Microwaved Apples

I gotta tell you, this was by far the simplest yet most satisfying thing I've made in a long time! So I blogged recently about the microwave bags I'm making that can be used for cooking foods like potatoes, squash and corn in the microwave. Well, one of the things I list that can be cooked in the bag is an apple. I have never cooked an apple in the microwave nor had I tasted one that was, but a friend of mine has. Well, last week I got a convo through my Etsy shop with an inquiry as to just how one would go about microwaving an apple using the bag so, yes, another experiment would be soon in the works.

 

What does a microwaved apple taste like? YUMMY that's what. It's like apple pie without all the sugar and calories! It was the perfect thing to have on a perfectly chilly day in Detroit. I'll bet it would be perfect with ice cream too!

 

It came out very shrivelled!

Is your mouth watering yet? Well order up a bag and by this time next weekend you can be enjoying all the goodness of this very tasty and healthy treat.

 

On to the quick tutorial...  

 

For this experiment I started with a normal size Red Delicious apple.  

1. Wash apple
2. Cut the core out of the center from the top but don't cut all the way through to the bottom. Rinse.
3. Wrap the apple with a damp paper towel and put in the microwave bag so the apple is right side up.
4. Micro-cook on high for 2:30 (I tested mine after 1:30 and it needed more time)
5. Remove from bag and paper towel. Caution: Very HOT!!
6. Cut, sprinkle with a little cinnamon if desired and enjoy!

That has seriously got to be the shortest tutorial I've ever done!

Microwave Bags!

I recently discovered the simplicity and satisfaction of cooking baking potatoes, sweet potatoes and acorn squash in the microwave. Yep, the microwave! The best part is they come out pretty darn close to oven baked spuds and squash! When I say "pretty darn close", I mean it! The skin is a little different, but they are light and fluffy inside and not at all gummy like when you just toss a potato in the microwave. The best part.... not running the oven for over an hour!

So, of course now I am making those too! I have 3 sizes ranging from the person lunch box size and a family size bag. If you haven't heard of this before, it's definitely worth giving it a try!

Bags can be purchased from my DetroitKnitter Etsy shop in my bags/totes/holders section. There's way more information about the bags and how they work there too!

In the meantime, I'll get your taste buds watering with this Microwave Twice Baked Potato recipe:

MICROWAVE TWICE BAKED POTATOES – Large Baking Bag

4 baking potatoes

3 green onions, thinly sliced

2 tbsp butter

½ c. hot milk

½ tsp salt

dash black

pepper

dash nutmeg

dash paprika

4 slices bacon
2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese, divided

2 tbsp grated sharp Cheddar cheese, divided

You will also need a Large Microwave Bag, a few microwave safe bowls, a microwave safe plate, and several paper towels.

 MICROWAVE

1. Wash potatoes (do not prick, do not cut). Wrap each potato in a wet paper towel. Put the potatoes in a large microwave bag. Microwave for about 10 minutes at high power turning them over after 5-6 minutes. Remove from microwave; do not remove from bag. In the meantime get the other ingredients ready. Then…
2. Place bacon strips on a paper towel on a microwave safe dish. Cover with a second paper towel. Microwave for 4-5 minutes. Let cool. Crumble.
3. Combine butter and green onions in a small microwave safe dish and cover. Microwave on high power for 1 ½ minutes or until the onion is soft.
4. Put milk in a large microwave safe dish. Microwave for about 1 ½ minutes to get it hot. Do not boil.

ASSEMBLE INTO THE LARGE BOWL OF HOT MILK:  

1. Add the green onion and butter mixture, ½ of the crumbled bacon, the remaining ingredients (you may save a sprinkle of cheese to dress the top of the potato) to the bowl of milk. Stir.
2. Cut the potatoes in half and scoop the pulp into the milk bowl with the other ingredients. Do not discard the potato shells.
3. Mash the potato mixture until light and fluffy. Stir in half the crumbled bacon.
4. Spoon the potato mixture into the potato shells. Sprinkle with remaining bacon and cheese.

MICROWAVE

1. Place the filled shells on a microwave safe plate and cook on high power uncovered for 1 to 1 ½ minutes.
2. Serve!

Makes 8 potato halves. Adjust contents to your taste.

Jalapeño Apple Spread

Early on St. Patrick's Day brought canning both apple jelly and apple pepper jelly. The name apple pepper jelly seems to make people think it goes on toast so I've decided that from now on I'll call it Jalapeño Apple Spread. It's hot sweetness is great on a cracker with a tad of cream cheese. I usually use Trader Joe's reduced fat cream cheese, which IMO is just as good as the fully loaded cream cheese.

Here's a picture of a few jars of the Jalapeño Apple Spread and my regular apple jelly that I made. An older post about making jelly is here. It's definitely darker than the last batch I made up. I think that's because the apple juice I used was pretty red so I added more green dye otherwise it would have been purple. Eeeek!



You will need a water canner and canning jars for this. In the summer time Walmart sells these supplies, but this time of year my choices are limited, but I know I can always get what I need at Meijer. Getting into canning probably costs about $60-$70 to get into but the investment will last for years and years. I've seen a canning combo too that includes the pot and tongs and funnel and other accessories which is a good way to get started.

Here's my recipe for Jalapeño Apple Spread:

Prepare the water canner, the jars, and lids following standard canning instructions. Don't forget to get out your funnel, bands, tongs and what not.

1. 2/3 cups jalapeño, minced (4-5 large jalapeños should do or 6-7 small ones) I use the seeds too.
2. 2 1/2 cups apple juice. I use my own that I make from the peels when making applesauce, but regular store bought un-sweetened apple juice is fine.
3. 2 tablespoons vinegar, white is fine
4. 6 cups of sugar, you can reduce this in half, quarter, or none if you use no-sugar needed pectin (below)
5. 3/4 cups water
6. 1/2 teaspoon butter, this keeps the mixture from foaming when cooking and helps get a clear jelly
7. 1 packet of pectin, I like to add one extra teaspoon of pectin to ensure the jelly sets up but it's not supposed to be needed.
8. green food coloring, 4 drops should do, but color as you like or skip all together 

• In a bowl mix the first 4 ingredients and set aside
• In a 6-8QT pot add water, butter and slowly stir in the pectin.
• Heat the pectin mixture on the stove to a hard boil that you can't stir away.
• Add the jalapeño mixture and the food coloring to the pot
• Bring to a hard boil that won't stir away. Boil for 1 minute once it won't stir away.
• Strain the liquid into a bowl to remove the jalapeño
• Optional: I like to stir 1/4-1/3 cups of the strained jalapeño back into the jelly; it gives it a hot look!
• Ladle into prepared jars, wipe the rim, apply the lid and band
• Process 10 minutes after the water begins to boil again.
• Remove from canner and set 2" apart on many layers of newspaper to protect your counter
• They will seal with a pop very fast!
• Let sit over night. Remove bands and wipe the jars clean. Label and store in a cool place out of direct sunlight.

Yield= 60 ounces (I used 7 half pint jars and one 4oz jar)

Great on variety crackers with a tad of cream cheese!

Kumquat Cookies

Yum. I brought a bunch of these back to MI from FL and made a batch. I sent cookies back to FL and my brother loved them! I loved them and so did my friends here in MI. They could have been a bit sweeter for my liking; it is a unique cookie with a unique taste.

I found the recipe at recipezaar. Here's the LINK.

Pumpkin Seeds, Pumpkin Puree and "Eating Pumpkin"

The large carving pumpkin doesn't get any respect as an eating pumpkin although I've been using them for just that for several years now. Every year after Halloween I make tasty pumpkin seeds and pumpkin puree and mashed pumpkin that I freeze and use the whole year. Yep, all from "carving" pumpkins. I've made dozens of pumpkin muffins, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin pies, pumpkin bread, pumpkin biscotti and pumpkin logs. I've yet to make a pumpkin cheesecake, but you can bet I will at some point. Yes all that from FREE pumpkins. Yep, I said free. Who needs to go buy "pie pumpkins" at 67 cents a pound when you can pick them right from the curb? The best time to get free pumpkins is the week after Halloween on trash day. People all over the world are throwing out perfectly good uncut, pristine condition pumpkins. They set them next to their trash so it's not like you have to dig for them. You do however have to have enough guts to stop and pick them up. :)

Ahh, anyway this year I picked up 10 pumpkins over a couple trash weeks. I did trash one since it had developed a soft spot after sitting in my garage for two weeks.

It is not recommended by the FDA that pumpkin puree be canned so how the heck do you turn those great pumpkins into year-round edibles? Easy as "pie". LOL

HARVEST THE PULP AND SEEDS:
1. Wash/scrub the pumpkin thoroughly before cutting
2. Cut in half so you have a top and bottom
3. Cut away seeds from both halves. Hold the stringy stuff and seeds in one hand and squish the seeds free landing them into a colander. Rinse the pulp from the seeds. Set aside.
4. Slice the pumpkin into 2" to 2½" strips or as close as you can get. Obviously you will cut around the stem.
5. Using a knife "fillet" the mucky stringy stuff from the pumpkin strips revealing the firm flesh underneath. You do not have to remove the skin! Unless you really like using the knife and wasting a lot of time.
6. Next you'll cube the strips so they are sort of square. No they don't all have to be the same size.

COOK THE PUMPKIN:
There are several different methods for cooking the pumpkin, but I've found the least troublesome and most consistent to be steaming. I have a very large pot with a basket that I use which will hold about 1/2 to 2/3 of a medium size pumpkin that's been cubed.
1. Toss the pumpkin cubes with the skin on into the basket and put the basket into a pot with a couple inches of water.
2. Turn the burner on high and bring the water to a rolling boil.
3. Once boiling turn the heat down to medium high and steam the pumpkin from this point for 30 minutes. If you still have white spots after 30 minutes steam it a little longer.
4. Dump the cooked pumpkin cubes into a strainer and allow to sit until long enough to handle without burning yourself. It takes a long time to cool so I recommend starting another batch or going on to working on your seeds in the meantime.

MAKE THE PUREE OR EATING PUMPKIN:
5. Once cool enough to handle you'll pretty much squish the skin away from the pulp with your fingers by sort of pinching the skin the pulp basically pops away. The skin is garbage. Put the pulp in a colander.
6. Mash the pulp while in the colander to release the extra liquid. Don't be gentle here... squish it good by pressing your hands down onto the puree so the liquid exits through the colander holes. You can use the bottom of a flat bowl or plate too! You don't have to squish it so it's dry, but you should be able to form a ball out of it that holds its shape. At this point you can fill freezer bags with pumpkin that I call "eating pumpkin". It's simply mashed up pumpkin that can be frozen for a whole year. When you're ready to enjoy I nuke it a bit until I can get it out of the freezer bag, put in a a sauce pan and add a little bit of butter and cinnamon for a tasty squash side dish. Seriously! Even my husband likes it!
7. Continuing on with making the puree; after mashing and squishing you'll transfer it to a blender or food processor if you should be so lucky and puree it. Since you squished the liquid out this is not as easy as it seems and using a spatula to slide along the wall of the blender will help get it pureed. Yes, keep the spatula firmly against the side or you'll be picking silicone out of the puree!
8. I then scoop 2 rounded cups of the final puree into freezer Tupperware. Actually I scoop it one heaping cup serving into a sandwich bag and load 2 packets into one Tupperware with a piece of wax paper between . Of course you can use freezer bags too and use any portion size you'd like just be sure to remove the air before zipping closed and flatten the bag so when they freeze you have a stack of pumpkin "bricks".

To thaw the puree I generally just let it sit in a bowl on the counter top. Discard any liquid that escapes which is why I use heaping cups because there's always liquid run off that reduces the amount of pumpkin that you end up post thawing. Substitute your pumpkin puree for the canned stuff called for in recipes!

Another way to go about this is to not squish the liquid out, puree it, then let the liquid drip out through a jelly bag or several layers of cheese cloth. The squishing method is faster though.

COOK THE PUMPKIN SEEDS:
There are several ways to make pumpkin seeds. I've tried several different recipes and methods the sure fire first step though is to boil the seeds in salt water. The ratio I use is:

1 cup of seeds
4 cups of water
1 tablespoon of salt

Each medium size pumpkin produces typically between 1½ to 2 cups of seeds so adjust the above ratio for how many cups of seeds you have. Bring the water, seeds and salt to a boil then turn down to simmer and cook for 10 minutes. Drain the seeds into a colander. I like to blot the seeds with a paper towel to remove as much water as I can.

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Spread about a tablespoon of olive oil over the bottom of a roasting pan. Spread the seeds out over the roasting pan, all in one layer. Bake on the top rack until the seeds begin to brown, 10-20 minutes. When browned to your satisfaction, remove from the oven and let the pan cool on a rack. Let the seeds cool all the way down before eating.

Alternatively you can mix your seeds with the olive oil rather than coating the pan with it. You can use butter rather than olive oil. You can go way healthier and substitute either butter or oil with egg whites.

Typically I use olive oil with sugar mixed in for "regular" seeds and also make "Cajun" seeds where I'll add some Cayenne pepper and sugar to the olive oil and mix them up before baking. There are a lot of different recipes, but IMO the first step should always be boiling the seeds in salt water.

Pudding Shot; It's a Good Thing...

I had to get a giggle after reviewing my site meter stats and discovered what the one thing that landed most hits to my site. I don't normally spend that much time evaluating the specs on it; I mostly just like to watch the number of visits climb. :)

It was quite obvious by scrolling through the stats that my pudding shot recipe brought most people here. This is definitely an indicator that there is a desperate need for more fun in our alcohol. I'd love to hear some other concoctions.

If you didn't see it before and would like to try the recipe it's on this page!

Chocolate Rum Dessert

Today, Dave had his running buddies, Ken, Lance and Anna over for a speed workout, hot tub, dinner and beer; a usual Thursday night at our house minus a couple of the runners this time due to prior commitments and what not. Anyway, this is Lance's birthday week so I asked him what kind of dessert he'd like for after dinner. He didn't indicate a specific dessert rather that he'd prefer nothing with coconut or nuts and that anything with rum has got to be good.

I went to work Googling for a rum dessert. The very first thing that pulled up was a "Chocolate Rum Dessert" on Recipe Zaar. I quickly scanned the ingredients and determined that I already had all the stuff to make this. Sweet! I pretty much followed the directions, but I swapped dark rum for light, I doubled the recipe and I accidentally didn't add the chocolate slowly to the egg mixture rather dumped it in which might have affected the consistency just a little bit. Anyway, I mixed it up as otherwise directed and distributed the double batch into 5 glass bowels since most "serving sizes" are ridiculously small. They then went into the refrigerator. I wanted to use fancier stemmed glasses, but the refrigerator is so full of beer from last weekend and the new stuff that was brought tonight that I couldn't possibly had gotten the taller glasses in so I settled for small glass bowels.

Prior to serving I topped the pudding like mixture with a dollop of whipped cream from the container and a few of the chocolate curls that I learned how to make just for this project. The homemade chocolate rum puddings were a hit. We sent Anna home with one, but I haven't heard her thoughts on it yet. I would definitely use my little bitty 1 cup glass bowels next time since the porportions were actually too big fixed as an 8 serving batch distributed into just 5 bowels.

To make the chocolate curls set a milk or white chocolate bar out and in a semi warm place for about an hour; NOT a hot spot, but warm. I warmed my chocolate bar by setting the unwrapped bar on a plate on the counter in front of a window with diffused sunshine coming through. The bar should not be melted, just a little flexible. Then take a piece of aluminum foil and hang it over the edge of your counter so like 6" is overhanging and crease the foil on the edge of the counter. Curl the foil hanging over the edge slightly up to catch the curls as you make them. Next the fun part! Take your dry vegetable peeler and with the long edge of the chocolate bar overhanging the counter a little bit peel off a piece of chocolate on an angle and let it fall into the foil catch below. Wallah! Very presentable chocolate curls ready to decorate any decadent dessert!

This recipe was easy to make and tasted great!

Sweet as a Nectarine

It was a debauchery of drinking and canning this weekend. Friday night's drunkeness with Lance, ME and friends ended at about 3 AM after a quick visit by yours truly and Lance to Dave's place of work. It's amazing how much a horseshoe shaped street can really mess with a mind that's liquored up! Then finalizing the night with some very pathetic pool playing before crashing.

Saturday morning was a trip to the dermatologist for a quick 8:15 am check up. Yes, I know my eyes are bloodshot, but aren't I here for my skin? Ugh, that was enough.... home to bed! Got up at about 2-ish and shortly after went down to Eastern Market mostly to get some black cherries. I did get the cherries plus a few other things: A pretty bundle of Glads', a yellow plant of some sort, and a vendor was clearing out his peaches for $1 a case. Yes, a case! Cha-ching!

Oooh oooh, I'm gonna can some peaches. Oh wait, the side of the box there says nectarines. Hmmm. Well, still a good deal and there has to be a zillion things you can make with nectarines too. After Googling like mad I found several recipes and instructions for canning them albeit the instructions were for using pressure canners rather than a water boiling canner - such small details.

I made some awesome nectarine muffins which I found at the All Recipes site granted the recipe is suppose to be both nectarine and peaches but what the heck they are quite tasty! I bet these would be good with a little lemon and blueberries. I also made a Spiced Nectarine Cake which is very very tasty, but just a little wet. I'm still pondering over how to arrange the nectarine slices in a concentric circle. I wonder if I'd made my circles of fruit with the tips facing the sides rather than the middles if the sides would have held up better. Very good nonetheless and I wouldn't hesitate to make them again. Well that used up ohhh about 12 of the 40 or so nectarines. I canned 3 quarts which is to be determined at a later date whether or not that is a good idea; I do have that fear of one of my jars exploding and creating a huge mess... will one of these be the one? Canned nectarine update: I used 2 of the cans for various thing, but they didn't have the right consistancy and I wound up dumping the 3rd jar. It wasn't a complete failure, just not as good of a result as I'd hoped for. I gave 6 to the neighbor and 8 to Lance. There's about 20 still in my fridge... maybe I'll make more muffins for the GLR trip? Maybe some nectarine smoothies are in the future for this weekend. I wonder if I can freeze the slices for a short period of time. Oh, I also canned 6 jars of the Black Cherry jam, which I've come to really enjoy with toast.

Sunday was the "Free at Last" hash hared by Coxcycle in South Lyon prior to which Mark, Katie and Dave ran 12 or so miles. It was a good time and we all were eager to run up the tab at this uncommon "no hash cash" event.

Pudding Shot Recipe

Want a fun shooter, but Jell-O shots have become almost boring and a full shot of liquor makes you queasy? Try making pudding shots! Basically just use instant pudding but rather than adding all the milk cut it in 1/2 and make the other 1/2 your choice of liquor. One regular size box made 46 1-oz size cups.

We made a bunch of pudding shots for Motown A2H3 1000th, but this was my first time making them myself. I used a simple, can't-go-wrong recipe...

One Box (four 1/2 cup servings) Jell-O Instant Pudding (I used French Vanilla)

1 Cup Milk (this is 1/2 of what the recipe says to use)

1 Cup Liquor (I used O'Mara's Country Irish Cream)

One 8oz tub of Whipped Topping, cold but not frozen (I used Cool Whip brand)

Pour the milk into a bowl and beat for about a minute (no blender? use a whisk. No whisk? use a fork) in the pouch of dry pudding. Once completely blended whisk in the liquor. Stir in the whipped cream until blended, but try not to over work the mixture. An easy way to get the mixture into your cups is to pour it into a gallon size Ziploc baggie, seal the baggie, then cut a very small corner off and squeeze the pudding shot mixture through the hole into the cups; like a pastry bag and remember, you can always cut the hole bigger, but not smaller so cut smart. To get all the mixture out, I use the edge of the counter to work the mixture toward the hole. Snap on the lids and put them in the freezer overnight. Keep them cold when transporting.

Cost: For each batch that makes 46 cups the raw cost would approximately be....

• Cups & Lids: $1.89
• Pudding .75
• Milk .18
• Cool Whip 1.32
• Liquor 5.00

So the cost per batch in my case was about $9.14 or approximately 20 cents per shot. Certainly the biggest factor in how much a batch costs to make is the cost of the liquor!

Need to know how I got those figures? I figured out the cost based on bulk purchase complete set of cups a gallon of milk and a bottle of liquor. Obviously there is an initial investment in cups and lids. I can get 1 oz cups in a 250 pack for $4.69 but the lids only come in 100 packs for $1.99 each. So for an even match I'd have to buy 500 cups and lids (2 packs of cups @ 4.69 ea and 5 packs of lids at $1.99 ea). MInd you I did not buy all that at once, but for a cost per complete cup figure we have to have even amounts of both. So... (4.69 * 2) + (1.99 * 5) = 19.33 + 1.16 (6% tax) = $20.49 for 500 complete cups so each cup costs $.04. At Walmart a 4 serving size box of Jell-O Instant Pudding costs $.75, an 8 oz tub of Cool Whip was $1.32 and a Gallon of milk is roughly $3 (I don't do the regular grocery shopping so I really don't know the cost :o). I'm not sure what the cost of the OMara's Irish Cream was, but I'm guessing about $15; Bailey's is probably more like $25 for 750ML. Ok. So If I need a cup of milk that's 1/16th of a jug or about 18 cents per cup. A cup of liquor would be 1/3 of the 750 ML bottle (750ML=3 cups) so the liquor would be maybe $5. If you read all this you're probably thinking I need to get a life! :D

Apple Pepper Jelly and Cinnamon Spiced Apple Jelly

This is "apple pepper jelly"; it's the first time I've made it. No I don't really know what I'm going to do with it yet, but I didn't want to make all regular jelly thus this creation was born. Ok, I lie a little bit; I did basically follow an online recipe. The floaties in there are jalapeno peppers. I'm thinking this stuff will be good as a topper for cream cheese and crackers. I hope somebody likes it because I made 7 jars of it.

10/10/2008 - I've served this up several times now on variety crackers smeared with a bit of cream cheese and it's been a big hit. Some people are turned away by it being called jelly so I've decided to call it a spread instead. It's a rather odd combination of sweet and hot. The heat is actually pretty mild / mild plus IMO and the sugar could have been reduced. Anyway, since I've seen a lot of folks hitting my page searching for this recipe I'm adding my recipe and notes to this post.

Marni's Apple-Pepper Spread

2/3 cups jalapeno peppers (6-7 should be enough); I used my hand grinder to "mince" them

2 1/2 cups apple juice (I used the cinnamon flavored apple juice from my 2007 applesauce canning)

2 tablespoons white vinegar

6 cups granulated sugar (I suppose you could try the reduced sugar pectin to lower the amount of sugar needed)

3/4 cups water

1/2 teaspoon butter (real butter, salted. This keeps the jelly from foaming)

4 drops of green food coloring

1 package pectin + 1 teaspoon of pectin from another packet (The extra bit seems to be needed to ensure jellies will set up properly)

1. Mix first 4 ingredients and set aside
2. Put the water, butter and food coloring in a sauce pan and gradually add the pectin while bringing the mixture to a rapid boil that won't stir away.
3. Add the jalapeno mixture and bring it to a hard, rapid boil stirring constantly for 1 minute. (the 1 minute countdown begins after the mixture has reached the rapid boil point.
4. Strain the juice into a warmed vessel (just warm it up with running water and wipe otherwise the jelly will cool too quickly on the sides and begin to set up on the sides.)
5. I stirred in about 1/4 cup of the strained jalapeno back into the jelly before filling the prepared jars. (I thought it would look nicer and add more heat)
6. Skim any foam if necessary and ladle into prepared jars leaving 1/4" head space and process for 10 minutes
7. I turned the jelly jars a few times as it cooled to distribute the jalapeno pieces (yes, normally a big no-no to touch the jars while they cool!)

My Yield = Six 1/2 pint jars and one 12 ounce jar

I'd already put the jellies in the basement before taking the picture of it. Sure I've made regular old apple jelly before, but this year I decided to make apple jelly with a touch of cinnamon and a sprinkle of other spices like nutmeg, ginger and all spice.

The apple juice that was used to make both of these flavors was from last fall when Kelly and I made applesauce. The best apple jelly is actually made from the apple peels and not the apples themselves. Seems strange I know, but I've made it both ways and the peel method is better. This time I added a couple of cinnamon sticks to the pot as it simmered on the stove to give the apple juice a pleasant cinnamony flavor.

Apple jelly is probably the easiest jelly to make and can because apples already have a natural pectin which imo really helps with setting up the jelly when used with a regular packet of pectin of course. I have read where you can actually make your own pectin from apples, but my name is Marni... not Martha!

Leprachaun Surprise

Ooooh, this turned out really good! I started with a boxed angel food cake and cooked it according to the box directions while adding a splash of vanilla and almond extract to the batter and some green food coloring for this St Patty's day desert. Bake as directed. Cool as directed. Then use a serrated knife and cut the cake into 3 equal horizontal pieces; I actually used my electric knife for this procedure.

Topping ingredients:

Crushed Pineapple: One 20 ounce can. Do not drain it.

Blueberries: 1/3 c plus some to decorate the top. I blanched the blueberries for about 30 seconds to soften them up a bit. Blanching: Boil a pot of water and dunk the blueberries down into the water. Some float and others sink so I used a small strainer with a mixing spoon held over the top to submerge them.

Strawberries: 1/3 c chopped plus some slices to decorate the top. I used frozen ones that I let defrost on a plate prior to use. They worked out fine.

Whipped Cream: 1 cup. Thawed. It doesn't take long to thaw; don't microwave it or anything.

Vanilla Instant Pudding/Pie Filling: 4 oz box. Nothing special about this.

MIX THE TOPPING: For the topping I started by mixing the can of pineapple and the pudding packet together. I divided this mixture into 3 separate bowls then to one of the bowls I added an additional 1/3 cup blueberries and to a second one I added 1/3 cup chopped strawberries. No I didn't add anything else to the original mixture in the last bowl. Now to each of these bowl add 1/3 c of thawed (not frozen) whipped cream and lightly turn it in. Refrigerate the bowls you aren't using yet or just add the whipped cream as you use each bowl otherwise the whipped cream gets too liquidy.

CONSTRUCT: Place the bottom or widest piece of cake on the serving plate and spooned the blueberry mixture onto the circle getting close to the edge so it would squish out a bit. Stack the next layer of cake onto this and spread on the strawberry mixture. Stack the last piece of cake on the tower and spread with the original pineapple topping. Complete your masterpiece by decorating with strawberry slices and blueberries. This was a big hit!

Ivy Tree, Nectarine Cobbler & Mini Muffins

Ahhh, another day of kitchen experiments and yard scrap designing.



First I tried some mini muffins using a recipe called "Any Muffin Recipe" which recieved a 5-star rating. I'd never made any type of mini muffins before, but figured the bite size servings would be better for taking to parties and running events so I picked up one of those silicone muffin forms which cooks 24 mini muffins. Research on this muffin form says that silicone generally cooks faster than tin so I kept this in mind when cooking them. A little trick I sometime use for deviled eggs and icing and such is to put the contents into a zip lock bag, clip a corner and squeeze the contents out slowly. I chose to try this experiment with pineapple which was left behind by DH before leaving for GLR. I don't really know what went wrong, but these were absolutely disgusting. They became pasty in my mouth as I chewed them and the flavor wasn't quite right. Maybe it was the recipe itself or the use of pineapple. It wasn't the mini muffin form since I did make 2 regular size muffins which were equally gross. Oh well, maybe I'll try them again some day with a different recipe, but I kinda doubt it.

I did have great success with a nectarine cobbler though so all was not lost. The recipe calls for both nectarines and peaches but I used all nectarines. Yes, this was the last of the nectarines from the 50 pounds I purchased at Eastern Market last week for all of $2. Ooooh, it was good sweet with just the right amount of batter around the fruit. DH enjoyed it 2 days in a row with a big ole scoop of ice cream.... for breakfast!

Thirdly today, which actually took quite a bit of time was the creation of the ivy tree. Mmmm not sure exactly what I'll do with it yet, but it's done and the ivy is cleared from my Maples once again so it's all good. There's a lot of ivy wrapped up in it. Here's a quick picture story.

Cool Your Muffins...

Experiment 24. I'm beginning to think my starting number for my experiments should have higher although I am on a roll.

DH: "Those bananas have to be thrown away. They're too ripe."

ME: "Noooooo. Don't throw them away."

DH: "But they're rotten."

ME: "I'll make banana bread."

DH: "But they have black spots and they're rotten."

ME: "They're perfect!"

For an experiment in an experiment prior to cooking I added crushed walnut to the tops of 5 of them and stuffed 2 of those 5 with a few milk chocolate morsels.

I'm taking them today to the "Tri-hash-a-thon" at Island Lake.

Here's the recipe link.