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.

Nutella Swirl Ring

Alright, I love Nutella...Nutella in my crepes, Nutella on Ritz, Nutella on pretzels, Nutella in my ice cream (i am forever greatful for icream for that)...it's all lovely. Well the other day I saw a small jar of a Nutella knock off at the Dollar Store. I figured, it's only a dollar and generic brands are most of the time just as good as the brand names so I bought it. The following day I sat down with some pretzels and opened the jar with mediocre hopes. Yeah, not so much. It was grainy and just not the same as the rich chocolately hazelnut spread that I love. I wasn't going to be wasteful and just through the jar away so I had to come up with a way to use it where you wouldn't be able to taste it's graininess.

I had actually come up with a couple different ideas (including making a stuffed nutella cookie-I figured mixing powdered sugar with the Nugati or whatever it was called would disguise some of it's original taste.) When looking up basic recipes I ended up finding this delicious looking chocolate stuffed peanut butter cookie and decided that I just had to use our Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter for the filling instead of the Nutella wannabe. So what was I to do with the Nutella knock off? I decided to use the new SuperCook website to look up recipes. By the way, this may be one of my new favorite recipe sites. You tell it what you have in your kitchen and it will search all the major recipe sites and tell you what you can make. You should go check it out :o) Anyway, I used the site, told it that I wanted to highlight nutella and it suggested this Nutella Swirl Ring.

As I read the directions, I thought that this would be perfect. I could melt some extra chocolate to make the Nugati a little creamier and it just looked like it would be good to eat. The recipe turned out to be really simple to make in my opinion. The only "problem" I ran into was that my dough didn't exactly "double in size" as the recipe suggests. When I noticed that, I made the oven into a proof box by heating it to 200 degrees, shutting it off right away and sticking my dough in there for a couple minutes. It worked perfectly.

So the Nutella ring? Good stuff. Definately something I will be making again and it was another hit at our small group. I love it when recipes work out!

Nutella Swirl Ring

I'm not sure who originated it, but it can be found here.

Ingredients :

• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 4 tablespoons granulated sugar, divided
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
• 3 cups all-purpose flour, divided
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup NUTELLA^®, warmed slightly
• (see instructions)
• 2 tablespoons water (for brushing)
• non-stick cooking spray

To make NUTELLA^® Swirl Ring:

1. In a large bowl using an electric mixer, stir together 1/2 cup warm water, yeast, 2 tablespoons sugar and 1/4 teaspoon salt.
   
2. Add 1 cup flour and the butter and mix on medium speed for 4 minutes.
   
3. Add the remaining 2 cups flour and mix for an additional 2 minutes.
4. Grease a large bowl with non-stick spray or butter and place the dough on it, turning it once. Cover with plastic wrap, and let stand for 1 hour in a warm place until double in volume.
   
5. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil or parchment paper.
   
6. When the dough has fully risen, punch it down, and transfer to a floured surface.
   
7. Roll the dough out to a 12-by-16-inch rectangle and spread evenly with the warmed NUTELLA^®, leaving a 1-inch band around the edge bare.
8. Beginning at the long end, tightly roll up the dough like a newspaper, forming a 16-inch-long log. Brush the ends with a little water, and bring them together, pinching to form a ring.
   
9. Transfer the ring to the prepared baking sheet. Using a sharp knife sprayed with non-stick cooking spray or oil, slice the ring into 12 individual buns – being sure not to cut all the way through so that the buns are still connected and allowing 1 inch between each slice.
   
10. Gently separate them, so they rest against one another like dominos. Brush the ring with 2 tablespoons water and sprinkle with remaining 2 tablespoons sugar.
11. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes until golden brown. Let cool slightly before serving.

To warm NUTELLA^®:

In the microwave, heat on high in a microwaveable bowl for 5 seconds.
Or, for the stovetop, heat on low heat in a pot until mixture becomes creamy.

Chocolate Peanut Butter goodness

So this week Brad and I had snack duty for our small group. For some people they may not think twice about this opportunity but for me, it gives me an excused to come up with something that I may not ordinarily make (since I am able to feed 8+ people instead of just 2). Anyway, I was trying to come up with something with some knock off Nutella that I bought (more about that later) and ended up coming up with the idea of stuffing a cookie somehow with this "Nutella". Perhaps even a chocolate cookie?

I started looking around the internet to see if I could come up with a basic stuffed cookie recipe and I came across this "Magic in the Middles" recipe from RecipeGirl. Now, to me, chocolate and peanut butter are always a winning combination but I had something even better in our pantry. I had Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter. That's right, chocolate flavored peanut butter. Needless to say, I decided to save my "Nutella" for something else and get to crackin' on making these cookies using my Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter because as much as I love that combination, this jar was just sitting on our shelves practically untouched.

Let me say, de-lish! Especially a couple minutes after coming out of the oven. They were soft with just the right balance of chocolate and peanut butter. I couldn't wait to take them to group. And guess what, they liked them! I know, I know. Big surprise ;o)

Alright, so do I have any side notes? The biggest thing I changed about this recipe was of course the type of peanut butter I used. Other than that, I pretty much stuck to what RecipeGirl had to say. Any other comments I can think of I'll post between some yellow parentheses as they come to me. Sound like a plan? Cool...Oh, and I apologize about the photos...My hands were sticky from the dough and I was in somewhat of a hurry.

Magic in the Middles
from RecipeGirl

DOUGH:
1½ cups (6¼ ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
½ cup (1½ ounces) unsweetened cocoa powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
½ cup (3½ ounces) granulated sugar (plus extra for dipping)
½ cup (4 ounces) brown sugar, packed
½ cup (4 ounces or 1 stick) unsalted butter
¼ cup (2 3/8 ounces) smooth peanut butter (I suggest you try Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg

FILLING:
¾ cup (7 1/8 ounces) smooth peanut butter (again, Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter)
¾ cup (3 ounces) powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) two baking sheets.

2. Prepare dough: In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. In another medium bowl, beat together sugars, butter, and peanut butter until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and egg, beating to combine, then stir in dry ingredients, blending well.

3. Prepare filling: In a small bowl, stir together peanut butter and powdered sugar until smooth. (I actually decided to do this with the Kitchen Aid because me trying to mix it together myself just wasn't cutting it. Not only was it fast but the sugar incorporated with the peanut butter much better) With floured hands, roll the filling into 26 one-inch balls (When making chocolate cake/cookies, mix a bit of cocoa powder into your flour so that it blends in well with your baked goods. You wouldn't want streaks of white to mess up your presentation would you?).

4. Shape cookies: Break off about 1 Tbsp. of the dough, make an indentation in the center with your finger (I just flattened it like a pancake almost), and press one of the peanut butter balls into the indentation. Bring the dough up and over the filling, pressing it closed; roll the cookie in the palms of your hand to smooth it out. Repeat with remaining dough and filling. (I did use my Tablespoon to measure the dough out and let me tell you, I had just enough dough for all 26 of my peanut butter balls. RecipeGirl was spot on!)

5. Dip the top of each cookie in granulated sugar and place on prepared baking sheets about 2 inches apart. Grease the bottom of a drinking glass and use it to flatten each cookie to about ½-inch-thick.

6. Bake cookies for 7 to 9 minutes, until they’re set (They will come out quite soft but they will set up once they are cooled. You want to be very careful when making chocolate cookies since it is harder to tell if they are burning or not). Remove them from the oven and cool on a rack.

Yield: About 26 cookies