Making Apple Butter, or My House Smells Like What I Imagine Heaven Will Smell Like

It's autumn and here in the North Georgia area, that means it is apple season! I always enjoy heading up to the North Georgia mountains in mid October to visit Burt's Pumpkin Farm, peep at some pretty leaves (the last two years we have done this by hiking at Amicalola Falls with Peanut), and hit up the apple house. This year I haven't been able to do any of these things. At the tail end of a family vacation to Disney World in mid-September, and I mean literally the tail end of the vacation because we had already checked out of our hotel and were about to head home, I slipped, fell, and broke my right ankle. I could have gotten a shirt, but no, I decided to go all out and get myself a trip to two of Orlando's hospitals for a couple of extra nights, two ambulance rides, emergency-ish surgery, and a pin and a couple of bolts in my leg. Next time I'll just get the shirt. It has taken me about a month to actually start to feel like a normal person. I'm hobbling around in an Aircast boot now, but still have to rely heavily on people to drive me around anywhere. ***fingers crossed the doctor will clear me to drive at my next appointment*** So, there have been no trips up to the North GA mountains to do all my fall activities that I look forward to every year. 

Last week, my mom was coming up to take me to one of my physical therapy appointments. Because the appointment was later in the day, I asked her to drive me up to one of the apple houses along Hwy 575, almost to Ellijay. I was able to see some pretty leaves, get some apples for baking, and some fried apple pies. Yummo! I had it in my mind to make apple butter. I've always loved apple butter but it's usually so darn expensive to buy at the store. I looked around on Pinterest to find the easiest and cheapest apple butter recipe and this is what I've come up with. It has received the Peanut stamp of approval, so it's a keeper. The first time I used this recipe, it ended up only making four half pint jars of apple butter. I just finished a second batch using the same recipe and got six half pint jars. Not quite sure of the difference....maybe I didn't let the apple butter cook down long enough. Oh well, it's still delicious! 

I started out by cleaning all my jars, lids, and rings so that I could can my apple butter once it was finished. I'm sure you could freeze apple butter, since you can freeze apple sauce...but you might want to research that first.

Gather up 6 lbs. of apples. From everything I read, it really doesn't matter what type of apple you use. I ended up using Golden Delicious. Because they are sweeter to start with, you don't have to add as much sugar later on!

Peel, core, and slice your apples. You can do this any way you like. My mom bought me one of these handy, dandy, apple peeler, corer, slicer thing and IT. IS. WORTH. THE. COST. I was able to prep the apples in about 10 minutes, once I figured out how the contraption worked. 

Apple peeler, corer, slicer thing in action. It makes Slinky Apples!!!

Fill your crock pot full of your apple slices. I have either a 4 or 5 qt. crock pot. You want the apples all the way up to the top because they will cook down a lot. In a bowl, mix up 1-2 cups of sugar (I only used one), a tsp. of cinnamon, a 1/4 tsp. of salt, and a 1/4 tsp. of ground cloves. I only had whole cloves, so I used my mortar and pestle to ground up the whole cloves. 

Pour the sugar mixture over the top of the apples. Cover and cook on high for about an hour. Give the apples a good stir, turn the crock pot down on low, put the lid back on slightly ajar, and then go to bed! Let it cook overnight (at least 8 hours). Leaving the lid ajar will help some of the liquid to evaporate and will help to thicken the apple butter. 

 The next morning, stir and mash your apples up. I ended up running mine through the food processor to get them to the right consistency. At this point, I canned my apple butter. I used my water bath canner, filled hot jars (leave 1/4" headspace), removed air bubbles, wiped the rims clean, and then processed the jars for 10 minutes. ***Check your altitude for processing times

While the cans were processing, I had to have a taste test of some extra apple butter that wouldn't fill a whole jar. It was so much better tasting than mass produced, store bought apple butter! 

Two batches of apple butter all ready to be eaten!!!

Apple Butter Recipe

Ingredients

• 6 lbs. apples
• 1-2 cups of sugar (to taste)
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. ground cloves

Procedure

1. Peel, core, and slice apples. Put into your crock pot.
2. In a bowl, mix together sugar, cinnamon, salt, and cloves. Pour over the top of the apples.
3. Cover and cook on high for one hour. 
4. Stir apples, reduce heat to low, and put lid back onto crock pot, slightly ajar.
5. Cook overnight, for at least 8 hours.
6. Mash your apples up into an apple butter consistency. You can let your apple butter cook longer now until it has reached your preference of consistency.
7. Following standard canning procedures, can your apple butter. Leave 1/4" headspace. Processing times are dependent on size of jars and the altitude of where you live. 

Enjoy!!!

Rosemary Honey Butter

While on vacation in Panama City Beach a few weeks ago, our family ventured over to the St. Andrews Peninsula area to spend a day at the beach. After a full day of fun in the sun, we had dinner at a place called Joe Mama's Pizza (mainly because we thought the name was funny). We ended up having some amazing wood fired pizza; but, I fell in love with the rosemary honey butter that they served with warm bread as an appetizer. I had been dabbling in making my own butter at home and immediately decided to try to recreate this flavored butter once we got home.

Making your own butter is not hard. All you need is heavy whipping cream and a container with a lid (you could use a stand mixer but there's something fun about shaking it up in the container). Your kids could even do it. Rule of thumb- the bigger the container, the more cream you need, the longer it takes. If you are having a kid help make butter, give them a smaller container. Mason jars are perfect for this. I use a pint jar, but if Peanut was helping me, I'd pour some cream into two half-pint jars for he and I to shake. ***Side note- I'm picturing having Peanut make some butter as a way to calm down when frustrated. Are you mad at Mommy? Take it out on this jar of cream!!!***

Gather your cream and jar. Better cream= better butter. All I have access to right now is Kroger cream; however, the butter made from this still tastes pretty darn amazing! Start out by pouring some cream into your container (about half full...or half empty if you are a pessimist) and putting the lid on. I let the cream sit out for 10-15 minutes to warm up a bit. Butter forms when the cream is about 50-55 degrees F. You can do this straight out of the fridge, but just know that you'll be shaking your jar for a lot longer while the cream warms up. Then, start shaking! Turn on the T.V., talk on the phone, or turn on the music and have a dance party to keep you entertained while shaking your cream. You are going to shake, and shake, and shake, and shake....until you have butter! Here's what will happen- you will start shaking your cream and you'll be able to hear the liquid sloshing around inside. As you keep shaking, the cream is going to get really thick and you won't be able to hear the sloshing any more....KEEP SHAKING. Trust me. You'll feel really silly because you are going to think nothing is happening. KEEP SHAKING. Just when you think your arms are going to fall off, all of the sudden the cream will pull away from the sides of your jar and you'll hear sloshing again. That means you are done! This will take anywhere from 15-30 minutes depending on how warm your cream was and how much you used.

After 8 minutes of shaking....very thick and not a lot of sloshing. KEEP SHAKING!

15 minutes later- BUTTER!!!

Once you hear the liquid sloshing around in your jar, dump your jar into a strainer and separate the liquid (which is now buttermilk) from the butter. Rinse your butter under cold water to removed excess buttermilk and then pat dry with a towel.

From here, you can add a bit of salt if you like salted butter and then form into whatever shape you want. The first few times I just put it in a plastic container. Put it into the fridge to harden and enjoy!

If you would like to flavor your butter, put it into a bowl and mix in your ingredients. For my rosemary honey butter, I went out to our trusty rosemary plant and picked off a few sprigs.

Rosy the rosemary plant

I then had to run back to my bathroom to get my raw, unprocessed, local honey. Why is my honey in the bathroom you ask? For face wash, of course!

I chopped up my rosemary and added it to the butter (it ended up being about 1/2 Tbsp.) and then added 1 Tbsp of honey (after tasting the butter the next morning, the honey flavor wasn't super strong, so I'll probably throw in 2 Tbsp of honey next time). Mix everyone up.

Put your butter into a plastic container and put into the fridge to harden. I put mine on a piece of wax paper, rolled it up, and then twisted the ends like a peppermint candy before putting into the fridge.

You can use the butter immediately, but if you let the flavors meld a bit, it tastes way better! 

The butter will need to be eaten within a week or so due to the fact there aren't any extra preservatives in it. My family has found that it isn't too hard to do! Enjoy!

Breakfast Casseroles Bites

My baby starts Kindergarten tomorrow. He is so flipping excited. Me, not so much. It isn't because I don't want him to go to school. Trust me, this last week has gone by so slow. He and I definitely need a regularly scheduled break from each other after two months of almost solid one-on-one time. I hope this doesn't make me a bad parent, nor do I want it to come off that I don't love him. Momma just needs some quiet time. But I digress...back to why I am not excited about school starting back up. I am not a morning person. It takes me a while to get going in the morning. I'm the person who will set four different alarms on my phone, only to snooze all of them and wake up with 15 minutes to get ready to go. Not being a morning person makes getting a kid up, dressed, fed, and to school somewhat difficult. Peanut's breakfasts last year for PreK consisted of either frozen waffles, cinnamon toast (or toast with jam), cereal, or an apple sauce pouch with a granola bar. I didn't win any parent of the year awards with that carb heavy breakfast menu. This year I'm going to try to be a little better on the breakfast end. I'm sure we will still be rushing around like a chicken with its head cut off, but Peanut will not be eating frozen waffles five days in a row. He and I brainstormed a list of five different breakfasts and before bedtime, he will choose which one he wants the following morning. No breakfast will be repeated until he has had all five choices. One of the breakfast ideas he came up with was Breakfast Casserole Bites (he calls them egg cups). We were introduced to these babies about two years ago when a friend brought a big frozen batch of them on vacation. They are pretty easy to assemble ahead of time and freeze beautifully. Pop them in the microwave and voila! Yummy breakfast goodness. If you make these, I really recommend buying silicone muffin liners. They cut down on cleanup and help keep the "bites" separated when freezing. Just don't forget to take them off before microwaving!!!

Breakfast Casserole Bites

Makes 12 (I always double the recipe)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Ingredients-

• two pieces of sandwich bread (I usually fish out the butt pieces of the loaf to use for this)
• 8 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 4 oz grated sharp cheddar cheese
• 1/2 lb cooked, drained, and crumbled bacon or sausage

Step 1- Place liners in muffin pan. I'm sure you could grease the cups and forgo the liners, but I've never made them this way.

Step 2- Cut up bread into 1/2" pieces and distribute evenly throughout the muffin pan.

Obviously, I doubled the recipe.

Step 3- Sprinkle an even amount of meat into each cup.

Mmmmm...sausage.

Step 4- Whisk together the eggs and milk.

 Step 5- Evenly distribute the egg mixture into the cups.

Step 6- Add an even-ish amount of cheese to each cup.

Step 7- Bake 15-20 minutes in a 350 degree oven until eggs are set and cheese is bubbling.

Step 8- If freezing, let cool, remove from pan, and store in a freezer safe container. Separate layers with wax paper. 

Once frozen, pop one into the microwave (remove liner and put on a microwave safe plate) for one and a half minutes. Then.....enjoy!!! Each "bite" is roughly 175 calories, depending on  the quality of your ingredients.

Hopping John

My mouth is watering just thinking about this blog post. I'm not sure the entire history of Hopping John, or what it is traditionally in the dish, but I'm sure you can Google it. I do know it is usually a southern dish made of black eyed peas. I would equate it to a black eyed pea stew. I usually serve it for our New Year's Day dinner (you know...the whole black eyed peas on New Year's bringing you good luck and all...). But then, I also have started throwing it into a monthly dinner rotation because it is that good. Bonus points, Peanut loves it and requests it often. He thinks it gives him extra jumping powers. Honestly, the only special powers it does give him comes from the gaseous emissions from his rear end!

Hopping John Recipe***

***I found this recipe on Pinterest, but once we made it and loved it, I wrote it down in my recipe book and deleted the pin. Since then, I can't find where I got the original recipe. If you happen upon it, let me know and I'll give that person credit for this delicious meal!

Ingredients:

• 1 lb package of black eyed peas, soaked overnight
• 3 large sausages (casings removed)
• 4 slices of cooked bacon (chopped into smallish pieces)
• 1/2 cup red onion (chopped)
• 2 tsp. minced garlic
• 1/2 cup diced celery
• 1/2 cup diced carrots
• 1/2 cup diced bell pepper
• 4-6 cubes bouillon (I usually use 6 beef cubes)
• 6 cups hot water
• 3/4 tsp. cumin
• salt to taste (after cooked)

Directions:

1) Plug in and turn on a standard sized crock pot (4-6qts??) and turn on (low for 7 hours or high for 4 hours). Add the water and bouillon cubes. Let the cubes dissolve while you are prepping all the other ingredients.

2) Drain your black eyed peas and put them into the crock pot.

2) Chop and saute the onion, garlic, bell pepper, carrots, and celery for 5 minutes or until tender. Add sauteed veggies to the crock pot.

Love all the colors. PS- this smells WONDERFUL!

3) Using the same pan that you cooked your veggies in, cook and crumble the sausage. Drain and add to the crock pot. 

4) If your bacon hasn't been precooked, cook it, set onto paper towels to drain, chop up, and throw into the crock pot. (I don't have a picture of this because I had cooked the bacon the night before).

5) Add the cumin to the crock pot. Stir everybody up, put lid on, and cook on low for 7 hours or high for 4 hours. Serve over rice and with cornbread.

Into the pot everyone goes....

OM NOM NOM!

Try to keep your family from eating this all in one sitting, because as good as it is the day of, it's even better as left overs!!!

Enjoy!

Strawberry Balsamic Jam

It's the tail end of strawberry season here in GA. Our little family spent last Saturday morning picking two and a half gallons at an orchard about an hour from us in Blue Ridge. It cost the three of us $48 to do so, which seems like a lot at first. When you factor in that you get a tractor tour of the orchard, two and a half gallons of perfect strawberries (because why would you pick bad ones?), and all the strawberries you can eat while picking...it's actually a pretty good deal. The Woodman and I figured that the same amount of strawberries purchased from the grocery store would cost $60-100; and you would have to throw a good portion of them out due to spoilage. By the time I was able to clean and hull all the strawberries (24 hours after picking), I only had to throw out two berries from the entire bunch!  Plus, have you even eaten a strawberry freshly picked and warmed by the sun? If not, you are missing out on one of life's greatest pleasures. Five year old Peanut ate more than he picked and went around the whole time telling the Woodman and I how fresh the berries tasted. :)

Waiting for the tractor ride. Do you like my hat?

Om nom nom!!!!

 We have picked our own strawberries every year for the last several years now. About half of our haul is always earmarked to make strawberry jam. I play around with the rest...last year I made strawberry lemonade concentrate (yum!!!). This year I'm going to: make strawberry lemonade muffins, freeze pureed strawberries for homemade strawberry ice cream, and freeze solid berries for the Woodman to make smoothies. For the purpose of this blog post, I'm going to focus on the jam. The recipe for the jam comes from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. It is literally the very first recipe in the book, so it must be good!

The day that I wash and hull the strawberries, I take a square baking dish and place the strawberries in it in a single layer. I then use a potato masher and crush them up. I transfer the crushed berries into a ziploc baggie, stopping once I've gotten five cups of crushed berries. I then put the baggie into the refrigerator until the day I make my jam. This also freezes beautifully if you want to make the jam later on in the year. Some basic canning knowledge and equipment is required to make this recipe. If you don't know how to can, it's pretty easy once you get the hang of it. I taught myself how to can things by researching it on the internet.

Strawberry Balsamic Jam

Ingredients-

***Makes about eight 8-ounce jars****

• 7 cups of granulated sugar
• 5 cups crushed strawberries
• 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
• 3 Tbsp. good quality balsamic vinegar
• 1 package (1.75 oz/49 to 57g) regular powdered fruit pectin
• 8 (8oz) Ball mason jars, lids, and screw bands

Step 1- Clean your jars, lids, and screw bands. Sterilize jars in hot water canner and heat the lids while preparing the jam.

Step 2- Measure the sugar ahead of time and set aside. Sugar needs to be added all at once.

That's a lot of sugar!

Step 3- Add crushed strawberries to a large, deep stainless steel sauce pan.

Step 4- Add lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, and fruit pectin. Whisk until pectin is dissolved. Bring to a full rolling boil over high heat, stirring frequently. (Optional- Add up to 1/2 tsp of butter during cooking to help cut back on the foam produced during the cooking of fruit. This will make step 6 a lot easier)

Step 5- Add sugar all at once and stir continuously until the mixture returns to a full rolling boil that cannot be stirred down. Then, boil hard while continuing to stir constantly for a full minute.

Step 6- Remove from heat. Use a slotted metal spoon to skim of foam produced during the cooking of the fruit.

Before skimming off the foam

After skimming off the foam

Step 7- Remove a clean, sterile, hot jar from the water canner. Do not dry jar. Using a canning funnel and a ladle, add hot jam to the jar, leaving a 1/4 in headspace. Wipe rim and threads of jar with a damp cloth or towel to remove any food residue, put on a hot lid, and screw on a band until fingertip tight. Do not over tighten!

Step 8- Return jar to canner, and repeat with the rest of the jars. 

Step 9- Put the lid on the canner and wait until the water gets to a full rolling boil over high heat. Once it begins boiling hard, start your processing time. Here in GA the processing time is 10 minutes. The altitude where you live changes the processing time, so do a little research on the internet to check your altitude and see how it affects processing time. Once the jars finish processing, remove the canner from heat, remove the lid, and let the jars sit in the canner for 5 minutes. Remove the jars from the canner, sit them upright on a towel in a draft-free place, cover them up with another towel, and let cool, undisturbed, for 24 hours. 

Step 10- After 24 hours, remove screw bands and check lids to make sure they all properly sealed. If they didn't seal, they must be refrigerated at this point or reprocessed (after adding a new, hot lid). Rinse and dry screw bands. Loosely reapply lids, if desired, label your jars, and store in a cool, dry, dark place. Try not to eat a whole jar in one sitting!!!

Happy jamming! :)

Resurrection Rolls

I didn't grow up with a very formal religious background. As we grew up, we would go to church on Easter and Christmas. I stumbled my way to salvation on a Disciple Now weekend when I was in high school. Even after that, I still didn't attend church on a regular basis. I would go through times where I would go regularly and then would move just far enough away so that it wasn't convenient to continue to attend the church we liked. While not going to church, I do worship in my own way. I talk to God regularly and marvel at His work in my life. I feel like being out in nature is a great way to celebrate God's work.

As Peanut has gotten older, I felt like I wanted him to have more knowledge of God than I had at his age. We started back in December, when we followed a Bible reading advent leading up to Christmas. I loved his enthusiasm for learning about the birth of Jesus! Peanut received a kid's devotional book at Christmas that we try to read each night. 

While some of the devotions are a bit over his head, we still get to talk daily about God and read from Peanut's Bible. And as a bonus for the Woodman and I, the daily passages seem to be just perfect for situations we have going on in our lives as well. 

As Easter approached, I began looking through Pinterest to see what ideas they had for teaching children about the Resurrection. I wanted Peanut to know the real reason for Easter, not that it was about the Easter Bunny and candy. I came across many different posts for Resurrection cookies and rolls. I decided to do the rolls because it'd also solve my problem of what to eat for breakfast Easter morning! Starting on Good Friday, I laid the groundwork for Easter by reading about the crucifixion from Matthew 27:11-55. Peanut and I talked about how Jesus said he would tear down the Church of God and rebuild it in three days. We then counted and Peanut discovered that the third day was Easter Sunday. Easter morning, Peanut and I read from Matthew 27:57-66, which described how Jesus' body was prepared for burial. We then made our Resurrection Rolls.

Resurrection Rolls

Ingredients- a can of crescent rolls, 8 large marshmallows, 2 Tbsp melted butter, and 1/4 cup cinnamon sugar (make your own by mixing 1/4 cup sugar with 1 tsp. cinnamon), and a Bible 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cover a shallow cookie sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil for easy clean up. 

Unroll the crescent rolls. Take one and flatten out the wider end a little more. 

*The crescent roll represents the cloth used to wrap Jesus' body.*

Give your child a large marshmallow. 

*The marshmallow symbolizes Jesus' body. Peanut and I talked about how it was white and that white is used to show His purity.*

Roll the marshmallow around in the melted butter.

*This represents the embalming oils.*

Roll the marshmallow in the cinnamon sugar.

*This represents the spices used to anoint Jesus' body.*

Tightly wrap the marshmallow up in the crescent roll and seal up the sides.

*This represents the wrapping of the body.*

He was super excited to seal the tomb. Hence the action shot.

Repeat with the rest of the crescent rolls and marshmallows. Put onto cookie sheet and put into oven for 10-12 minutes. Warning- marshmallows will probably ooze out the sides, hence the need for parchment paper or aluminum foil. 

*The oven represents the tomb and the cooking time represents the three days.*

While the rolls were cooking, Peanut and I read Matthew 28:1-10, which tells of finding the tomb empty on the third day.

After the rolls finished cooking, allow the rolls to cool slightly. When the rolls were cooking, the marshmallow melts. When your child breaks open their crescent roll, they will find an empty spot where the marshmallow was.

Peanut was amazed to find his roll empty! His reaction- "Where did Jesus' body go?!?!" He has Risen!!