Using Up Some of Those Apples

So I have a couple of 2 inch thick cut pork chops from Hinkebein Hills Farms that have been looking at me, begging to be used, every time I open the downstairs freezer. After arriving home with some newly acquired apples from Centennial Farms, I decide to defrost those chops, brine them, and cook them up for dinner tomorrow. Today, I will make some applesauce to serve alongside those monster-sized chops.
A couple of years ago, there was a recipe for a microwave applesauce in Everyday Food Magazine. The magazine is boxed up in the basement somewhere, and the recipe is nowhere to be found online. So I can't link it, but here's how I recreate it from memory.

Select 4 charming looking, locally grown apples.
Peel them. Cut them into 1 inch pieces and put them in a bowl.

Find a lemon half somewhere in the fridge.

Squeeze lemon over the cut apples. (That is some amazing self photography and I don't mind saying it.)

Sprinkle with a little sugar, a pinch of salt, a dash of cinnamon and a couple grinds of nutmeg.

Cover with some plastic wrap and microwave for 10 minutes.

While the apples are cooking, I will share something with you.
There are points within this blog, where I realize that by withholding certain pieces of personal information about myself, I can present myself as a little less BSC than I really am. This is one of those points. I don't need to share this info with you, but feel compelled to. Here it goes. I don't put those apple peels in the compost. I put them in a little bowl and every time I walk through the kitchen, I snack on them. The peel is possibly the best part of the apple, and just because it doesn't belong in applesauce, doesn't mean that I am going to throw it away. Its just too wasteful, and I cannot compel myself to waste a perfectly tasty apple peel.

Here's a bowl of my little snacky treats!

After 10 minutes, the apples will be tender enough to mash with a wooden spoon.

So mash em up. I stop at the mushy, yet chunky point.

I transfer the applesauce to a smaller bowl, and place in the refrigerator to chill.

This little bowl of heaven will be the perfect accompaniment for my pork chops.

Tower Grove Farmers Market (My Second Favorite Farmers Market)

I haven't been to Tower Grove Farmers Market in forever. Between being out of town, and having my local produce needs met by the CSA, I just haven't been hitting the farmers markets like I like to. So I say to The Captain last night "Lets hit Tower Grove tomorrow." He agrees, saying that he'd be interested to see what they've got right now. I'm mostly expecting apples.

We got there around 9 am, and it was COLD and there weren't too many people out and about. But the produce was there. Turnips, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, apples, squashes, pumpkins, radishes, and greens to name a few. And, of course, farm fresh eggs; pastured chicken, beef, and pork; cheese and chocolate too.

Centennial Farms had gorgeous apples. Probably 7 varieties. Each nicely labeled with information about its flavor, and preferred use. Centennial is my source for black raspberries in the spring and peaches in the summer. I don't know what they do down at Centennial, but their fruit is out of this world. They also have a stand at the Maplewood Farmers Market.

Is this speckled swan gourd too cute?

I thought this pumpkin to oh so very spooky.

Anyway, Tower Grove Farmers Market runs for the next 2 Saturdays from 8:30 to 12:30 and then closes for the season. There is no brokered produce at this market, only locally grown or locally crafted items are available.

Let's Do Tomatoes

I went to Soulard Farmers Market yesterday (Friday) to see if I could find some onions that had been grown somewhere relatively close to the St. Louis area and I found one vendor who was from around these parts. In addition to onions, he still had some roma tomatoes. Somewhat known for my impulse buying I thought "my romas didn't do much this year, it wouldn't hurt to put one more pack away for the winter" and bought these:
He had habeneros too. Glorious orange haberneros. He warned me that they were hot. Fantastic. My haberneros weren't as hot this year as I would have liked them to be, so I thought "I could PROBABLY use these too" and they had an otherworldly glow that was easy to catch when I photographed them. Aren't they beautiful? When you cut into them, they smell like heat, which I love.

So I spent an additional $2.50 that I didn't mean to spend, but when impluse buying is SO CHEAP, its hard not to do it. Anyway, here's how you freeze tomatoes for the winter.

Start boiling water.

Cut a little "X" in the bottom of the tomatoes.

When the water starts rolling, throw in the tomatoes (careful!) and leave them for about 30 seconds. (Blogspot reoriented this pic, I can't make it right.)

Remove them to an ice water bath.

The skins will pucker following the "X".

Peel, remove any questionable spots, and cut in half.

Give em a gentle squeeze over a bowl (that will end up in the compost) to remove the seeds.

Ew, look at all the ooky tomato guts.

This is what it looks like when all the tomatoes are peeled, cleaned and seeded.

Put em in a ziplock, squeeze the air out (oooops I was out of the vacuum bags) and retire them to the downstairs freezer.

I actually like whole canned tomatoes from the grocery store, but its nice to have a little reminder of summer in the freezer too.

Halloween Blondies

I don't know when the term "blondie" replaced bar cookie, but it seems like all of my cooking magazines are publishing recipes for blondies now. They are kind of like brownies, but not brown. Or chocolate-y. Anyway, I decided to try the recipe from this month's Everyday Food.
http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/halloween-blondies

If you like butter and sugar and a lil bit of salty goodness, you will LOVE this recipe. In fact, its so nice, I put the picture on here twice. Looooook. Yuuuuuum.

Start by separating out the m&m's. (By the way, those clear bowls are a Salvation Army find at $1.95 for all six.)

Turn on last nights Glee to occupy time while sorting m&m's.

I used gloves, because contrary to popular belief, m&m's do melt in you hands and I didn't want the decoration on my blondies to be all fingerprinted up and all unappetizing-like.

After I am finished with the tedious sorting, I get to the business of making the batter. 2 sticks of melted butter and half a cup of sugar, light brown sugar, and dark brown sugar. Martha calls for all of the brown sugar to be light, but I had just about a half of a cup of dark that I wanted to use up so I could finish off a bag. It probably made my blondies a little less "blond" than they should have been. Whisk until smooth.

Add 2 eggs, vanilla and whisk some more.

Add flour and salt, stir until combined.

Place in an 8 x 8 pan that has been lined with parchment (I used foil cause I didn't have parchment) and buttered, and top with the fall m&m colors. (I used gloves again for that step.)

Bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees, cool on a wire rack and place on cutting board to cut into cute little squares. (I admit I didn't let them cool all the way and when they were warm, they were heavenly.)

Seriously easy and sooo good.

Minimum Effort Chili

I have been really busy lately, and I wanted to make something that met the following requirements: 1) it had to be fairly easy, 2) it had to be made with stuff I ALREADY had at the house, and 3) it had to be something that would be good reheated as we were going out to dinner last night. So I came up with this chili. It takes about 10 minutes to throw it all together, but about 8 hours to cook.

First things first. Place the contents of a 28 ounce can of whole tomatoes in a bowl and crush tomatoes with your fingers, removing any stems or skins that you find.

Add a cup and a half of rinsed and picked through dried black beans.

Chop one onion, 5 cloves of garlic, a hot pepper (from some I had frozen earlier in the summer), and a habenero (from the garden).

Cube a pork tederloin. This guy was about a pound and a half.

Place all of the above in a crock pot. Add 3 cups of beef broth, a 1/3 of a cup of chili power (I use Penzey's Hot), and a liberal amout of salt and pepper.

Add a can of beer. Stag here of course. (You know, Stag gets a lot of shout outs here. Stag should give me a free t-shirt or a little something for the effort.) Add a can of tomato paste as well.

Stir, cover and heat on the high setting for about 5 hours. Turn to low before you leave to meet your parents and sister for dinner out in Chesterfield. Worry about the cats knocking it off the counter and burning themselves, or chewing through the cord and electricuting themselves and the house burning down. Think "maybe this is why I never use the crockpot." Enjoy meeting up with the family. Realize at some point that because you said "hey lets all get together, we will come out there!" that everyone thinks there will be a big announcement. Make announcement at table along the lines of "uh, we just came out because we haven't been around town on the weekends, we are not making any announcement here or anything." Finish dinner. Get leftovers packed for lunch tomorrow and accidentally leave them on the table at the restaurant. Head home. (With the exception of the first step here, the rest are optional.)

The house smells like chili now.

Looks good. Taste and adjust seasoning. I added more chili powder and salt and pepper. The Captain grabbed a bottle of El Yucateco and dumped a bunch in while I was busying myself with other endeavors.

Garnish with onions and eat. (Having just eaten dinner, I skipped the "eat" part and packaged it up in some of my famous Schnucks Olive Bar containers and placed all but one in the freezer.)

Only Two Weeks Left to Go

I got kale this week.

I don't think I have ever eaten kale.

The weather outside makes me feel like tonight would be a good Acorn or Delicata Squash Risotto night. There's a bunch of sage out in the garden begging to be used.

Well, here's the rest of the box for the week, I'm off to google kale recipes.


• Red Potatoes
• Bell Pepper
• Italian Red Sweet Pepper
• Delicata Squash
• Radish
• Lettuce mix
• Sweet Potato
• Red Beets w/ nice greens!
• Yellow Squash
• Red and Green Kale

One Man's Trash

I have a secret that I am almost reluctant to share with you. I love to shop thrift stores for glassware. Now, I'm not reluctant to tell you this because I am ashamed of my little secret. I'm just worried that you might start doing it yourself, and get there before me, and get all the good stuff.

The thing I really like about thrift store shopping, is that I get cool, unusual glasses. The other GREAT thing is that they are CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP. An added bonus is that buying thrift or vintage is one of the most efficient ways to recycle. When I show up at home a bag of new glasses and The Captain gives me that look, I can tell him "I AM SAVING THE PLANET BY REPURPOSING THESE GLASSES!" and he will usually leave me alone.

I thought I would share some of my good deals with you. Above are some Budweiser Grandpa Jack style (thats my name for them, I don't think its official) glasses. I bought a couple in Hannibal a few years ago for a couple of bucks a piece and got one from my Grandpa Jack. These are fantastic for margaritas.

Now right here, I have a relatively new purchase. I got these at the Salvation Army and they were $1.95 for the set of six, plus 10 cents for the parking meter out front. (Oh yeah, I usually put a dime in the meter because I have honed this skill and can usually get in and out within 12 minutes.) I love these glasses and use them all the time.

I like these festive guys for festive cocktails. This set of 8 was $2.95 plus a dime for the meter.

Are these tiny champagne glasses too cute? I think the set was $1. Salvation Army, but a different one. The only problem with these is that you gotta keep the bottle close cause you can only fit a couple of sips in these.

Another Hannibal thrift store purchase, but this was from a trip a couple of months ago. Adorable old timey souvenir glasses. I don't know much about them, but I imagine that they were for sale at tourist hot spots. They were $2 a piece.

So, even if you are not hot on buying other people's junk, I encourage everyone out there to, instead of throwing away the things you no longer want, donate them to Goodwill, or The Salvation Army, or St. Vincent de Paul. I just might want your trash.