course, I had to try.

I looked through quite a bit of recipes online and finally came across this recipe on recipezaar since it seemed less involved plus did not require you to send the pulp repeatedly through a "juicer". I didn't change anything in this recipe except that I didn't have any nutmeg, cloves or allspice so I decided to add in some of our cider to hopefully add some of that flavor to the butter. Oh and guess what I learned, there is no butter in apple butter...all these years I had shied away from the stuff thinking that there was some form of butter in it.

Okay, enough babblin'...here's the recipe for your enjoyment. And yes, it passed Brad's taste test :o)


Crock Pot Apple Butter
by Pam-I-Am

Ingredients

• 5 lbs apples, peeled and finely sliced
• 3 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup apple cider (optional- I added this for the extra flavor since I didn't have nutmeg or cloves)
  

Directions

1. Place apples in slow cooker in thirds, layering sugar between each layer.

2. Add rest of ingredients on top and pack them down as well as you can.

3. Cover and cook on high for 1 hour.

4. Reduce heat to low. Open and give it a stir. Keep covered and cook 8 hours or until thick and dark brown, stirring occasionally. (You can do this overnight and can in the morning).Uncover and cook for the last hour on low.

5. If a smoother apple butter is desired, you may puree in blender or food mill.

6. Place in sterile jars with lids and can accordingly
   

Pigs in a Blanket

Uh oh. There are hot dogs in the fridge that have a "use by" date that is 8 days away...There are 6 hot dogs left...Man, I don't want to eat only hot dogs for the next couple of days. Sheesh..alright, let's think. Can you freeze hot dogs? Maybe...I think we used to do that at Gull Lake. Yikes, that freezer is full. They will certainly get lost in there. Okay new plan, think, think, think, think...hot dogs in macaroni and cheese? yeah, but Brad just ate that a couple days ago at a friends house...and that would be a quite a bit of macaroni for 6 hot dogs..and then we would be eating that for the next two or three days. Oh well, I'll think of something.
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Shoot! That "use by" deadline is drawing closer and I still have nothing. Hot dogs...hot dogs in macaroni and cheese...hot dogs and....hey! pigs in a blanket! Perfect! Except that we don't have any crescents rolls....hmmm....maybe I can find one.....

Duh Duh Dah! Recipezaar to the rescue!

Alright, so I copied the recipe straight from the site below...sarcastic comments from the author and all. So please, don't credit me for the parentheses this time ;o). As for me though (and Brad), we thought this turned out quite well. I don't have a pastry cutter so the butter didn't crumble as well as it probably should have, but thankfully my tortilla making skills came in handy as far as blending the two together. Also, I didn't add cheese to the dough because as well all know, I'm not a big fan unless it is on pizza. To make up for it though, I added cheese to the tops of some of them for Brad. And as always, no buttermilk in the house so I used my milk and vinegar substitute. Oh, and did I mention I didn't remember how to roll the hot dogs up properly? Yeah..so they were uniform but eh, it worked.

Pigs in a Blanket (From Scratch)
from MommyMakes

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, cut into small pieces
• 1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 18 miniature hot dogs

Directions

1. Heat the over to 400ºF. Grease a large baking sheet.
2. Sift the dry ingredients (flour through salt) into a mixing bowl (or dump them in one at a time, whatever).
3. Rub the butter pieces into the dry ingredients until mixture is crumbly. Stir in cheese until evenly distributed.
4. Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the buttermilk. Stir well with a wooden spoon. Let the dough sit for 3 minutes.
5. Sprinkle the dough with flour and stir once or twice then turn out onto a well floured counter.
6. With floured hands, pat the dough into a 15 by 7 inch rectangle, trimming the sides if necessary to get a true rectangle. (Handle the dough as little as possible for tenderness, yeah right).
7. Using a pizza cutter, slice the rectangle into thirds horizontally then slice each third into thirds vertically, this will give you 9 small rectangles. Slice each rectangle diagonally into two thin triangles.
8. One at a time, roll up the sausages in the triangles. Place pointy side down on greased cookie sheet.
9. Bake for 12 to 13 minutes, until golden brown. Cool on the sheet for 3 minutes then tranfer to a wire rack.

Barbecue Country Style Ribs

Brad absolutely LOVES ribs but we have never bought them because 1) we didn't have a grill and 2) they are a little out of our price range. Well, as I have mentioned before, we are now proud owners of a Weber Smokey Joe thanks to my in-laws and just this past week Dominick's had country style ribs on sale for $.99/lb!
True, they are baby back or spare ribs but they were "ribs" nonetheless...and more importantly, they tasted good. The package and Kraft suggested to boil the ribs first, and then finish them off in the grill while America's Test Kitchen said to skip the grill all together (because they aren't on a rack) and cook them in a slow cooker but I decided to take a different route and just slowly cook them on the grill over indirect heat, after all, Better Homes and Garden said I could ;o)

Since I didn't really measure anything, I wouldn't call the following a "recipe". Just a list of ingredients and directions that I used for future reference or for anyone else who is interested so forgive me for the lack of specificity (that's a word right?). Can you guess what's inside?

Barbecue Country Style Ribs

Ingredients

For the Dry Rub:

• Brown Sugar
• Chili Powder
• Paprika
• Black Pepper
• Kosher Salt
• Onion Powder
• Garlic Powder

Country Style Ribs (obviously :oP )
BBQ sauce

Directions

1. Prepare dry rub using brown sugar and other spices. Apply to ribs and let marinate for about an hour.
2. Start grill as normal. Once coals are ready, prepare grill for indirect heat by moving coals to the sides of the grill. Place a drip pan in the cleared out portion.
3. Place ribs on rack above drip pan. Allow meat to cook for 1 hr, turning once half way through. (Resist the urge to lift up the lid! It allows the heat to escape and thus slows cooking) Add additional coals half way through as needed.
4. After meat has cooked for an hour, brush bbq sauce on meat and let cook for an additional 30 minutes or until done, turning once.
5. Remove ribs from grill, and brush additional bbq sauce as desired.

Hey Look!

Guess what I did the other day....

::snickers to herself::

making these was so much fun! The frosting I made from scratch using fresh strawberries...However, I was in a hurry so I didn't blend it as well as I probably should have nor did I follow the directions either..so at some point I'll try the frosting again before posting.

:o)

Strawberry Muffins

Summer is in fact one of my favorite seasons...and autumn...and winter...I know, I know, there are only four. But nonetheless, Summer is great because it's full of birthdays (including my own), free events, warm weather, and of course fresh fruit. Blueberries, as you may know, are my favorite but strawberries are pretty great too.

The other day at Aldi, strawberries were on sale for 99 cents and they actually looked decent so I picked up a few packages. We ate some and made strawberry lemonade and I made homemade strawberry frosting. This morning as I was looking in the fridge, I noticed I had just about a cup of strawberries left so I decided to whip up some strawberry muffins. I have made this recipe a couple of times now and I am pretty satisfied with it.

I found this recipe over at all recipes but it looks very similar to some other posts that I found online so I'm not really sure who is the originator of this recipe. I'll just link to the AllRecipes site though just because it is pretty easy to read plus you can see what other people are saying about it and how they tweaked it to fit to their own tastes. The version I am going to post is based off of the original recipe plus some of the suggestions of reviewers as well as my own additions. Feel free to go back and look at the first recipe and perhaps make your own adaptations.

Strawberry Muffins
Original Recipe by Katie Mae, Adaptations made by other reviewers and myself

INGREDIENTS

• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
  
• 2 Tablespoons strawberry jam
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
  
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup chopped strawberries

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F and line muffin tin with paper liners.
2. Sprinkle strawberries with a portion of the sugar and let sit. In a small bowl, combine oil, milk, egg, and vanilla. Beat lightly.
   
3. In a large bowl, mix salt, cinnamon, baking powder, sugars, and flour.
   
4. Gradually add milk mixture into dry ingredients. Once combined, add strawberry jam and chopped strawberries.
5. Fill muffin cups with batter. Sprinkle muffin tops with sugar. Bake for 25 minutes, or until the tops bounce back from the touch. Cool 10 minutes and remove from pans.