Big canning day: peaches, jam, bruschetta

I found a wholesale source in the Twin Cities for produce–a friend of a friend who works for a grocery distributor.  I bought a case of peaches from him this week, peaches from my old stomping grounds of the Central Valley in California, where they grow the best peaches anywhere.  These peaches were supernaturally, voluptuously [...]

Last minutes gift ideas from the kitchen

Invariably, at least once during each Christmas season, I have a moment of panic when I realize that I totally forgot to get a gift for someone that I really, really wanted to get one for. Fortunately, I have a few tricks up my sleeve.

What exactly DO I do with a turkey carcass?

This was a question I asked for years, right before I surreptiously dumped the whole greasy mess into the trash and hoped that I wouldn’t be kicked out of the League of Responsible Dutch Women. Fortunately, my very NOT-Dutch father-in-law came to my rescue with this easy method of dealing with a turkey carcass and [...]

Sauerkraut…great results

It’s been several weeks since Dave started our Sauerkraut Experiment. It’s been sitting quietly in the corner of the dining room, noticed only when Dave has cleaned off the surface of the liquid to scrape away the scum that forms during the fermenting process. Mostly, it has behaved itself.

Revisiting the Apple Butter question

I want to make this a separate post on apple butter for two reasons. First, a lot of people visit this site because it pops up on a search engine. We’ve gotten a lot of searches for the term “apple butter” and we want to make sure that folks FIND a recipe. Second, in our [...]

What an apple-y day! Sauce, butter, pies, dehydrated “chips”

Remember that post about ugly apples? Well, yesterday, we had the opportunity to go DEEP with those apples!

Pie on the run: Apple Pie “kits” in the freezer

“Be Prepared” might be the motto of Boy Scouts the country over, but it’s the motto I grew up with when it came to hospitality. To this day, my mom probably has banana bread in the freezer, ready to take out and warm up in the oven if they get unexpected guests.
Freezer apple pie kits [...]

Making Homemade Applesauce; some tools of the trade

We LOVE homemade applesauce, but it’s been several years since we’ve made it and canned it. In the foothills of CA, we could always get great apples, usually free for the picking. In CO, we only found good apple-picking once and that was about 3 weeks before we moved, so I didn’t have time to [...]

Apple Butter

I made apple butter for several years running, perhaps thinking I was going to get some Susie Homemaker Award or something. I do love apple butter, don’t get me wrong, but I decided it just wasn’t worth it. Read on for the method and more of why you only want to try it once:

Making Sauerkraut at Home - time tested methods

Dave and I decided to try making homemade sauerkraut this year. Okay, Dave did all the heavy lifting but I was very supportive and he worked on this while I was freezing and drying peppers.