Canned Cherry Pie Filling

I meant to post this last month, when cherries were still on super-sale at the grocery store. But, if you happen to live someplace where cherries are still available or if you have a stock pile in your freezer, then give this recipe a try. I found it on Simple Bites, and it is quite delicious.

SPICED CHERRY PIE FILLING

4 cups cherries
3/4 cup sugar
3 Tbsp cornstarch*
1 cup water
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp allspice
2 Tbsp lemon juice

Prep your water bath canner and jars.

Wash and pit the cherries. (We discovered this was quite easy to do by hand if using previously-frozen cherries, as they are slightly mushy.) Blanch the cherries for a minute in a pot of boiling water. Drain and move cherries to a separate bowl.

In the pot, mix together water, sugar and cornstarch. Add the spices and heat over medium-high, until everything is dissolved and bubbly. Add the lemon juice.

Remove pot from heat and add cherries with their juice. Pour filling into prepared jars and process for 30-40 minutes.

We had 3 bags of cherries, which allowed us to triple this recipe... I think. It's been awhile so I can't remember all the details. Suffice to say, it gave us 4-5 pints plus about 10 4-oz jars to use in making campfire pies (I hate wasting most of a large can of cherry pie filling just for a few campfire pies).

My buddy Jamie helped with this canning, and she made some yummy cherry turnovers with this pie filling. Though she made her pastry from scratch, you could easily use frozen puff pastry to make a quick toaster-strudel-esque treat.

*The original recipe called for Clear Jel,** which is recommended by the USDA. Since I do not have Clear Jel, I simply used organic cornstarch.

**Clear Jel is a modified corn starch available online. It is supposed to remain more stable during the heating/canning process, but I want to do more research before I use it. In particular, I want to know if it uses GMO corn, which, given the preponderance of GMO corn in commercial foods these days, I suspect it does.

21st century menu planning

Juggling schedules for 2 small kiddos and 2 adults has inspired me to find ways to organize and streamline my tasks and projects. Top of that list: menu planning. Cooking from scratch takes a lot of time and preparation, and it's no longer easy for me to run to the store at the last minute because oh-my-goodness-I-forgot-the-feta-cheese. Several months ago, I got tired of standing in front of the pantry at 5 pm wondering what to do, so I tried menu planning with a white board on the fridge. That didn't last long. Recently, I've given it a second try...

...enter Pepperplate.

The husband and I decided to enter the 21st century a few weeks ago and bought ourselves a Kindle Fire. Actually, it was just so we could keep the little boy quiet for 2 hours on an airplane with back-to-back episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. But, I also took the opportunity to test out some organizational apps. Pepperplate is a menu planning app. And it's pretty much fabulous.

Start by building up your recipe list. On the Pepperplate website, you can import recipes from dozens of different sites just by copying and pasting the URL - they even have a quick-add button you can put on your browser's toolbar. I imported my entire recipe box from allrecipes in a matter of minutes. You can also enter recipes manually, if necessary.

Then, plan your meals for the week. I like to create "themed" nights to help narrow down the choices and to keep me from making too many curries night after night.

Simply add the recipes you've chosen to the shopping list, and you'll never forget some random ingredient again. (Although, if you're like me, you may forget to actually include it in the recipe when cooking.)

The website has more functionality than the app, but you can still do the bulk of your planning and list-making with the app. If you have a Kindle, which uses fixed wireless networks, make sure you synch your app BEFORE you leave for the grocery store.

I apologize if this whole post sounds like one big Pepperplate ad. There is more I wish it would do - for example, include prices on the grocery list, like the Out of Milk app. However, it has been extremely helpful in keeping me on track with the menu planning. 

And that planning, in general, has saved me time and money. It most certainly has saved my sanity in the evening - that witching hour when my toddler transforms into a more energetic version of Voldemort. It usually takes me about 30 minutes or less to plan dinners for the week, and I do it on the weekend so I can shop without the kids. If I have enough time, I may even go a little wild and drive through the coffee hut before shopping so I don't have to share my drink with anyone named Little Hyper Voldemort.

Do you menu plan? If so, what techniques have worked best for you?

the garden of small fruits (and veggies)

It is now officially summer in the desert, and an excessive heat warning is already in effect. Temperatures are supposed to be in the mid-110s the next few days. Once glance at my garden and you can tell. 

I debated whether or not to plant a spring/summer garden this year - what with a new baby and all - but ultimately decided to give it a go. Unfortunately, I have been unable to harvest much due to the ridiculous heat and a ridiculous influx of GREEDY BIRDS. Nearly all my grapes and most of my tomatoes have been ravaged by these nasty creatures. What remains is curiously small. (I presume this is due to lack of nutrients? Heat? Way too much sunlight?)

For example...

Small tomato:

Small watermelon:

Small carrot:    

(Ironically, the carrots I pulled for this photo op were much bigger than the others I've harvested.)

I'm thinking it's about time to tear it all down and let the garden sit until fall. Who wants to be outside weeding in this heat, anyway? 

little distraction

Sorry for the long delay in my posting. I've been a bit distracted the last couple months by this little human who is nuzzling my hair...

 

an easy dinner recipe

Due to the impending arrival of baby #2, I've been trying to find some quick and easy dinner recipes. Although, to be entirely honest, I don't much like cooking, so I'm always trying to find quick and easy recipes that still allow me to prep a meal from scratch. (From-scratch meals are healthier, in my opinion.)

We have enjoyed this meal a couple times, but I recently was struck again at just how easy it is to prepare, so I thought I'd share it with you...

Chicken and Dumplings

Ingredients:

1 lb boneless, skinless chicken (breasts, tenders, whatever is on sale or in your freezer)
1 can cream of chicken soup*
1 small onion, diced
1-2 each veggies, diced (carrots, celery, whatever you have on hand)
1-2 tsp each spices (cumin, parsley, poultry seasoning, pepper, whatever you have on hand)**
2 tbsp flour (optional - to thicken)

Instructions:

Throw everything in the slow cooker, cover with water*** and cook on high 5-6 hours.

It's just that easy.

*If you truly want to be fully "from scratch," you could make your own condensed soup. I use Pacific Foods organic condensed soups because they use recyclable aseptic containers (no BPA).
**I omitted salt because most condensed soups are loaded with it, but you may want to taste test when it's done.
***Or chicken broth, but - again - be conscious of the salt content.

And now for the best part: the biscuits. (Were you wondering what happened to the dumplings?)

You could certainly use refrigerated biscuit dough and add pieces of it to the slow cooker in the last half hour, but I prefer to avoid the trans fats that are often found in pre-made baked goods. I used to LOVE those Pillsbury frozen biscuits (booooooooo trans fats!). Once, I tried making my own biscuit dough and freezing the little circles, but they got icy pretty fast and just didn't taste right. Then, I came across this recipe on the Organic Valley website, and find it works much better...

Make-Ahead Buttermilk Mix

Ingredients:

1 cup Organic Valley Buttermilk Blend (dry buttermilk)
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour*
5 cups unbleached white flour
1/4 cup baking powder
1 tbsp baking soda
2 tsp salt

*I only had white pastry flour, so used it and then substituted 2 cups whole wheat flour for 2 of the white flour. It seems to work fine.

Instructions:

Mix all ingredients together until well combined and store in an airtight container.

Any time you want biscuits, just put 1 1/2 cups of this mix and 3 tbsp frozen butter in your food processor and pulse together. Slowly add 1/2 cup milk and pulse until the dough just comes together. Drop small balls of the dough onto a baking sheet and bake at 425 degrees for about 13-15 minutes.

It's just that easy.

For the purposes of this recipe, you could add your dough balls to the slow cooker for "real" dumplings, but I like to bake the biscuits separately so I have the option of either pouring the chicken stew over a biscuit OR smothering a fresh, warm biscuit with honey and butter and eating it alongside the chicken stew. I may even do both.

(I apologize for the lack of photos with this recipe, but we usually snarf down the contents before I remember my camera.)

homemade lip balm

If the homemade lotion seems like too big a project to tackle at the start, try this: lip balm. It's ridiculously easy and will probably only take you about 10 minutes. No mixing is required.

For lip balm, the hardest part will be finding containers. You can buy lip balm tins or tubes online or at some natural food stores, but I prefer to recycle used tubes. In fact, if you visit your dentist regularly, chances are you can get some for free. My dentist always hands out a tube of lip balm, so I just ask my hygienist for their least popular flavor. At our last visit, she gave me 6 tubes of what she called "the most disgusting smelling flavor ever": Banana Split. (It was pretty gross.) Then, just empty the tubes, remove any labels, wash and sterilize them, and save them in a baggie until you need them. This process is definitely easier if you have a bottle brush and one of those microwavable nipple/Binky sterilizing bags.

After some experimenting, this has become my favorite lip balm recipe...

Ingredients:

3 tsp sweet almond oil
1 1/2 tsp cocoa butter
1 1/2 tsp organic beeswax
3-4 drops peppermint or spearmint essential oil

Instructions:

Combine the oil, cocoa butter shavings, and beeswax pastilles in a Pyrex measuring cup.


Set the cup in a small cooking pot with 1-2 inches boiling water and heat, stirring occasionally, until the cocoa butter and wax melt. Turn off the heat, and add the essential oil.

Prepare 3 tins or tubes. If using tubes, make sure you screw the platform or little cup all the way to the bottom of the tube. (This will make sense if you examine an empty tube of lip balm.)


When the wax is fully melted, carefully pour the oil mixture into the empty tubes. (It's a bit tricky to do without spilling, so I couldn't take a photo as the oil was pouring.)


Try to fill each tube to the top. You may have a small amount of the oil mixture left over (in which case, I top up whatever tube of lip balm I'm currently using). Let the tubes sit, uncovered, to cool.


As they cool, the mixture will solidify. Cap the tubes and store them in your refrigerator until you need one.


I read once that our lips are the most absorbent part of our body. If this is true, then we should definitely avoid lip balms with unpronounceable chemicals in them. Even if it's not true, we're licking and eating off our lips all the time, and who would want to eat those products? For pennies a tube, you can make your own safe and effective lip balm. If you try it, let me know what you think.

homemade lotion

I had been meaning to try making my own body lotion for awhile, but when a friend decided to give up commercial lotions this year, we got together for a lotion-making party. It was surprisingly easy - and this recipe makes a surprisingly good lotion! We live in the desert, so dryness is an issue. I also have extremely sensitive, allergy-prone skin and I've always had trouble finding unscented, heavy-duty lotions that last all day. Well, it's not an issue anymore because this one is fantastic. It's like a light and fluffy body butter, but with all-natural, organic ingredients at a very reasonable price. If you can buy the ingredients on sale, then a large jar will only cost you a couple bucks.

And did I mention that it's all-natural and organic? I could go on and on about the dangerous chemicals in commercial lotions, but if you're considering making your own then you probably already know about them. Let me just say that it's especially important for infants and young children (primarily males) to avoid the phthalates found in most baby products today (lotions, shampoos, powders, etc). A recent study in Europe has found that lotions and sunscreens that contain phthalates will essentially demasculinize baby boys. It's pretty scary.

Here's a quick how-to, using my favorite lotion recipe from this great book...

Ingredients:

6 oz organic olive oil
2 oz organic coconut oil
1 oz (about 4 tbsp) organic beeswax (I prefer pastilles)
10-20 drops essential oil (optional, for fragrance)
1 cup water (distilled or filtered)

Have the following items ready:


A glass Pyrex measuring cup and a small cooking pot with about 2 inches of water in it.


A mixer (or a blender). I make my lotion in my parents' kitchen because they have this pretty little thing.


Another measuring cup with the 1 cup of filtered water in it. You will also want to have one more cup of water ready (in any non-metallic, heat-proof cup) for heating your mixer/blender (more on that in a minute).

Also make sure you have a container ready for your finished lotion. This recipe makes about 2 cups, so I just use a clean glass pint jar with a reusable lid.

Instructions:

Start heating up the water in your cooking pot. Pour olive oil into the Pyrex measuring cup until it reaches the 6 ounce line, like so:


Next, pour in the coconut oil until it reaches the 8 ounce line:


Add the beeswax:


Place the Pyrex dish into the cooking pot. As the water begins to boil and heat up, it will slowly melt the beeswax. Keep an eye on it and stir occasionally. It will take about 5 minutes to melt the pastilles (and probably longer if you use chunks). During the last couple minutes, put the two containers with filtered water into the microwave for 1-2 minutes.* (If you do not have a microwave - or are anti-microwave - just heat up all the water on the stovetop, then pour a cup of it out into a measuring cup and save the rest in the pot.)

*Note: The original recipe calls for using 1 cup tepid water. However, our first batch of lotion leached quite a bit of water. Upon further research, I discovered many people say that both the "oil phase" and the "water phase" need to be the same temperature during emulsification. Nuking the water for a minute or two helps quite a bit, but I'd like to get a candy thermometer and try making some lotion with both phases the exact same temperature to see how that works.


Once the wax is totally melted, turn off the heat and add the essential oil if you are using it. You may need to experiment a couple times to find the right amount of scent you prefer. I'm pretty sensitive to fragrances, so I only use about a dozen drops. Current favorite oil of choice = plumeria.


Once everything is heated, do the following as quickly as possible... Pour the extra cup of water into your blender or mixer and swish it around to heat up the bowl (so your wax doesn't solidify as soon as you pour it in). Empty out the water and pour in your oil/wax mixture. Turn on the mixer/blender and slowly add the 1 cup of heated filtered water.


The oil will start emulsifying (turning to cream) almost instantly.


Continue mixing until all of the water has been incorporated. You will have to stop a couple times and use a spoon to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Also make sure there is no water at the very bottom of the bowl. At some point during the mixing, I begin to doubt it will thicken sufficiently, and it always takes just a bit longer than I think it will. You don't want to overmix, but don't worry if it takes a few minutes to look right. You're shooting for this:


Pour the lotion into your container and gently stir to remove any pockets of air. Let the container cool on your counter before putting on the lid. As it cools, the lotion will thicken more.


Since the ingredients are natural, you should only keep this lotion at room temperature for 4-6 weeks. (I use up my jar in about a month.) You can also store it or any extra jars in the refrigerator for up to 6 months.

A note on cleaning: Be careful to wipe out all bowls and cups with rags or paper towels that are disposable, because you don't want to pour a bunch of wax down your drain.

I really enjoy this lotion as the original recipe is written, but you can vary it with different types of oils, additives, and scents. Sometimes I will add a touch of vitamin E for its benefits, and may start experimenting more. There's another recipe in the book for a cocoa butter lotion that is thicker and super-moisturizing - I usually make it at the same time (you don't need a mixer for it), and love it on my hands after gardening, on my feet at night, on the growing baby belly, and even on the under-eye area overnight.

Somebody asked me the other day if I enjoy making lotions. I had to admit that no, I don't really love the process. However, it's easy, it saves you money, and the peace of mind in knowing you're not slathering poisonous chemicals all over your (and your child's) body definitely make it worth it. Give it a try, and I bet you'll have a tough time going back to commercial lotions.