Crockpot Braised Chicken & Red Cabbage

It's been awhile since I've posted anything here, not because I haven't been cooking but because life has been busy, and I've mostly been retreading familiar recipes...the ones I've posted here!  I've said before that the main reason I started this blog was for my own personal reference, and I've gotten some good mileage on that front in the last few whiles.

The kidlets get bigger and bigger, and they're doing more and more sports/homework/etc. during what used to be my cooking/prep time.  I've been keeping up by using the crockpot, and I'm needing to expand our repertoire.

This is adapted from Blueberry Hill Slow Cooker & Family Recipes.  I prepped it ahead and kept it in the fridge about 3 days before I made it for dinner.  Freezing is always an option, though.  I would definitely saute the veg before freezing it, but not the chicken.  If you don't have a few minutes to brown the chicken before putting it in the crockpot, I think you'll be fine just putting it in unbrowned.  For ease of packaging, freeze extra wine in an ice cube tray and use the frozen cubes for a freezer kit.

If you don't know what else to try juniper berries in, try adding them to sauerbraten.  Or a gin martini.

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Apple almond mini muffins (GFCF, dye-free)

These have become a breakfast favorite.

They're dead easy to make, but they do require spensy almond meal.  Here's the neat thing...the recipe is basically a densely filled baked quiche.  Predominantly an egg base with finely milled/grated stuff suspended heavily within.  GF oatmeal can substitute for part of the almond meal if you so desire (Bob's Red Mill has certified GF oatmeal; McCann's...my preferred oatmeal brand, gf or not, processes in dedicated facilities but does not have an official GF certification).

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Cheese stuffed apples

Absolute heaven in a slice.  The creaminess of the cheese with the fullness of the Camembert flavor against the tart, crisp apple...I'm breathing a little hard right now just thinking about it.  Really...appetizer orgasms people!

The only difficulty I had in making these was getting the cheese to "adhere" to the apple.  I think I didn't get the apple surface sufficiently dry.  Doesn't matter though, they were still amazing to taste.  They'll need to be made at least a day ahead to let the cheese firm up enough to slice well.





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Sausage Apple Pie

This is one of my husband's favorite dishes, and has become a favorite of everyone I've shared it with.  Sausage, apples and cheese may seem like a strange combination, but think about it...pork and apples are a pretty common combination as are cheese and apples.  There's a culinary syllogism here, and trust me, it works! 

I like using hot sausage to offset the sweetness of the pie filling with extra sharp cheddar, but feel free to substitute mild sausage or another type of cheese.

This pie reheats beautifully, so it is ideal for make-ahead breakfast, brunch or dinner.  Serve with fruit salad before noon and green salad after noon :D  It also can be frozen in its assembled-unbaked state or after baking.

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Sneaky Apple Muffins

You don't *have* to be sneaky about these muffins, if you don't want.  You *could* just tell everyone that they're whole wheat and that there's zucchini in them...or just keep that tidbit to yourself.  If you use green apples, the visible zucchini peel will totally pass for apple.  You *could* even flat-out lie and make this with all zucchini and still tell 'em it's apple ::shhh::

I used thawed frozen shredded zucchini from my garden bonanza.  If you grate up a fresh zucch for this, be sure to press as much moisture out as you can.  The zucchini will be a little "toothier" in the muffins if it's fresh, too.  You'll need a small apple and half a small zucchini for the amounts called for.

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Brown Sugar Double Apple Jam

Of all the sandwich spreads, jam is my favorite (to eat and make LOL).  I'm thinking about entering this one at next year's State Fair.  It's apple pie-y and slightly caramel-y from the unusual addition of brown sugar.  It's a "double" apple jam recipe b/c I use apple cider instead of water, the same way I do for applesauce.  I think I may play with the spice combination a bit, but as is, it's a delicious twist on regular apple jam.

I've tried a variety of chopping methods to make apple spreads, and the best IMHO is putting the apples through the coarse grating plate of my food processor.  The pieces come out uniformly and it's so much faster than hand-dicing.  The apples do seem to brown a bit faster when they're mechanically cut vs. handcutting (I guess b/c the plates aren't quite as sharp as my knives, and "tear" the apple flesh more, creating more surface area to oxidize?) but since you're using brown sugar anyway, color matters a little less.  You can toss the grated apples into some lemon-infused water if you want, but I think that just makes them wetter than you want for jam-making.

By the by, when you see butter called for in a jam or jelly recipe, it's to cut down on the foaming that occurs once the protein-heavy pectin is added to the pot. 

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Eat it the way you found it: Apples

Harvest Pink Lemonade

Making applesauce is no extraordinary feat of cooking.  But figuring out what to do with all the peels and cores can be.  You could just chuck them into the compost, OR you could turn them in a delicious, refreshing pink apple lemonade. 

I like using store-bought lemonade to make life easy on myself and for the fact that I usually find store-bought lemonade to be too sweet and too lemony...when cut with the pink apple juice rendered from the "leftovers" of your applesauce endeavor, it is just right.

I prefer Jonagold apples for making applesauce.  The flavor is so spot-on that I don't add anything except apple cider while cooking.  Good produce ultimately means less work for a better final product, so it's worth finding a local orchard and finding out what good sauce apples they grow.

I don't sieve my applesauce, as I think it's wasteful and I happen to like chunky applesauce.  Most recipes give a yield of about 2 pints per 3 lbs of apples, but that's if you sieve.  Unsieved, I got 11 pints from 10 lbs, or about 3 pints per 3 lbs of apples.  I give the following recipe per 3 lbs. of apples, scale up as desired.  I needed a 12 quart pot for 10 lbs of apples, and it took about 25 minutes for them to cook fully.  The peels and cores from 10 lbs made 3 quarts of pink apple juice, or 6 quarts of pink lemonade.  I froze the apple juice in quart-sized amounts.

And today's I Screw Up So You Don't Have To...if you make loads of applesauce and plan to can it in a water bath process, keep waiting jars in a pot of warm water.  That way, when you put 2nd or 3rd batches of jars into the already-boiling water bath, nothing explodes.  Just a friendly tip.

Lastly...bonus cocktail recipe!  If you get cidered out, try a Chimayo...a surprisingly un-tequila-like mix of tequila, apple cider, lemon juice and cassis (and if you don't know what else to do with the cassis, try a kir or kir royale).


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