Don't get me wrong, I made apple butter and it was a fantastic success. Sort of, but I'll get to that later. The biggest problem with my apple butter is that I started it Saturday night before bed. I woke up to the smell of apples and cinnamon the next morning only to realize that "crap. it's fast Sunday". We don't have church until 11 so I spent about 2 hours smelling that before church and then after church, 3 hours later, I walked in the door to have that smell hit me in the face.
THEN I took it over to Andrew's aunt's place so I could can it and I had it on my lap right in front of me with the lid off (because it needed to cook with the lid off for a couple hours).
It was a hard fast Sunday. =P But hey, all my Christmas presents are done :)
At any rate, the apple butter was really good and SUPER easy. Apples were on sale for 59 cents a pound last week so I thought "hey, why not". So I bought a couple pounds of Granny Smith Apples, and about 1.5 pounds each of Gala and Macintosh apples. The Macintosh apples were kind of an accident because I meant to buy Golden Delicious, but it turns out Macs are good for apple butter. Probably because they are so soft.
The recipe I used can be found here. I doctored it a lot though.
I used several different apples because I figured that would give the butter different layers of flavor. I used mostly Granny Smith because they are tart and I wanted to avoid over sugaring the recipe.
I only used 2 cups of sugar vs the 4 it called for and split that between white and brown. (1 cup white sugar, 1 cup brown). Next time, I'll probably go so far as to only use 1 cup sugar total because it was still quite sweet.
I doubled the spices as well and then added about a teaspoon of nutmeg and allspice. As the cooking went on, I just added cinnamon to taste...which means I was too lazy to get out my measuring spoons and I accidentally poured like half the bottle of cinnamon in. =P It tasted good though. :)
I HIGHLY recommend using one of those spiral apple peeler/corer/slicer things to do the prep work. I peeled all the apples by hand and then cored them with a paring knife and it took forever and made my hands hurt. I chopped them in my food processor before putting them in my crock pot.
The last step calls for cooking 1 hour with the lid off but it took mine 2-3 hours before it was ready. Then I bottled it up in 8oz jars and processed it in a steam canner for 25 minutes. They all sealed. There's really nothing like the sound of lids popping when you pull them out of the canner to put a smile on your face. :)
And no, I didn't take pictures. I would have...but it was fast Sunday and I didn't want to stand over the crock pot more than I had to. =P
In other happy news, Andrew and I went to Barnes and Noble for our date on Friday. I don't really know if I can call it a "date" because when we go to the bookstore, we both go completely different directions and only meet up when we're done...but that's what it was. =P
Anyhow, in the cookbook section I found the same book that I used for my commercial baking class. This is the book that has the recipe for pumpkin souffle that I really loved and I had written down so when my mom suggested I sell to book back, I foolishly did. The problem is that the recipe I have written down is for a commercial scale so it calls for ridiculous things like 24 eggs, and 3 and a half pounds of flour. (actually I think it's even bigger than that...we had to make like 200 souffles.)
Anyhow, since I technically already have the recipe, I didn't have any qualms with quickly copying it down into my phone and now I can make pumpkin souffles. :)
Looking through that book again, I can't believe I let my mom convince me to sell it back. There are so many good recipes...but it's 70 dollars. :(
Showing posts with label side dishes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label side dishes. Show all posts
Monday, October 15, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
Episode 101: In Which Jessica Has Some Goals
So it was brought to my attention this last week that if I let this blog sit much longer, it will have officially gone untouched for a whole month. *gasp* Not a whole month!
Actually, I was acutely aware of this fact and there are quite a few reasons I have not posted up to this point; not the least of these reasons being that...I have nothing to say.
I could tell you about school but watch how I sum that up in a succinct sentence. It's school.
I could tell you about new recipes I've tried...but that count is currently at zero (or it was when Kaylynne brought my lack of posting up)
I could also tell you about my new years resolutions but...ok I will.
I'm not doing terribly fantastically on my new years resolutions. I had rather a large number of them but the severe lack of weather in Utah has rendered me completely useless as I have contracted a massive case of SAD (seasonal affective disorder). The truth is, I've been in such a slump that not even going to the temple last week brought me out of it. Seasonal depression tends to drain much of your energy and then you haven't much left for things like resolutions...then you of course feel like a loser because you already dropped your resolutions and it is just a vicious cycle from there.
Well, in order to break the cycle, you just have to gather all your energy and charge forward. Once that barrier is broken, then you can take things one small step at a time. I broke the cycle by going grocery shopping so we wouldn't have the "there's nothing to eat so let's eat out" excuse anymore. It was a small victory, even though I've done little with that food thus far. =P
If you've ever seen "What About Bob?", just imagine me chanting "baby steps" every time I do something.
I did finally make a somewhat nutritious meal yesterday that consisted of grilled chicken, coconut rice (via this great recipe from my new cookbook), and a spinach salad (prepackaged...but who's counting?)
Side note: That coconut rice recipe makes a mean fried rice the next day. I just added about a tablespoon of olive oil to the pan and a dash of sesame seed oil; threw in some frozen peas and carrots, spam, minced garlic (I used 1-2 cloves to about 3 cups of rice (add this just before the rice so you don't burn it)); sauteed them until they were all nicely browned; added the rice and fried that for a little bit before adding about 2 tablespoons of soy sauce; stir it all around; let it sit for a little while so it develops some nice crunchy fried bits; salt and pepper to taste and viola! It was amazing.
So anyhow, I'm taking the second half of D&C this semester, with the same teacher I had last semester because I really liked him. Conveniently, my reading today included the Word of Wisdom. If you want to review it with me, you can find it here or in D&C 89.
Several of my resolutions this year revolve around the health category, not the least of these is "eat better" and "exercise". Lucky for me, the exercise part is being covered by my volleyball and flexibility classes at school.
For someone like me, "eat better" is about the worst goal you could have. I'm not overweight or in any danger of being so, nor am I concerned about allergies, high sodium intake, cholesterol, or anything else. That means, if I'm going to "diet" if you will...I don't really know where to start.
Enter D&C 89.
I'll skip over all the "don't drink alcohol or smoke tabacco" stuff because that's not my problem either. So let's go to verses 11-17.
To spare you all the workings of my mind, I'll just give you MY takeaway from this chapter.
1. Lots of fruits and veggies
2. Some meat, but don't overdo it
3. Wheat is good (and even though oats are supposedly for horses, I don't think God intends to deprive me of my oatmeal) but don't overdo it on those either.
Pretty simple. I'm not perfect, and vegetables are still a much smaller portion of my plate than they should be, but I'm determined to include some kind of vegetable or fruit with every meal. I'm also working on snacking on carbs that are going to give me some kind of lasting energy...instead of snicker's bars. (Sad day, goodbye snickers, we shall now only meet on rare occasions. oh wait, you cost like a dollar for not very much food, we only met on rare occasions anyhow)
My favorite snack right now is a couple of clementines, and a handful of chopped pecans. Pecans are amazing. And as long as you chew them long enough and really savor them, they emit a pleasantly sweet flavor that you can't acheive with sugar (not that I'm in any way against sugar). Someday, I'll make my own trail mix since I can buy lots of stuff in bulk at Winco.
Anyhow, I haven't been doing this long but already, I can tell my body is recognizing what it really wants. I crave nuts and fruits now more than I crave snickers bars and ice cream. It's sort of helping my mood too, but I can't tell if that's my food intake, or if I'm just being spurred on by smaller successes.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a bag of Tim's Salt and Vinegar chips to eat before Andrew eats them all. :)
Actually, I was acutely aware of this fact and there are quite a few reasons I have not posted up to this point; not the least of these reasons being that...I have nothing to say.
I could tell you about school but watch how I sum that up in a succinct sentence. It's school.
I could tell you about new recipes I've tried...but that count is currently at zero (or it was when Kaylynne brought my lack of posting up)
I could also tell you about my new years resolutions but...ok I will.
I'm not doing terribly fantastically on my new years resolutions. I had rather a large number of them but the severe lack of weather in Utah has rendered me completely useless as I have contracted a massive case of SAD (seasonal affective disorder). The truth is, I've been in such a slump that not even going to the temple last week brought me out of it. Seasonal depression tends to drain much of your energy and then you haven't much left for things like resolutions...then you of course feel like a loser because you already dropped your resolutions and it is just a vicious cycle from there.
Well, in order to break the cycle, you just have to gather all your energy and charge forward. Once that barrier is broken, then you can take things one small step at a time. I broke the cycle by going grocery shopping so we wouldn't have the "there's nothing to eat so let's eat out" excuse anymore. It was a small victory, even though I've done little with that food thus far. =P
If you've ever seen "What About Bob?", just imagine me chanting "baby steps" every time I do something.
I did finally make a somewhat nutritious meal yesterday that consisted of grilled chicken, coconut rice (via this great recipe from my new cookbook), and a spinach salad (prepackaged...but who's counting?)
Side note: That coconut rice recipe makes a mean fried rice the next day. I just added about a tablespoon of olive oil to the pan and a dash of sesame seed oil; threw in some frozen peas and carrots, spam, minced garlic (I used 1-2 cloves to about 3 cups of rice (add this just before the rice so you don't burn it)); sauteed them until they were all nicely browned; added the rice and fried that for a little bit before adding about 2 tablespoons of soy sauce; stir it all around; let it sit for a little while so it develops some nice crunchy fried bits; salt and pepper to taste and viola! It was amazing.
So anyhow, I'm taking the second half of D&C this semester, with the same teacher I had last semester because I really liked him. Conveniently, my reading today included the Word of Wisdom. If you want to review it with me, you can find it here or in D&C 89.
Several of my resolutions this year revolve around the health category, not the least of these is "eat better" and "exercise". Lucky for me, the exercise part is being covered by my volleyball and flexibility classes at school.
For someone like me, "eat better" is about the worst goal you could have. I'm not overweight or in any danger of being so, nor am I concerned about allergies, high sodium intake, cholesterol, or anything else. That means, if I'm going to "diet" if you will...I don't really know where to start.
Enter D&C 89.
I'll skip over all the "don't drink alcohol or smoke tabacco" stuff because that's not my problem either. So let's go to verses 11-17.
To spare you all the workings of my mind, I'll just give you MY takeaway from this chapter.
1. Lots of fruits and veggies
2. Some meat, but don't overdo it
3. Wheat is good (and even though oats are supposedly for horses, I don't think God intends to deprive me of my oatmeal) but don't overdo it on those either.
Pretty simple. I'm not perfect, and vegetables are still a much smaller portion of my plate than they should be, but I'm determined to include some kind of vegetable or fruit with every meal. I'm also working on snacking on carbs that are going to give me some kind of lasting energy...instead of snicker's bars. (Sad day, goodbye snickers, we shall now only meet on rare occasions. oh wait, you cost like a dollar for not very much food, we only met on rare occasions anyhow)
My favorite snack right now is a couple of clementines, and a handful of chopped pecans. Pecans are amazing. And as long as you chew them long enough and really savor them, they emit a pleasantly sweet flavor that you can't acheive with sugar (not that I'm in any way against sugar). Someday, I'll make my own trail mix since I can buy lots of stuff in bulk at Winco.
Anyhow, I haven't been doing this long but already, I can tell my body is recognizing what it really wants. I crave nuts and fruits now more than I crave snickers bars and ice cream. It's sort of helping my mood too, but I can't tell if that's my food intake, or if I'm just being spurred on by smaller successes.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a bag of Tim's Salt and Vinegar chips to eat before Andrew eats them all. :)
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