Crockpot Applesauce Recipe

Tags

applesauce, Autumn, crockpot recipe, fall, orchard

Happy Fall Y’all! While I love Autumn, I never hurry the end of Summer with it’s sunshine and warm days. I relish football and boots and sweaters and hot drinks and leaves and especially Halloween, but I don’t look forward to the cold and snow of Winter. Decorating for Halloween started to get me in the spirit, but last weekend I really got into the spirit of the season.

After visiting The Children’s Museum Guild’s annual haunted house, we braved the misty weather to visit Tuttle Orchard and pick some apples.  Actually, we picked a lot of apples – filling two wagons. I made an apple pie and some apple chips, and EW has been eating apples like they are going out of style, but most of the apples will be turned into applesauce which we will stock our freezer with for the year. I already have lots of blueberries in the freezer; this weekend, I also loaded it with a quarter hog and six large jars of butternut squash soup (my two squashes were so large I had to add a lot of broth and milk). I guess part of Fall is preparing for hibernation.

Crockpot Applesauce

Makes 5-6 jars which can be frozen

1. Peel as many apples as you need to fill your crockpot (or less if you don’t want to make so much)
2. Sprinkle in cinnamon and nutmeg – approximately 1T cinnamon and 1t nutmeg
3. Cook on low for 10-12 hours, depending on how chunky you might want it
4. Enjoy your applesauce warm or jar and freeze. Defrost frozen applesauce in the refrigerator.

Vegan Irish Cream and Cooked Cabbage Recipes for St. Patrick’s Day

Tags

cabbage, Irish Cream, recipe, St. Patrick's Day

We are not vegan, but we are dairy-free. My original Irish Cream recipe – before I discovered a dairy allergy – called for whipping cream and sweetened condensed milk. While you can get evaporated goat milk, I wanted to see what I could do with (canned) coconut milk. While this recipe may continue to be tweaked, but as I sip it right now I feel confident enough to serve it to friends. My original Irish Cream recipe, I bottled and gave as gifts on several occasions. I am definitely not forgetting that recipe.

My first attempt at creating my own Irish Cream recipe, I added more chocolate. My morning coffee was more mocha than creamy or Irish, so I tried again. That one could have been called “Black Irish” Cream. Here is what you will need for something closer to the traditional:

• 1 can full fat coconut milk (I prefer this brand in BPA free cans)
• 2/3 cup sugar (I use organic coconut palm sugar which does add a slight carmel-y flavor)
• 1/3 cup extra strong coffee (or espresso)
• 1 teaspoon of chocolate powder
• 1 Tablespoon approximately of vanilla
• 2 teaspoons approximately of almond extract (this intensifies sweetness)
• 1 pinch of cinnamon
• 1 cup of Irish whiskey

Start by brewing your coffee. I used double the amount of beans and let it steep a bit longer. I brewed a full pot and can just add hot water to it before mixing in my Irish Cream in the morning.

Heat the coconut milk in a medium to large sauce pan over medium low heat. The key here is to melt the sugar not to boil the milk, stirring in the sugar until it is well combined. Reduce heat to low and add the chocolate powder. I prefer to combine all of this with a whisk rather than a spatula.

Remove from heat and add the rest of the ingredients – vanilla, almond extract, cinnamon, and whiskey.

Serve over ice or with your morning coffee. The coffee is fairly strong, so I would not consume this too late in the day or you may have trouble sleeping. Store it in the refrigerator; you will likely need to shake or stir gently before pouring.

We have our corned beef resting. I will add potatoes, carrots, and onions, cooking it in the slow cooker. Of course, it will be served with cabbage. Our favorite cabbage recipe is below.

• 1 head green cabbage
• 1 small onion
• 2-4 Tablespoons bacon lard
• salt
• red pepper flakes

Cut the cabbage and let rest for at least thirty minutes in a colander with salt. Squeeze excess ager from the cabbage. Melt lard in a pan and cook onion until soft. Add cabbage and cook until soft (there is no perfect level of done – it depends on what your family prefers). I like to season with red pepper flakes. My son used to be sensitive to spicy, so I sometimes leave those out. It is easy, healthy, and yummy.

What will YOU be serving on St. Patrick’s Day?

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Halloween Gift Wrap with Printable Tag

Tags

free printable, Halloween

Halloween is a favorite holiday around here. Other than the whole tree thing, we probably have as many decorations for Halloween as we do for Christmas. I’ve been tempted to just photograph all the decorations we have to share with you, but they really aren’t things that I crafted. Maybe that is what instagram is for….? I have been working on a really fun project for Creative Converting, so hopefully I can share that and the projects that go with it soon. If you’ve been following me on twitter, you may have seen some hints 😉

While we love the skulls and spiders and scary stuff, I’m not huge on candy. Trick or Treaters are more likely to find toys and pretzels than candy bars at my house. My most amazing assistant, on the other hand, loves candy and deserves all kinds of treats, so I buy the seasonal goodies for her. I think festive wrapping can make anything more special – even just a couple of bags of M&M’s.

I found the awesome printable tags (free) here. I just printed on plain paper and used my circle cutter to make them into tags. I used the extra ribbon from my spider webs wreath to really make it pretty. I taped the end of the ribbon to just inside the bag, then cut off a triangle at the right length. Adhesive dots attached the tag to the ribbon and the bag, holding everything in place. Repeat on the opposite side. I had everything needed on hand, so it only took a few minutes to turn a boring bag of candy into a festive thank you gift.

Makin’ Bacon

Tags

bacon, cookie, Father's Day, gluten-free, pinterest, sugar cookies

via Not Your Momma’s Cookie

When I first saw this pin, I thought it was adorable and Father’s Day would be the perfect day to try it out. What man doesn’t love bacon, right? What could be better than bacon cookies? The pin and instructions are from Not Your Momma’s Cookie. I tried to follow her instructions exactly, but I just wanted to share a few things about my experience that hopefully will help you. You will definitely want to check out her step by step photos when you try these yourself.

• I was able to buy precut dowel rods at Hobby Lobby (I believe they were $2.47). The package had more than enough for my cookies and fit my cookie sheet quite well. I think my dowel rods were thinner than hers, but it still looked like bacon.
• I used Betty Crocker’s gluten free cake mix to make gluten free sugar cookie dough using this recipe. No one guessed the difference.
• After seeing how my cookies came out, I would change the ratio of the colors: equal parts dark red/brown and beige and a smaller section of the pinkish dough. (I guess I wanted my bacon to look a bit meatier)
• Also I think my beige was too saturated/too yellow and the pinkish color was also too saturated. I used Wilton food dyes and I did not use much, but I will adjust that some in the future.

• I think I made my bacon slap too wide, creating long pieces of bacon. This can make for an intimidating cookie. I generally cut bacon in half before I bake it at home anyway. It makes it easier to eat and to put on sandwiches. In the photo above you can see half bacon sized cookies because….
• I had two pans worth of cookies, and I did not let the first set cool enough before moving the parchment paper, which caused my cookies to crack 😦

• The other obvious problem was that I placed my bacon too close together on the pan. The dough will expand some.
• The colder the dough was when I placed it on the pan, the more it seemed to crack as I shaped it over the dowel rods. I wonder if it would work to use alternating dowel rods on top and bottom to shape the dough.
• The brown sugar on the cookies gave a nice flavor, so don’t skip the pepper.
• The cookies will be crunchy because they have to be fully done to hold their shape.

Even though mine were not as pretty as Not Your Momma’s Cookie’s Bacon cookies, they were quickly identified as bacon. They were quite good too – I had at least one too many today. If there is a man (or woman) in your life who loves bacon, this could be a fun treat. It takes a little bit of time, but it isn’t difficult. I think these would be great for a cookout, for brunch, or for dessert when you have breakfast for dinner.

Harry Potter Treat Bags

Tags

candy, Harry Potter, Honeyduke's, Universal Studios

One of my Christmas gifts this year was a trip to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios. Yes, I am nerdy enough that I am thrilled and have been waiting since December for this mini-excursion (mini because it is only two days). Really – I had a shirt made to wear to the midnight showing of the final movie.

Can you guess what the back says? (yes, it does.) Yes, I will be wearing this in the park. Although this trip is a gift to me and entirely paid for, I always prefer to pack healthy (or healthy-ish in this case) snacks when I travel rather than spend too much for food, especially since there are rarely any good-for-you options in airports. While I would have loved to have made butterbeer cupcakes, those do not pack well, so I settled for Honeyduke’s Special Wizard Treat Mix.

After-Easter discounts made the candy items affordable. I think I was able to entirely avoid transfats, high fructose corn syrup, and gluten. Lindt chocolate frogs, Jelly Belly, Hershey’s Eggs, gummy worms, sunflower seeds, and honey nut Chex became  Chocolate Frogs, Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans, Dragon Eggs, Flobberworms, Puffapod seeds, and Honeyduke’s crunch. You could certainly switch out other candies to create more magical ingredients.

I found a printable label on Pinterest, but I didn’t make the bags overly fancy since I did not want to embarrass the other adults traveling with me. I suspect they will smile at the bag, quickly lose the label, and happily enjoy their snacks.

Source: i.ivillage.com via Sherri on Pinterest

 

We also have bags of almonds, and dried blueberries and cranberries for healthier meal alternatives, rather than our Honeyduke’s snacks which truly are snacks.

St. Patty’s Day Treats To Go

Tags

Irish Cream, Lucky Charms, printables, St. Patrick's Day, treat bags

Although the house is decorated some and I’m decked out in green (with my toenails painted orange), my St. Patrick’s Day preparations are a fairly simple this year because tomorrow I will be headed to to Chicago to celebrate with friends and family. I wouldn’t want to arrive empty-handed, however, so I made some easy treat bags and homemade Irish Cream.

Lucky Charm Treat Bags

I was inspired by this post, but I couldn’t get my fonts to line up as well as hers did. So I headed back to Pinterest until I found the Lucky me. Lucky you. printable. The four-leaf clovers came from this website. I intended to cut the card stock down to a shorter width, so it would be closer to the side of the bag. I guess I got too keyed into my embellishments. I cut 2.5″ squares out of patterned paper scraps, layered on the shamrocks, and stuck on a half a “pearl” in the center of each.

Did you know that Lucky Charms are naturally gluten free since they are an oat cereal? Thanks to JustHeather for tipping me off to that. While it is certainly a sugary cereal, there is not any High Fructose Corn Syrup, so I don’t feel too bad about gifting it as a holiday treat. I would like to add some “gold” to the bags as well, but I will likely run out of time to get to the store what with packing and all.

Homemade Irish Cream

It may not be the most accurate recipe, but I just couldn’t bring myself to give something with raw eggs. I searched Pinterest until I found this recipe that is free of eggs and “chocolate syrup” which always tastes fake to me. I had to taste it before I gave it away, and it is quite good! It was also really easy to make. Just throw these ingredients into the blender:

Clearly this is not low calorie or low fat. I cut the whiskey back per the recipe’s suggestion. I also used the mocha via I had left over from when I traveled to a location where I knew I would not be able to obtain decent coffee for several days. (It’s not fabulous, but it’s decent). A double batch filled these two bottles (from the Container Store) perfectly. The labels on the gift tag came from this website. I layered them on card stock, added a shamrock left over from the treat bags layered, and used green fibers to tie around the neck of the bottles. I used old library cards to make the gift tags. I think they are pretty adorable, and the recipients will enjoy them.

I also made some corned beef and cabbage for dinner earlier this week, but that recipe needs a little work.

May you always have walls for the winds,
a roof for the rain, tea beside the fire,
laughter to cheer you, those you love near you,
and all your heart might desire.