Cranberry Apple Sauce

One of the new favorite dishes in our house is cranberry apple sauce (as in newly a favorite, not that the dish is particularly new).  I had some ugly old apples a few weeks ago that I wanted to do something with, and a bag of cranberries in the freezer, left over from last Christmas, no doubt.  I decided to chop the apples and throw the cranberries in too, and viola!  The results were wonderful.  The apples sweeten the cranberries so almost no sugar is needed.  Will loves this, and it's completely healthy.  The only problem with it is that around here cranberries are sold in 12 oz bags for multiple dollars, so it's not as cheap as I would like.  Here are the basics:

- About 5 medium to large sweet apples (I follow Mom's applesauce advice and use a mix of varieties.  Not granny smith or anything else very tart - the point of the apples is to sweeten the cranberries

- 1 to 1 1/4 lb cranberries

- Orange juice or water, enough to keep everything from burning until the apples release their own juice, so maybe 1/2 - 1 cup.

-Cloves or cinnamon to taste

-Brown sugar or maple syrup, just a little, to taste.

Dice the apples.  Dump the fruits and OJ into a pan and cook on medium until the apples are soft.  Mash with a potato masher.  Add spices and a little sugar if you think it still needs it.  Enjoy hot or cold, plain, mixed into yogurt, with a little ice cream, however you want.

This stuff keeps in the fridge for longer than it lasts in our house.

So, not mind-blowing, but good.

-Maggie

Checking in

Hi all,

It seems as though we've all hit a hiatus with the blog these days.  I just wanted to drop by to say hello and keep this baby alive!

We had a wonderful thanksgiving full of way too much food in San Diego.  Now, it's Christmas crunch time for me.  I've got my huge winter concert two weeks from today and about 7 other gigs with my chamber group between now and Dec. 19.  This is [one of] my ridiculous time of year, so I probably won't be trying anything just too clever or creative in the kitchen.

I just hope I have some time on the weekends to make some cookies - cherry winks here I come!!  One nice thing about teaching and having a small choir with a lot of gigs, is that I always have someone to eat my cookies.  Turns out that I like baking cookies and eating the batter more than I like eating cookies.  Thankfully, my kids just like eating anything I bake.  It's a good relationship...

Anywho, just wanted to check in.  Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Molly

Sauerkraut (again)

Our Fall Cabbage Harvest

The weather in southeastern Pennsylvania is finally turning to freezing nights and moderate days, so it's time to harvest the fall cabbage crop.  We have been cutting cabbages one at a time for cole slaw, but the freeze-thaw cycle is bound to ruin them if we don't get them all in now.  That's a lot of cabbage for two people so it's time to try making some sauerkraut.

The coming of winter also leads to the search for firewood and the other day I cut down a large dead hickory tree down by the bank of the creek.  I rigged a snatch block (type of pulley) from a tree at the top of the hillside and with a long line used the 4x4 pickup truck to haul the hickory logs up the hill to the yard.  This afternoon, I used the chainsaw to hog out a blank to be carved into a hickory sauerkraut tamper.

Hickory Cabbage Tamper Blank

Ace Hardware provided a handy 2 gallon plastic sauerkraut "crock" but I still needed something for the pressure lid that fit the inside of the crock.  I cut a round of hickory about 2" thick and with first the ax and then chisel carved it down to a round lid that fits inside the plastic crock for applying pressure to the sauerkraut as it works.

I started by washing everything in distilled white vinegar per Uncle Tim's suggestion.  Three green and one red cabbage heads yielded about 6 lbs of sliced cabbage.  I layered this into the crock sprinkling it with about 3 1/2 tablespoons of salt as it was layered.  Each layer was tamped down with the hickory tamper blank.  (This will be more elegant after the blank is carved into a properly shaped tamper with a handle but in the mean time that big ole chunk o' wood did a great job of tamping 'em cabbage down.)  At the end, I covered the cabbage with the round hickory pressure lid and weighted it down with the tamper blank.  Within an hour enough water had been extracted from the cabbage to form a brine which covered the lid and the sauerkraut was starting to work, forming bubbles when pressed down.  This all seems too simple to be true but after experimenting with pickles this year I am beginning to really appreciate lacto-bacteria.  With a little luck, we should have fresh homemade sauerkraut for Thanksgiving dinner this year.  Well see...

Ace Hardware Sourced the 2 Gal. Plastic "Crock"

Hickory Pressure Lid for the Crock

Grilled Potatoes

Time to get a November entry up on this blog!

I have talked before about our old friend, the currently much maligned potato.  For the record, the complete nutritional facts on a typical potato are listed at the end of this posting.  A potato is an excellent source of carbs.  It has almost no fat.  The solids portion are 10% protein leading to 7.5% protein calories with complete essential amino acids.  With a little fat supplement, you could live a healthy life on these.  The problem is that most prep methods for potatoes tend to add way too much fat for the average diet:  French fries; deep fat fried chips;  baked potato globbed with sour cream and butter; potato salad dressed with mayonnaise;  Dad's best mashers with way to much butter for healthy eating; potatoes for hash fried in bacon grease; etc.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I have been on the lookout for tasty ways prepare potatoes without adding excess fat.  Last time we dug potatoes from the garden we discovered that you can mash garden fresh,  new red potatoes with zero butter and get an excellent product.  Really, mashers with no butter.  But don't try that with a mid-winter white potato from the grocery store.

Last night, based on completely misunderstanding something Kanga was trying to tell me, it occurred to me that you could probably grill thick potato slices on the George Forman grill without a lot of grease.  I tried it.  I sprayed the grill lightly with PAM but I think you could get by with skipping even this little bit of oil.  I used grocery store white potatoes sliced about 3/8" thick.  They cooked up beautifully.  Add salt, pepper, fajita rub, whatever, it's good eating.  Try to cut the slices to very even thickness so they all get contacted by the top surface of the grill.  Of course if you are grilling on the BBQ you can probably bake/grill potato slices or wedges there also.  I guess the whole idea of grilling potatoes in not really a novel concept but it had not occurred to me to try it on the Forman grill with no grease before.

Food                                         Potato                Units      Percents

Portion                                         1                                          

Wt                                               214                                      

AA Score                                     100%                                   

Calories                                       199                       Calories    

  From Carbohydrate                     182                       Calories     91.4%

  From Fat                                    2                           Calories     1.2%

  From Protein                              15                         Calories     7.5%

  From Alcohol                              0                           Calories     0.0%

Total Carbohydrate                        45.2                      g               21%

Dietary Fiber                                 4.7                        g               2.2%

Starch                                          36.9                      g               17%

Sugars                                         2.5                        g               1.2%

Sucrose                                       856                       mg           

Glucose                                       942                       mg           

Fructose                                      727                       mg           

Lactose                                        0                           mg           

Maltose                                        0                           mg           

Galactose                                    0                           mg           

Total Fat                                      0.29                      g               0.1%

Saturated Fat                               0.07                      g               0.0%

Monounsaturated Fat                    0.00                      g               0.0%

Polyunsaturated Fat                      0.14                      g               0.1%

Total trans fatty acids                    0                           mg           

Total trans-monoenoic fatty acids   0                           mg           

Total trans-polyenoic fatty acids     0                           mg           

Total Omega-3 fatty acids              28                         mg           

Total Omega-6 fatty acids              92                         mg           

Protein                                         5                           g               2.5%

Tryptophan                                   84                         mg           

Threonine                                     195                       mg           

Isoleucine                                     216                       mg           

Leucine                                        321                       mg           

Lysine                                          325                       mg           

Methionine                                   84                         mg           

Cystine                                        66                         mg           

Phenylalanine                               238                       mg           

Tyrosine                                       197                       mg           

Valine                                          302                       mg           

Arginine                                       246                       mg           

Histidine                                       115                       mg           

Alanine                                        165                       mg           

Aspartic acid                                1308                      mg           

Glutamic acid                               897                       mg           

Glycine                                        158                       mg           

Proline                                         193                       mg           

Serine                                          233                       mg           

Hydroxyproline                              0                           mg           

Cholesterol                                   0                           mg           

Phytosterols                                 0                           mg           

Alpha Carotene                             0                           mcg         

Beta Carotene                              13                         mcg         

Beta Cryptoxanthin                       0                           mcg         

Beta Tocopherol                            0                           mg           

Betaine                                        0                           mg           

Choline                                        32                         mg           

Delta Tocopherol                           0                           mg           

Dietary Folate Equivalents             60                         mcg         

Folate                                          60                         mcg         

Folic Acid                                     0                           mcg         

Food Folate                                  60                         mcg         

Gamma Tocopherol                       0                           mg           

Lutein+Zeaxanthin                         64                         mcg         

Lycopene                                     0                           mcg         

Niacin                                          3                           mg           

Pantothenic Acid                          1                           mg           

Retinol                                         0                           mcg         

Retinol Activity Equivalent              2                           mcg         

Riboflavin                                      0                           mg           

Thiamin                                        0                           mg           

Vitamin A                                     21                         IU            

Vitamin B12                                 0                           mcg         

Vitamin B6                                   1                           mg           

Vitamin C                                     21                         mg           

Vitamin D                                     0                           IU            

Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol)         0                           mg           

Vitamin K                                     4                           mcg         

Calcium                                       32                         mg           

Copper                                         0                           mg           

Fluoride                                        0                           mcg         

Iron                                              2                           mg           

Magnesium                                  60                         mg           

Manganese                                  1                           mg           

Phosphorus                                  150                       mg           

Potassium                                    1145                      mg           

Selenium                                      1                           mcg         

Sodium                                        21                         mg           

Zinc                                             1                           mg           

Alcohol                                        0                           g              

Water                                          160                       g               75%

Ash                                             3                           g               1.3%

Caffeine                                        0                           mg           

Theobromine                                 0                           mg