Make Your Own Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup Substitute

So last night I was making a recipe which called for a can of condensed cream of chicken soup. I don't normally keep that on hand in the pantry. I'm S.....L.....O.....W.....L.....Y trying to cut out processed foods. Seriously, if you can't pronounce the ingredients on the label and do not even know what they are, should you really be putting that in your body? Nope.

Anyways, I really wanted to make this recipe. It was one that my mom used to make and I haven't had it in probably 15-20 years (just recently found the paper where I copied the recipe). Off to Pinterest I go to find an alternative to cream of chicken soup. Up pops hundreds of pins relating to the topic. The recipe I used was super simple, consisted of 4 ingredients, and took maybe 8  minutes to whip up. And a huge plus.....it tasted so much better than the crap you get from the can! I could have eaten it straight out of the saucepan!

Next time you need cream of chicken soup, say no to the can and whip this up instead!

Cream of Chicken Soup Substitute

Ingredients: 

• 1 Tbsp flour
• 3 Tbsp butter
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1/2 cup milk
• salt and pepper to taste (I didn't add these)

Directions:

Melt your butter in a small sauce pan over medium-low heat. Once completely melted, whisk in the flour and continue to whisk until it is smooth and bubbly. Remove the pan from heat and then slowly whisk in the  milk and chicken broth. Return pan to heat and bring to a gentle boil, whisking the entire time, until the soup thickens. Add salt and pepper to taste. This will make an equivalent to one can of soup. 

Ok, so as I type out the recipe, I think I made a mistake and added too much flour when I made this last night. Mine did look thicker than what you get out of a can. Well, it still tasted pretty darn awesome! I'm not sure how this would turn out using gluten free flour. The good thing is that all of these items are pretty cheap and it wouldn't be too expensive to experiment with gluten free flour! 

How to Make Your Own Holiday "Cheer", AKA Apple Pie Moonshine

So a while back I wrote about making apple butter using fresh picked apples courtesy of the North Georgia apple houses. I made apple butter and apple sauce to my heart's content, but then decided I wanted to make an apple pie. For whatever reason, I've never made an apple pie. Off to Pinterest I went to search for apple pie recipes; however, when I typed apple pie into the search box, a miraculous thing happened. The search box auto filled the rest of my phrase with apple pie moonshine. Not what I went looking for, but I sure did spend the next 30-40 minutes looking at different apple pie moonshine recipes. They ranged in difficulty from opening bottles and heating everything in a pot to actually making your own mash and all the other illegal steps involved. I wouldn't recommend the latter method. After perusing the recipes, I pinned a pretty easy one and decided to make it one day.

Fast forward a month or so. The Woodman went to help a friend de-clutter his parent's house. I guess they are pack rats. While helping, he came across a bunch of mason jars. A. BUNCH. Woodman's friend gave them to him, which he then brought home to me. After several bleach water soaks, a hand wash, and a run through the dishwasher, I had a lot of jars that needed to be used. And....what goes perfectly with mason jars? MOONSHINE! The holiday season was quickly approaching us and since we've been on a limited income, we've been giving homemade gifts for the last few years. I pulled up my saved recipe and got to work on this year's Christmas presents. (Sorry to our close friends and family reading this....I'm sure you're going to guess what your present is this year. But, if you hadn't figured it out yet based on pics I've posted on Facebook, then maybe you aren't good enough for my 'shine...) Hence, the inspiration for my post.

So, without further ado.....

Apple Pie Moonshine

You will need:

• The booze. 

For this recipe, you first need 190-proof Everclear Grain Alcohol. This stuff is no joke. It has warning labels all over the bottle about how flammable it is and how the bottle might explode. Apparently, it isn't even sold in some states. If not, get the highest proof you can find. Also, depending on how you want your moonshine to taste, you will need either vanilla vodka or some spiced rum. I used the vanilla vodka for my first batch and it gave the moonshine an apple pie with vanilla ice-cream on top taste to it! For my second batch, I used the spiced rum. You will need 3 cups of the Everclear and 2 cups of either the vodka or the spiced rum.

WARNING!!!!

Not going to lie- I made Woodman open the bottle. I was kind of scared!

• The rest of the ingredients

 Besides the booze, you will need 1 gallon of apple juice, 1 gallon of apple cider, 1.5 cups white sugar, 1.5 cups brown sugar, and cinnamon sticks. 

Other items needed are 9 quarts jars or any equivalent, a big stock pot, and a plastic funnel.

The procedure:

In a large stock pot(mine is a 12 qt. pot), add the apple juice, apple cider, both types of sugar, and the cinnamon sticks. DO NOT ADD THE ALCOHOL! For the cinnamon sticks, use at least 9 sticks. You will be putting a stick into each jar of 'shine, so if you use 9 quart jars, use 9 cinnamon sticks. I was using pint jars, so I threw in 18 sticks. Also, the first batch came out super sweet. I actually cut back and only used one cup of each type of sugar when I made the second batch and it was just fine. 

Over low to medium low heat, bring ingredients to a simmer, stirring frequently to dissolve the sugar. Once it reaches a simmer, let it simmer for  30 minutes, all the while enjoying how awesome your kitchen smells. Remove from heat and let the mixture cool COMPLETELY. If you are in a rush, sit the pot down into a sink of ice water to help speed up the cooling process. Once completely cool, add in your alcohol and stir to incorporate. If you add the alcohol while the mixture is warm, the alcohol will burn off and you'll just have super sweet apple cider. 

Fish your cinnamon sticks out of the pot and put one into each jar.

Using a funnel, fill each jar full of 'shine. If you notice from the last picture to this one, I needed more jars than I thought. I even had enough for a small "quality control" glass.

Put your lids on and label your jars. Because these are gifts, I ordered labels from a company called Evermine. If I weren't giving these out, I would have just written on the lids!

Store in a cool, dark place or a fridge. This stuff tastes good the first day. It tastes great 2 weeks later. It tastes AMAZING after a month. Point to the story- let it sit at least 2 weeks. It needs to ferment a bit. The longer you let it go, the less of the alcohol you'll taste. 

I made one batch and let it sit for a month. About that time, my grandfather died. I remembered him telling me one time how he met my grandmother because he had to run moonshine over to her daddy from his daddy. He apparently ran moonshine all over the North GA mountains. Now, is this story true or just a tall tale? I'm sure some of my family reading this might be able to verify the facts. Either way, after his funeral, I had some of the moonshine in honor of him. I also wanted to do a little "research" on how strong this stuff was. 

Out of a quart jar, I drank about a third of it in one sitting. There was no alcohol taste to it at all. But holy cow...it sure does sneak up on you and packs a punch! So, as a disclaimer, don't drink and drive, and no underaged drinking!

Bottom's up!!!

PS- I just realized while typing this....I still never made my apple pie!!!

Bird Seed Ornaments

While perusing Pinterest about a month ago, I came across a pin for bird seed Christmas ornaments. I thought it might be a fun crafty thing to do with Peanut so I gave it a whirl. This is a pretty cheap craft to do. You probably have most of the items at home! Free or free-ish is always good, especially around this time of year. An added plus- apparently a lot of recipes for something like this calls for peanut butter. If you have a peanut allergy in your family, this is a safe recipe for you!

Bird Seed Ornaments

Ingredients:  3/4 cup flour, 1/2 cup water, 1 envelope unflavored gelatin, 3 Tbsp corn syrup, 4 cups bird seed, molds (I used cookie cutters), nonstick spray, straws, wax paper, ribbon or twine 

Step 1- Get a super cute helper. It helps if they are wearing Christmas pjs. Add the flour, water, gelatin, and corn syrup in a large bowl.

Step 2- Mix until well combined.

Step 3- Add bird seed.

Step 4- Mix until well combined. Apparently Peanut didn't think this looked too appetizing.

Step 5- Coat molds or cookie cutters with nonstick spray. I placed my cookie cutters on wax paper to help cut down on clean up.

Step 6- Fill each mold with bird seed, pressing the seed flat. Place a straw through the seed to create a hole for your ribbon. ***Note- this is STICKY!!! You will have bird seed all over your hands. You might want to spoon some into the mold and then place a piece of wax paper on top of it before you press the seed down with your hands.

Step 7- Let the ornaments harden in the molds for 2-3 hours. Carefully pop them out of the molds, remove the straws, and place face down onto wax paper to let the other side dry. At this point, I let them dry overnight.

Step 8- Attach ribbon or twine through your ornaments.

Step 9- Make sure you have some sunny days ahead and then hang your ornaments. From what I've read, these will dissolve in wet weather. Not a huge problem though- the little birdies can eat the seed off the ground!

Good thing Woodman was home to assist with the ornament hanging!

I love those faces!

It's always helpful to have a Lucky Pup as a supervisor.

By the time I got back inside from the ornament hanging and to the bay window, birds had already found our ornaments and were flitting about! I did notice that the birds had a harder time perching on the ornaments with longer ribbon loops. The ornament wasn't very stable and would shake around, scaring the bird. I probably would make smaller loops if I did this again. I also read how some people made larger holes and just threaded the tree branches through the holes to stabilize the ornament, skipping the ribbon step altogether. 

To my teacher friends- this is a super easy project you can do with your class! Doesn't take long at all....don't want to eat up that instructional time! ;)