A Little Something

Gingerbread

3/4 cup butter, melted or very soft

1 cup brown sugar

3 eggs

1 cup molasses

4 cups flour - I use half King Arthur White Whole Wheat, and half Unbleached

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons ginger

1 1/2 teaspoons cloves

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups hot water

Gingerbread just seems like a natural this time of year - warm and spicy, but not another overly sweet treat like cake or cookies.We make it often as it's so quick and easy and tasty, and seems like such good, wholesome simple food. If someone drops in unexpectedly for tea you can serve it in squares topped with whipped cream and call it dessert. But if you're wanting a hearty snack you can pair it with a slab of good cheddar and maybe some sliced apples or a dish of applesauce and you've got yourself some good eating.

It's very easy to stir together in one bowl (making it a great choice for a young person to whip up) or you can dump everything together and let your Kitchen Aid do the job if you prefer.

Butter a 9 x 13 baking pan (I use a glass one).  Preheat oven to 350.

Stir dry ingredients together in mixing bowl. Make a well in the center, then add your eggs, giving them a little beating there in the middle. Pour in the butter and molasses and start to stir things together, finally adding in the hot water as you go. Mix until blended, then pour into prepared pan. Bake for approximately 30-40 minutes or until cake tests done - knife plunged in the middle should come out clean. Cool a bit before serving, then cut into squares. Alternatively cut the cake down the center of the pan lengthwise, then cut crosswise into nice fat 'slices' about an inch thick or so for a rustic effect.

Homemade Chocolate Pudding Mix

 
 

We have been on quite a chocolate pudding kick lately. This was most likely brought on by the cooler weather which has us wanting something warm-and-chocolately as opposed to summer's longing for cold-and-chocolately (that would be ice cream).  In any case, I was making pudding so often I thought it made sense to make up a mix, making the preparation even faster and simpler. You can have a simple, homey, warm, chocolately, wholesome, all natural snack ready for your family in less than ten minutes (even faster than a quick chocolate cake) - what's not to love? Even the un-named doesn't-eat-things-that-shake person in my house gobbles up my chocolate pudding. And it's very handy to say to the family, "You clear the table and tidy things up and I'll make the pudding," and then you meet back at the table in fifteen minutes for pudding and reading aloud.

Homemade Chocolate Pudding Mix

1 pound box of corn starch

5 cups sugar

3 cups cocoa

I measure the ingredients into the bowl of my Kitchen Aid - I admit I based the recipe on using an entire box of corn starch to avoid having to measure it out, as the billowy stuff can be messy. Start with a very slow speed and mix until the ingredients are thoroughly combined and a uniform light cocoa color. I think the electric mixer is best for this, so you know everything is evenly mixed. Then I transfer the mix to a storage container. I keep a one cup measuring scooper in the jar for easy use.

To make pudding-

For a large family batch, measure approximately 2 1/3 cups of mix into a large pot (nonstick is nice). Stir in eight cups of whole milk and cook over medium high heat, stirring constantly. Cook until pudding begins to boil and is thickened - about 8 minutes or so. Stir in a tablespoon of vanilla. (Actually, I rarely remember the vanilla and I never measure.) Pour into serving bowls. This is how much we make for dessert for the nine of us (we like generous servings of pudding - not those little dainty dishes).

For a smaller batch, use about one cup of mix to three cups of milk.

Creamy Rice Pudding

Unlike my cinnamon raisin custardy baked rice pudding, this rice pudding is smooth and creamy. Without any extras it is also rather bland in the most pleasant vanilla sort of way, making it a good choice for the sick as well as a delicious simple dessert. This recipe is from my mother's friend Ann, who used to make it frequently as a treat for my father who loved it.

1 quart milk (I use whole)

1/2 cup rice (I use regular long grain white rice)

1/2 cup sugar

Combine milk, rice and sugar in a large pot. Cover and let simmer for 35 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.

 2 egg yolks 

2 cups half and half or cream

Whisk together yolks and half and half and slowly pour into rice mixture. Cook uncovered for an additional 20 minutes, stirring frequently. Stir in a spoonful of vanilla. Let cool slightly and ladle into pudding dishes. I usually make a double recipe which yields approximately 14 small servings. Serve warm or chilled.

Final Food

Treats to get a student through finals week. Made with peanut butter and other good stuff, they are tasty, nutritious, and protein rich.

'Those peanut butter things came in handy between tests this morning.'

'I ate some of those things and I'm still not hungry.'

'Those peanut butter things are really capital.' - resident college student

Peanut Butter Snacks

Adapted from a recipe from The New Laurel's Kitchen.

2 cups natural peanut butter (approximately) - we use our own home made

2/3 cup dry milk powder

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup ground flax seed

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup raisins

sesame seeds or coconut

Mix everything except the sesame seeds (or coconut) together. Line a nine inch square pan with a piece of wax paper twice as big as the pan and sprinkle it with the seeds or coconut. Press the peanut butter mixture into the pan on top of the seeds. Sprinkle the top with more seeds or coconut, wrap the wax paper over the top, and flatten it down with your hands. Put the pan in the refrigerator to chill. Lift out the treats on the wax paper and cut into bite size squares - a metal dough scraper works perfectly for this. Store in refrigerator.

Applesauce

We bought lots of extra apples at the farmer's market so I could make applesauce. Homemade applesauce is a most simple, delicious, warm, homey, nutritious snack - perfect for fall. Being a lover of quality kitchen gadgets and also of tasty homemade food, my dear husband granted my wish for a food mill. I am now the very happy owner of the Oxo Good Grips Food Mill which makes applesauce super easy.

Wash the apples and chop them with a handy dandy apple slicer - you don't need to peel or core the apples - I love that. Put about an inch of water in the bottom of a large pot and throw in all the apple pieces. Bring to a boil then lower the heat and simmer, covered, until apples are cooked through. Mine took about 40 minutes.

 

Then run the apples through the food mill. The Oxo lives up to its reputation of comfortable, easy to use kitchen gadgets. It takes a lot of turning to process the apples, but it's very fast and easy and the comfortable spinning rubber knob makes it a breeze.

 

Stir in a spoonful of cinnamon if you like.

 

We enjoyed our applesauce warm for lunch with cheese and crackers. My big stock pot of apples cooked down to about five quarts of applesauce, and by the end of the day it was all gone. I would like to make more and maybe freeze some for the winter - we'll have to see if the next batch 'evaporates' as fast as this one did. 

Delicious, Buttery, Homemade Caramels

To celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel we visited a Carmelite monastery for a special Mass, and we wanted to make some caramels to take to the nuns as a treat for their feast day. I got the recipe out of the same book as our taffy recipe. Summer is a fun time to experiment with candy making as we naturally have more free time for such frivolities. There is interesting information as well as practical candy making tips at this Science of Cooking site, including these directions for using the cold water test. After having some troubles with our candy thermometers we now use a combination of the thermometer and the cold water to test our candy.

1 pound brown sugar

3/4 cup butter

1 cup light corn syrup

1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk

2 teaspoons vanilla

chopped nuts are optional

Combine sugar, syrup, milk and butter in saucepan on medium heat. Stir until butter melts and mixture begins to boil. If you happen to scorch the bottom a little bit it's okay, just be careful not to stir up the burnt stuff.

 

Continue to cook without stirring until firm/hard ball stage - drop a spoonful of the candy into a cup of cold water. It should hold its shape when you fish it out of the water and taste chewy, like a caramel. :-)  The recipe says to cook to 255 degrees F, but they came out rather soft. We made a second batch for ourselves the next day and cooked it to about 275 degrees F and these were firmer. But do use the cold water test to be sure.

Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Pour into a buttered 9 inch square pan. Let cool some, and then refrigerate. As I said, our first batch was very soft and the second round was better, but both needed to be kept refrigerated to keep their shape. But it is summer!

Cut into squares - a pastry cutter works great.

 

I individually wrapped the ones we were giving away in waxed paper, and then put them in a tin and stored them in the refrigerator. The ones we kept we just left in the pan.

 

You could also use the caramel to make turtles - melt chocolate chips and form rounds on waxed paper, add pecan 'legs', let set and then add a dollop of caramel, and top with more chocolate. I think the caramel would also taste great if you cooked it less and used it for caramel syrup on ice cream.

The only trouble with making these delicious, all natural candies is that you might never want to go back to store bought candy again. :-)

Orange Cream Pops

 

These are the best creamsicles! So smooth and creamy and real vanilla orange flavor - yum yum.

8 ounces frozen orange juice concentrate

one 32 ounce carton vanilla yogurt

1 tablespoon vanilla

Blend all together - I like to use my stick blender. This makes enough for one set of groovy pops and one set of rockets. (I already blogged about how much we like these pop molds, and more pop recipes here.)

Beets and Taffy

 

Beets are a summertime favorite around here. They are easy to grow and aren't troubled by any major pests or diseases and they can be enjoyed for a long season, starting with the seedlings that are pulled to thin the row. Sliced and cooked and dressed with just a bit of butter they are a sweet treat that my whole family loves.

What do beets have to do with taffy? I hear you ask. It's become a bit of a family tradition to make taffy in the summertime using beets to color it a lovely pink. As we have strived to eliminate artificial foods from our diet I realized candy was one of the last strongholds. All-natural chocolate is easy enough to find and chocolate is all fine and good of course but I have this abiding weakness for chewy candy. So what to do when trying to avoid Swedish fish and gummy everything? We make taffy. Often (frequently).

Salt Water Taffy

1 cup sugar

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup water

3/4 cup light corn syrup

2 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

coloring, optional

Mix sugar and cornstarch in a saucepan. Add salted water to the sugar mix and then stir in syrup and butter. (I asked my dear daughters if it's necessary to dissolve the salt in the water first and they said that's what makes it salt water taffy!) Cook and stir continuously over low to medium heat until mixture boils. Then continue cooking without stirring until it reaches 265 degrees F.

Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and coloring if desired.

  

 Pour out onto a well buttered cookie sheet.

My girls tell me this is called the seal skin phase (if you make some you'll see what they mean).

 

Slosh it around with a rubber spatula until it's cool enough to handle.

 

Then the fun begins and you pull it with generously buttered hands.

To color it you just rub it with the cut edges of a raw beet until you reach the desired level of pinkness.

Your hands will get all beet stained and you can't help but practice your Lady Macbeth lines  - all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!  

Now, the experts tell me you must pull the taffy - stretching it out into long strands before wadding it up and pulling again.

If you just squish it around in your hands the consistency will be different - it will get squishy and sticky and be ruined! (Again, I'm just quoting my experienced confectioners.)

 

 It will start out pale and translucent and shimmery

 

and gradually loose its transparency

 

and end up evenly rosy hued and opaque when it's done.

 

Theoretically you are to cut it up into pieces and wrap it in wax paper but we have never ever wrapped up a piece of taffy. All that pink buttery vanilla goodness is just irresistible and it's all gone by the end of the day, but the fun memories of making candy together will last forever.

This recipe is from an old falling apart cookbook I have called How to Make Candy by Catherine Wagner but it is quite out of print. It has a number of 'old time' candy recipes in it. I'm sure there are nicer, more modern books on candy making but this happens to be the one I've had forever.

Cherry This and Cherry That

We picked lots and lots of sour cherries this year. In addition to seven cherry pies we also made some other things-

 

I came up with this recipe as I wanted a quick pie using what I had on hand and sans the usual cool whip/instant pudding type of ingredients. I assume it tasted good as it disappeared very fast. :-)

 Easy No-Bake Cherry Cheese Pie - Makes 2

2 graham cracker pie crusts (your favorite store-bought or homemade)

Cherry Topping:

4 cups sour cherries, pitted

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup corn starch (scant)

1/2 cup cold water

Cook cherries with sugar over medium heat until soft and juicy (like 5 or 10 minutes). Dissolve corn starch in cold water. Stir corn starch mixture into cherries and cook for a few more minutes until cloudiness is gone. Let cool.

Cheese Mixture:

3 packages cream cheese (8 ounces each)

1 cup sugar

1 pint sour cream

1 tablespoon vanilla

Beat cream cheese and sugar with electric mixer until smooth. Beat in vanilla and sour cream. Spread in bottom of crust. Cover with cherry topping. Chill for a few hours before serving.

 

Cherry Yogurt Pops

I just cooked up some cherries with a bit of sugar to taste, then pureed them with my stick blender adding in a tub of vanilla yogurt as described in my other post: Homemade Pops. A very refreshing way to eat your cherries.

 

Cherry Jam

We made a cooked cherry jam that didn't need any store bought pectin. It does take a bit of time as the pot needs to be attended constantly and I had to make sure no little people were anywhere nearby. But the results are delicious! I'm looking forward to using it in yeasted coffee cake braids and such and I think it would be excellent sandwiched between almond scented butter cookies.

Basically you cook your pitted cherries until soft, adding the juice and zest of a lemon or two. I didn't bother chopping the cherries but sort of smashed them with my big spoon as they cooked. Then measure the mixture and add 3/4 as much sugar as you have cherries (that's 3 cups sugar for every 4 cups cherries). Cook, stirring pretty constantly until mixture reaches 230 degrees F. (I think the required temperature varies according to your altitude, but I don't know any details about that. Can you tell I'm a novice jammer?) You can also test the mixture by dropping some onto a chilled plate and sticking it in the freezer for a few minutes - if it gels, holding its shape when you nudge it, it's done. The cherries also get darker red and loose their pink look as it gets near done. Ladle into clean jars, let cool, and store in refrigerator.

 

We had to try it right away so we tested it on vanilla ice cream - yum yum!

Homemade Pops

 

It's suddenly hot here, and that means it's pop season. I like to keep a supply of homemade pops in the freezer for cool and refreshing snacks. I like knowing my family is eating healthy, all natural treats and my family likes yummy pops. Last year we invested in nice pop molds and we have been very happy with them.

I've found that it's easiest to mix up the pops using a stick blender in a plastic pitcher - the hand blender is a lot easier to clean than my regular blender and the lip on the pitcher makes it very easy to pour into the pop molds without spilling. I keep various kinds of frozen fruit on hand - the large warehouse club bags are quite economical.

 

 Here are some of our favorite recipes:

Lemon Blueberry - one 12 ounce can of frozen lemonade concentrate, two cans of water, and two cups of frozen blueberries. These are a bit tart, which we really enjoy.

Strawberry Orange - same as above with orange juice concentrate and strawberries. Also good with bananas added if your family likes them.

Triple Berry - use white grape juice concentrate and triple berry blend (raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries)

Those recipes make enough for three sets of molds. I have two sets of rocket pops and one set of the'groovy', which are a bit larger and nice for the big folks.

Yogurt Pops - one 32 ounce carton of vanilla yogurt blended with two cups of frozen fruit (strawberries, blueberries, or mixed berries). This makes enough for one set of rockets and one set of groovy.

Another good combination we enjoy is pineapple orange - spoon canned crushed pineapple into the molds and top them off with orange juice.

You can get the pop molds at Amazon, and if you buy three sets you get a fourth set (or other item) free.