Today's creation! Odds & Ends Fruit Crisp

When I was six my family moved into a house with a lovely fenced yard and a massive aged rhubarb plant. Never having had a rhubarb plant of her own, my mother was nervous one of us children would eat some of the highly poisonous leaves and set out on a mission to remove the thing. I'm not sure of my brother, but I know my sister and I grew up very wary of rhubarb as a baking ingredient.

Yesterday at the market, Maddie was entranced by the beautiful spears of rosy rhubarb at her eye level and picked one up, asking me to buy it. Well. Strawberries were on sale, my pantry was full of jars of crisp topping that Maddie and I had made a few weeks ago and one spear only cost $.87 ... why not?

I woke up this morning ready to bake my first rhubarb recipe ever - strawberry rhubarb crisp. Aaaaaaaaaand I found a bowl full of strawberry hulls next to Daddy's seat on the couch. He ate half the strawberries. The HORROR!

So I looked at what I had in the cabinet, did a little googling and found the following recipes for inspiration: Blackberry Rhubarb Crisp and Rhubarb and Nectarine Crumble

So without further ado...

Odds and Ends Fruit Crisp

about 1.5 lb of strawberries, hulled and chunked
1 spear of rhubarb, sliced into "coins"
1 nectarine, chunked
1.5 cups of blackberries (big ones halved)
1/3 cup homemade cranberry applesauce from the pantry (subbing for the OJ)
1/2 cup brown sugar (not convinced it needs this, but never baked with rhubarb before)

One jar of my Crisp Topping
5tbl of butter, cut into little pieces

Pour crisp mix and butter into a medium sized bowl.
Crumble butter into crisp mix, pinching with fingers until the whole mixture is well blended and resembles moist sand (per America's Test Kitchen recomendations for crisp topping). I should have taken a pic of this. Gah. Refrigerate for 15 minutes. Preheat oven to 375F.

While everything is chillin and heatin, get filling ready in an oven-safe casserole (8in square glass pan or 9in deep dish pie pan will work). Mix brown sugar with juice or apple sauce. Pour fuit into casserole and toss with sugar mix.

When topping chilled, pat on top of fruit. Bake on middle rack with something underneath (foil, cookie sheet etc) to catch drips. Bake about 40 minutes or until topping is really browned. I like to bake it at least 45m.

Allow to cool at least 15m before eating.  Or not. Whatever rocks your socks!

Preserving

Part of the fun of being a grown up is getting to choose from life's buffet. What do you choose?

I pick a bit of mainstream, some modern, a bit of crunchy hippy and some old fashioned. I guess my life would make a really snazzy Venn Diagram.

Last year I made a huge ton of applesauce in my crockpot and each time there was a race to finish it before it went bad. I considered freezing it but when I put things into my freezer it's a bit like jettisoning them out of an airlock in space. Near a black hole. A big one.

So this year I decided to learn to preserve applesauce. People refer to this process using alot of terms... putting up preserves, preserving, home canning (which doesn't actually involve cans, just in case you were curious) are just a few of my favorites. According to the USDA National Center for Home Food Preservation there are many ways to preserve food. Depending on the food, your needs and your equipment you can freeze, dry, cure & smoke or can your food. Canning refers to using glass jars (remember mason jars) with a two piece lid and either a boiling water canner or a pressure canner. Another informative site is the Ball Canning Supplies homepage.

I don't pretend to be an expert and mistakes in canning can be very dangerous so I'm not going to tell you how to can here. If you are interested in canning, do your research first. BEFORE you pick your fruit and get ready to can....

• Buy or borrow one of the Ball books on canning (the Ball Blue Book and the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving) and read it cover to cover.
• Assess what equipment you need and look it over. Understand what each piece does and how to use it.
• Buy a dozen quality jars with lids and rings to begin with. Many people buy used jars from flea markets and thrift shops ... and that is FANTASTIC. But until you understand what a flawed jar looks like, starting with a fresh dozen is a good plan.
• Understand that you can't wing it. Canning recipes are a balance of physics and chemistry - it's vital to follow directions precisely.
• Start small. Many people begin by saying, I'm going to can all 40lbs of my apples this afternoon. Honey, that is alot of apples, alot of steps and alot of room for human error. Begin with one batch per day, work out the kinks.
• Never, ever can when exhausted or when small children or infant are at your feet. Bad things can happen.
• Create a Burn First Aid kit and keep it in a cabinet next to your stove, right at the front. It should contain burn pads (I like 2nd skin), rolled gauze and first aid tape. No creams, no goop. When you spill that apple sauce or boiling water down your arm, get it under cold water. Rinse it off, apply a burn pad as directed, wrap in gauze and tape up. Do not remove for at least a few hours (for a large burn, overnight). For severe burns, burns on face or abdomen or very large burns, get immediate emergency medical care.

Canning is comforting and fun :)

I was really intimidated by canning, honestly. I chose one single fruit (anyone remember my post about Simpling?) and one single recipe and I gave it a go. And it was so COOL! It felt alot like when I learned to make rustic bread. I could NOT believe I did this all by myself.

Projects like this comfort me. They give me something to immerse myself in, to have a small success. I'm so happy that even tho we can't have a garden, we can handpick local produce and put it by for the winter. I feel like I am preserving something for my children. Knowledge of traditional ways, sure, but also preserving their faith in the truth that differently-abled people can still do small, quietly amazing things.

Goodies in the crockpots on a drizzly fall day...

I ADORE drizzly fall days. They make me want to bake and cook and snuggle in my favorite couch corner. Sadly I have only 2 hrs to do that today so I decided to fill my crockpots. With a long morning and a wake in the evening, I need to be careful with my energy so I can get through the day.

Today was my co-op morning at Maddie's preschool. Considering that she has been having a very very difficult time separating, I went through crazy contortions to make sure she didn't know I was there. Until... I was taking two little girls to the bathroom and who do I hear coming through the door? To quote Miss Donna Maddie's teacher, "Oh NUTS". We did some fast talking - I expressed my excitement about Maddie's class making applesauce, we can make some at home tonight and GEE she should hurry up and wash hands so she doesn't miss out!

Sooooo... in crockpot #1 we have:

My version of Jane Baker's Apple Cranberry Sauce (GLUTEN Free)
6 med apples, peeled, cored & sliced
1c fresh rinsed cranberries (frozen ok)
1/2c brown sugar (she uses 2/3c white sugar, my mom uses 1/2c white sugar)
1 tbl lemon juice
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2c brown sugar

Cook until tender - can be done on stove or in crockpot. Excellent served warm or chilled.
(total standing in kitchen time, 15m - can be shorter if you do not have two year old help)

And in crockpot #2 we have

Honey Teriyaki Chicken Breasts
2 whole boneless chicken breasts or 4-6 cutlets
half a bottle of KC Masterpiece Honey Teryaki marinade (substitute GF teryaki sauce)
3 chopped scallions
1/2c beef or chicken broth
2 cloves garlic
1/2tsp of cumin seeds or 1/4tsp-1/2tsp cumin powder
2 shakes of powdered ginger

Cook until chicken is done (I have set it on low with plans to eat it in about 6hrs)

Would you rather experiment with homemade teriyaki sauces? They are simple to make. Play around with the following ingredients:
Tamari or soy sauce
fresh garlic
preferably fresh ginger but if all you have is powdered, go for it
cumin - go lightly or it will overpower the sauce
honey or dark brown sugar
scallions
white vinegar
lemon juice
crushed pinapple w/juice

Mix your marinade in a bowl or large measuring cup and add ingredients TO TASTE. If you just dump everything on the chicken you can't taste it.

And if you like a little zing, add a hint of cayenne pepper or chili sauce. Remember that in a crock pot spices get a bit concentrated so you are better off going low on those and adding more to the finished dish if needed.

I love knowing how to make teriyaki from scratch ... doing it for years has helped me figure out how to doctor store-bought marinades when I just can't stand or think long enough to do one from scratch.