Apple-licious

A repost from last year in case you haven't made your own delicious homemade caramel apples yet this year!


A few weeks ago my visiting teacher (who is cool because she lived in Charlotte for 15 years and goes to the beach in NC several times a year!) brought me a delicious treat.  I haven’t had a caramel apple in years, because making them is such a pain.  (We’ve made lots of caramel apple dip, but that’s another story.  Or at least another recipe.)

Her apple was so delicious that I had to get the recipe, and we made them this week.  Definitely worth a few minutes of coooking!


Homemade Caramel for Apples
from Bon Appetit, slightly adapted by ourbestbites.com
1 pound brown sugar (about 2 cups packed)
2 sticks unsalted butter (1 cup)
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
⅔ cup dark corn syrup
⅓ cup maple syrup (homemade is fine)
1 ½ tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. molasses
¼ tsp. salt
12-medium sized apples
popsicle sticks

assorted toppings for dipping (toffee bits, chopped nuts, crushed cookies/candy
bars, etc.) Melted chocolate in zip-top bags

Wash and dry apples, place sticks in cores and place on a baking sheet in the fridge to chill. Prepare all toppings in bowls and have them ready to go.

To prepare caramel, combine first 8 ingredients in heavy 2 ½ quart saucepan (at least 3-4 inches deep). Stir with wooden or silicone spatula over medium-low heat until sugar dissolves (no crystals are felt when caramel is rubbed between fingers), occasionally brushing down sides of pan with wet pastry brush or scraping with spatula, about 15 minutes.

Attach a clip-on candy thermometer to side of pan. Increase heat to medium-high; cook caramel at rolling boil until thermometer registers 236°F, stirring constantly but slowly with clean spatula and occasionally brushing/scraping down sides of pan, about 12 minutes. Pour caramel into a bowl. Submerge thermometer bulb in caramel. Cool to 200°F, about 20 minutes. If it cools too much just heat it up a little.

While caramel cools, line baking sheets with silicone baking mats or buttered foil. (I used parchment paper). Holding stick, dip 1 apple into caramel, submerging all but the very top of apple. Lift apple out, allowing excess caramel to drip back into bowl. Turn apple caramel side up and hold for several seconds to help set caramel around apple. If needed, gently scrape the bottom of the apple to remove excess caramel. Place coated apple on prepared baking sheet. Repeat with remaining apples, spacing apples apart on parchment paper.

By the time you have dipped all the apples, the first ones should be ready to add toppings. Lift one apple from paper and press decorations into the caramel and return to the baking sheet.

If desired dip caramel-coated apples into melted chocolate, allowing excess to drip off, then roll in nuts or candy. Or drizzle melted chocolate over caramel-coated apples and sprinkle with decorations. Chill until decorations are set, about one hour. Chill up to one week or wrap in cellophane bags for gift giving.

Strawberry Bliss

On Tuesday I went for a walk with a woman in my ward.  Ninety minutes later (90!!!) I stumbled back into my house, wondering if I would ever be able to walk again.  And then I gathered up the girls and we headed back out within a few minutes to pick strawberries before the day got too hot.  (I was really worried about being able to walk again!)

The day was spectacularly beautiful and the strawberry farm location was lovely.

The girls were a little disgruntled that Jared had gotten out of picking because of an upset stomach, but they still did a great job picking and were rewarded afterwards with Panda Express and slushies from Sonic to cool them off.

Lots of the strawberries were dirty because of all of the rain we had last week.  But the ones that weren’t dirty were totally delicious.  I was always a total fan of NC strawberries, but I have to say that while the NC beaches may trump Oregon, Oregon definitely has the edge in strawberry flavor. 

When we got home I made a strawberry pie and then took a nap so that I would have the energy to make 8 batches of freezer jam.  We had the pie for dessert, and then I had it again for breakfast and lunch on Wednesday.  (At which point my stomach started complaining that I’d had enough strawberries for a while.)

I am happy to report that our freezer is now restocked with strawberry freezer jam.  Now we’re just waiting for the raspberries to ripen in a few weeks…and then the blackberries and blueberries…

PS—I am pleased to report that rinsing your strawberries with vinegar really does prolong their life.  I poured just a little bit of vinegar into the water when I rinsed my berries the first time, then rinsed them again with plain water.  I sorted through them, took out the best berries for the pie and used the berries that were a little softer right away in the jam.  We had the rest of the berries for dessert tonight—more than 48 hours after they were picked, and there was no softening or any mold at all on any of them—they kept in the fridge much better than they usually do.  Apparently the vinegar gets rid of any mold spores on them.  Here’s a picture from tonight—they were still fantastic!

Living on the Edge

Russ came in the other day and mentioned in a slightly disgruntled fashion that the half-cube of cream cheese left in the fridge (in a ziploc bag) was covered in mold.  A little while after he told me this a memory bubbled to the top of my brain…how odd that just a couple of weeks ago I had taken out a half-cube of cream cheese to use and it, too, was covered in mold.  Annoying.

A few days later I opened an almost unused container of sour cream and noticed that it already had a spot of mold on it.  Once again I made my way over to the trash can with a feeling of irritation. 

Only later did the lightbulb slowly start to come on…that was a relatively large amount of molding going on in my refrigerator, wasn’t it?  I thought perhaps I should go hit the little button to make it colder.  But when I went and looked at the fridge there was no button, and none in the freezer either.  I looked at the labels on the front by the water/ice dispenser and pressed a few of the buttons there.  When I pressed the button labeled (appropriately) refrigerator, instantly two temperatures showed on the little screen:

refrigerator: 44 degrees
freezer:  -2 degrees

Hmmmmm….I wondered…..what should the temperature of a refrigerator be?  (I’ve never known this before, just pressed that little button that made the refrigerator colder or less cold.)  Thirty seconds with google brought me to the new awareness that 44 degrees was not, indeed, the appropriate temperature for a refrigerator.  Instead, it was supposed to be between 33 and 38 degrees.

Oh.

I’m guessing that 6 degrees is the moldy cream cheese difference.  And appreciative that in the 3 months we’ve been living with an overly warm refrigerator, no one has gotten food poisoning.

I’ll let you know how the cream cheese does in the next little while.

 

And, while we’re talking about my appliances, I’d like to suggest that my oven LOVES to make german pancakes.  Seriously. 

I have made german pancakes a number of times, and I have never quite seen anything like this.

Even Jared decided he like them after this.  Too bad I can’t remember what settings I used…

How my life is like a tray of dehydrated apples.

 

I was loading the dehydrator one day this fall.  I dried apples again, of course, for days and days this fall, trying to make sure I will have plenty to snack on all winter.  For a while there I had it going every morning and every night.  One day I noticed something interesting.  Every morning I loaded each try as full with apples as I could without overlapping the pieces.

And then every night I turned it off and opened it up, and this is what I saw.

Hardly any apples at all!

 

It occurred to me that this is a lot like my life feels.  Every day it feels like I am packing my life as full as possible, even layering things on top of each other sometimes.  But then at night when I look back on my day, it looks much more like the tray of dried apples—like there is hardly anything there.

 

Russ and I had one of our (thankfully) rare fights a couple of weeks ago.  One of the interesting realizations that came from this disagreement was seeing how much expectation I pack into my life without ever consciously being aware of it.  I realized (in a very low moment) that to some degree, I feel like a failure every single day.  I was a little shocked by this awareness.  Later as I analyzed my feelings more I realized that many of the expectations that I have for myself are set as absolutes.  Things like:

• clean the house today
• do the laundry today
• fix a delicious and nutritious dinner
• make sure the family dinner time is warm and bonding
• unpack more boxes
• make sure all of the homeschool things get done

and those are just a few. 

As I thought about all of these expectations I realized that there is never a way I can succeed at most of these most of the time—at least not the way they’re set up in my mind.  Some of these things are simply a work in progress by definition.  As I am cleaning one part of the house, some other part of the house is being un-cleaned.  I never get all of the laundry done in one day (and my kids do their own laundry) and even if I do, by that night there’s more laundry again.  I may succeed at fixing a delicious and nutritious dinner one day, but the next day I have to prove myself again or I fail. 

Expectations seem like a good idea.  You know, dream big, aim high, reach for the stars, etc.  But I’m just not so sure, when I see that I am defining and condemning myself all day every day, without even being aware of it,  that I’m doing myself any favors.

Maybe one of my goals for this year should be to examine the “goals” (expectations) that are already running in my mind (like unseen background programs on a computer) and see if I can stop setting myself up for failure all of the time…

This is not your mother’s soup

If you were wondering if you made White Chicken Chili and inadvertently subbed a can of chopped jalapenos instead of the green chilies you thought you were grabbing, would it make a difference?

The answer=yes.

A BIG difference.

A BIG SUPER SPICEY difference.

 

Note to self: next time, read the labels.

 

PS—Russ is a fan.

Cooking with Rachel Ray

 

(no, not that Rachel Ray!)

I’ve been  trying to remember to have the kids take turns helping me in the kitchen every time I make dinner so that they can start learning some cooking skills.  Tonight I got Rachel to help me make out of this world Chicken Pot Pie and she was terrific.  She made the roux, made the white sauce, helped me chop the onions and then sautéed them.  The only part she had problems with was that the onion was seriously pungent.  I kept telling her it wouldn’t be bad, but it turned out I was totally lying—it was the worst onion I’ve cut in a long time.

I couldn’t even open my eyes, they hurt so bad!

Making Do

 

What you do when it’s time to make applesauce, but your pot lids are still over at the apartment…

The Dilemma

What’s a gal to do when she makes a piece of toast for breakfast and has to choose between homemade strawberry freezer jam and homemade blackberry freezer jam???

The best of both worlds!

This one’s for you, Mom

When I was a child living in California, my mom and dad heard of an orange grove that was going to be cut down to make room for a new housing development.  The oranges in the grove were not going to be harvested and were available to anyone who wanted to go and pick them.

My parents came home with the back of my dad’s small pickup half full of oranges.  For the next week they juiced, juiced, and juiced oranges.  They froze much of that fresh orange juice (which I have no memory of ever drinking) but more importantly to me, they let us drink all we wanted too.

I grew up somewhere between poor and frugal.  As I child I was sure we were poor.  As an adult I am less sure how much of our life style was based on poverty and how much was based on my parent’s extreme frugality.  Either way, orange juice was an unimaginable luxury in my home and I am sure that I guzzled it like a crazy person.  (Enough that I ended up with cold sores across my lower lip with my lip swollen to 3x it’s normal size.)

For a couple of weeks now there’s been an announcement in the ward bulletin about a pear orchard in Hood River (90 minutes away) that wasn’t going to be picked this year.  Every time I saw the announcement I convinced myself that I had far too many reasons not to go, but last week I finally gave in to the lure of free produce and off we went.

It was a beautiful day in the Columbia River Gorge.

As soon as we got to the orchard we could see that most of the fruit was going to waste.  It broke my pear-loving heart!

We didn’t have a lot of time, but in 30 minutes I’ll bet we picked 100 pounds. 

We filled the three fruit boxes we’d brought, plus every bag we could find in the van.

And when we were done picking we drove home enjoying the beautiful views…

The apartment is filled with pears now.  We haven’t all eaten at the table in days. 

The first pears ripened on Sunday, proving that time and fruit waits for no man.  Or woman.  Or something like that.  Since Sunday evening I’ve canned 14 quarts and frozen lots and lots.  My next project as the pears continue to ripen is making pear-sauce, which turns out to be pretty delicious.  I’ve used most of the canning jars that didn’t get put in storage (and bought a few dozen more) so now I only have a few small canning jars to use.  I think I’ll use those and then freeze the rest of the pear sauce in quart bags.

---

Sunday night as I was cleaning up I heard the first little metallic plink, the sound of a jar lid sealing.  I was excited to hear it and  remembered my mom always commenting when her jars would seal.  In that moment I missed her; wished that I could have called her and told her about my abundance of free pears and all that I was doing with them.

She would have been thrilled.

What I’ve been up to.

• I really wish canning didn’t take so long.  I am embarrassed to admit how much of three different days I spent accomplishing this much.
• It’s a lot easier to can in your friend’s real kitchen rather than in our apartment’s miniature kitchen.
• Sometimes you have to can in your own miniature apartment kitchen because it’s kind of awkward to can until midnight in your friend’s kitchen.
• I must stop making fruit based desserts.  But just in case you’re interested, here’s the recipe for the peach dumplings.  Adapted from the Pioneer Woman. 

 

Peach Dumplings

 

• 3 peaches
• 2 cans (8 Oz. Cans) Crescent Rolls
• 2 sticks Butter
• 1-1/2 cup Sugar
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla
• Cinnamon, To Taste
• 1 can (12 Oz.) Sprite

Peel and pit peaches. Cut each apple into 6 slices each. Roll each peach slice in a crescent roll. Place in a 9 x 13  pan.

Melt butter, then add sugar and barely stir. Add vanilla, stir, and pour entire mixture over apples. Pour Sprite around the edges of the pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon and bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Serve with ice cream, and spoon some of the sweet sauces from the pan over the top.

WARNING: Prepare this dish at your own risk. It is beyond imaginable.

domesticity

My adventures in the Land of Fresh Produce continue. 

On Saturday Russ & I walked to the downtown Farmer’s Market.  At first I was disappointed that none of the kids wanted to go, but once I found myself walking through the cool woods hand in hand with my sweetheart all alone, I repented of my disappointment.  We had a lovely walk and perusal of the goods at the market, and after an hour or so Josh came to pick us up with our bags full of fresh produce.  Saturday’s finds included yellow plums (so sweet, but still with a tart skin which I’m somehow sure is full of vitamins) and things called donut peaches & donut nectarines.  Plus corn on the cob to die for and a necessary assortment of zucchini and peppers.

Over the weekend we also picked wild blackberries for the last time.  I find myself having a harder time happily eating as I pick, since I’m always worried about the darned worms now!  We did pick enough to make a delicious cobbler earlier in the week,

and some more blackberry muffins today.  I think we’ve decided that those along with fresh milkshakes are our favorite ways to use the blackberries.  (After washing the berries very well and removing all nearly microscopic worms!)

We also bought a case of peaches & a case of pears over the weekend and today I spent my morning cutting peaches for freezing and making the best ones into this fresh peach pie.  It turned out perfectly, and since I made it in a 10” pie plate instead of a small one, there will be plenty for breakfast too!

Our apartment kitchen isn’t big enough for any real canning, so I’ve arranged to borrow the kitchen of a friend who is going to be out of town for the next week.  I’m hoping to can peaches and pears too, wish me luck.  And stamina!! 

What’s for breakfast?

Figuring out what to feed my kids all day every day is something that often makes me a little crazy.  They would probably be happy to eat cold cereal every morning but I’m not impressed by the nutritional value of cold cereal, and I think it significantly impacts our grocery budget (because of the cereal and the extra milk) when they’re eating it frequently.  So I am always excited when I figure out something new to add to our breakfast rotation.

This summer it’s definitely German Pancakes.  I first had german pancakes a million years ago when I was driving home to North Carolina from BYU.  The other people that I was driving with were all excited about them, but I was not impressed.  Then last summer my friend Katie offered to make german pancakes for us and I was so surprised that I like them.  And Rachel loved them.  Russ made them again for us several months later and once again I was unimpressed and couldn’t remember why I’d liked them before.  I was definitely confused by my on again, off again dislike of german pancakes. 

Katie made them again for us when we were in Utah and this time she told me the secret.  And believe me, this is the secret that makes all the difference.  While you’re mixing everything up, you preheat the glass baking dish and the butter—then you pour the hot batter into the heated dish and presto, your german pancakes is nice and crunchy on the outside instead of limp and eggy. 

I try not to eat a lot of syrup (read: sugar with flavor) so I’ve experimented and every way I’ve eaten these has been delicious.  My favorite was probably with my home canned peaches, but I am sad to say that Rachel ate all the rest of the peaches so that’s out for now.  They’ve also been great with strawberry freezer jam, my new raspberry freezer jam, or with fresh fruit. 

Sometimes i make them in 2 8x8 casseroles instead of 1 9x13 so that we have more edges.  This time I forgot to do that, but they were still terrific.

Rachel and I say YUM. 

German Pancake

6 T butter

6 eggs

1 c milk

1 c flour

1 t salt

1 t vanilla

Place 9x13 glass casserole dish in oven with butter in it.  Turn oven on to 425.  While dish is heating, mix ingredients in blender.  Once dish is hot pour batter in quickly.  Bake for 30 minutes.  Top with syrup, jam, fresh or bottled fruit. 

 

More from Pinterest

I can’t get over how much I enjoyed my Pinterest inspired Christmas wreath.  It got comments from almost every person who came to the front door, and I was surprised to notice that it was even visable from the street.  Yay for dollar tree socks!

I also had decided that I wanted to try a method I’d seen on pinterest for displaying Christmas cards.  I used adhesive and hung ribbon from the walls, then clipped the cards to the ribbons.  After I realized that I couldn’t use light-duty adhesive it worked pretty well, though the cards did turn upside down sometimes when I closed the pantry door.

I’m still kind of on the fence about this one.  It is a fun way to display cards.  But what you can’t see is that this is probably only 2/3 of the cards that we received, but I don’t have enough wall space to display any more!  So I’m not sure what I’ll do next year.  I guess it all depends on the wall space available…

 

My last Pinterest effort had nothing to do with Christmas, and everything to do with saving money.  I decided to get on the “DIY laundry detergent” bandwagon and give it a try.  After reading up on our particular combination of factors (front loading washer and septic system) I decided that I should make the liquid detergent.  I mixed up a small batch and we used it without any problems.  I don’t really love the way it makes the laundry smell, so I’m still working on that part, but I haven’t noticed things not being clean.  I’ve never made a whole batch (which requires a 5 gallon bucket) and the second time I made it I must have miscalculated the amount of water needed—the next day the stuff was entirely a solid gel.

I hoped that I could just use it that way, but no such luck.  Here was what I saw after the entire cycle had run…

Clearly that cold well water was not enough to liquify the solid detergent!  So I gave in and mixed it with more water and it seemed to work fine.  Next up—DIY fabric softener.

In Which Russ Chila-Killes the Kids

It is time I tell you the story that has become a part of Ray Family Lore and needs now to be memorialized in my blog.

In the spring, while I was happily holding babies at my sister’s house, Russ was planning to try a new recipe out on the kids.  The recipe was for Chilaquiles (pronounced chee-lah-KEE-lays, should you be struggling with that) and he was sure it was going to be well received.  According to all of the food network shows Russ watches, chilaquiles are the ultimate in comfort food.  The recipe called for a couple of ingredients we didn’t have in the pantry but finally he had accumulated everything he needed, including 2 cans of chipotle peppers, and was set to make his new dish.

On the night in question he sliced and fried and blended (the 2 cans of chipotle peppers) and shredded his way to chilaquile perfection.  He put the food on the table and served each child some chilaquile and then went to get a few more things to put on the table.  As the children started eating, one at a time they complained to Russ that the food was too spicy. 

[I must insert a side note here.  Dieting seems to have had the singular effect on Russ of completely destroying his palate.  Now he is unable to eat something with any amount of enjoyment unless it is so spicy that it makes the rest of us cry from pain.]

Russ assured the kids that the food was not too spicy, and told them to keep eating.  A few minutes later he sat down and started eating.  He was surprised to find that the first bite was spicy, even to him.  He took another bite thinking  that it would be better, but it was even worse.  And after the third bite, his mouth burning, he admitted defeat.  And told the kids that they had his permission to stop eating.  It was too spicy!

He was so puzzled.  Though he has made food before that is too spicy for some of the rest of us, never before has he followed a recipe (or even jazzed up an existing dish) and had such a total failure.  It was not until he looked at the recipe again (far more carefully) that he realized his mistake.

Where he thought he read
2 cans of chipotle peppers, blended,
it read instead:
2 canned chipotle peppers, blended.

A subtle, but very important distinction, especially as there are usually 4-6 chipotle chilies in each can!

 

Tonight we successfully ate Chilaquiles.   We are not convinced that they are the ultimate comfort food.  But at least they were somewhat comfortable this time!

O Pinterest, O Pinterest!

(don’t you like my Christmas song allusion?)

The girls had a cookie exchange tonight for Girl Scouts; each girl was to bring 24 cookies to exchange with the other girl scouts.  I told the girls that they could each look at my Pinterest Christmas treats page and choose what we would make for their part of the exchange. 

Jenna chose these peppermint brownie cookies.  I’d looked forward to trying them, and now having tasted them I can’t quite decide what I think.  The frosting (complete with a dash of salt and a couple of tablespoons of cream) was fabulous.  The peppermint on top gave it a nice burst of flavor.  The brownie cookie had the great taste of brownie, but unfortunately was just a little bit tough.  I would probably make them again, but I wish I knew enough to make the cookie a little more tender.

Rachel went in another direction entirely.  Instead of looking for a cookie that was the tastiest, she went for the cookie that was the most fun.  And these melted snowman cookies were lots of fun to make.  I used the allrecipes link for the sugar cookies and they were delicious.  The royal icing isn’t too tasty, but it actually wasn’t bad either.  And the finished product was such fun.  It did make me wish that I had black food coloring (blech!) because making the eyes, mouths, and arms with the black gel stuff from Kroger was a pain.  Maybe next year?

Oh no!  I’m melting!!

Jared also made a choice—he chose a delicious chocolate peppermint roll that I think we’ll make tomorrow or the next day.  I’ll let you know how it turns out!

(Did I mention how much I love pinterest?  What a great way to keep track of stuff!  Thanks Megan & Katie for my new addiction!)

Kitchen Pictures

No, don’t get all excited.  The kitchen is NOT finished, and it will not be finished before Thanksgiving as I had hoped in the beginning.  My new hope is that everything will be back in cabinets/drawers by Thanksgiving…we’ll see if that happens.

Here are some pictures of my work in progress, mostly for my sisters who keep asking for them!

 

First, the kitchen as it was.

Next, the kitchen as it looks now.  I’m almost done taking stuff out of cabinets, but still need to take things off of the top of the cabinets.

Last, my row of primed drawers, and my uniform for the last two weeks.  I even went to the dentist this way, if you can believe it!  (I did brush my hair though.)

If Russ doesn’t find a job maybe I’ll go into business as a cabinet painter.  Now that I’ve figured out (the hard way) how to do it….