Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Cinnamon Applesauce

Miscellaneous

Hi, all! Hope your October is off to a great start. We’ve come to my favorite time of year: harvest time! I love figuring out what to do with all the produce we get from our garden along with the produce from local farms. This post is for a fast and easy recipe for using up all those apples you picked that have gotten bruised or are starting to get really soft- cinnamon applesauce! The recipe is my Mom’s and it is a huge family favorite. Here are the ingredients:

  • 1/2 peck apples, ideally Macintosh or Cortland but you can use any variety you like
  • 1 cinnamon stick (or you can use powdered cinnamon at the end)
  • 2 tbsp white granulated sugar (or to taste)

Core and quarter the apples. No need to peel them unless you want to- the skins will give our applesauce a pretty pink color! Tip: you can just cut around the core for quicker chopping! Put all the apple pieces in a large stockpot with the cinnamon stick and fill the pot with water to almost cover the apples.

Bring the water to a boil, stirring occasionally, and let the apples cook until they are very soft- usually only about 15 minutes. Some will start to break down and become mush, and that is totally normal and fine!

Drain the water from the pot. At this point if you have a food mill, feel free to use it to mash the apples. I don’t have a food mill, so I just use a potato masher and mash the apples up that way.

If you used a food mill, discard the apple skins that didn’t make it through the mill. If you used a potato masher and don’t want apple peel in your applesauce, just pick out the peels by hand or with a fork. Once the peels are out, add the sugar to taste. I prefer to start light on the sugar and work my way up, but I usually end up only needing about 2 tablespoons. Add more cinnamon if needed by grating the cinnamon stick or using powdered cinnamon. You could also add ginger, nutmeg, or other spices if you felt like experimenting.

That’s it! Like I said, super fast and easy. This applesauce keeps well in the fridge for several days, but bets are that you’ll eat it long before then! It’s delicious cold, but I recommend trying it my favorite way: hot over vanilla ice cream. Happy cooking!

Mardi Gras “Donuts”

Miscellaneous,

Hi all! Happy Mardi Gras! This past Sunday my sister suggested to me that we make something I had never heard of before: fasnachts. These are German donuts that are made and enjoyed every Fat Tuesday and are apparently delicious. We didn’t have time to make traditional fasnachts but decided to try a couple of cheat donuts: fried biscuit dough and fried puff pastry. Both options were delightful and both are definitely worth making! Here are the recipes:

Biscuit Ingredients:

  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 tbsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 3/4 cup milk
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 2 tbsp granulated sugar (optional)

Puff Donut Ingredient:

  • 1 sheet premade puff pastry, thawed

Other Miscellaneous Things:

  • Canola or vegetable oil, for frying
  • Cinnamon and granulated sugar for rolling (if desired)

Fill a large stockpot or saute pan with oil and put it over medium-high heat until it’s approximately 350F. While the oil is heating, get the biscuit dough going.

Mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and sugar (if using) in a medium bowl. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. A note about the optional sugar: we tried the dough with and without the sugar and they were both yummy. The dough without the sugar was great when rolled in sugar, and the dough with the sugar already added didn’t really need anything else- it was good plain!

Add the milk and mix until fully incorporated.

Roll out the dough to about 1/2″ thick. Using any round cookie or biscuit cutter, cut out your donuts. You can definitely reroll your dough scraps, but we just fried the scraps- they all tasted equally delicious!

Fry the dough balls for about 45 seconds per side, or until the dough is dark golden brown. Drain on a paper towel-lined cooling rack or plate.

If desired, roll your donuts in granulated sugar.

And that’s it for the biscuit dough ones! The puff pastry ones are even easier:

Flatten out your puff pastry sheet. Using your biscuit cutter, cut out donut shapes. Again, feel free to just fry the scraps- they end up coming together like funnel cake.

Fry the pastry for approximately 30-45 seconds per side. These didn’t really color further than a light golden brown, so just fry them until they’re crispy.

Drain on the paper towel-lined rack or plate and, if desired, toss in cinnamon and/or sugar. These ones tasted a lot like churros or Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Delicious!

Both of these recipes were super yummy- bonus, they didn’t really take that much time. Highly recommend these- and not just for Mardi Gras! Happy baking!

Baked Oatmeal Cups

Miscellaneous

Hi all! Happy September (not quite time to say happy fall yet)! Hope you’ve all been doing well! I just finished training for (and competing in) a triathlon, which is basically the origin for this recipe. I was doing lots of early morning swims before work and needed a good, healthy breakfast to eat on the way to work. I did some searching online for a healthy baked oatmeal recipe and found a few options to try. I’ll be honest, the first couple I tried were absolutely disgusting. This recipe from EatingBirdFood.com that I’m sharing with you today, though, pleasantly surprised me by how yummy the oatmeal cups were and how well it worked to freeze them, so I wanted to share it with you. Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

  • 3 cups old fashioned rolled oats
  • 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 1/2 cups milk
  • 1/4 cup maple syrup
  • 2 tbsp ground flaxseed
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 tbsp peanut butter
  • 2 mashed bananas (about 1/2 cup)
  • 1/4 cup chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350F and line 12 muffin cups with paper baking cups. Spray the liners with baking spray. In a medium mixing bowl, combine milk, flaxseed, maple syrup, and vanilla. Let sit for about 5 minutes.

While that mixture is sitting, combine the oats, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt.

Mix the bananas, peanut butter, and half the chocolate chips in with the wet ingredients. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well.

Divide mixture evenly among the muffin cups and top with remaining chocolate chips.

Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cup comes out clean.

Let cool completely and then store in the fridge or the freezer. I kept mine in the freezer and just put two in the fridge the night before my swimming mornings, and they’d be perfectly thawed about 8-10 hours later.

Happy baking!

Tanner’s Favorite Salsa

Miscellaneous

Hi, all! Hope your August is going well. I’m sure many of you have started the yearly struggle of, “What am I supposed to do with all these tomatoes I grew?” now that peak tomato season is here. Luckily my way forward was clear due to the jalapenos, cilantro, green onions, and garlic that also came from my garden. I spent my afternoon yesterday cooking up all sorts of garden-related things to use up my veggies, and wanted to share this salsa recipe with you. I seriously make a huge batch almost every week because my husband, Tanner, likes it that much. We currently have four bags of tortilla chips in the cabinet that are strictly reserved for salsa dipping. This salsa is that good!

One fun thing about it is that there are no set measurements for most of the ingredients, because every vegetable is different- for example, one jalapeno could be very mild, meanwhile the one that grew next to it is crazy hot. I’ve given my usual starting quantities here, but it’s a taste-as-you-go kind of recipe!

Ingredients:

  • 28oz tomatoes, roughly chopped (you can use fresh or canned unsalted diced tomatoes)
  • 1/4 red onion, roughly chopped
  • 2 jalapenos, roughly chopped
  • 2 scallions, roughly chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic, peeled and ends removed
  • 1 bunch cilantro, washed and stems removed
  • 1/2 tsp salt

Combine all the ingredients together in a blender and blend until well combined. Taste the salsa using either a spoon or a chip (be careful sticking your hand into the blender, though!) and adjust heat and seasoning as needed. When you’re finished, pour the salsa into containers and store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. My favorite containers for the salsa are 2 old pasta sauce jars- a good size for the batch, good pouring vessels, and dishwasher safe!

Pour yourself a bowl of salsa and pull out the tortilla chips, and enjoy! Happy cooking!

Lemon Balm Simple Syrup

Miscellaneous

Hi, all! Hope you’re doing well and enjoying your summer! Now that the summer weather is in full swing, my garden is really starting to grow, including my lemon balm plants. What is lemon balm, you ask? It’s a lemon-flavored and scented herb from the same family as mint- meaning it’s pleasantly fragrant and deliciously flavored, but also that it grows like a weed and takes over! In the interest of keeping my plants to a reasonable size, I had to give my four plants a substantial trim today- and of course I didn’t want those trimmings to go to waste! I was trying to figure out what to do with the leaves I cut, and finally landed on the idea of making a lemon balm simple syrup. I was so happy with the results of both the syrup and the resulting drink I made that I knew I had to share it. Here’s the recipe for the syrup:

  • 2 cups water
  • 2 cups granulated sugar
  • At least 2 cups lemon balm leaves, more if you have them

In a medium or large saucepan (depending on how many leaves you use), mix the water and sugar.

Add the lemon leaves into the pot and stir to incorporate.

Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat. Then, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 25 minutes, or until the lemon flavor is infused to your taste, stirring occasionally.

Strain the mixture into a heatproof container and let cool. The mixture should have a slight yellow-green tint from the lemon balm leaves.

And that’s it! Bottle it up and refrigerate it, or use some right away in this yummy drink recipe:

  • 2 oz lemon balm simple syrup
  • 3 oz lemon juice
  • 4 oz tonic water

Mix all ingredients together in a tall glass. Add ice if desired.

Both the syrup and the drink recipes would also work very well with mint. Feel free to experiment with other herbs as well- who knows what awesome combinations you could come up with!

Happy cooking and drinking!

Basil Seed Berry Jam

Miscellaneous

Hi, all! Hope you’re doing well and staying warm in the snowstorm! I have a fun and interesting recipe for you today- jam made with basil seeds rather than with pectin or another thickener! This came about from my work where one of my patients, a man from India, was describing to me a drink that he makes using basil seeds (known as tukmaria) and water. I started researching basil seeds a bit more, and found that they’re a lot like chia seeds: rich in soluble fiber and omega-3 fatty acids, and really good at making whatever fluid they touch turn into a gel-like substance (due to the soluble fiber they contain). My patient gave me a package of basil seeds to try, but having had the experience of drinking chia seed goo and hating it, I knew I had to go a different avenue. I remembered an episode of Great British Baking Show where a baker made a jam using basil seeds, and figured I’d give it a go! Here’s my experimental take on basil seed jam that, happily, yielded great results!

Ingredients:

  • 16oz frozen or fresh strawberries
  • 12 oz frozen or fresh raspberries
  • 1 tbsp sugar (more or less to taste)
  • 3 tbsp basil seeds (can also use chia seeds, and can adjust amount for desired thickness of jam)

First, put the fruits in a large saucepan and cook over medium heat until the fruits are really soft and cooked down. You may need to mash a couple bits of fruit, but for the most part they should cook down to a liquid on their own.

Brief pause for a word to the wise- be on the alert when your fruits are starting to really get cooking. I stepped away for several minutes to do the laundry and the pot boiled over- absolute disaster as you can see in the picture below!

Anyway, back to the recipe! Stir in the sugar and the basil seeds and remove from the heat. Wait 5-10 minutes.

After 5-10 minutes are up, your basil seeds should have absorbed most of the liquid and turned the mixture into more of a preserve-like texture. It’s ready to be jarred and eaten! This especially struck me as something that would be AMAZING with plain or vanilla yogurt.

You could definitely swap the basil seeds out for chia seeds in this recipe and have fine results, and you could also use almost any other fruit that you like! I just wouldn’t use apples because they carry natural pectin and gelatinize on their own when cooked, and if you added basil seeds or chia seeds you might end up with too stiff of a gel. Have fun trying this out and using your own choice of fruits- it was a fun adventure for me and I hope it is for you as well! Happy cooking!

How to Dry Herbs

Miscellaneous

Hi all! Hope you’re doing well and staying warm in the suddenly freezing weather! Unless you’re growing really cold-hardy vegetables, the coming snow and ice potentially (probably) means the end of your growing season. I’ve been growing a lot of herbs this season and am totally not ok with letting all my hard work go to waste by just having the herbs die in the snow and become unusable, and I’m guessing you’re not ok with it either! So, you could do what I did last year (spend an entire day digging up the herbs, putting them in pots for the winter, and getting a fungus gnat infestation because you brought the bugs in from the outside…), OR you could learn from my mistakes and do what I’m doing this year: drying them! It’s super easy and works on any herb. Here’s the process:

  1. Start by cutting your herbs. If you’re not cutting the whole plant down for harvest, you’ll want to make the cuts just above where a leaf is so that the plant is encouraged to grow back.
  2. Tie your cuttings together. You can use garden twine or something fancy, but I always just use twisty-ties.
Twist-tied bunch of oregano

3. Hang the bunches of herbs upside-down to dry. You’ll want to hang them in a dry place so that they dry fully. You can hang them from really anything- counter handles, a small hook, or anything else you can think of.

4. Wait until the herbs have shriveled and crumble to the touch. This could be anywhere from a couple days to a couple weeks, depending on how dry your air is and how warm the room is.

And that’s it! Now you can crumble the herbs off the stems into spice jars and use the herbs all winter. Like I said, this works well with any herb, so go nuts. You could even use this technique if you bought a packet of fresh herbs from the store that you won’t use up before it goes bad. Hope this helps you save those herbs that you’ve worked so hard to grow! Stay warm, and happy cooking!

No-Churn Ice Cream

Miscellaneous

Hi, all! Happy summer! I hope that you’ve been able to enjoy the beginnings of summer despite the ongoing craziness of Coronavirus and whatnot. Things have been fairly quiet at my house, but I’ve been taking that opportunity to make yummy food and desserts! This recipe that I’m going to share today is perfect for right now- ice cream that you can make right at home, and you don’t even need an ice cream machine! It only takes a couple ingredients and takes hardly any time to whip up. Here’s how you make it!

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups heavy whipping cream
  • 1, 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
  • 1 tsp flavoring extract of your choice (I used vanilla extract)
  • Whatever toppings or mix-ins you want!

First, empty the can of sweetened condensed milk into a bowl.

Next, pour the heavy cream into a separate large bowl. Using a hand mixer (or a whisk and some elbow grease if you’re feeling strong), whip the cream until stiff peaks form. You should be able to lift the beaters out of the cream and have peaks stay straight up in the air, without folding back over or sinking into the cream.

Fold a small amount of the whipped cream into the sweetened condensed milk to lighten the milk. This helps make it easier to fold the rest of the cream in.

Now, add the rest of the whipped cream and your chosen flavor extract to the condensed milk and fold gently until fully combined.

Now it’s time to stir in whatever mix-ins you want! I used chocolate sprinkles (we call them jimmies around here), chocolate chips, and some leftover chocolate-chocolate chip cookie dough that I had in the freezer from when I baked cookies. You could also do:

  • Mint chocolate chip (mint extract with chocolate chips mixed in)
  • Coconut almond (almond extract with sweetened coconut)
  • Heavenly hash (almond extract with nuts and chocolate chips)
  • Candy bar (vanilla extract with pieces of your favorite candy bar)
  • Peanut butter cup (vanilla extract with fudge swirled through and peanut butter cups mixed in)
  • Any other combo you think up!

Now, just spoon the mixture into a freezer-safe container and let it freeze for several hours, preferably overnight. Once it’s frozen, it’s ready to go!

And that’s it! Super quick, super easy, and definitely delicious! Happy baking!

Easy Peasy Lemon… Curd

Miscellaneous

Hi, all! Happy Christmas season! If you’re anything like me, December (and even a little of late November) brings tons of holiday parties, and tons of reasons to bake treats! I recently ran across a recipe for lemon thumbprint cookies, which interested me. I already have a recipe for my Aunt Sadie’s Raspberry Thumbprint cookies and I love lemon flavor, so I figured I had to try it- and luckily I had a Christmas party last night that I happened to need a baked good for! Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), my grocery store only sells huge jars of lemon curd, and I only needed a little bit. I say perhaps fortunately because that prompted me to make my own curd! It’s a super easy recipe, and if you have a few lemons at home, then you probably have all the ingredients you’ll need to make it. Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

  • 3/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
  • 1 tbsp lemon zest
  • 3/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cubed

Put all the ingredients into a 2-qt saucepan over medium-low heat.

Let the mixture cook together, stirring frequently, until the ingredients are fully combined and the mixture is just starting to bubble. Turn the heat off and let the curd sit in the saucepan, stirring occasionally, until slightly cooled. It will continue to thicken to a jam consistency as it cools.

And that’s it! You can use this as a jam on fresh bread or scones, a light topping for a cheesecake or ice cream, or use it as the jelly in my Aunt’s thumbprint cookies as I’ve shown below. This recipe makes approximately 1 1/2 cups of curd.

Happy baking!

Caramel Sauce Recipe

Miscellaneous

Ingredients:

  • 1 package soft caramels, unwrapped
  • 3 tbsp milk

Put all the unwrapped caramels in a microwave safe bowl with the milk. Microwave them for 30 seconds, and then stir them. Put them in for another 30 seconds, and then stir them again. Repeat this process until they are fully melted, smooth, and pourable. Tip: the reason you have to continue heating them for 30 seconds is so that nothing burns, and the milk doesn’t cook. Also, don’t be worried if the caramel foams- that’s normal!