Category — Recipes

My applesauce recipe is so ridiculously easy that it barely qualifies as a recipe. In a large pot put 4 cups of water, 1 cup of sugar, and a tablespoon of cinnamon. I’m guessing my pot is about 5 quarts, but you can use a smaller pot if you want. Start peeling and chopping apples. This job goes much quicker if you have one of those peeler/slicer/corer gadgets, but really the apples only need to be peeled and quartered.

When your pot is about 1/3 full of apples, put it on the stove to simmer on medium, turning down a bit once the apples start to simmer. Stir occasionally and continue to chop more apples until your pot is full. If your sauce starts to stick to the bottom of the pot, add another half cup of water and turn the heat down a bit. As the apples cook down, they will break up and soften and make space for even more apples. You’ll be amazed at how many apples it takes to fill a pot, and you’d be wise to enlist the help of anyone over the age of 6 who can wield a peeler. Even my 3 year old can peel apples.

Depending on how firm your apples are, it will take 30-60 minutes to cook them down into sauce. The final apples into the pot obviously won’t get as much cooking time as the first ones. That’s OK– that will add interest and texture to your sauce. If your family prefers a very smooth sauce, or if you are too impatient to cook til the apples are completely soft, you can run part or all of the sauce through the blender. Pour into canning jars while the sauce is still hot. Process in a boiling water bath for 25 minutes for pints, or 35 minutes for quarts.

If you’d like to try your hand at canning, but don’t have an official canning pot, no problem. Any heavy pot that allows you to totally submerge your jars in water will work. There should be at least half an inch of water covering the top of every jar. Try pint jars if your pot is not big enough to submerge quarts. Just be sure to start with hot applesauce and use new canning lids and very clean jars. It is a good idea to dip your jars in boiling water before you fill them. A run through a good hot dishwasher will sterilize them as well.

Things I resisted:
–this hard water dishwasher aid touted by Pioneer Woman. (Instead I emailed the company and asked if I could review it on my blog.)

–this flatiron- Walmart emailed to tell me was back in stock. Darn. I guess I’ll pass on that one for now.

Am also bummed to think that John and I will be skipping eating out for our date nights this month…maybe we’ll have to do a picnic in the park or something.

The dishwasher repair man says that the part we need won’t be available for two weeks, which means that apparently our 30 days of nothing also includes a lot of dishwashing - by hand. The kids are thrilled.

On the bright side, the van’s squeaking brakes turned out to be due to an installer’s error, which means they fixed it for free.

Today’s meals
Breakfast: oatmeal, toast and apples
Lunch: tomato melts (olive oil, tomato and cheese melted on rolls) grapes, cucumbers, and cookies
Dinner: Sesame chicken with sweet peppers and onions over noodles.

Our apples are ripe. We picked a couple bushels this evening, and need to start making applesauce tomorrow. This evening we made two apple crisps, one for the freezer and one for tomorrow’s breakfast. What, you didn’t know apple crisp is breakfast food?

The recipe is simple. This one is big enough to make two 9×12 crisps, one for the freezer and one to eat right away.

Easy Apple Crisp

Slice enough apples to fill two rectangular casserole dishes about half way. (My boys did the slicing for me, and they’re guessing it took about 16 apples for both crisps.) Into each casserole dish sprinkle 1/2 cup of sugar and a teaspoon of cinnamon. Toss apples with cinnamon and sugar.

In a medium sized bowl, mix:
1 cup flour
2 cups quick oats
2 cups brown or white sugar
1 T. cinnamon
1 t. cloves, optional
1 t. salt

Soften 2 sticks of butter in a small bowl in the microwave for 20 seconds or so. For easy stirring, butter should be half melted but not totally liquid. Pour soft butter over the dry ingredients and mix with a spoon or your hands until dry ingredients are starting to clump together and butter is dispersed. Divide the crumb topping between the two casserole dishes, sprinkling it evenly over all the apples.

Cover one dish tightly and freeze until you want to use it. Bake other crisp for 35-40 minutes at 375 degrees, until topping is light to medium brown. Cool, and serve with cool whip or ice cream if you like.

Shannon is back with Works for Me Wednesday.   My tip for the week is simple.   I love to cook with fresh ginger– it’s so much better than dried.  But it doesn’t last forever, and can get moldy in the fridge.  Problem solved if you just keep your ginger in the freezer.  I keep mine in a ziplock, and whenever I need some, I just grate as much as I need with a regular cheese grater, then stick the rest back in the freezer.  It will keep in the freezer for months.  Works for me!

Here are ten ways my family has eaten zucchini in the past three weeks. All kid-tested, Owlhaven approved. Let’s do it Letterman-style, saving the best til last.

10. Pasta salad (something like this) except with tri-color pasta, cubed cheese and cubed raw zucchini. Perfect for a picnic.

9. Cubed raw zucchini all on its own, served with salad dressing. Easy and yummy. It is OK to use a big zucchini for this, but scrape away all seeds and soft insides, and just use the firm outer flesh.

8. Korean hamburger zucchini stir-fry

7. Omelets with minced zucchini, mushrooms, and cheese.

6. Zucchini cakes ala Pioneer Woman’s friend Ryan

5. Zucchini bread

4. Grilled beef, zucchini, carrots and potatoes (like this) I boil the carrots and potatoes for just a few minutes before putting them on the grill pan with the zucchini. Cook the meat on a separate grill pan until cooked through. Then combine with veggies. This recipe disappears like lightening!

3. Pasta with zucchini ala Pioneer Woman.

2.Chocolate zucchini cake. This recipe is excellent.

1. Our very favorite way to eat zucchini is simple. Dip in egg, then coat in flour, salt lightly, and fry in hot oil. Yum! I am planning on trying this oven-baked version soon, as I feel a trifle guilty at the fat content of my version.

I’d love to hear what you do with excess zucchini. This week we decided to start feeding the biggest zucchinis to our cow– that way we can eventually convert zucchini to beef!

A Korean friend of mine shared this recipe with me. It is perfect for summertime when you are overrun with zucchini.

Hamburger Zucchini Stir-fry

Cooked rice
1 lb. hamburger
2 c. diced zucchini
2 tbsp. oil (sesame oil is best but olive is fine too)
1/2 c. diced onion
1/2 c. diced green pepper (optional)
1 tbsp. soy sauce
2 cloves garlic
chow mein noodles (optional)

Start a pot of rice cooking. (If you own a rice cooker, it is so much easier!) Dice zucchini and toss in a bowl with a teaspoon of salt. In a few minute’s time the salt will draw some of the water out of the zucchini. Dice onion and green pepper. Fry hamburger with garlic, onion and green pepper. Once hamburger is brown, drain off excess oil. Drain any water that has collected in bowl with the zucchini. Add zucchini and soy sauce into skillet with hamburger. Cook over medium heat for 5 minutes or so, stirring occasionally. Salt and pepper to taste (but remember, zucchini will have taken up some of the salt as it released water in the bowl before cooking, so taste before salting). Serve over rice and sprinkle with chow mein noodles if desired.

This meal cooks up in 30 minutes or less and will serve 4-6 people.

This salad was tossed together at the last minute, but my family loved it so much that I knew I had to share it with you. I’ve had similar salads made with strawberrries and spinach, but I’ve never seen one with apricots and cabbage. I was delighted to discover that they were such a tasty combination, especially since I happen to have a lot of both right now. This salad is loaded with nutrition, color and taste.

Summer Confetti Salad

Salad
3 cups of thinly shredded cabbage (any kind)
1 cup of other greens (I used turnip greens–spinach or chard would work well too)
1 cup strawberries, chopped fairly small
1 cup fresh apricots, chopped fairly small

Dressing
Juice from 2 limes
3 T. sugar
3 T. oil

Chop fruit and vegetables and mix in a bowl. Whisk together the dressing until sugar is dissolved. (If you don’t wait til sugar is dissolved, a family member may feel the grit between his teeth and accuse you of not washing the greens. Just sayin’.) When dressing is mixed, pour quickly over salad and toss to coat evenly. Grab your portion of this salad immediately or you may not get any. Especially if you have a 12 year old daughter who goes back for more four seven times.

Today amid driver’s ed and housecleaning and dealing with kid ‘tudes and hosting an afternoon swim attended by 15 cousins, I also managed to can 24 pints of apricot jam. I say this not to brag, but to encourage those of you who are thinking about trying canning.

Canning is NOT hard. It so isn’t.

I got my apricots for free from a relative– gotta love that. This time of year many people with apricot trees find themselves swimming in apricots. If you ask around, you may score some for free too.

Mary’s Truly Easy Apricot Jam

4-1/2 cups apricot puree (use food processer)
1/2 cup lemon juice (or vinegar, which is what I used– this keeps the apricots a good safe acidity)
1 box Sure-Jell pectin (or similar brand)
6 cups sugar

Wash and sort the apricots. It is OK to use apricots with small soft spots as long as they aren’t discolored or (duh) moldy. My 3 and 6 year old daughters helped me sort, and did a good job at it. Tear the apricots in halves to remove the pits. My 10 year old sons did this for me. Fill food processer with apricot chunks and puree for a minute or so. Repeat until you have enough puree.

Wash 5 pint sized canning jars and rings. Fill a boiling water canner half full of water and bring to a boil on the stove. Dip each jar in and out of the boiling water. If you do not have a canner, you can use a very large pot, something tall enough that your jars can be fully submerged in water during processing.

Measure your puree carefully and pour into a big pot on the stove. Immediately mix in the pectin using a wire whisk. Heat mixture to a full rolling boil, first stirring occasionally and then more frequently as mixture heats up.

Once the mixture has reached a full rolling boiling, add sugar a couple cups at a time, stirring continuously. When all sugar is added and mixture has returned to a full rolling boiling, cook for one minute.

Pour mixture quickly into jars leaving 1/4 inch of ‘headspace’, or airspace at the top of the jar. Wipe edges of jars clean. Set on lids and screw rings on tightly. Process in boiling water water bath for 15 minutes. Remove jars carefully and set on a towel on the counter to cool overnight.

Once cool, lids should seal down tightly so that you cannot push them further down when you press the center of the cap. If any of your jars do not seal, simply set them in the fridge and use within a couple weeks.

One batch of jam will probably take you an hour–more if you have an infant, and less if you have a kid or two over the age of 5 who is willing to give you a hand. And it is so darned pretty to look at when you’re done. One of the things I love about canning is that it is one of the few jobs that it doesn’t get UNdone immediately. Unlike laundry or vacuuming or dishes!

I’d love to hear if you decide to try your hand at this– it truly isn’t hard.

This week Shannon’s Works for Me is featuring easy recipes. Actually, recipes that take 5 ingredients or less. This recipe can have more than that, but it is a fun way to get kids to eat their greens and so I am sharing it anyway.

Thai Chard Wraps
Prep time: 20 minutes
Serves:6 or more

Ingredients
a big bunch of chard (or spinach, or lettuce)- probably a pound or so
2 carrots
1 onion
3 cloves garlic
2 lb lean ground beef (or ground turkey)
Slosh of fish sauce (or soy sauce is OK if you don’t have fish sauce)
salt and pepper to taste
Optional: any other veggie, minced
Can also add a cup or two of rice, which is how I made it in the above picture.

Preparation
Wash chard or lettuce leaves, shake off, and set aside in a bowl. Shred carrot, onion, garlic, and any other veggie that you desire using a food processor. Cook ground meat in a large skillet with a little slosh of sesame oil, if you have it. If you are using ground turkey, you will probably need a tablespoon or two of oil as you cook it.

Once meat is cooked, remove from pan and cook chopped veggies in the remaining oil until soft. Return hamburger to pan and mix with veggies and a good slosh of fish sauce or soy sauce (probably around 1/4 cup). Add a cup or two of cooked rice, if desired. Salt and pepper to taste. Cook over medium heat for a few more minutes, til ingredients are well mixed and heated.

Serve by wrapping leaves of chard or lettuce around several tablespoons of meat. Let people take their own lettuce and their own serving of meat/veggies and wrap right on their plate. If your family is like mine, you will be amazed at the amount of chard/spinach/lettuce they will consume at one meal.

Usually by this time of year we are DONE planting. But the other day I bought half a dozen more seed packets and this morning the big boys and I were moving compost while my husband set up new sprinkler lines in preparation for just a bit more garden space.

The seeds I bought? Parsnips. Turnips. Kohlrabi. Salsify. I’ll be honest: we’ve never even tried some of these foods. But this summer I happened upon a book called Root Cellaring and got inspired. For years John has talked about digging a root cellar to store some of our garden produce a little longer. I wasn’t sold on the idea til I bought the book. Now he and I are both looking at various areas of our property with a critical eye, trying to figure out where the best place would be for a nice cool hole in the ground.

We may not love every veggie we try. But I figure I can use most of it in a nice winter soup, and with a little experimentation we can find other ways to do different veggies too. We are really hoping to discover some good new veggies that will be happy in a root cellar for a couple months, thus decreasing our dependence on grocery store food.

In the book ‘Farmer Boy’ there’s some great description of their family’s root cellar. It was quite inspirational to read how the family with careful management was able to save all sorts of food through the winter using only the natural cooling powers of underground storage.

We could definitely use more ‘fridge’ space. In good years we harvest 12-15 bushels of apples. We routinely get bushels of onions for free. The cabbage tends to come on all at once, leaving us trying to use it all up fast, to regain fridge space. We always have lots of pumpkins. And there are lots of other winter-keeper type veggies that we haven’t even tried.

The other day I grabbed a couple of unusual things from the grocery store to try: a long white daikon radish and 3 ‘bulbs’ (??) of kohlrabi. When I grabbed the radish, a lady next to me asked me what I was going to do with it. “I dunno,” I said. “I’m experimenting. I’ll probably put it in a stirfry.”

“Me too,” she said, holding up her bag of kohlrabi with a smile. “I’m growing this for the first time in my garden and I wanted to taste it.”

At home with my vegetable bounty, I contemplated what to do. Google a recipe? Nah, too easy. Besides, I was starting to envision some kind of veggie/skewer/beef recipe on the grill. I peeled and cubed the radish. Then I chopped the long leafy ‘legs’ (tops?) off the kohlrabi. (My hubby looked suspicious and said it looked like Martian vegetables.) While trimming the kohlrabi, I discovered that the outside of it seemed woody. I trimmed all the skin off which revealed a greenish white interior that seemed much more tender. I cubed it like the radish, and then got out some brussel sprouts and cubed some carrots and potatoes so my brave food explorers poor children would have something familiar at dinner. I already had some cubed stew beef that I cut into fairly small pieces just in case it was tough.

My skewered-food-on-the-grill idea went out the window when I discovered I only had one skewer and it had last been used to unclog a bathroom sink drain. Hmm… Since it was hot outside and I wasn’t anxious to heat my house, I still wanted to try the grill. But i wasn’t sure if I could get the veggies to cook evenly. I put a pot of water on to boil and added the veggies in gradually. First the hardest veggies: radish and carrots, then kohlrabi and brussel sprouts, and finally the potatoes. Ten minutes for the firmer stuff and only 5 for the potatoes. I just wanted them to be partly cooked. The grill would finish the rest.

I tossed the meat with a little steak sauce and garlic salt, then spread it on an oiled cookie sheet which covered half my grill. Then I tossed the remaining veggies with a bit more steak sauce and salt and put it on a second oiled cookie sheet on the other side of the grill. The oil on this sheet was fairly generous– about 1/4 a cup, since I didn’t want the veggies to stick.

The veggie pan was very full– I’d put too many veggies on to cook well, and I had to stir gingerly so as not to lose anything into the fire (medium heat, btw). But the 2-1/2 lbs of beef was spread in single layer on the pan, and was soon cooking merrily. I stirred it a couple times. It browned nicely, smelled great, and was cooked through in 10 minutes. At that point I took it off with a slotted spoon into a bowl, leaving some good meat juice and a little oil on the pan. Then I was able to put half my cooking veggies onto the cookie sheet from which I’d just removed the meat.

The veggies cooked my more efficiently spread out like that, and soon all the veggies had some nicely browned surfaces. Once everything was cooked, I mixed the meat and vegetables together and served it all over rice.

The radish turned out to be rather sharp-tasting; none of us liked it that much and I don’t think we’ll be growing radishes any time soon. The familiar veggies: potatoes, carrots, and brussel sprouts were happily eaten, though next time I’ll add the brussel sprouts to the boiling water sooner. They would have benefitted from a bit more cooking. The surprise hit was the kohlrabi. It had a mild sweet flavor that reminded me somewhat of a squash, but with a firmer texture than squash. It was very nice and we are definitely adding it to our garden line-up.

The whole meal was gobbled quite happily with people coming back for more. My hubby said, “I would never have guessed that kohlrabi is that good.”

Hmmm….what to try next? Anyone know what to do with salsify?

Today’s NYT article Putting Meat in its Place captured my philosophy on meat perfectly. We don’t NEED huge slabs of meat on our dinner plates every day!

In that spirit, here’s a recipe several people have requested. We only make this a couple times a month– it is NOT low fat– but everyone loves it when we do!

Affordable Hamburger Stroganoff

Serves 6

INGREDIENTS
1 (16 ounce) package egg noodles
3/4 pound lean ground beef
2 cups milk
2 T. flour
2 T. butter
1 clove garlic
1/4 cup ketchup
1/2 of an 8 oz package of cream cheese
1/2 of an 8 ounce container of sour cream
1 cup fresh sliced mushrooms, optional (or canned, if you must)

DIRECTIONS
Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add egg noodles and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain.

In a skillet over medium heat, brown the ground beef until no pink shows; drain and set aside. If you are using fresh mushrooms, fry for 1-2 min in same skillet that you used for the hamburger. Set aside.

Again in the same skillet, melt butter on medium high heat. Add minced garlic and cook for a minute. Then add flour. Whisk well to break up any clumps of flour. Add milk and heat till bubbly and starting to thicken.

Add cream cheese, ketchup, and sour cream. Whisk til smooth and heated through. Add hamburger and mushrooms back into skillet. Blend hamburger mixture with pasta. Salt and pepper to taste.

Once you’ve made this recipe a few times, you’ll probably be able to get the whole thing on the table in 30 minutes. It is a quick, easy and very delicious meal. We serve the mushrooms on the side, since not all our kids like mushrooms.

(Note that this recipe does not call for canned soup, which helps make the recipe more affordable. If you want to save a few calories and even more money, you can also delete the cream cheese. It is not essential, but it sure is yummy.)