Tasty Tuesday: Apple Butter

It's that time of year! I used the apples we picked and made me some apple butter! Here is my post from last year (apple butter post). It includes the recipe and my trials from the apple butter making. This year I happened to have ground cloves, and a food mill, thanks to my friend Kristen. I gave her a jar of apple butter last year, and to ensure she got another one this year she got me a food mill for my birthday! I got one with your name on in Kristen! The food mill was so awesome. I am going to make homemade applesauce and use it and I also want to make gnocchi with it!

Apple Butter: It's a beautiful thing. In last years post I talked about how I loved to can. I was reminded of that once again, with every "ping" as the jars were sealing.

Estelle is also 10 months old today! She is getting big so fast! She loves wrestling with Lane. She crawls all over him. She is really pulling up on everything and likes to get into everything with in reach. She has been getting into cupboards a lot too. Next on the list of items to buy is a baby gate and child safe locks for the cabinets! I don't think we ever had a gate for Lane because we lived in a one story house. We all have so much fun with Miss Estelle. She just started refusing baby food too, so now I need to get creative with the finger foods! She's already got quite the opinion.

Apple Picking

Last weekend we spent the night up in the mountains of S. California. There are a lot of apples that grow up there so we went to a place to go apple picking. It was fun and it was pretty. I have to say that I am used to those Washington type places. Pumpkins patches, apple orchard etc that are very well kept, have little gift shops. This is nothing like that, and it was over priced, but it was still fun.
I don't remember what kind of apples these were, they weren't quite ready, but they looked so pretty on the tree.
The mountains were very pretty.

It was HOT. Lane kept complaining about how hot he was, which is why he looks this way in the picture. Anyway, hopefully some apple butter is in the future. I was going to do it last night but the power was out in the Southern California Blackout! To me power outages don't seem to be too big a deal, I always have candles and a couple working flashlights, we have a battery operated radio, you know. When I started hearing it could be a couple days, I got a little nervous. Thankfully we were only out of power for about 7 hours, so compared to the radio saying 2 days, I was happy. After I put Estelle to bed, we made some hot cocoa, hung some laundry up to dry, and played Memory. Good times, and Lane's school was cancelled today so he was excited about that! So, maybe the apple butter will be made tonight!

First Day of First Grade!

It was Lane's first day of school yesterday! Our big first grader! I think he had a fun day, he is funny, doesn't say too much about it or get excited about anything. Like father, like son. Once again he was the tallest kid in the class, I think... although this year it didn't look like he was towering over everyone like last year! He is such a cutie and I think pretty well behaved at school. We are very proud of him and I hope that good behavior continues! A few developmental things about him: he has lost 5 teeth so far (about to be 6 but it is hanging by a thread), he is probably about 60 lbs and 49 or 50 inches tall. He loves to climb anything and always has a big idea in his head about building something. To sum up our summer here at our house: the living room was a fort for most of the summer. I mopped my floors more because all the dining room chairs were usually in the living room with blankets draped over them. I love that little boy, he has been such a blessing to Reese and I!

Tasty Tuesday: Poffertjes

We are Dutch. Frisian to be exact. The town where Reese and I grew up is a total Dutch town. While we were living there a few years ago we got a poffertjes pan, poffertjes are a Dutch mini pancake, kinda. Reese and Lane love this little treat. If you are not in the Lynden area, you can get a poffertjes pan on Amazon! According to my research, poffertjes are traditionally made with a yeast batter, but that is not the recipe I have... so here goes.

Poffertjes

1 cup flour 3 eggs

4 Tbsp sugar 4 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp salt Butter

1 cup hot water Powdered Sugar

Mix flour sugar and salt. Add water, eggs and oil. Mix well until batter is lump free. Fry on poffertjes grill or as silver dollar size pancakes in frying pan or griddle. To serve, spread with butter and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

The pan, and a squeeze bottle for easy dispensing.
flip once...

melt some butter on top and sprinkle with powdered sugar. Yum! (Can't get rid of underline AHHHH!) They are so yummy! I may or may not have eaten a few....

And here is my little helper in the kitchen in her jeggings! She is hilarious. She likes to be in the kitchen when I am, sometimes standing by the dishwasher, but usually getting into the recycling box! I usually have cereal boxes, etc strewn about the kitchen floor.

Tasty Tuesday: Chocolate Espresso Biscotti

So....I am doing Weight Watchers. Not because I think I am fat (to all of you rolling your eyes right now). I have had an extra 10+ lbs on me since I've had Estelle that I can't seem to get off. So in an effort to eat a little better and be aware of what I am shoving in my mouth, I thought I'd try it out. So far so good. The reason I share this is because this Biscotti recipe is from a Weight Watchers cookbook. Each little piece is worth 1 point. Now I can't just have one so I have been having two, but really not bad for a tasty little sweet treat.

2 cups flour

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa

2 1/2 Tbsp ground coffee (not instant, actual ground coffee)

2 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup slivered almonds

1 cup sugar

2 large eggs

3 Tbsp strong brewed coffee

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350. Spray baking sheet with nonstick spray. Whisk together flour, cocoa, ground coffee, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a large bowl; stir in almonds. Beat sugar, eggs, brewed coffee and vanilla in a medium bowl until mixed well. With electric mixer on low speed, add sugar mixture to flour mixture, beating until dry dough forms. Cut dough in half. On a lightly floured surface, shape each piece of dough into a log about 15 inches long, 1 inch high and 1 3/4 inch wide. Transfer to baking sheet. Press logs until 3/4 inch high and two inches wide. Bake until toothpick inserted into center of log comes out clean, 20-25 minutes, rotating baking sheet after 10 minutes. Let cool about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, reduce oven temp to 300. With two spatulas, transfer 1 log to cutting board. Using long serrated knife, cut log into 1/4 inch slices. Repeat with other log, making a total of 80 slices. Place biscotti on baking sheet (cut side down). Bake 10 minutes per side. Let cool on wire rack.

Estelle is now 9 months old! She is sooooo fun! Estelle's sleeping habits have greatly improved in the past month or two and I am feeling much better as a result. She takes two pretty good naps a day and sleeps well through the night. She is a happy, curious and quite social little one. We had her 9 month appointment yesterday. She weighed 21 lbs 7 oz and is 29 inches long. That put her in around the 95th percentile for height and weight. I am feeling so blessed to have Estelle. She really brings so much joy to our family and I can't imagine life without her!
Reese bought a helmet for a her a while back. We put it on her last night and it fit well. So we put her in the bike seat for her first little ride. I am not going to go on long rides yet, I feel she's a little young to keep that heavy helmet on her head for too long. But little rides are fun and she seemed to love it!

Tasty Tuesday: Peach Cobbler

So while we were in Alaska, I planned to make one of the dinners and two desserts. When we go up there we have to fly all of the food into the cabin because we come in by float plane. So I like to buy things that can be used for a couple purposes and make recipes that have minimal ingredients. We had Bisquick on our list so we could make pancakes, biscuits and this peach cobbler. I get to the grocery store in Ketchikan and they have no Bisquick, hmmmm. So I buy Krusteaz pancake mix and call it good. So when I went to work on the cobbler I substituted 1 cup of pancake mix for the Bisquick. It was really good! And to top it all off, the oven doesn't work to well so I baked it on the barbecue! I also had brought some Betty Crocker chocolate chip cookie mixes. I also baked those cookies on the barbecue and they turned out yummy, just a little "done" on the bottom. So here is my recipe for my Barbecued Peach Cobbler!

1 cup Bisquick (or pancake mix :)

1 cup milk

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 cup sugar

1 can (29 oz) sliced peaches, drained

Heat oven (or BBQ) to 375. Stir together Bisquick, milk, and nutmeg in ungreased square baking dish (8x8). Stir in butter until blended. Stir together sugar and peaches; spoon over batter. Bake 50-60 minutes. (More like 40 minutes on a BBQ). 6 servings

And no I am not confused on my days of the week, I am just that unorganized. Tasty Wednesday it is!

Highlights From Alaska

Warming up in the "spa like" sauna.
Going on a hike and taking pictures until.......

......we saw a HUGE black bear eating what looked like a deer carcass, he wasn't about to back down either, so we quietly turned around. After taking a few pictures of course. (click on the picture to make it bigger)

Watching these boys enjoy the outdoors.

Hanging out on the dock on the rocking chairs, knitting and reading.
Finding a wonderful place to fly fish up the river, it was like something from a movie!
Great catches and yummy trout!
Hangin' with my hubby.