The Mom Who Got the Cream

I bought myself some cream.  An odd treat, you, perhaps, are thinking?

I bought it, because it helps beget this nicer treat...

Prince CuddleBunny has found joy in helping and serving this year, it seems.  He took over packing sack lunches for his older siblings and for Hubby, and absolutely begs to make my coffee drinks for me now.  Who am I to object?  This makes my daily respite - a "mental health moment" -  just that much sweeter and more relaxing.

The prince's recipe:

For 1 serving, pour in 16 oz mug, and warm 1 minute in the microwave:
1 cup vanilla soy milk
2 Tbsp Bailey's Pumpkin Spice coffee creamer

Add 1/4 cup freshly brewed espresso (made with our Bialetti Moka pot... read about it here). I think you could use strong coffee.

Put on a dollop (or fancy swirl squeezed through the corner of a small plastic bag) of whip cream (this is enough for about 4 servings), made with 
1/2 cup cream
1/8 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Sprinkle with cinnamon and nutmeg.

YUM.

31 Days at The Nesting Place

Sunday's Bite

"A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver."

Proverbs 25:11 

Photo by Princess Artiste

I know I JUST said I was freeing myself of the apple theme, but I found this verse before that, and, since it's healthy to read the Bible and share it's knowledge, this fits my new direction, too!  -Hope you're having a wonderful weekend.  :-)

31 Days at The Nesting Place

Taking a Right Turn

Writing about apples has been a little fun, and a little challenging.  Making sure I have a blog post ready every day is an accomplishment, but also, a distraction from life.  There are things I want or need to do that remain undone while I blog.  And to write about apples?  It isn't even particularly helpful, or probably interesting, to you, the readers.  If I'm going to blog, I want it to be informational, insightful, or uplifting.  After all, if I can find recipes that use applesauce on the internet, so can you. (Although, maybe you were as surprised as I to find out just how many apple quotes there are!  And there are more I didn't use.)

"Right" turn. This time as in
correct...better for me and for you

So I've decided to take this another direction.  I began this 31 Day journey with a post entitled An Apple A Day.  That, of course, was from the idiom, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away."  So, from here out, I'm going to concentrate on the idea of health and well-being.  I plan to write one thing that I do in each day to improve my mental, emotional, or physical health.   It won't be a lot to read, I don't think.  Maybe just a sentence or two with a picture or two.  I may be kidding myself, since I can't write just a sentence or two for "(Almost) Wordless Wednesday"s, but we'll see!

So this is what I'm doing for myself today... Releasing myself from apple bondage!  Not that I'll never mention them again, but I won't HAVE to.

Another great thing is that I can still stay committed to the 31 Day project prompted by the Nester at The Nesting Place, and still, even, remain true to the category I in which I signed up there, "Health, Wellness, & Food."

So, do something nice for yourself today!  That's what I'm hoping for.  --I share something nice or healthy I do for my life, and whether or not it's what 'floats your boat,' it should motivate you to do something that enriches your life and contributes to your health in some way, too.  Win-win.

31 Days at The Nesting Place

I'm Early... Or Late

Thanks to reader, Cheryl, who left the suggestion on A Confession, I have been thinking about cooking pork and sauerkraut with some of our applesauce.

Looking up recipes on the internet, I found that this is a traditional New Year's meal for the Pennsylvania Dutch.  Cheryl said it was great for fall, and it sure sounds ideal for this time of year to me.  So, instead of New Year's, it's Happy Fall to us!

Of course, all the recipes I found were not exactly the same.  I mostly followed the Crock Pot Pork and Sauerkraut recipe from Food.com, but was also influenced by some of the comments written there and other recipes...Plus a little free-wheeling of my own.

In my 6 1/2-quart crockpot, I started with 4 pounds of pork roast, 1/2 onion, sliced (not in the recipe), spiced with black pepper and garlic powder, a sprinkle of fennel instead of the recommended caraway, and covered in 2 pounds of sauerkraut. (Some recipes said the caraway was essential, but I can't stand the stuff.  Some commenters mentioned they used cumin or fennel instead.) The instructions say to include the liquid, but I just couldn't put all that salt in, so poured what I could (without trying too hard) from the jar and added some water back in before putting it all on the pork.

Then I mixed about 3/4 cup of applesauce (more than twice what the recipe said), 2 or 3 Tablespoons of spicy brown mustard (not in the recipe at all), and 1/4 cup of brown sugar, very loosely packed, since some of the comments mentioned the 1/4 cup called for made the dish too sweet.  I poured this over the sauerkraut.


When I checked the recipe, I noticed I was supposed to have put the applesauce on the meat, then the sauerkraut, with the brown sugar sprinkled on top.  So I worked the applesauce mixture into the sauerkraut, as an adjustment, hoping it would work out about the same.








Because the recipe says it would serve 6, and I wanted it to go further, I added 2 mondo (reference to their giant size, not a particular type) sweet potatoes.  Sweet potatoes seem, to me, a natural choice with these other ingredients, but the traditional meal is served with mashed potatoes.




I thought I'd have to cut the meat into chunks, but with just a turn of the meat fork, the tender meat just shredded.  The sweet potato was a good call... Next time I'll try the cumin, and add chunks of apple and maybe some carrots and/or golden beets.  The sauerkraut is subtle, so while I wished for more of that flavor, Prince Inventive, who isn't a fan still detected it. I will go ahead and add the full strength liquid next time, as it could've used more salt.

I LOVE those days when I'm able to get dinner cooking by 8 AM and not have to think about it again until time to enjoy it.  This night, we were happy to fill up a bowl and sit down together to watch the Seahawks battle the Cardinals.  :-D

31 Days at The Nesting Place

Simple Tool for Simple Task

...At least for tasks that produce in small amounts.

For most of my married life, I had a couple of rudimentary ways to chop nuts... I could use a knife, or I had 2 "choppers."  

Example of #1 from this Ebay listing

#1 had an X-shaped blade attached to a spring loaded handle on the lid of a jar.  When the handle was pushed, it pushed down the blade, and the spring helped created an up-and-down chopping motion.  The blade could twist in order to hit nuts in all areas of the jar.  But it often missed some, and the size consistency was difficult.  



#2 was a hand cranked version with plastic components.  It was slow and cumbersome.  The nuts didn't feed through the chopping contraption well, so it was hard to hold the jar steady and get the job done.

Cuisinart Mini Prep chopper

Then I discovered the electric chopper... Like a mini food processor.  So wonderful -quick and

consistent- for chopping the amounts of nuts needed in a recipe, measured in partial or full cups, which is how we usually used nuts.  It chops or grinds, so can cut coarse, for things like granola or the top of an apple crisp, or fine, like for the nut crust we use in "Lemon Lush." (Can't believe I haven't shared the Lemon Lush recipe.  I'll have to add that to my future blog posts list.)  In a clutter clean-up of the kitchen, I got rid of the old choppers and didn't miss them.






More recently, however, we've been enjoying chopped nuts on more things... Like yogurt, salads, and, this week, Cream Cheese Apple Butter Bagels.  For a serving at a time, the electric chopper with the need for electricity, and 4 pieces to put together, was a lot of hassle for such a little amount.  Cutting nuts with a knife is a hassle, too, so I found myself forgoing the nuts for things one which I really wanted them.  I was now missing the manual choppers.


I hadn't forgotten the complaints I'd had about my former models, though, and thought there might be something better.  

Progressive International GFNC-2 Nut Chopper with Non-Skid Base

I decided on a 4-star rated chopper much like my old #2, but this one has metal blades instead of plastic, so dispatches the nuts much more easily and smoothly.  We can now have a sprinkle of nuts in just a few seconds.  Simple and effective.  And highly recommended.  :-)

31 Days at The Nesting Place

Butter Up

Remember that ungainly, gallon-sized ZipLoc bag of applesauce?  --The storage option I thought was a bad idea, because I didn't think we'd ever use a gallon of applesauce at once?  Well, problem solved.  For this, the gallon bag was even a good idea, since it stored just the right amount.

My mill-loaning friend, Ch, gave me this recipe as a suggestion for 'using up' some applesauce.  I had never made apple butter.  You can probably imagine that as an applesauce disliker ("hater" is too strong for how I feel about it), that apple butter might not be my favorite either.  In fruit spreads, like other things, I prefer something to chew/crunch.  But I have a houseful of family who isn't as picky, and who would enjoy a new option for toast and sandwiches.

Ch's Apple Butter

4 quarts unsweetened applesauce 

2 C sugar 

4 C brown sugar 

2 tsp cinnamon 

1 tsp ground cloves 

1/2 tsp allspice 

3/4 tsp salt 

Mix it all up and bake @ 250' for 4 hours, stir periodically.  Add 4 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar (really!) and stir well.  You can process this in a water bath in pint jars or it also freezes well. In theory this makes about 7 pints.  

Good theory, I guess!

  






My friend added this note when she sent me the recipe:

"We like it on toast and pancakes.  Of course peanut butter sandwiches.  We love it on a toasted bagel, lathered with cream cheese and topped with toasted almonds.  Yum!"

Now you're talkin'... With cream cheese and almonds, I'll definitely be eating this, too. 


"There is nothing sweeter than the apple butter days of autumn." - Linda Poindexter

"Yum," for sure!

31 Days at The Nesting Place

(Almost) Wordless (on Almost) Wednesday

I was forced to 'take it slow' on Monday. --There was a theme going on in my kitchen!

1)  Roasts in the slow cookers for a new French Dip Sandwich recipe...

I'd planned to list the easy recipe here,
but I think it could use some tweaking first.

2)  Apples in the pot for hours of low and slow cooking to make more applesauce (2nd to the last batch!)...

And, 
3)  The slow and low baking...   

...Something I'll have to tell you about tomorrow!

Sorry to "upset the apple cart," but due to an unexpected brown sugar outage here, today's reveal will have to wait until tomorrow.  :)

31 Days at The Nesting Place