apples, and raspberries, and pumpkins . . .

OH MY.

I met up with several friends early this morning to caravan out to Apple Jack Orchards in Delano, MN, with the intention of picking apples and raspberries! We spent most of our time in the raspberry fields, due to the frost in May that killed off a ton of apple blossoms. (We were still able to buy apples in their store, that were from fields that were not damaged, but their u-pick fields were pretty slim pickings.)

A few shots from the morning:



Look! It's Liz! In real life! It's so great when blog friends become real, in-person friends!




After everybody had their fill of raspberry-picking, (I had the largest haul, at 6.25 pounds -- and a lot of help!), we wandered through the orchards and found a few apples for Courtney. The rest of us picked out apples from the apple barn. I also grabbed a half-dozen apple spice donuts, a caramel apple, (which I think I'll take to work tomorrow and share with the kids,) and some gorgeous pumpkins!



After a pleasant drive home and a quick stop at the Wedge, Dan and I immediately set to work. Dan was on apple duty:

Using the peeler-corer-slicer, he filled our 5-quart crock pot with apples for apple butter, (it's still cooking away, otherwise I'd show you a picture,) and then peeled an additional 8 apples, tossed them in a ziploc with flour, sugar, cinnamon, and a pinch of salt, to become apple pie filling in the future. Destined for the freezer for now.

While Dan focused on apples, I made raspberry magic . . .

First, a pie . . .

(Thankfully, I had a set of crusts in the freezer!)

Then, jam . . .


And last, some raspberry-ginger muffins . . .


I'm beat! But it was a very fun, very productive day. (And somewhere in there we managed to do four loads of laundry, too!) I still have one more job to do . . . I need to whip up a big pot of chili for dinner. So tired! It's going to be an early night tonight, I can tell already. :)

Hope you had a great weekend, too!

I heart carbs!

(** I updated the FLOG below **)

Yeah, I have a t-shirt that says that. :)

Anyhow, I had a busy day of cooking and baking! FLOG to follow.

I started off my morning by making some applesauce:

I peeled and cut the apples into chunks, simmered them on low with a splash of water and a pinch of salt until they were nice and soft, and pureed the lot with my stick blender. After setting aside 6 tablespoons for a baking project (to follow,) I added a dash of cinnamon, and that was it. (The apples were plenty sweet enough on their own, but I had considered a squirt of agave before I tasted the sauce.)

Next, "Cleaning out the Cupboards" Granola:

Here's the recipe, in case you have a bunch of miscellaneous stuff laying around leftover from holiday baking like I did:
Combine in a medium bowl:
2 cups regular rolled oats
1 cup puffed wholegrain cereal (such as puffed brown rice, puffed millet, puffed kamut, etc.)
1 cup nuts, chopped or sliced (I used a combination of pistachios, hazelnuts, almonds, and walnuts)
1/4 cup ground flaxseed
1/4 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
Melt together:
1/2 cup agave nectar
1/3 cup Earth Balance
Add the agave mixture to the oat mixture, and stir well. Transfer the granola to a parchment-lined roasting pan or cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for fifteen minutes. Stir the granola, and return it to the oven for an additional 10 minutes. Cool.
Stir in:
1 1/2 cups dried fruit (I used golden raisins, apples, and apricots), cut into small pieces if needed (I like to snip up dried fruit with a clean scissors.)
Enjoy!

I also got it in my head that I needed to make biscotti today:

Lemon and ginger sounded like a good combination to me, and I discovered this recipe, which looked great! I decided to cut the recipe in half, and still got about 16 cookies from the batch. Unfortunately, I did have some trouble with these guys -- the dough assembly was easy enough, but I had some baking problems. I think my oven rack was in a funny place, which lead to uneven/under baking. (That darn baking stone does get in the way sometimes!) I'll take full blame for my foibles this time -- but if this recipe craps out on me again, I'm going to have to go searching for a different biscotti recipe for sure!

Last, I haven't shown you a finished loaf of Artisan Bread yet:

Rye bread that I made to go with dinner tonight. I'm still in denial about how EASY breads from this book are! If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times . . . BUY THIS BOOK!

So here's what I ate to sustain myself while working on all of those cooking and baking projects:

BREAKFAST:

Dates, the last scone, and a small handfull of roasted, salted cashews. Coffee and vitamin, too.

LUNCH:

The last of the harira, with the last of the squash and some sriracha mixed in. I don't think I'll be making this soup again -- it didn't "wow" me at all. In fact, I was feeling really unenthusiastic about eating it for lunch today. So unenthusiastic, in fact, that I couldn't get myself to finish the bowl. Blah.

TREAT:
The heels from the loaf of biscotti, before their second baking.

DINNER:

"Cabbage and Noodles," from Moosewood Restaurant New Classics, topped with a dollop of light sour cream, and sides of Earth-Balance spread rye bread and homemade applesauce. This was a major hit with both Dan and I -- eastern-European comfort food at its simplest, and tastiest. (Must be my German and Polish roots coming out?) The cabbage mixture contained a whopping five ingredients, and simmered away practically ignored, getting tastier and tastier as the minutes ticked down on my timer. All I had to do to round out the meal was boil some egg noodles, slice the bread, and serve up the applesauce! This is one of those recipes that makes me think I need to buy this cookbook for this recipe alone! Yum, um, um! Check this cookbook out from your library, borrow it from a friend, or just hit a bookstore with a notebook and piece of paper in hand, because this is not to be missed! (P.S. Easily made vegan, too. Just switch the butter for Earth Balance (which I did) and the sour cream for Tofutti, or your favorite homemade cashew sour cream!)

TREAT:

"Hot Chocolate", from The Joy of Vegan Baking. Delicious, rich, creamy, and decadent -- according to Dan, the best hot chocolate he's ever had. My cup was so rich, I couldn't finish it -- Dan was happy to help out. :) (P.S. I used almond milk and organic, fair-trade, dark chocolate chips from the bulk bin at my co-op. Heavenly.) Would totally meet any chocoholic's craving, any time!

EXERCISE:
2 1/4 mile walk with Courtney, to and from the library. I was glad she was along, because I would have fallen on my butt at least twice, if I hadn't grabbed on to her arm! (The weather still stinks, although it's warmed up a little bit.) I returned movies and a few books from last weekend, and picked up a bunch of children's books for work. The kidlets will be glad to have some new read-alouds, since we haven't been to the library with them since before Christmas! (It's been WAY TOO COLD for WAY TOO LONG!) But that's Minnesota, so there. :)

creative cookies!

I have had chocolate and cherries on the brain lately. (Last week's ice cream, for example?) I had thought about making a double-chocolate, double-cherry cookie tonight, until the bag of crystalized ginger in the cupboard caught my eye . . . then I remembered I had some fresh ginger leftover in the fridge . . . and then I went a completely different direction with my cookies! Final product:

I described these to my friend Ann over the phone earlier, and she said, "sounds very chocolatey and very gingery!" So, I think that will be the title . . .

Very Chocolatey, Very Gingery Cookies
(recipe loosely based on "Chocolate Chip Mint Cookies" from Joy of Vegan Baking)

INGREDIENTS:
3/4 cup Earth Balance
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon Ener-G whipped with 2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 cup baking cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips
1/3 cup finely chopped crystalized ginger

DIRECTIONS:
1. Beat the margarine with an electric mixer until fluffy. Beat in the sugars, then the egg replacer mixture, fresh ginger, and vanilla.
2. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt in a seperate bowl. Beat the flour mixture into the butter mixture just until combined. Fold in the chocolate chips and crystalized ginger.
3. Drop by level tablespoon-fulls onto parchment-lined cookie sheets. Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes. Remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Note that the ginger flavor develops more as the cookies cool to room temperature.

Hooray for creative cookies!

~~~~~~~~~~

QUESTION:
What has been your favorite creative baking adventure?

Mine? It would have to be a tie between the vegan, wholegrain, chocolate chip pecan cookie recipe I developed a long time ago, (BEST COOKIES EVER!), and the vegan eclairs I adapted for my August Daring Baker's Challenge!

vegetables galore!

I seem to have a little, ahem, problem with the Farmer's Market . . . I tend to go twice in one weekend, buy a ton of stuff, and then wonder what to do with all of it! This past weekend was no exception.

Oliver wants you to see Dan's and my haul Saturday morning:

We were lured into purchasing not one, but TWO different kinds of honey -- I chose a jar of creamy, pale yellow pure raw honey, and Dan was drawn to a jar of thick, dark "Blue Earth Buckwheat" honey by Ames Farm. (Also raw.) I also picked up a beautiful bunch of radishes, a huge bunch of mint, and a gigantic bag of lettuce! After washing and roughly chopping all of the lettuce today, I am realizing I am in for a LOT of big salads this week. :) I've made big salads already for dinner Friday night and lunch Saturday, and am loving my veggies!

Dan and I also stopped at Shuang Hur and the Wedge after our errands Saturday afternoon, to pick up a few essentials for dinners this weekend:

I love the Asian grocery stores for their prices and otherwise unknown to me ingredients, but I DON'T love that they package all of their produce on styrofoam trays, wrapped in plastic wrap! Sigh. Anyhow, we picked up Japanese eggplant, a red pepper, some snap peas, broccoli, limes, green onions, ginger, and tofu for our planned stir-fry dinner, and some lychees!! Lychees, if you've never had them, have the texture of a grape, and are very sweet with slightly coconutty, slightly floral, slightly melon-y flavors. Go buy lychees! Pictured on the right are bulk chickpeas and yellow split peas from the coop, to use later in the weekend.

Basic stir-fry, over udon noodles:

I learned my lesson with Hmong Family sweet soy sauce -- it is SWEET. This was good, but I wouldn't make it again this way -- I'd use regular tamari next time!

Courtney and I went to the Farmer's Market again this morning:

Courtney kindly gifted me a bag of large lima beans, strongly encouraging me to make the baked lima bean dish from VCON. (She's so subtle! Do you think she feels strongly about this recipe???) ;-) Thanks, Courtney! I purchased spinach, beets, dill, a green pepper, and just over a pound of large pickling cucumbers at the market.

I was pretty hungry when I got home, so I made a green smoothie snack/second breakfast:

Pineapple, peaches, banana, spinach, a squirt of agave, and some orange juice. Dan enjoyed his own serving for breakfast, and was pleasantly surprised by the sweet, fruity, slightly grassy flavor. Dan doesn't eat as healthfully as he could during the week, so I'm happy to pack him full of vitamins over the weekends. :)

Give you two chances to guess what I made with the pickling cucumbers and dill . . .

Yes, that's right, pickles! Shocker. I made up a recipe that didn't require any cooking, and that didn't use any sugar -- I like my pickles cold, crisp, salty, and vinegary, and that's about it. Garlic, dill, salt, and peppercorns went in with the cucumber spears, covered with equal parts white vinegar and water. Give 'em a week, and we'll see what I've created!

OH! Forgot to show you two frozen treats I made earlier this week. Pineapple-Coconut Popsicles:

Simple recipe, yielding an amazing treat! One can of light coconut milk, one bag of frozen pineapple, 1/4 cup agave nectar . . . blend, fill the molds, and freeze. SOOOOOOO delicious!

I also attempted peach ice cream:

I used a basic ice cream recipe, lightening it up a little bit by using half and half instead of a mixture of heavy cream and whole milk, but made the mistake of choosing frozen peaches. I think I should have used fresh peaches instead, because this ice cream has NO peachy flavor whatsoever. It's still good, it just tastes like vanilla!

I decided to roast my beets this afternoon, and while I had the oven on I also made another batch of granola:

Dan's sister, Sarah, raved about my granola last weekend -- I should really email her the recipe!!

And last, dinner tonight:

I used the jalapenos Dan grew in his garden and the mint I picked up at the Farmer's Market yesterday, along with a whole host of other ingredients, to make Paraati Chana from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian. This has to be one of my most favorite chickpea dishes EVER. (Plus, it's the closest thing I've made to authentic Indian food in my very own kitchen.) I served it atop brown rice flavored with a pinch of saffron, and a side of mixed greens -- kale from last week's trip to the market, and the beet greens from this week's trip.

I sent Dan home with the leftover dill and some of the mint, three lychees, leftover stir-fry, leftover greens, leftover paraati chana, and a jar of granola. As he was getting ready to leave tonight, I said out loud, "why is it that you always seem to leave with a goody bag?" He replied, "because I have a nice Jewish momma who takes good care of me." We both laughed -- I'm neither Jewish nor a momma, but I guess I do take pretty good care of him!