Making your own Real Vanilla

Ever wondered how to make your own
real vanilla flavor???

My SIL has an awesome tutorial
here on how to do it!

I'm very excited to try this as she bought me the
ingredients for Christmas to make my own.
Now I just have to wait 4-6 weeks for it
to be ready to try!

Thanks Gen!

Homemade Applesauce

Here's how we make Homemade Applesauce.
You can either Freeze or Can this recipe!

First you will need to know how many apples to get. You should yield about 20 quarts or 40 pints of applesauce out of 1 bushel of apples. I used 4 bushel from the trees in my yard and my MIL bought 1 bushel of apples. So altogether we did about 5 bushel of apples and it made ALOT of applesauce!!! It also took us all day and into the evening. In fact my MIL was up until 12:30 am canning them (thanks Debbie!) . If you freeze it, it is a lot quicker.

Usually you will want to stay away from the red or green delicious and get more of a baking tart apple. We have no idea what kind of apples grow on our trees but they are red, small, and kinda tart. They make excellent pink applesauce.

Around here apples are around $13-$15. per bushel to buy. I'm sure that varies around the country but gives you a starting point.

First you need to cut the apples up. All you need to do is cut them in fourths and make sure the stem is out. No peeling or coring is necessary. Some people make sure every spot is off but I don't. It makes it much faster if you don't worry about little tiny spots on the peeling.

Next you put the apples in a pot and add water. This is the trial and error part. How much water to add??? We've found that it totally depends on the kind of apple you chose. My SIL usually adds 1 cup for a big pot. But with my apples I was adding almost 2 quarts and it was still pretty thick applesauce. Just make sure you add plenty of water so you don't scorch the apples in the bottom of the pot.

Let them boil in the pot until very soft, stirring regularly. I really don't think you can do it too long as long as you have water. I think our average was around 45 minutes per big pot maybe even up to an hour.

Next is the first piece of equipment that is really almost necessary to make bulk applesauce. I found it on Amazon here for only $60.68 I used my wonderful SIL's machine who actually even came and helped! Oh and also took these pictures since I'm forgetful and forgot my camera! Thanks so much Gen!

Okay back to the machine. You hook this on the counter and it does all the work. Okay almost! All you do is take the cooked apples (do not drain) and put them in the top holder and start cranking. The yucky guts come out the side and the pure wonderful applesauce comes down the shoot in the front. Catch it in a bowl and you're all set!!!

I then take the huge bowl full and add 1 1/2 cups of sugar, mix it up and dip it into the jars or freezer containers. You can use less or more sugar. I make it pretty sweet so I doubt you'd need more. You could also add cinnamon. I forgot mine this time so I didn't bother.

If you're freezing it, you're DONE!!!
That's it slip it into the freezer and enjoy it all winter long!!!
I usually try to put it into the fridge the day or two before I need it to allow it to totally thaw.

If you're canning it you probably already know how to do this next step. My MIL handled this part since I've really never canned before. I have always put it in my freezer but my freezer is way too full this year to put this much applesauce in.

From watching her I learned you put it in the canner with a little water. Let it go until it steams and then time it for 15 minutes. Then take it off and let it cool. Take the jars out and they should be sealed. Like I said if you're doing the canning I would go by your canner's directions or find someone who knows how. It looks like it can be very dangerous if you don't do it correctly.

In the end I yielded about 65 Quarts, 20-30 pints (forgot to count), and about 15 freezer containers! My MIL got about 50 pints. It was a full day and a lot of work but I only had about $20. invested (sugar and seals) in it since my apples were FREE!!! This makes for a lot of really cheap applesauce!!

You can also see the difference in color between my MIL's and mine. That's just the difference in apples that we used!
If you make applesauce, What kind of apple's do you use???

Please feel free to give your tips if you can or freeze applesauce
or ask a question if something didn't quite make sense!!

***
It's still apple season so there's still time!!!

For more wonderful recipes and ideas visit
Blessedwithgrace - Tuesday's
In Passionate Pursuit- Tuesday's
Grocery Cart Challenge- Friday's

Small baking day!

Since we've been out of muffins, I decided to have a small baking day! I love to keep muffins in the freezer and be able to just pull them out for breakfast. It's so convenient

These are just simple chocolate chip muffins. I've posted the recipe before. See it here.

I also discovered that Halee (my 8yr old) loves Zucchini bread about as much as I do. So I made us 2 loaves today. It's a very simple recipe. We'll eat one this week and freeze the other. See the recipe here.
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I didn't make pecan pie muffins today but came across my recipe and remembered how much I love these! This is a wonderful recipe with only 5 simple ingredients!

Pecan Pie Mini Muffins

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1 cup Brown Sugar, packed

1/2 cup Flour

1 cup pecans, chopped

2/3 cup butter, melted

2 eggs, beaten

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In a bowl, combine br.sugar, flour, and pecans; Set aside. In another bowl combine butter and eggs and mix well. Stir in flour mixture until just moistened.

Fill paper lined mini muffin cups 2/3 full

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Bake 350 degrees for 20-25 min.

Remove immediately and cool on racks

Makes 3 dz. mini muffins! ENJOY

Baking Day Tomorrow!!

I've decided to have a baking day tomorrow-Edit - make that Friday!

Here's a run down of what I'll hopefully be making. I have loved the last few months where I always have muffins in the freezer to pull out for snacks and breakfast.

I'm down to 2 muffins to it's time again!!

Banana Crumb Muffins...for some reason no one will eat the last 3 bananas! So I guess I will try some banana muffins. These are mainly for me because my husband won't touch anything banana with a 10 ft. pole!

Here is the recipe that I will be trying. I love the extra crumb topping!

I keep eyeing the frozen zucchini in my freezer. So I'm making zucchini bread. I absolutely LOVE this bread. Again this is mainly for me!!! Guess I be having some wonderful breakfasts for the next few weeks! Here is a recipe that is almost identical to mine.

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I will also be making chocolate chip muffins. These are hubbys favorite! Here is my post from a few months ago with the recipe I use! They also have the sugar topping. YUM!

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And last but certainly not least I'll be making regular ol chocolate chip cookies! I just use the regular toll house recipe. Here it is in case you don't have it! I do increase the flour a little.

It makes the cookies not be so flat.

chocolate chip cookies

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2 1/4 cup flour---I increase this to 2 3/4 cup

1 tsp. soda

1 tsp. salt

1 cup butter

3/4 cup white sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

2 eggs

2 cups chocolate chips (I use whole bag)

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I mix all dry ingred. together and then add them to the wet ingred.

bake at 375 degrees for 9-11 min.

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If you're short on time this makes a GREAT bar cookie. Just mix ingred. like you would for cookies only using 2 1/4 flour and put in greased 15x10 baking pan. bake at 375 for 20 min.

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I'll update you on my day tomorrow!

Cookie Fun & Recipes

Yesterday afternoon we made cookies and lots of them! It seriously only took about 3 1/2 hours. Not that we rushed but I thought it would take a lot longer! Here's what we did, complete with recipes just in case you still need to do some holiday baking.

These are our Sugar Cookies. I know the kids went a little overboard with m&ms and choc. chips!

1 1/2 cups butter
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
5 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

Cream butter and sugar together then add eggs and vanilla.
Stir in flour, bak powder, and salt

Chill at least 1 hr.
roll out and cut. Bake at 400 for 6-8 min. Do not overbake

Makes aprox 5 dz. depending on the size of your cut outs
Frost, decorate, and enjoy!!

M&M cookies see recipe below

Chocolate chip cookies or M&M cookies

2 3/4 cup flour

1 tsp soda

1 tsp salt

1 cup butter-softned (40 sec. in microwave)

3/4 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup white sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

2+ cups of choc. chips ( I use 1 bag) or use M&Ms or use both if you really feel like chocolate!!

I mix wet ingred. together in one bowl.

Mix dry ingred. together in another bowl. Then put dry ingred. into wet ingred. Mix

bake at 375 9-11 min.

Last is our cake mix cookies --these are soooo easy!

1 cake mix-- I like yellow or chocolate, but you can be creative

1 egg

2 Tablespoons water

1/3 cup oil

Mix together. spoon out into a mini muffin pan and smash in the middle. Fill with whatever goodies sound good...nuts, m&ms, chocolate chips...

bake at 350

I'd like to make some monster cookies and maybe my favorite oatmeal scotchies. We'll see if time and energy allows!

--So do you have a great cookie I need to try? Just leave me a comment with the recipe. Okay so you found my weakness...I LOVE COOKIES and could eat them all day long. I would pick a cookie (or two) over a candy bar any day!!

Have a great weekend

Chocolate Chip Muffins!

I've been wanting to join in all the fun of making and freezing muffins for future breakfasts. So today I finally made a double batch of chocolate chip muffins to get started. This would be my husbands favorite and kids too! I thought maybe someone else would like the recipe

Chocolate Chip Muffins

2Cups flour

1 cup sugar

3 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup milk

1/2 cup veg. oil

1 egg

1 cup chocolate chips

topping

3T. sugar and 2T. brown sugar--mix

--preheat oven to 400 and grease bottom only of pan

--combine flour, 1 cup sugar, baking powder, choc. chips, and salt ...mix

--in another bowl combine milk, oil, and egg--blend

--add dry ingred. and stir until moistened

--fill muffin cups 2/3 full and sprinkle with topping before you bake

--bake at 400 for 15-18 min.

They haven't been officially tested yet but I had one and I thought they were really good!!

Enjoy!! for more recipes visit here or here!!