Yes, I love ocean spray too. In fact, I have always preferred it and have even been known to buy a few extra cans to open when the company leaves. I don’t think any of us can explain it. Who would have ever thought that any food with ridges on it would be appealing? We just like it, right? Our parents served it to us and it became a tradition and comfortable.
Small problem. There is so much corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup jammed into one can now that I can’t even stand it anymore. Last year, I attempted a homemade version that I put in a can to pop out like our favorite. It tasted pretty close, but didn’t “jell” the way I would have liked.
Enter: 2011 version which definitely has that “jell”.
These berries capture the holiday spirit all by themselves.
Combine cranberries, sugar, and 3 c. water until the berries start popping. Usually this takes about 20 minutes, but it totally depends on your pan and its heat conduction. After the majority of them are popped, you can strain it in a sieve. I’m not cool yet and don’t own a $100 dollar sieve, but I just strain mine once through a colander and then again through my small sieve. It works. I do hope to join the sieve club soon, though, because it will save me some serious time. You just need to strain it until you have 3 cups of liquid. You might need to use a spatula to move the cranberries back and forth to get them to pass through. While it is straining, combine the 3 Tbsp. water with the gelatin and let it sit for a few minutes. After that, return the liquid to the pan and add the gelatin/water combo. Simmer until the gelatin is dissolved and remove from the heat. Immediately, pour the cranberry sauce into the mold. In my case it was a BPA-free can. That way you don’t have to worry about a weird chemical transfer after all that work. Yes, many cans are actually labeled BPA-free so you should have no problem finding one.
Here they are, ready to throw into the refrigerator for at least 12 hours but at least a day is best.
Can O’ Cranberry Sauce
(adapted from Epicurious)
4 bags (12 oz.) cranberries
2 1/2 cups sugar
3 c. water
3 envelopes of unflavored gelatin + 3 Tbsp. water
If you dare…
Yes, I really did that. What can I say, I love Legos and I love my boys.
You could put this in any mold you want. If I was Martha, I would put it in a cute little turkey mold, but I’m not.
So, I made Lego cranberry sauce.
…
Note: If you wanted to can this, you would just process it for 5 minutes. After you sterilize the jars, add the liquid to the sterilized jars at the same point you put them in the can.
Aren’t they just beautiful? I have to say I love to take pictures of vegetables. It’s weird I know, but I love that this color isn’t fake or added. It’s just right there…the way God made it.
Radiant as they are, these fellas come with a power-punch of bitterness. Don’t worry though, the fat from the bacon and the sweetness from the apples cuts right through the bitterness. Then, they become awesome.
The only thing to note about brussels’ is to cut them lengthwise from the “stem” down. This keeps all of the leaves from falling off the brussel unit. They like to stick together, these guys.
I’ve been seeing recipes floating around with bacon, but I thought the apples and curry would add a new twist. They were ridiculously yummy and my kids ate them. Actually, my roast chicken and potatoes weren’t done in time for dinner so that’s all they ate.
Curried Brussel Sprouts with bacon and apples
1 stalk of brussel sprouts or 2-ish lbs. if you can’t find a stalk, removed and cut in half
1 package of bacon, chopped into lardons (don’t you just love that word :/)
2 apples, cored and sliced
4 garlic cloves, pressed
1 tsp. curry powder
salt and pepper, to taste
Throw it all in a casserole dish and bake at 375 for about 25 minutes or until the brussel sprouts are softened.
Serve with roast chicken like this. I’m making more for thanksgiving!
Julian is a place San Diegans’ go to make us feel like it’s fall even though often it’s almost 80 degrees. It just so happened that the day we went to Julian it was actually cold. Like really cold. I went with a group of friends from church to pick apples and none of us thought we might actually have to bring gloves or hats. My 3 kids didn’t pick much because they could only think of how cold their hands were, but it was so much fun. I got to chat for a few minutes with the owner and she said many of the trees are heirloom trees and they don’t even know how old they actually are. Pretty cool. You might be thinking that I don’t have a picture of apples above and you would be correct. The apple place was closed so we picked pears instead. No biggie. I also learned on my visit that the apple pies in Julian are no longer made with local apples and sometimes even canned ones which is so so soooo very sad. Apparently they are pretty much all from Washington unless you request one from a local orchard that makes them from fresh picked apples. Oh bother. What is the world coming to. So, we didn’t stop for pie but we did get cider :).
I had plans for these but alas we were leaving just a few days later for PA. I had a pile of bags to sew for a non-profit I help out with and a birthday party for a sweet 3-year-old. So, we basically ate them raw mostly. I also made a tart and put some in a panini with prosciutto and goat cheese brie. Pears make all things yummy.
One thing I made were these pear muffins. I had just read flipped through Martha’s kids magazine and saw different fruit muffins at the end. The recipe for apple muffins didn’t look mind-blowing, but it was perfect timing for me.You can find it here. My pears were ripe so mine turned out a little sunken.
Here are some shots of our day:
Fun day.
The second muffin is the pumpkin spice latte muffin. I saw this recipe and knew I had to make it. I just so happened to have that birthday party to bake for so it was a done deal. I don’t like the pumpkin spice latte (gasp! I know. How could I?) or pumpkin pie. I thought maybe I would like the flavors in a cupcake and, oh man, I do.
I would like to dedicate this cupcake to Jeff Rush who thinks the Pumpkin Spice Latte is the most awesome of all coffee drinks. I’m glad I was finally able to post this recipe so that he might enjoy baking this whenever he pleases. That good, Jeff?
The recipe was from Annie’s Eats. I HIGHLY recommend it and didn’t change a thing (gasp again!).
The little guy celebrating year 3 at his soldier birthday. Birthday parties are a necessity if you ask me. It’s a single day a year to celebrate one person’s amazing life.
It was sweet of my sister to take a picture of me with my buddy.
So, I returned the favor.
The week before Halloween, Miss F would have told you she was going to be a beautiful monarch butterfly. Then I made the mistake of saying under my breath that a “Mighty Macs” costume would have been cute. Note that I said “would have been”. However, I looked into the eyes of the girl who thoroughly enjoyed going to Philadelphia for the premier of “The Mighty Macs” (read about it here), copied movie advertisements to hand out to strangers (was upset we didn’t walk her to the grocery to hand them out), asked to call all of her friends to come see the movie, was doing basketball drills in the front yard, and now wants to be a basketball coach just like her Gram.
So, I said yes.
Thank goodness for the world series. I made it on a night when my husband had a buddy over and I just went for it for a few hours. I just traced a pattern from an old jumper. I couldn’t see a great picture of what these uniforms looked like in the 70’s, so matching the pleats was tough. I only see the hemline I didn’t bother ironing out of haste and also laziness. She doesn’t notice it though and I need to remember that.
Future basketball coach.
He was pretending to be in a bad mood but I only saw cuteness.
Protector or villain?
Little D pretty much wears this every day so this day wasn’t too different for him.
The bunch.
My annual picture with the kiddos for my birthday….with a China man’s hat. It’s very necessary. They kinda look confused, though.
1. Honeycomb Earrings from oliveandcocoa.com that I love so very much.
2. Goat’s milk caramels’ from happygoat.com. These are awesome. Truly.
3. Adorable wicker backpack for picking apples on the weekend or as a very expensive toy picker-upper. brookfarmgeneralstore.com
4.Madeline Weinrib makes amazing textiles…that is no secret. madelineweinrib.com
5. Super-cute and cozy looking sweater-cuff boots from urbanoutfitters.com
6. How perfect is this marshmallow roaster? shopterrain.com
7. This camera has been on my wish list for a while. I do miss film. lomography.com
This Week:
I feel like I was able to take a deep breath in life this week. My husband was gone, but it was still a pretty good week. This was only because God helped me see it that way. This is a heavy travel time for my husband, mostly because he’s making up for a loss right now that wasn’t his fault. It’s a tough position for him and it also demands a lot from me. I don’t really watch TV with the exception of Project Runway and Top Chef, but I was able to watch the entire Mad Men series on netflix while he’s been gone. That a crazy lot of episodes. When my little buddy was crying this week , I was remembering what I said when he was a newborn babe in my arms. I told myself, no matter what, that I would take the time to cuddle him while I could and kiss his tears away. Someday he will smell like BO and will ask me what’s for dinner. My sweet girl is ridiculously distracted by birds during school. True, I created this monster by introducing her to the Audubon books, but it’s kind-of a problem. I’ve learned to help it by stopping for bird breaks in exchange for focus. It kinda works. My middle guy is constantly telling me I don’t play with him which is completely not true because I build him a Lego set (sometimes the same one every day) every morning before school. It still hurts my people-pleasing heart to hear those words but all I can do is my best. It seems that I am constantly hearing, “Let’s get together”. No, it’s not the song from “The Parent Trap”, it’s people that I care about who need a friend. I love and care about each one of my friends, but it’s so hard to have really good connections with people when you only see them every now and then. I can only have so many people over, ya know? We do so love to entertain, but it would be nice to take a break every now and then and be the company ;) It is great to see them when I can and this week I got to see quite a few. So, you see, at the end of the week, we can only do our best, every day, to pick out the things that gave us the most joy instead of the most pain. Sometimes my best feels like a failure, but this week God gave me the peace that it was enough and I am so very thankful for that.
28 is looking pretty good so far. Oh yeah, it was my birthday this week.
Another bright side to life: I’m thankful to still be in my 20’s a bit longer…
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