Happy "Pi" Day!

Yeah, I know, it's corny.  Kind of clever, but definitely corny.  It's "Pi" Day!  ...Because it's 3/14 today, (3.14).  You know, Pi, the Greek letter, the mathematical constant, 3.141592654...

So, in honor of Pi Day, or maybe it's just an excuse to eat yummy food, I made Pizza Pie for dinner!

Mmmmmmm, pizza....

Cooked to perfection!

 And, while the rest of the world cleverly celebrated with actual pie...I made Apple Turnovers! :)  Yeah, I don't like pie crust very much, but flaky, puff pastry dough?  Mmmmmm...

Did I mention the filling is homemade, canned fresh last Fall?

And the frosting?  Nope - this didn't come from any can!!
You know you're jealous!  :) 

So, corny as it may be, I'll take the excuse for this yummy dinner and treat anytime!

Totally Apple-sauced

Samantha and I trekked over to Wenatchee for the day so Samantha could play with friends and so I could spend the day with a friend making applesauce...all day.  My friend, Sarah, got a really good price on some apples and it's so much more fun to make/can applesauce together, we just made a day of it.

It was a beautiful drive to Wenatchee!

We started with about 200 pounds of apples - yep, 200 pounds.  AND I still brought home another 20 pounds of apples that we didn't can. 

We had apples coming out our ears!

 

See what I mean?  Still ended up taking some apples home!

So, after lots of chopping and cooking and squishing and pouring - we came out with these beautiful jars of applesauce. 

Just a portion of our haul!

We then turned our attention to apple pie filling.  I had never canned apple pie filling before.  I've frozen apple pie filling, but canning is a little different.  It requires the use of this stuff called "Clear Gel" in order to get the right consistency and preserve it properly.  We set to work slicing the apples and immediately getting them in some treated water to keep them from browning.   At the same time, we were boiling water to cook the apple slices in preparation for the cinnamon-y goodness we would immerse them in to can them. 

Now to the Clear Gel - this stuff did not start out as our friend!!  We were advised to add it a little at a time and whisk the heck out of it to keep it smooth.  Well, my whisking needs some work but Sarah, a master, was whisking like crazy and...still lumpy!  Ugh!  So, we removed some of the bigger chunks and smoothed it out as much as we can (doesn't impact the taste - don't worry, we tested).  The next batch, hmm, let's try a gravy shaker and mix the water and Clear Gel together.  WRONG!  Clear Gel expands with liquid so two shakes in and we had a huge lump of gel in the shaker.  Ugh!!  Whisk, whisk, whisk - fix that batch.  Still tasted great.  On to the last batch - hmm, why don't we mix the clear gel with all of the other dry ingredients (sugar, cinnamon, etc.) in a big gallon-sized bag and then add that mixture slowly to the liquid (water, apple juice, etc.) while whisking.  VOILA!  We've attained perfection in our apple pie filling.  No lumps, great taste, and so pretty!

So pretty!  Yummy too, but so pretty!!

Our plan was to get this all done during the day and Samantha and I would leave around 7pm to get home by 9:30pm.  Yeah, Sarah and I didn't finish our canning adventures until 3am.  By that time, I was so tired and Samantha had been fast asleep for hours.  So I curled up for a bit as well.  Then it was up again at 6:30am to get home by 10am for a rehearsal at my house.  Well, I made it home in time, but was exhausted the entire next day.  In fact, I don't remember a lot of that day other that it was full of lots of Diet Dr. Pepper in an effort to keep me awake!

Thank you, Sarah!  Canning alone just isn't the same!  I'd trek over to Wenatchee to can with you any day! ;)

Peaches and Pears

I have to say, I'm not the biggest fan of canning in general, but I LOVE the product of all of my hard work!  This year, so far, I've canned 75 lbs. of peaches and 50 lbs. of pears.  I have more pears downstairs at the moment and hope to still get more yet, as well as can some applesauce and pear sauce!

So, clean the kitchen, clean the jars, clean the fruit, peel the fruit, core/pit the fruit, slice the fruit, add sugar and water, clean the tops, add the lids, process the fruit, anxiously await for the lids to "pop" indicating a seal, clean the sticky off of the processed jars, make room and store the jars, AND clean the kitchen again!!  Why go through all of this? 

Well, it's so I can turn this:

Into this:

 

Aren't they beautiful!

 

Yep, it's a lot of work, but the end result is so worth it!

Pizza Time!

For dinner tonight, I decided to make pizza.  While Samantha is a little young yet to help out in the kitchen, she loves to watch me cook, so I decided to get her involved!

Samantha helped make the crust this time.  She watched as I gathered all of the ingredients and got them in the mixer.  Then, from time to time, I would stop the mixer and let her smell and feel the dough.  We talked about sticky, dry, the smell of the yeast and flour, and how to tell when the dough was ready.  She was a bit hesitant at first to handle the dough, but eventually, she got excited about it and it was all I could do at that point to keep her a safe distance from the mixer!

I'm torn about her growing up!  I love seeing her learn and experience new things and can't wait to do things like make cookies together, and such, but at the same time, she's growing up too fast!! 

Every day a new adventure...onward!

Pears-a-Plenty!

One of the things I love best about Summer time is the abundance of variety of fruits and vegetables available locally.  In years past, Eddie and I have canned a lot of peaches.  This year, we opted for pears.  We bought two boxes of pears and, with a lot of help from my mom, she and I canned pears this year.

So pretty!  Just a couple of samples from my first time canning pears!

They turned out beautiful!  What's more is that Samantha loves pears, and I love the peace of mind I have in knowing exactly what's in each of these jars. :)  Yeah, it can be a daunting task to can your own fruits/vegetables - but well worth the time and effort!

Mexican Lasagna & Homemade Ice Cream

For our Sunday dinner, I wanted to try something new -- Mexican Lasagna!  Now, we have had a version of Mexican Lasagna before, when Samantha was born and a friend brought it over, but I had never made one before, so this was a fun experiment to take what we had experienced before and modify it a bit to be suited to our tastes.  What's more?  I invited my entire family over for dinner!  Yikes -- this better turn out yummy!!  It did...here's how I made it:

• 2 lbs of ground beef (was a little much, could have been fine with 1.25 - 1.5 lbs)
• I added some dried onions and Nature's Seasoning to the beef while browning, but then again, I add Nature's Seasoning to almost everything :)
• 2 - 15 oz cans of black beans (drained and rinsed - to get all the yucky stuff off of the lovely beans!)
• 1 small can of diced green chiles
• 1.5 - 2 c frozen corn (you can use canned corn too, just drain and rinse it)
• 8 oz tomato sauce
• ~ 3/4 c chunky salsa
• Taco seasoning to taste (I have the Costco size of seasoning, but if I had to guess, I think I used just over 1/3 c of the seasoning for that much ground beef)
• 1 - 16 oz can of refried beans (I use the No Fat, Zesty Salsa Rosarita Refried Beans)
• 1 can of diced tomatoes with green chiles (commonly known as Ro-tel, but there are house brands too)
• Medium cheddar and Pepper Jack cheeses, shredded (quantity is to taste)
• 1 green onion, chopped
• 12 flour tortillas (you can use corn too -- it would take a few more, but I'm not sure how many...)

Beef mixture:

• Brown the ground beef
• Drain it and rinse the beef with hot water (sounds weird if you haven't done it before, but it really eliminates a lot of the fat - depends on if your sewer/septic system can handle it too - just keep the HOT water running for a bit after you've rinsed the beef to keep the fat flowing through the pipes)
• Put the beef back in the pan over low heat (after all, it's already cooked) and add the tomato sauce, salsa, and taco seasoning
• Add the black beans, corn, and chiles and mix to create yumminess!

Assembly:

• Lightly spray a 9x13 pan with cooking spray
• Lay 3 flour tortillas on the bottom of the pan covering as much of the pan as possible (yes, they will overlap)
• Spread half of the meat mixture on the tortillas
• Cover with a thin layer of shredded cheese
• Layer 3 more tortillas on the cheese
• Spread the entire can of refried beans over the tortillas (Hint: if you heat the beans, they spread better :)
• Top the refried beans with the can of diced tomatoes and green chiles (I drained and rinsed mine, because there's an awful lot of liquid and I didn't want my dish to be too soggy...up to you)
• More cheese
• Another layer of 3 tortillas
• The rest of the meat mixture
• 2-3 more tortillas
• More cheese and garnish with green onions on the top

There...you're done!  Remember, everything is cooked so the goal now is just to heat the dish all the way through.  I cooked mine at about 250 degrees for an hour and then boosted it up to 300 degrees until it was heated throughout.

Options:

• You can either serve this with sour cream on the side and people can add it to the top if they want (good idea for people like me that DO NOT like sour cream) or if you really like sour cream, you can add it to one of the layers inside.
• Add cilantro for more yumminess
• If you like black olives (yuck) - you can add those too
• For more spice, add more peppers :)

Ok, now for dessert.  We used Sarah's recipe (thank you, Sarah) and made blueberry ice cream for dessert - so good!!  Now that we're nearing (or at) the end of summer, ice cream makers are going on sale.  We picked ours up at Fred Meyer a couple of weeks ago for just $18!  You'll need to follow your ice cream maker manufacturer's specs for how long to run the mixture, but essentially, for 4 qts, we mixed together the following:

• 4.5 c chopped blueberries (we blended them in a food processor...just don't puree them...you want chunks of berries)
• 3 c sugar
• 6 c half-and-half (we used regular, but I wonder if it would work using the fat free half-and-half for 3 of the cups...hmmmm)
• 2 T lemon juice
• 3 c milk

We made it a couple hours ahead of time so we could give it time in the freezer to make sure it wasn't soft serve :)  Homemade ice cream is so yummy!  You can pick and choose what goes in it - it was definitely a crowd pleaser!