Our Favorite Recipes

As promised, our family’s favorite homemade applesauce. Boo won’t touch the store bought stuff, but he loves this!

Homemade Applesauce

6 cups apples, peeled, cored and chopped
3/4 cup water (or enough water to about half-way to top of apples)
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup white sugar

In a 2 quart sauce pan over medium heat, combine apples, water, cinnamon and cloves. Bring to boil, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes. Stir in sugar and simmer 5 more minutes.

Serves 4

Cinnamon the Cat says that this makes a sweet applesauce, so you may want to adjust the sugar to taste. Just don’t forget the cinnamon and cloves!

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I was fortunate to attend a junior high that had required home ec and industrial arts classes. We learned to cook and bake, sew, draft (technical drawing), and work with wood and metal. Several of my projects from those classes still survive! Actually, I just took possession of them again, as we upsized our house while my parents have been downsizing. Hmm, I think I feel another blog post in that!

I was looking for a recipe in a magazine the other day and I came across my original copy of a recipe from my junior high cooking class. It’s for “balloon buns” – a quick and simple snack.

Check it out -

Can you see the discoloration around the drawing of the balloon? That’s because you can measure your dough right on the balloon, so that’s years of grease traveling across the page!

I thought I’d share this recipe, not because it is any great culinary achievement, but because it is something a child even younger than junior high age can learn to make. And because balloon buns make me smile.

Balloon Buns

1 cup biscuit mix
1/4 cup water
2 Tablespoons soft butter
2 Tablespoons cinnamon-sugar
4 large marshmallows

Preheat over to 400 degrees. Grease muffin pan for 4.

In a mixing bowl, combine biscuit mix and water to form a ball of dough. Turn dough out onto lightly floured breadboard. Knead 4-6 times. Shape into an even round ball.

Cut dough into 4 equal pieces. Take each piece of dough and flatten with your hand into a 4 inch circle.

Spread dough with 1/4 of the soft butter, sprinkle with 1/4 of the cinnamon-sugar. Place marshmallow in center of circle. Bring up edges around marshmallows and seal tightly by pinching dough together. Place with smooth side up in lightly greased muffin tin.

Bake 10 min. Balloon buns will expand as marshmallow melts. Some of the melted centers may ooze out if not sealed well. Place pan or baking sheet under muffin tin to catch spills.

Serve hot, makes 4

(I doubled this recipe for our family, and the only thing I actually measured was the biscuit mix and water. After forming the dough circle, I just spread butter on them and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar without measuring.)

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“It’s called a sugar snow, because a snow this time of year means that men can make more sugar.  You see, this little cold spell and the snow will hold back the leafing of the trees, and that makes a longer run of sap.”
-Pa Ingalls in Little House in the Big Woods

In mid-March, after a couple of days of near 70 degree weather, we got several inches of snow, followed by another warm up and even more snow.  We woke up one morning to this:

In anticipation of the sugar snows, I went out and bought some pure maple syrup to make maple sugar candy, just like in “Little House in the Big Woods”.  It’s surprisingly simple and quick to make and very, very yummy.

Here’s our syrup, bubbling its way up to 236 degrees F.
(Don’t you love the drip pans covered in foil?  Classy.  Goes so well with the granite countertops and hardwood floors.)

Pumpkin Girl stirs the slightly cooled syrup.

Thirty minutes later, the hardened and unmolded candy sits ready to be eaten!

Here’s the complete recipe:

Maple Sugar Candy

You will need:

8 1/2 oz pure maple syrup (regular pancake syrup won’t work)

candy thermometer

candy mold

Directions:

Lightly grease the rim of a heavy 1 quart sauce pan with butter to prevent maple syrup from boiling over.

Pour maple syrup into sauce pan.

Over medium heat, cook maple syrup until candy thermometer reads 236 degrees F (approximately 10-15 minutes).

While maple syrup is heating, put hot tap water into a two cup glass measuring cup.  When syrup is almost 236 degrees, pour out water and dry measuring cup completely.

Transfer syrup to the warm glass measuring cup with pour spout, using rubber spatula to remove as much syrup from sauce pan as possible.

Place candy thermometer in the maple syrup and cool syrup to 200 degrees.

Use a small wire whisk to stir the maple syrup in the measuring cup until it begins to thicken and turn cream.  This is only going to take a couple of minutes, so be ready.  Don’t allow syrup to get too thick.

Place the candy mold on a cool surface and carefully and quickly fill each candy cavity to just full with thickened syrup.

Let the maple candy cool in the mold at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Gently push on the bottom of each cavity to loosen each maple candy and carefully remove pieces, one by one.

Remove any rough edges that remain on the candy (and eat them).

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I love homemade bread!  Actually, I love all carbs, but that’s another story.

We used to make  bread in the bread machine all the time.  Philip was actually quite good at it and made a yummy cinnamon bread that the two of us could finish off in a day or two.  That was before we had children.  Now we’d have to share was those little vultures.

Alas, our homemade bread-making days came to an end when I was pregnant with Pumpkin Girl and the very smell of baking bread made me ill.  I get a Super Sensor Nose when I’m pregnant – I once walked by a store display of Easter chocolate and could smell the chocolate right through the boxes.  So that was the end of the bread making.

We never really got back into it after my nose returned to normal.  With 2 little kids I just never found the time.  The bread machine was given away at some point and we made due with store bought.

I keep wanting to get back to it, but just never did.  Then after a vague conversation with my mom about a starter dough in the fridge that isn’t really sourdough and a chance blog post – I realized I’d stumbled on my answer.

Why didn’t anyone tell me about Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day! Apparently the book has been around for a while and I just totally missed the boat.  It really is as easy as it sounds, with no fancy equipment or hard to find ingredients. Not even any kneading!  I even mixed the dough by hand with ease.

Here’s my first loaf:

Kind of small, but I attribute that to living at high altitude. Sort of funny shaped, too, but that was my fault. As small as it looks, the whole loaf easily fed our family of five. (We had it with spaghetti, not as sandwiches.)  We had 2 slices left over, which didn’t last the night. (I won’t mention the little piggy who at the last slices as dessert. ahem)  I went to the authors’ blog and found a couple of very easy adjustments to make for the higher altitude.

I made another loaf a couple of days later from the same batch of dough.  I shaped it better, but I can’t show you because we scarfed it down before I could take a picture.  But it was just as yummy as the first loaf.

I can’t believe it – I’m back in homemade bread heaven!

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With our packers coming on Monday, we have so much to do, but my friends Kat and Sheril wanted my recipe for crockpot granola, so here it is:

Crockpot Granola

5 c. oats
½ c. oil
½ c. honey
1 t. vanilla
1 t. cinnamon
1 c. coconut

Mix all ingredients in crockpot. Cook on low for 5 hours or until brown, stirring occasionally. **Important: Make sure you keep the cover cracked on the crockpot. The more frequently you stir, the finer the consistency. If you prefer clumpier granola stir less.

Add raisins, dried fruit, nuts, chocolate chips when finished cooking….whatever you desire. This is delicious as a hot or cold cereal, as a snack, a topping for yogurt or made into granolabars.

This is very yummy, and my children love it.  Plus it makes the house smell so good while it’s cooking.

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April on the East Coast is a cold and damp affair.  It has rained here 4 of the last 6 days and today the temperature peaked at 50 degrees.  That was sometime around noon and it has been getting colder ever since.  If any day called for a nice, warm soup, it is today.  I made Lemony Chicken Noodle soup which I got from Taste of Home.  The original only makes 2 servings, so I’ve modified it to serve a family.

Lemony Chicken Noodle Soup

1 small onion, chopped
1/4 cup olive or vegetable oil
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cubed
1 garlic clove, minced
enough water to fill your pot plus 2 1/2 Tablespoons chicken bouillon or
2 cans chicken broth
4 medium carrots, cut into 1/4 inch slices
1 cup fresh or frozen peas
1/2 tsp dried basil
1 bag uncooked medium egg noodles
6 Tablespoons lemon juice

In a large pot, saute onion in oil until tender.  Add the chicken and garlic.  Cook and stir until chicken is lightly browned.  Stir in the water and bouillon (or broth), carrots, peas and basil.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 5 minutes.  Add the noodles.  Cover and simmer for 8-10 minutes or until noodles are tender.  Stir in lemon juice.

Like most soup recipes, this one isn’t an exact science.  Adjust the ingredients to suit your family size and tastes.

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