All About Apples

We’re fully into Fall now. The leaves are changing colours and the weather is getting crisper and rainier. One of the things that you think about when you think of Fall, when it comes to food at least, is apples! Apples come in so many varieties; there’s more now than ever. I remember before that you’d only really see a few types like Red Delicious, McIntosh, and Granny Smith. For the next few weeks we are going to look at creating things with apples whether it be crafts or food treats. This week though, we are going to take a look at the many different varieties of apples and see what you can do with them and how to find them at the grocery store. 

Apples:

McIntosh: Deep red with green - Juicy, tangy, and tart - Best used for snacking and applesauce -Best months...September through May.

Red Delicious: Stripy red to solid midnight red - Sweet and soft -This is the apple that is most recognized; it’s got the feet at the bottom and tall body and is best used in salads or as a snack but eat it fast as it turns brown fast - Found all year round.

Golden Delicious: Yellow with a pink “blush” sometimes - Mild sweet flavour that’s buttery and honey tasting - Best as a snack, beverages, in pies and crisps but mixed with more tart apples - Found all year round.

Granny Smith: My absolute favourite! Green sometimes with a red blush - Very tart and tangy - Best used for baking but also a good snack if you don’t mind sour - Found all year round.

Gala: Creamy yellow to red and yellow striped and reddish orange - Very sweet, crispy, and juicy - Great for snacking, beverages, baking, and making applesauce. Found all year round.

Fuji: Striped yellow and red - Sweet and firm - Good for snacking, beverages, baking, freezing, and applesauce- Found all year round starting in September. 

Jazz - Orangish red with yellow patches - Sweet, firm, and juicy - Best for snacking and baking - Found all year round.

Pink Lady: Pinkish red with yellow - Sweet, crunchy, and tangy at the same time - Best for snacking and baking - Best months... November to August.

Ambrosia: Yellow pink - Floral aroma, honey flavour, and sweet - Good for snacking, salads, and baking. Best months... September through March.

Honeycrisp: Red over yellow - Crisp, coarse, juicy, and sweet - Good for snacking, beverages, salads, applesauce - Limited supplies starting in September.

Braeburn: Orangey or red over yellow or green - Rich, spicy, juicy, and sweet - Good for snacking, applesauce, salads, and baking. Best months...October through July.

Spartan: Crimson red with green near the top - Soft with bright white flesh, crisp, juicy, tangy. Good for beverages, snacking, baking, and applesauce. Found all year round.

Envy: Reddish with yellow shining through - Sweet and crisp - Good for snacking, salads, and baking - Best months...October to March.

Jonagold: Red with green poking through - Crunchy and sweet with tartness - Best used for snacking, salads, baking, and beverages. Best months...October to July.

Crispin: Green - Sweet, refreshing, and crisp - Best for snacking, baking, sauce, and freezing - Found all year round.

So there you have a list of different apples and what they look and taste like and when they can be found. Coming up next week...we pick some to bake with! 

Thanksgiving Dinner Sides

We are right into Fall now. The weather is cooler and crisper and there are more clouds and overcast days. The leaves are changing colours on the trees and on my way to work I see all the squirrels burying their nuts for the months ahead. With Fall, comes Thanksgiving. Canadian Thanksgiving is just over a week away and we have a couple of posts dedicated to that.

This week we are looking at that big Thanksgiving dinner. Some of the most important elements of that dinner are the sides that accompany the turkey and ham. We have put together a list of yummy sides to try out for your Thanksgiving dinner along with a couple of recipes for ones that we have made in the past at our own dinners.

Green Beans – They seem to be a popular veggie for Fall meals. Try a Green Bean Casserole or Green Beans with Shallots.

Bread – You’ll usually find some sort of bread or buns with you big Thanksgiving dinner and Cornbread or Fresh Biscuits are perfect for that.

Cranberry...-You will most likely find something cranberry with your turkey dinner for something different you can try a Cranberry Relish or a Citrus, Apricot, and Cranberry Compote.

Brussel Sprouts- You will love them or hate them, but they are a permanent part of most Thanksgiving dinners and a way to try them is to crisp and “burn” them like in Samantha’sYummy Brussel Sprouts recipe or cover them with cheese in a Cheesy Brussel Sprout Bake.

Veggies- Most of the time you’ll find your typical veggie mix on the table for dinner but a twist on them would be a Holiday Roasted Vegetable mix or some Maple Bacon Carrots or some Smashed Broccoli.

Sweet Potatoes – Something that always makes me think of turkey dinner is yams/sweet potatoes and a Sweet Potato Salad or Sweet Potato Soup are different takes on this staple.

Here are a couple of recipes that we like to make...

Caramelized Carrots

8-10 carrots

Brown sugar

Butter

Water

Peel and cut carrots into sticks. Place them in a casserole dish and sprinkle some brown sugar onto them along with blobs of butter. Add in a little bit of water so that it just covers the bottom of the dish. Make sure you don’t use too much as you’ll have water coming out of the carrots.

Put in the microwave wave with the lid on for 5-10 minutes or until soft. Don’t overcook.

After they have softened in the microwave, take the lid off and put the dish on the stove top on medium heat. Let the liquid come to a boil and cook off. You want the carrots to caramelize and get all goldenly brown. You can give them a stir here and there while they are cooking on the stove. As soon as they look ready, take the off the stove and serve.

Yam Casserole

3 large yams

1 Tbsp. of butter

1 Tbsp. of honey

Juice of 1 orange

Nutmeg to taste

Salt and pepper

Boil the yams and cool before slipping off the skins. Blend or puree all of the ingredients together. Spoon into a buttered casserole dish and bake at 325 degrees for about 20 minutes. Serve warm.

Fluffy Mashed Potatoes

You’ll often see mashed potatoes on the table at Thanksgiving dinner. One thing that everybody loves is fluffy and flavourful mashed potatoes so take a look at this super simple how-to to make the fluffiest mashed potatoes ever!

The key to fluffy mashed potatoes is to remove as much starch as you possibly can. Boil your potatoes as you usually would. Drain them and rinse them under warm water for about 30 seconds; that’ll get lots of the starch off. Allow them to dry as much as possible.

Pass the potatoes through a food mill/ricer back into the pot that they were cooked in and add 2 cups of whole milk and 12 tablespoons of butter (these measurements were based on 4 pounds of Russet potatoes. Make sure the butter and milk are warm before adding them to the potatoes. Fold the mixture until all combined and season with salt and pepper.

Thanksgiving Centerpiece

Thanksgiving is coming up so we’re going to give you some ideas today about how to decorate your table if you’re having a big dinner to celebrate.

We’re making a centrepiece today. Actually we’re making a two part centrepiece. First of all we are cutting out different shapes of leaves to make sort of a runner for the centre of the table. These leaves are used as a decoration but they are also used as a special keepsake. You can get all of your guests to write things that they are thankful for on the leaves and then you can read them all after your dinner and keep them or hand them out.

So for the leaves, we used a Silhouette to cut out shapes or you can find a variety of leaf shapes and trace them. Pick a range of Fall/leaf colours to use and make enough to cover the centre length of your table.

Next to make the second part of the centrepiece you will need a few more ingredients. You can go to the dollar store, craft store, or grocery store to find supplies.

You will need a couple of vases depending on the size of your table and how much you want to decorate. Size and shape are up to you. We chose three glass vases. One is taller and skinnier for the middle and the other two are shorter and a bit fatter. We decided to go with very simple straight up and down cylinder shaped vases.

You’ll also want to pick out some candles. Again the size and colours are up to you; you might want to stay away from the really tall and skinnier ones though. We tried out some tea lights along with some bigger short white candles.

Next buy some bulk or packaged dried items like beans, lentils, etc. We went with popcorn kernels, red lentils, green spilt peas, and kidney beans because their colours are very Fall like and complement each other.

Lastly make sure you have some twine or thick ribbon that you can tie into a nice bow.

To put these centerpieces together layer your dried food in your vases. You can do them all the same or different, up to you. We’ve done the two smaller ones the same and the middle one different.

You’ll probably want to have at least two different colours per vase.

Place your candles on top and then tie your ribbon or twine close to the top of the vase.

Arrange the leaves on your table and then place the vases in-between.

Now you have a table all ready for a big Thanksgiving dinner!

Pumpkin Patch

It’s getting to be Fall, my favourite time of the year, and it’s our final ice cream blog so what would be more perfect than a Fall dessert? This time of the year you start to think about leaves changing and Thanksgiving and also Halloween. One thing that you tend to see a lot of this time of the year and leading up to Halloween is pumpkins, specifically pumpkin flavoured things. Our final ice cream flavour is called “Pumpkin Patch” by Brusters. This flavour has pumpkin ice cream mixed with Graham Ribbons and crunchy pie pieces.

Something that we have never made before on our blog is pumpkin pies so I am going to share my go to pumpkin pie recipe with a twist, we’re gonna make little pumpkin pie tarts.

I know some people go all out and make their own filling from scratch by buying a pumpkin and grinding it all up and they make their own crusts too, but when you’re busy and working it can be hard so don’t feel guilty going out and buying canned pumpkin and premade pie shells.

With that said, you will need the following to make your mini pies.

A package of frozen tart shells (24 come in a pack)

1 can of pumpkin (15 ounces)

1 can of sweetened condensed milk (14 ounces)

2 eggs

1 ½ tsp. cinnamon

½ tsp. ginger

½ tsp. salt

Preheat you oven to 425 degrees.

While it’s preheating, mix the pumpkin, milk, eggs, spices, and salt together in your mixer.

Pour into the shells and bake for 15 minutes.

Reduce the heat to 350 degrees and bake for about 30 minutes or until a knife inserted about inch from the crust comes out clean. Now this is how it’s done when making it as a big pie, tarts may take less time, but keep an eye on them while they bake and take note for the next time when you make them.

Let the mini pies cool. While they cool, whip up some cream to serve on top.

Yum! It’s Fall!

Comfort Foods Part 2 - Hot Chocolate & Cookies

It’s rainy and windy, it’s my time of the year! I love cuddling up under the blankets and being comfy cozy while watching a good movie or reading a book. In keeping with the comfort food theme, we are going to share a decadent hot chocolate recipe and a classic chocolate chip cookie recipe. Both are perfect for the cold rainy days that we have ahead of us this Fall/Winter.

This is my favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe. I make this all of the time. I could probably make it blindfolded. We have made the plain recipe for a Back to School post in the past, but today we are going to make it with some yummy oats in it. 

You will need...

1 cup of brown sugar

½ cup granulated sugar

1 cup of margarine

2 eggs

2 tsp. of vanilla

2 ¼ cups of flour

1 tsp. baking soda

2 cups of chocolate chips

2 ½ cups of oats

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. I usually do about two.

Cream the softened  margarine and the sugar. Then add the vanilla and the eggs.  

Mix the flour and the baking soda. Add the dry ingredients to the wet gradually. Once it’s all mixed, then add the oats and then stir in the chocolate chips. 

Using two teaspoons, scoop the dough onto the cookie sheets. You want average sized dough scoops, not too big, not too small. 

Cook one sheet at a time for about 7-8 minutes each. 

This hot chocolate recipe was good, but it was very rich and super sweet, so you can dilute it a bit with extra milk or hot water. This makes enough for two.

Gather your ingredients...

2 cups of milk  

2/3 cups of cream

2/3 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips/shavings

¼ cups milk chocolate chips/shavings

¼ tsp. cinnamon

Pinch of salt

Warm 2/3 cup of the milk in a pan over medium heat. Stir in the chocolate. Stir the chocolate in until it is completely melted and then whisk in the rest of the milk and the cream. If you don’t want the cream, you can use more milk if you want to; that’s what we did. 

Continue to heat until the mixture is hot but be careful not to boil it. Add the cinnamon and the salt and then pour into cups.  Top with whipped cream or with marshmallows if you want a real sugar rush!

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2012/jan/12/how-to-make-perfect-hot-chocolate

So there you have some perfect hibernating day treats!