Going to a breakfast tomorrow, so I mixed this up and I'll be baking it in the morning before I leave (original from Cooks.com). I split it between two pans and plan to serve it with some Pear Honey:

STUFFED FRENCH TOAST
16 slices bread, cubed
2 (8 oz.) pkgs. cream cheese, cubed
12 eggs
2 c. milk
1/3 c. real maple syrup
1 tsp. vanilla
Cinnamon

Put half of bread on bottom of 9 x 13 inch pan; sprinkle with cinnamon, then all of cream cheese. Then put the rest of bread on top; sprinkle with cinnamon. Mix eggs, milk, syrup, and vanilla together. Pour over bread; cover and let set overnight. Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes or so.

This season's supplies...

Took a few pics today of what I did over the summer/fall. I'll work on posting some recipes sometime soon...

The bottom pic is mostly the jams and jellies that are earmarked for gift giving later this winter. Sorry about the lighting. This isn't everything, but it's most of the canning.

Soup Season

First, I was told that people couldn't comment on the blogs, so I've edited the comment settings. Hopefully that will fix the problem.

I had harvested a small head of cauliflower over the weekend (still have a few out there), so I opted for a curried cauliflower soup last night. The recipe was loosely based off the 'Simple Suppers' cookbook from the Moosewood (which I highly recommend if you don't already have it. It is a great cookbook for dinners you can throw together after work).

I sautéed up a couple of onions until translucent in a couple of T of olive oil, then I added 1.5 tsp of cumin, a tsp of salt and a 'thumb' of grated ginger and sautéed that for a few minutes. I added a quart of turkey stock (which I have finally run out of, about time to cook up another turkey) and brought that to a boil. I diced up a quart of canned tomatoes and added that along with their juice to the soup and heated that up to boiling again. Meanwhile I cut up the cauliflower into bit sized pieces (3-4 cups) and added that along with a 15 oz can of kidney beans. I cooked that for 5-10 minutes until the cauliflower was tender and then pureed 3 cups of the soup in the blender (carefully) and added it back in.

I served the soup with a dollop of peach chutney in the center and dinner rolls.

Dessert was a couple of apples baked at 400 for 15 minutes or so (until soft), that were topped with a mix of cinnamon and sugar.

Potato soup

So, work went late today and looking in the fridge all I saw was the oatmeal bread from this weekend, so I decided to try some potato soup. I started with a potato leek recipe, but I altered it to what I had on hand:

Ingredients -
3 Onions
2 Garlic Cloves
5 Potatoes, scrubbed and diced
1/8 cup Olive Oil
3/4 cup Milk
1/4 cup Heavy Cream
1 quart Turkey Stock (canned up last year)
1/4 teaspoon Celery salt
1/8 teaspoon Celery Seed

Sauté the diced onions and sliced garlic in the olive oil until transparent. Add stock, celery salt and celery seed, and the quartered potatoes. Simmer 20-25 minutes. Puree the mixture in a blender (carefully, hot stuff tends to explode in the blender, so start with small amounts and slowly add more). Return to the pan. Stir in the milk, and cream, reheating one minute if needed.

Serve w/ (oatmeal) bread w/ raspberry peach jam and chunks of smoked cheddar.

bread

I started the Oatmeal bread then mixed and baked the Applesauce bread while I was waiting for the Oatmeal bread at various stages. They made for a good combo time-wise.

Honey Oatmeal Bread - adapted from allrecipes.com
2 cups boiling water
1/2 cup oats
1/2 cup oatbran
1/2 cup honey
2 T olivo
2 tsp active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water (110 degrees F)
5 cups white flour (plus)

Combine boiling water, oats and oatbran, 1/2 cup honey, and olivo. Let stand until it cools to lukewarm.
In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
Pour the yeast mixture into the oat mixture. Add 2 cups of flour; mix well. Stir in 2 cups more flour, 1/3rd at a time, beating well after each addition. Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, adding additional flour as needed to prevent it from getting too sticky. Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 40 min.
Punch down the dough and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide into two equal pieces and form into loaves. Place the loaves into two greased 9x5 inch loaf pans. Cover the loaves with a damp cloth and let rise until doubled in volume, about 40 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Bake at 375 degrees F for about 30-40 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the bottom of the loaf sounds hollow when tapped. Remove loaves from pans.

Spiced applesauce bread - adapted from allrecipes.com
1 1/4 cups applesauce (this was canned last year)
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup olive oil
2 eggs
3 tablespoons milk
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease and flour a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
In a large bowl, combine the applesauce, sugar, oil, eggs and milk; whisk well. Sift in the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice; stir until smooth. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
Bake in preheated oven for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean.

End of season stuff

I finally pulled out the pressure canner to try and deal with some of the last of the stuff picked from the garden last week. I altered the 'stew veggies' recipe from the ball book to use what I had: potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, tomatillos, peppers, a few late season peas, celery, onions, and a couple of cloves of garlic. Basically you just throw 24 cups of veggies in a pot with 3 quarts of water (or stock), add some salt (2T), pepper (1T), and I added some basil to complement the added tomatoes. Boil it for 5 minutes, fill 6.5 quarts of ball jars, cover w/ lids and rings and, put it all in the pressure canner with 2 quarts of water. Close up the canner and bring it to a boil. Let steam vent for 10 minutes then put on the pressure control (10 lbs) and heat it up until it seals itself and the control starts jiggling. Reduce the heat slowly until it only jiggles 3-4 times a minute and let it process like that for 40 minutes. Let it cool for a good 45 minutes to an hour before removing the control or opening the canner.

I'm thinking some veggie pot pie may be in order (thicken up the liquid with some corn starch then throw the rest in and put it all in a pastry shell) later this winter.

I threw a bunch of beans in the dehydrator to finish drying before I shell them and I still have a big bowl of tomatillos to deal with. I'll have to see if I can find that roasted tomatillo salsa recipe I used last year.

I'm thinking some bread is in order for this rainy afternoon, maybe a loaf of oatbran and a loaf of apple sauce bread. We'll see...

Intro post

I've been growing, canning and preserving most of my life (starting in my parents garden and kitchen), and for the past number of years I've been making enough jam and jelly to feed an army (mostly designated to become gifts). A couple of friends suggested that I start a blog to share some of what I do, especially recipes and techniques, so here we go...

I figure over the winter months I can try to catch up on posting some of the jam and jelly successes from this year. The only recipe I have readily accessible today is ginger peach, which is one of my favorites:

The original recipe here is from Gourmet Preserves by Madelaine Bullwinkel, but I've changed it a bit:

3 lbs peaches (I usually use `seconds' for jam)

~ 1/3 c fresh/frozen ginger, peeled and chopped

1 T lemon juice

1/3 c water

2 c sugar

optional 1/4 tsp citric acid (to prevent discoloration)

optional 1/4 c homemade pectin (boiled, strained, and canned quince or apple from last year)

Drop peaches into boiling water for 30 sec to 1 min, then drop them into ice water. Peel, halve, and remove the pits. Chop them up. Combine peaches, ginger, lemon juice and water in a pot. Cover, bring to a boil, then simmer for 10 minutes uncovered. Add sugar 1/2 c at a time, bringing back to a boil after each addition. Add pectin and citric acid if you wish. Simmer, stirring frequently, until the jam thickens and liquids clear. Keep a cover handy as it may splatter near the end. Basically cook it down until it's thick enough (it won't really fully jell, but it doesn't really need to) around 15 - 20 min? Fill hot clean jars, leaving 1/4" headspace. Wipe clean, attach lids and rings, then seal in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Today was the first real frost of the season, and pretty much the beginning of the end of the growing season here. I spent a good chunk of yesterday starting to clean out my community garden plot. I still have some work to do, but I made some decent progress. Finally dug my potatoes, picked a bunch of tomatillos, a few pepper, some late season peas, a few carrots, some celery, and lots of edamame. I even managed to get a few late season tomatoes from this year's devastated tomato crop.

Now I just need to get going in the kitchen. I'm thinking a big pot of veggie stew (enough to fill the canner) would be a good thing, but I don't think I'm going to get to it until mid-week, unless the grading process magically speeds up.

Fall crops are still going: cabbage, chinese cabbage, cauliflower, a few broccoli plants, and some brussels sprouts that don't look like they are going to do anything. I'm overwintering bunching onions again this year and I plan to plant garlic soon. I'm hoping to get a good layer of mulch down before it snows, but we'll see.