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Well, the apples cooked for 10 hours. I pureed them with my stick blender. After two more hours with the lid off, the apple butter has not yet reached a thick enough consistency. I am going to give it another half hour, and then I will put it into a covered container in the refrigerator. I can cook it down more tomorrow, then decide if I will can some of it.
On this Friday morning, I cut up the apples, mixed them with the spices and sugars, and started the crockpot for the apple butter recipe that Mike made, and to which he posted a link. I'm making a half recipe because I have a 3 1/2-qt. Montgomery Wards crockpot. I had planned to do it overnight, but I decided that I want to keep an eye on the crockpot, since the recipe may have been written with newer ones in mind.
When we shopped on Tuesday, the local grocery store had packages of large chunks of ham, so we bought one, and I used half of it tonight in black-eyed peas with mixed brown and red rice, celery, kale, dehydrated onion, and thyme. We have enough for two more meals. I froze the rest of the ham chunks for a future meal of either pea soup or lima beans.
I baked brownies using olive oil and Greek yogurt on Wednesday afternoon. It was my usual recipe, but this time I put it in a 12x7 glass baking dish instead of lining a metal 9x9 with parchment, so that I could cut them in the dish. It worked well, and I will do it again. Before baking, I added a mixture of red, green, and white sprinkles for a bit of Christmas spirit.
For dinner on Wednesday, I used the leftover pork and drippings for a stir-fry with farro, carrots, celery, the last red bell pepper from our garden, mushrooms, dehydrated onion, and thyme.
I made chicken salad for dinner on Tuesday, using the meat left over from a previous dinner. We had it on slices of the bread I baked last night, with microwaved fresh broccoli on the side.
Thanks for posting the proportions, Mike. I looked at the King Arthur bag, and yes, those are the ingredients. When I look at the mixture, the flax seed is so small, it is hard to see, which is why I missed it. I would probably use some flax meal instead, since humans cannot digest the seeds to reap the nutritional benefits.
Thanks, Mike. It should not be hard to replicate. I do not see flax seeds, so perhaps they were milled or cracked?
Navlys--Well, live and learn! You may need to find some mail order places for the special ingredients.
We were out of bread, so on Monday afternoon I baked a loaf of my adaptation of the Pompanoosuc Porridge Bread recipe from King Arthur. I bake it uncovered in the bottom of my Emile Henry long baker. I still have a supply of the Pompanoosuc porridge that King Arthur does not sell anymore, so I will keep baking this bread until I run out of the porridge.
Note: last night's cobbler warmed up nicely in individual dishes at 300F for ten minutes in the countertop convection oven. The recipe is definitely a keeper.
Welcome back, Joan! I'm glad you had a good time in Texas. Like you, however, I cannot imagine living in a place with so much traffic.
I made yogurt on Monday.
For dinner, I roasted another sweet potato cut into chunks. My husband pan-cooked some pork. We also had microwaved fresh broccoli.
Scott wants to go tomorrow to get our Christmas tree, so I rearranged what I had planned in the kitchen for Sunday, so I will not be behind. I made some modifications to my no-butter maple cookie recipe, and I was pleased to get a crunchier cookie that held the Nordic Ware snowflake stamp imprint well. My husband and I were also pleased with the taste. They were crunchier because I reduced the baking powder by half. I used avocado oil rather than canola, and I added 1 Tbs. milk powder. I think that I may have accidentally reduced the maple syrup from 3 Tbs. to 2 Tbs. My husband was talking to me while I was silently changing the recipe in my head. I will need to bake it again to check.
My second baking project was Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers from the dough I made early last week. My husband noted, as he sampled a few, that the cheese flavor is strongest when they are first baked but gradually mellows out.
My final project was the Sugar-Coated Apple Cobbler that was a "Bake of the Week," for King Arthur in October. I modified the recipe by replacing the butter with 1/3 cup canola oil, using white whole wheat flour, halving the salt, and adding 2 tsp. milk powder. I also halved the vanilla, since I am convinced that King Arthur uses it like it is not expensive in order to sell more. I also cut the sugar in the topping. I used about ¼ rather than ½ cup. I also left my Winsap apples unpeeled and cut them into pieces rather than slices, just as I do for pie. I baked it in a glass 8x8 dish, since I have found apples take the finish off of the USA pans. It needed the full 40 minutes to bake. We waited patiently for it to cool and settle for 30 minutes, and then we ate some for dessert. It is delicious, although I think the boiled cider overwhelms the apples. I will reduce the amount from 2 Tbs. to 1 Tbs. next time, and there will be a next time this season. The sweetness, with the sugar reduction, is just right. Half the amount on top still produced a wonderful crackly "crust."
We finished up the spaghetti sauce casserole (faux lasagna). We are now waiting patiently for the dessert to cool enough to eat. (I'll post more about it on the baking thread.)
Thanks, Navlys and Italian Cook for posting about your experiences with your slow cookers.
I was thinking that if I liked the apple butter recipe, maybe I would invest in a larger crockpot. Now I think that if I like the recipe, I will keep my eye out for a crockpot at a thrift store or a garage sale.
I roasted a bone-in chicken breast, that was marked down at the grocery this morning, for dinner on Saturday. It was enough for both of us, with enough left over for chicken salad sandwiches later. I also roasted sweet potato chunks separately in the countertop convection oven and microwaved frozen peas.
Note: It expires today, but Vitacost's 20% off can be stacked with another 15% off of BRM products.
We will have more of the spaghetti squash casserole for Friday dinner.
I brought in some seconds apples from the garage today. I want to make and can some apple butter, using the recipe to which Mike posted a link. My slow cooker (from Montgomery Wards, so it is old) is only 3 1/2-quarts, so I will make just a bit more than a half recipe. However, timing is such that I will need to wait to start it until late Saturday evening.
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