Pink Apple Sauce

Apple sauce is terribly easy to make, and its nice to throw in some random fruit to see how well it mixes, especially when berry/fruit harvest is starting. The whole process took me about 15-20 mns



1 bunch of rhubarb chopped (gave me about 3 cups or so)
about 1 cup each of strawberries and raspberries
2 McIntosh apples, peeled and chopped (some people keep the peel but i don't like it)
1 orange, grated and juiced.

Cook the apples with a splash of water for about 5 mns in a big saucepan (medium heat), then add the rhubarb and simmer for another couple of minutes until there is more liquid in the saucepan. Add the remaining ingredients and continue to simmer until the fruit is tender and cooked through, then give it a whirl with a food processor (or I used a hand blender) until desired consistency. This gave me 4 x 250ml jars with a bit extra. Some of those are going as gifts and the rest is being used to mix with my yogurt in the morning, and to be used in place of oil in recipes (making some bran/oat/honey muffins with the applesauce, going to be delicious!).



Note: I didn't add any sugar because I didn't want any in there, the result was a tart sauce. If you want/need some sugar, add it in at the same time as the strawberries.

noms lately

tapioca breadsticks with proscuitto, cheese and herbs, which I talked about here

ketchup! on egg cups! rejoice!

for supper this evening we had a wild, ridiculous salad - three kinds of letuce, carrots, radishes, dill garlic pickles, leftover roast pork, fresh curd cheese, green apple, quinoa, and two kinds of dressing (the leftover KS ranch dressing, which we're loving lately, plus some garlic-OO-balsamic-herb thing from the fridge). it was SOOOOOOOO GOOD. I am just as excited to eat it for my lunch tomorrow.

Tony made us a GF almond flour and orange cake. Yummy! It was not very sweet. It left me wanting a chocolate sauce, or perhaps a cream cheese frosting... mmm. Oranges are super on sale at Super C this week.

tomatoes in winter (well, technically spring I guess!)

Sometimes, you just need the taste of sunshine in your mouth!

Ketchup, fermenting with kefir whey - the recipe is a mix between that of Beautiful Babies and The Joy of Cooking - strained tomatoes, kefir whey, apple cider vinger, diced red pepper and onion, ground mustard powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper, crushed chillis, a dash of ground cloves, a bit of ground cinnamon, a bit of smoked paprika... excited! Last time I tried fermented ketchup it was the recipe from Nourishing Traditions, which includes fish sauce, and it just got fishier and fishier, ew. I have high hopes for this one, it smells fabulous! It will stay out several days to ferment then go in the fridge.

Cherry tomatoes were on sale, so I have some tomato-basil foccacia rising for my dear Tony.

weekending!

Sometimes, I need to remind myself that this blog isn't so much about taking hot pictures, trying fiddley recipes, or stretching myself in the kitchen as much as it is about keeping in touch with you lovely ladies. To that end, here's a random smattering of weekending food pictures. Enjoy!

Spicey cranberry chutney for Thanksgiving turkey tomorrow at my in-laws' - it's fermenting with kefir whey, which creates all the little pockets of air you see. Isn't that amazing? Just like the way bread dough gets loose and airy, so does this lovely medley (made with roasted cranberries, roasted onion, roasted garlic, and roasted hot peppers, with salt, pepper, crushed chillis, raisins, and um, did I put in cumin? I don't quite remember - all put through the KitchenAid food grinder attachment, mixed with about 3 tbsp kefir whey, and stirred into a mason jar. It should zingy!).

We enjoyed a stroll and some food at the Atwater Market this morning after Mass - SO MANY PUMPKINS!! You can see our church, St Irenee, in the background there.

Amazing RED pumpkins with wee cute pumpkins in the background. Aww! Ambrose goes crazy for pumpkins of all shapes and sizes.

I made Tony cinnamon-raisin rolls with leftover pizza dough this afternoon. (On a related note, I am back on wheat - it was just too hard/expensive/trying to do without. Whatever. But I am officially fasting from cane sugar with my friend Carolina, woo!! Team power!)

So... happy Thanksgiving! And remember, fellow Leek Geek squad, if you are waiting to post until you have something dazzling... don't! Let's just let our hair down, show each other our messy kitchens, share our frustrations and challenges in cooking, our grainy badly-lit food pictures, our little inspirations, and okay, our pretty triumphs! I just want to know how y'all are... what you're up to... even if you're pregnant and ordering in all the time... tell me how that's working for you, and how you feel about that! If you're eating out a lot, tell me where and what you ate and how it was! If your garden failed, that's newsworthy! Tell me... what's cookin!?

fermented lemon preserves

I've basically been dreaming about lemon preserves since Hyun posted about it last year. I've perused grocery store labels, and folks, it just ain't authentic anymore. The recipe linked to seems traditional in the sense that is actually a kraut - a ferment based on a fruit or vegetable that's cut up, mixed with salt to draw out the liquid, and whose resulting brine creates the correct environment for the happy fermentation microbes to grow and do their preserving party. Grocery store ones often are boiled lemons with added chemical preserves. Lame! So I finally got around to cutting up the 4 packs of organic lemons in my fridge and getting those bad boys jarred.

I departed from the recipe in that I cut up the lemons quite a bit more than he does. I also used less salt than he called for and didn't add any other spices (I figure I can do that at time of cooking, if desired). The seed mystery was never solved (see comments on that entry) so I just picked them out.

Excited! Will let you know how it goes.