End of the Season: Cherries!

Its time to say goodbye again... to cherries that is.

We got the last crop in at the store about two weeks ago, and honestly, they were definitely end of the season cherries... when they got to us, the were already brownish and slightly bruised. They tasted good enough, but man, they were ugly. So ugly in fact that they didn't sell - like at all. Even after lowering the price and offering samples to anyone walking in our direction.... Oh darn...

Tip: Don't judge a fruit by its cover! Seriously, the most delicious fruits come in all looks and sizes! And just to be sure, ask the store to give you a sample. No, really. Just about anywhere that sells fruits and vegetables will give you a sample - including grocery stores. I've done it. Just make sure to find an actual produce person to help you out.

So, 5 pounds of ugly, tasty cherries that no one wanted to buy - ended up in my house. The thing is, they were Rainier Cherries - not notoriously good cooking cherries. I love myself a cherry pie, but I wasn't such a fan of the last one I made with Rainiers... so I had to put my thinking cap on - my husband and I were NOT gonna be able to eat 5 pounds of cherries before they went bad.

Sauce? Naw... again they're Rainiers...  Cobbler? Naw... similar taste to pie.... Dried?! That just might work.

Its super simple:

Dried Cherries - Even Rainiers!
Ingredients

• Any amount of pitted cherries, cut in half

Directions

1. Bring out, clean and set your dehydrator on the lowest temperature.
2. Set cherries onto trays, cut side up (rounded, skin side on the tray). This will allow them to retain all their flavor and plumpness.
3. Dry for many hours - between 8-12 - depending on the heat. I let mine go overnight, and woke up to some well dried cherries, with only a few crispy ones. The dryer they are the longer they will store. Mine were DRY. Next time I'm gonna turn them off little sooner, letting them be a little squishy.
4. Collect the cherries, and put into a jar - without the lid. Wait till they cool to room temperature then tighten on the lid.
5. Substitutions: Use any kind of cherry for this, even sour or tart ones, which would be great re-hydrated in a chutney!

They didn't get any prettier during the drying process.... but they did get darn tasty! So tasty that I soon used them in Ina Garten's Granola Bar Recipe! I just cut the cherries up using scissors and used them in place of the apricots. Delicious!

Onions Shouldn't Make You Cry

Onions! Onions! Everywhere!!

The other day, my boss hefted a 50-pound bag of brown onions into the shop. My job was to put them on the shelf, the easy part, and replace the older ones. Which, of course, I couldn't just throw away.

Now, what to do with 10 onions? I love myself some onions, but since they were already a little bit older, I knew I wouldn't be able to store them for long enough to cook them all. At least… not in their current state!

Enter the dehydrator, stage left.

It’s not QUITE as easy to dehydrate onions as I thought it would be. They are a little touchy… and apparently my dehydrator doesn't heat evenly… and you need a piece of special equipment… and you really should do it outside… onions are smelly! But, OTHER than all that, it’s really easy. Here’s how:

Dehydrating Onions
Ingredients:

• Onions, peeled and diced or sliced 

Directions:

1. Once all your onions are cut up, my pieces were about ¼ inch, get your dehydrator ready. 
2. Insert Clean-A-Screens (non-stick screens for your trays, available here), into each of your dehydrator trays. Set the temperature to a lower setting, if you have that option (I don’t, and I think mine runs a little warm). About ½ an onion will fit on each tray. 
3. Spread an even layer of onions onto each tray. Don’t let the pieces stack on each other or be too close together, because they all just get stuck together, and it is hard to separate them. Turn on the dehydrator (I used my patio plug outside). 
4. Every couple hours, rotate the trays. Maybe mix them around a bit if you notice some getting browner than others. The outer edges of my trays cooked WAY faster than the inside. The process takes about 8 hours… give or take 2 hours, depending on the size and sweetness of your onions. Sweeter onions brown faster, so keep a close eye on those. And DON’T let them get brown-brown! They get bitter, and burnt tasting… trust me… I know. 

Once cooked, put them into a glass jar. Keep the lid off till they cool completely, then seal them up!
Add them to anything. Soup. Dip. Re-hydrate them in a bit of water to sauté with. Eat them right out of the jar… yeah… seriously… they’re tasty. Mine had a nice sweet, caramelized flavor, I think due to the higher dehydrating temperature.

And that’s it! My jar is full of about a cup and a third of onions – and it took 5 raw ones to make that much. I actually cut my onions up the night before, kept them in the fridge, and then dehydrated them the next morning. It doesn't seem so labor intensive when you break the work load up.

Have fun! And, I hope you enjoy!

More Brown Bananas

As promised I’m back with more things to do with brown bananas. This time I had a whole heap of them from work! I sold about 1/3 of our over ripe ones as “Banana Bread Bananas” for ridiculously cheap – I’d seen it done before, so keep your eye out – but the rest I had to take home, oh, poor me.

What the heck was I gonna do with 10 brown bananas!? Well, luckily I have a list. As, I've said before, I ALWAYS end up with brown bananas, so I just started going down my list, and made the first four things, after banana bread of course:

• Banana bread – made last week – so not this time
• Frozen bananas – to use at a later date
• Banana pancakes – and make some extra for easy breakfasts
• Fruit roll ups – Awesome!
• Smoothie

Easy peasy.  First, I froze the bananas two ways. I put some whole, sealed in labeled ziplock bags. These are great for making banana bread or banana pancakes in a pinch. Admit it, sometimes you just have a craving for some :) Then, I sliced a few more and put them on parchment paper, on a pan, not touching, then in the freezer. Once frozen, just move them into a container, and keep frozen. Use them in smoothies instead of adding ice or dip them in chocolate or peanut butter for a quick mid-summer snack.

To make banana pancakes (base recipe found here):

Banana Pancakes

Makes seven 5-inch pancakes

Ingredients:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 cup milk
• 2 tbls oil
• 2 small ripe bananas (or one large one), mashed
• ½ tsp vanila

Directions:

1. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, mix together egg, milk, vegetable oil, vanilla and bananas.
2. Stir flour mixture into banana mixture; batter will be slightly lumpy.
3. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium low heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the pan and flatten the batter out a bit. Cook until pancakes are golden brown on both sides; serve hot.
4. Substitutions: use some or all whole wheat flour. I didn’t have quite enough milk, so I used half sour cream. Could also use, butter milk or soy milk (use just a little less than a cup for soy). Could use melted butter or coconut oil instead of the vegetable oil.

The batter is thick and these pancakes take a while to cook – they need to cook slowly, and are a soft fluffy texture when they’re done. The insides will seem not cooked enough when you flip them, but just be patient, their delicious.

I always make a few extra, and as I froze the sliced bananas, just put the cooled extras on a parchment paper lined sheet pan, freeze solid, then transfer to a ziplock. To reheat, just throw the frozen pancakes in the toaster oven and toast at the medium dark brown setting. They come out perfect.

Lastly, fruit roll ups. To make them, you need to dust off your dehydrator and get some special rollup trays (found here). I decided to make strawberry banana ones today:

Strawberry Banana Fruit Rolls
Ingredients:

• Big handful of strawberries, washed and husked
• 2 super ripe bananas

Directions:

1. Blend strawberries and bananas together, till really smooth.
2. Pour the mixture onto the special trays. Smooth out till it’s in an even ¼-3/8 inch layer.
3. Turn on dehydrator, and rotate trays occasionally, for about 3-4 hours, or until the fruit is dried, but slightly tacky to the touch.
4. Remove them while still warm, and roll up in parchment paper.
5. Substitutions: use any berry instead of strawberries, like blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, etc.

At this point I only had one banana left, so I just made myself a quick smoothie for breakfast, with all the other frozen fruit I had in my collection.

And that was that, 10 more bananas saved from the doom of the garbage can – and me stocked up on quick easy breakfasts and snacks for a while! Also, I know it seems that this would take up a bunch of freezer space, but it really doesn't. Especially, if you bake or make smoothies often.

Those 4 bananas that I cut up and froze, will really only make me maybe a weeks worth of smoothies... Then I'll be on the hunt for more!

More brown banana recipes to come later!

Grapefruit Surprise

I love my SodaStream soda maker and I love Squirt soda… but the grapefruit Soda Stream gunk is not Squirt….. hmmmmm.

I was at a winery in Valley Center a little while back – Triple B Ranch – and while growing grapes for some decent wine, they were growing some awesome citrus. I picked up three of the most perfect, and huge, ruby grapefruits I’d ever seen, for only a dollar.

Come to find out, if you make a potent grapefruit/lime syrup and mix it with your bubbly water – all natural Squirt-ish soda you have!

To make the syrup potent, I always add a bunch of grapefruit zest, and every time I’m always super annoyed that there are little pieces of junk in my soda – but worse, they would get stuck to the glass and be impossible to clean out! I had tried straining it out, but it was virtually impossible. But then – the lightbulb flashed on – instead of zesting, I cut the rind off in long thick strips, and cooked it as usual. Now the surprise: when I took out the big pieces of zest after cooking the syrup , I ended up with some AMAZYING candied grapefruit!!

Here’s how to do it:

2-for-1 Grapefruit Goodness
Ingredients:

• 1 ruby grapefruit
• zest from the grapefruit, cut into long wide strips
• Juice from half a lime
• 1-1/4 cup of sugar, divided
• Splash of water

Directions:

1. In a small pot, over medium heat, add the zest, lime juice and one cup of sugar.
2. Measure out the juice from the grapefruit to measure around ½ a cup. If you have a little more, that’s ok, if there’s a little less, use the water to make up to at least ½ cup.
3. Slowly bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Let boil for around 30 seconds. Take off the heat, cool to room temperature, and strain and reserve the stuff in the strainer.
4. Put the remaining ¼ cup of sugar in a shallow bowl. One by one, coat the strained grapefruit zest in the sugar. Set the pieces on a silicone mat or parchment paper and let dry for a couple hours.
5. Keep the syrup in the fridge for up to a month and the candies in an airtight container in the cupboard. To make a soda, add around a shot glass worth to a pint glass of bubbly water. To use the rind – just put in mouth and enjoy.
6. Substitutes: This recipe is pretty great for lemon lime syrup, just use half lemon half lime juice and zest, and orange syrup with same measurements, just orange.

I love bubbly water. I love grapefruit. But most of all, I love not having to throw away a piece of food – even if it’s a little piece. Enjoy!

Surplus: Loquats

Another goal of this blog is to help deal with surpluses. One of the great things about having a garden, or working in a farmstand, or finding produce on sale, is that you have access to great food! The problem, there is only a very short window of time to get that food and often you have A TON of one specific kind.

This happened to me the other day when a lady, one of my customers at the stand, brought me an entire box of loquats! We had been talking about them one day, and she brought me the box the next day. I seriously almost cried with joy when I saw it. For some reason, the fact that she had labeled the box for me made it just that much better.

 

 I must’ve eaten 20 the first day. Then when I brought them home, my husband had another 10. The next day, I was still staring at an entire box of loquats.

 

Loquats are a little weird, they don’t have that much flavor other than a delicious light sweetness. They have a very high water content. Not much fruit, and huge seeds. What to do… what to do…

Then, my husband suggested we make jam. I can’t tell you how much I love this man.

 

 A little bit of googling and four recipes later, I had a plan. The base recipe I used can be found here, but it wasn’t to my standard (or my mom’s) for food safety, so I modified it a bit.

 

Loquat Jellam

Ingredients:

• 6 cups loquats, pitted and skinned
• 7 cups sugar
• ¼ cup lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon butter
• 1 package Sure Jell (the yellow box)

Directions:

1. Sterilize your jars and lids. Get a big pot of water boiling, for the canning process.
2. Add the lemon juice to a bowl of 1-2 quarts of water. Wash the loquats well, peel the skin off with your fingers, then cut the fruit off in long skinny chunks. In a way much like taking long strips of zest off a lime. Discard the skin and cores/seeds. Place the fruit into the bowl of water as you get it, keeps it from turning brown.
3. When done, drain the water, and use a stick blender (or a normal blender) to blend up the fruit. Don’t puree, but get pretty close. You’ll need exactly six cups of loquat. At this point, pour boiling water over your lids (the part with the pop top and seal), and let sit until you need them.
4. Then follow the directions on the sure jell package for cooked jam. Basically, in a large pot, mix the loquat and pectin. Bring to a boil, stirring often. Just at a boil, mix in the butter and all the sugar at once. Bring back to a boil, stirring frequently, and boil for exactly one minute.
5. Pour the mixture into your jars – will make 9 cups of jellam or so. With lids on hand tight, process the jars in the boiling water for 10 minutes.
6. Substitutions: This fruit/sugar recipe is specifically for loquats – but jam can be made of just about anything!

My jellam came out a little runny – half way between jam and syrup, so good for both purposes. It’s very similar in flavor and color to apricot jam. I love it. Plus, the best part, this recipe used up the whole box of loquats.

 

 

So far I have put this stuff to many uses. We got some orange chicken the other day from an Asian restaurant and it was WAY TOO SPICY (and I love myself some spicy), so when I reheated the leftovers I poured a couple tablespoons of this jellam over it and sautéed till warmed through - delicious! We've also used it over pancakes, instead of maple syrup and on toasted English muffins over cream cheese. Versatile and delicious!! 

 

 

Cull Oranges Anyone?

The answer should be “HECK YES!” from all of you!

What is a cull orange, you may be asking? Well, a cull orange is the not perfect orange. They are the oranges with wrinkles, thin skin, bruises, over-ripe or any other defect that will cause them to not sell for top dollar. They are the oranges that have been “culled out” of the orange bin you see at the market.

Its odd, cause I’ve been working in the grocery industry for a few years now, and I’d never heard this term until just this week. I first read it this past Sunday, while my husband and I were visiting a hometown farmstand that I read about in Edible San Diego (which you should TOTALLY check out, here, they have them for most of the major cities). Farm Stand West, is one of only two outlets of a local farm that grow everything from citrus to strawberries to garlic (check them out here). Citrus seemed to be their specialty. While walking around the little farmstand, I saw this big wheelbarrow looking thing filled with oranges that were only 50 cents a pound! Getting closer, the sign said “Cull Oranges, 50 cents, Great for Juicing!”

 

Now fast forward three days. I was working at the farmstand that I work at. I had been going through the Valencia oranges we were selling and noticed that some where getting just a little less than perfect. My boss walked over and started pulling out these oranges, realized that she was doing what I was just doing, and told me “eh, just cull these ones out.” WHAT?! SWEET!

 

So… I had a heavy walk home from work that day. See, we don’t have a cull bin at my stand. The best part was that I also had to “cull” the tangelos and tangerines.

 

Then next morning, I made juice. Lots and lots of juice. Delicious juice. Make sure to go through your oranges, as your cutting them in half, if you notice anything weird about the inside, just toss that one. Out of the 4 pounds I had, I had one that was a little weird on the inside. I knowwwww you don’t need a recipe, but here’s one anyway!

 

Super Delicious 'Orange' Juice

Ingredients:

• 4-5 pounds of orange citrus (makes about 2 quarts)

Directions:

1. Wash citrus, cut each in half, squeeze or juice with one of those cone-y things. Strain out the seeds and drink. Store any leftovers in the fridge and shake before drinking again.
2. Substitutes: Use all or any orange citrus you can find! Navel oranges, Valencia oranges, blood oranges, tangerines, tangelos and mandarins. Also, if you have just 4 oranges, make a cup of juice instead of a jug!

 

Seriously, the best, sweetest, most nutritious and cheapest orange juice you could ever have.

Roasted Wrinkly Pepper Hummus

Here’s what I ended up making with the roasted wrinkly peppers.

Roasted Wrinkly Pepper Hummus
Ingredients:

• ½ cup roasted red peppers (from about 4 peppers)
• 1 can garbanzo beans (chickpeas) – rinsed and drained
• 1/2ish cup olive oil
• 1/4ish cup lemon juice
• 5 fresh basil leaves, torn
• 2 tbls almond butter
• 2 cloves roasted garlic
• ½ tsp onion powder
• Salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Put everything – except salt and pepper) into a blender, food processor or magic bullet cup. Blend till hummus like – smooth, but not liquidy or chunky, somewhere in between. Add more liquid – olive oil and/or lemon juice - if needed to taste. Season with salt and pepper. This is not an exact science; add more or less of whatever you want to your liking.
2. Substitutions: if you don’t have red peppers, use roasted garlic or jalapenos or whatever else your favorite flavor is. Use grapeseed oil instead of olive oil. Use tahini (sesame paste) or cashew butter instead of almond butter. Use garlic powder or real onions.

It was really good with carrots and pretzel chips. This hummus had WAY more flavor than any store bought hummus I’ve ever used, and I attribute that to the wrinkly ripe peppers we used!

Roasted Wrinkly Peppers

I got my hands on some beautiful red peppers! The only small thing “wrong” with them, is that they were a little wrinkly. This has happened to me in the past though – I found some awesome peppers, bought to many of them to use quickly, open the fridge one day and poof… wrinkly peppers.

At this point they are a little soft and ugly for eating raw – it’s hard to dip them into hummus like this… however, they are perfect for roasting.

At the wrinkly stage of a red peppers life, we know the sugars in them have concentrated. This makes these peppers literally the best roasted peppers ever.

Here’s how I do it:

Roasted Wrinkly Peppers
Ingredients:

• 4 large, over ripe red peppers

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Cut the peppers into 3-4 large pieces each and discard the veins and seeds. Keeping the pieces large and flat. At this point, I also cut out any icky spots if they exist.  Foil line a pan and put a rack on it. Spray rack with non-stick spray and lay peppers on it, skin side up.
2. Cook for 20 minutes, rotate pan, cook for another 10. At this point they should have big huge black, burnt looking spots on their skin. If not, cook them until they do, then turn the heat off and let them sit in the warm oven for 10 minutes.
3. When the timer goes off, put the peppers into a plastic bag or bowl with a lid, and let them sit for 10-15 minutes in their own steam. This will loosen their skins, making them easy to peel off when their done steaming.
4. Put the peppers in a jar by themselves to use within the next couple days or cover them in olive oil to keep for around a week or two.
5. Substitutions: Use this recipe for all kinds of peppers – especially jalapenos and poblanos. My favorite!



The color the pepper skins should be when done in the oven.



The steaming process.


These peppers are great blended up in dips (which is full circle cause at first I couldn’t dip them in dip!), put on pizzas and sandwiches or cut up in pasta. Enjoy!



They are a bit hard to peel - but totally worth the effort!

One Squash – Many, Many Meals - Day 2

It’s two days after making those delicious ravioli – and I have a whole, half of roasted butternut squash in my fridge. Its time to use it!

Looking in the fridge – I still have some of that super thin, sweet Pacific Butternut Squash soup and a tub of white miso. I bought the miso to make my favorite soup – squash/coconut/leek/miso soup… but I never got any leeks. Hmmm…..

Happy middle ground – making a hybrid, better Pacific soup.

Hybrid Squash Soup 
Ingredients:

• 1/3 carton (or one can) pre-made squash soup 
• ½ roasted butternut squash, chopped into small pieces 
• ½ tsp onion powder 
• 1 tbls grated ginger 
• Salt and pepper, to taste 
• 2 tbls white miso 

Directions:

1. Put everything, but the miso, in a pot. Simmer for 5-10 minutes. Take off heat, add miso. Using an immersion blender, blend to almost smooth. Garnish with green onions (which I didn’t have… but I think would round the soup out perfectly). 
2. Substitutions: if you don’t have the soup, use a can of coconut milk and a dash of cinnamon or another notoriously thin packaged squash soup. Use dried ginger, instead of fresh. The miso is what makes this soup awesome… but its totally still soup without it :) 

I like making things that I’ve had to eat for a few days taste just a little different. Makes me feel like I’m not eating leftovers… again!

Brown Bananas

These bananas have been sitting on my counter since the inception of this blog...

Which means they have been sitting there for far, far too long... But the problem is, my husband only eats almost green bananas, and I never thinking about eating bananas at all... So, they've just been sitting there, turning spotted, then mostly brown, then... brown brown.

Since this is literally the story of all of our bananas lives, I have an entire repertoire of things to do with them! I had all of these things in my head, that I was planning to do earlier this week, then a little later... and now, it was too late to do anything with them, other than mush them and be completely stereotypical and - make banana bread.

Now, I have never been the best at making banana bread (which is why I do so many OTHER things to do with brown bananas). It always turns out super tasty, but never cooks up quit right. Its usually a little dense, a little too moist or the top kinda burns... and I've always attributed this to the crummy electric ovens I am forced to use... but then this morning, it struck me... its proabably because I NEVER follow the recipes I find. It's not cause I don't want to - its usually because I THINK I have everything in the cupboard to make them, but come to find out I don't have even 2/3rds of what I need...

Joy of Baking's Banana Bread Recipe (found here) is my go to BASE recipe. Its SUPER forgiving and has lots of opportunities for substitutions, see that section below.

Super Forgiving Banana Bread 
Makes 1 - 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf

• 1 cup (115 grams) walnuts or pecans, toasted and coarsely chopped (optional) 
• 1 3/4 cups (230 grams) all-purpose flour 
• 3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated white sugar 
• 1 teaspoon baking powder 
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda 
• 1/4 teaspoon salt 
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten 
• 1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled 
• 3 ripe large bananas (approximately 1 pound or 454 grams), mashed well (about 1-1/2 cups) 
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) and place oven rack to middle position. Butter and flour (or spray with a non stick vegetable/flour spray) the bottom and sides of a 9 x 5 x 3 inch (23 x 13 x 8 cm) loaf pan. Set aside.
2. Place the nuts on a baking sheet and bake for about 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly toasted. Let cool and then chop coarsely. In a large bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nuts. Set aside.
3. In a medium-sized bowl combine the mashed bananas, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla. With a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, lightly fold the wet ingredients (banana mixture) into the dry ingredients just until combined and the batter is thick and chunky. (The important thing is not to over mix the batter. You do not want it smooth. Over mixing the batter will yield tough, rubbery bread.)
4. Scrape batter into prepared pan. Bake until bread is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 55 to 60 minutes. Place on a wire rack to cool and then remove the bread from the pan. Serve warm or at room temperature. This bread can be frozen.
5. Substitutions: Use any nut or chocolate chips or nothing. Use half whole wheat flour. Use half brown sugar or half sugar substitute (like Splenda). 1 tbls ground flax seed mixed with 2.5 tbls water can be used in place of an egg. Since this recipe calls for melted butter, you can use oil to substitute some or all of the butter - this time I used 1/2 coconut oil and melted it with the butter I had on hand. Lastly, if you don't quite have enough banana, use apple sauce or grated zucchini to make up the difference.

I made all of these substitutions this time, and it turned out exactly as I have come to expect: SUPER delicious, but too dense and moist. Luckily, this is what my husband has come to expect from my banana bread too - so he'll be happy.

Final note - though you can substitute just about anything in this banana bread recipe - I highly recommend not substituting EVERYTHING like I did.

I will have a list of awesome things to do with bananas in the near future - I promise.

One Squash – Many, Many Meals

I was at work the other day I saw the most beautiful butternut squash! I had no plan for it, I just had to own it. Now its a few days later and the question remains… What to make into for dinner… Looking in my fridge – I found some old wanton wrappers I bought a few weeks ago at the Asian market, some second-hand ricotta cheese (my friend bought it, and hated it! Score for me!) and some wilty spinach. Hmmmm…. RAVIOLI!

After web searching a bunch of butternut squash ravioli recipe – I looked in my fridge again, pulled out even more stuff, and made up my own. Here it is:

Butternut Squash Ravioli

Ingredients:

• 1 cup mashed, roasted butternut squash
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 pinch chili powder
• 1/2 cup ricotta cheese
• about 1/4 cup squash soup (or omit… though read below)
• 1 egg (yolk and white separated)
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• about a 2/3 (14 ounce) package wonton wrappers
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 clove garlic, cut in quarters
• chopped fresh or 1/2 tsp of dried sage
• 1 cup baby spinach, chopped

Directions:

1. Mush together the butternut squash, salt, black pepper, chili powder, ricotta, soup, egg yolk, and Parmesan cheese. Mixing until the filling is well combined.
2. Get the wonton wrappers, the egg white and a cutting board. Put a wrapper on the cutting board, wet your finger with the egg white, and run it all along the outer edge of the wonton skin to moisten. Place about 1 teaspoon of filling in the center of the wonton. Then fold the wonton in half, matching up the tips, and press the edges to seal. Do over and over again until you run out of something (if it’s the egg white, use water instead).
3. When all the ravioli are made, put a pot of water on to boil, then put a frying pan over medium heat, with the butter and garlic. Add the sage to the pan just as the butter completely melts. As the butter turns golden add the spinach, as soon as it wilts take the pan off the heat.
4. Drop the raviolis into the boiling water, a few at a time, and cook until they float to the top, then plus a minute, about 3 minutes total. Drain the raviolis, then put them in the pan with the butter. Turn the heat up to medium-high, and sauté the raviolis for about a minute a side.  
5. Put everything on a plate and swoon at your great use of fridge contents!

Substitutions: use any kind of squash (if using spaghetti squash, just blend it first). Use mascarpone or greek yogurt instead of ricotta. Omit the egg if necessary and use water to seal the wrappers. Use any (or no) greens at the end. If the filling seems a little dry, and you don’t have soup, try a dash of cinnamon (a VERY SMALL AMOUNT) and a splash of milk. 

Ok... the downside (for me anyways) – this recipe makes like 26 ravioli AND only used half the squash… I personally can only eat 8 ravioli at a time – so I froze the rest. Just put all the fresh leftovers (uncooked) in one layer, on a pan lined with parchment paper, and freeze. Once frozen solid, move them to an airtight bag. To re-cook, just take out the number you want an half hour or so before dinner, let them thaw, then cook as above, plus maybe a minute.

I’ll figure out what to do with the leftover squash a little later… I’m thinking soup. OH! The soup addition! Its amazing! The Pacific soup I used is really thin and has a hint of cinnamon and sweetness. It was a delicious addition. I actually got the idea because the carton of soup suggested it (and it was a good way to use up just a little more of the carton). 

Until next time! Chow! Heheh.

When Life Gives You Lime Rinds…

Make a cleaning solution!

Last night, I was craving mojitos. Yes, that delicious rum/lime/mint concoction, generally reserved for warm days on the beach. Luckily, it WAS a nice day and I had all the ingredients around the kitchen, with the exception of the rum, but my husband and Smart & Final had that covered. 

Anyways – we had to juice some limes to make the drinks – and afterwards I was staring at 6 lime halves, void of their juice. As my husband went to clear the counter, I had to stop him from throwing them  – helloooooo I’m sure they have a use!

This morning, I saw them on the counter again, and it struck me! A while back, I had convinced myself that I wanted to make all the cleaning supplies for our house. You know, laundry detergent, hand soap, all-purpose cleaner. During my research, I had been trying to use pinterest (which, I’m still no good at) and I saw many, many pictures of lemon rinds in jars of vinegar. I hadn’t had enough lemons to try it at that point, so I filed the idea in the back of my brain.

So, now, I have a pile of lime rinds – so why not use them? I like the smell of limes better then lemons and as a citrus they have all the same cleaning power! 

So, here is the recipe – it only makes about a cup of cleaning solution – but I think fresher is better, so I like making only a little at a time. But scale up as you like!

Lime-Vinegar Cleaning Stuff

Ingredients:

• Rind cut from 3 limes
• 1/3 cup of white vinegar
• Water
• Castile soap (optional)

Directions:

1. Put everything in a jar. Put a lid on the jar. Let sit for 3 weeks, shaking the jar occasionally. After three weeks, strain out the rinds, mix with 3/4 cup water and put into a spray bottle. If you want, add a drop or two of castile soap.

That’s it! An all purpose, all natural cleaner. I wouldn’t necessarily use it on windows or mirrors (there is a bit of streaking) but its great for cutting grease on stove tops, wiping down the bathroom and cleaning finger prints off cupboards.

Cherry-Strawberry Jellam

People are picky about their cherries. The other day someone came into the stand looking for cherries and we had some, but there weren’t many left. He took the whole box of them over to the sun and went though each and every cherry in the box. A little later he came over to me with a bag of perfect fruit. The rest however, he said needed to go into the garbage. He was right. He took every last perfect cherry and the leftovers were all pretty sad – some had super smooshy tops while others had an under-developed twin sticking off the stem. At the end of the day, no one took them – so of course, instead of throwing them away, I just had to take them home. That same day there was also 2/3 of a basket of organic strawberries that had been passed over all day. They had similar symptoms of over-ripeness.

So, what do you do with squishy, super-sweet, over-ripe fruit? It was obvious to me! Make jam! I had never made freezer jam, but I hear about it often. Freezer jam is easier to make than regular processed jam, and requires less fruit and less sugar. This was a good option for me, because I was tired and I figured there was only about a pound of fruit to use.

Here’s all I did – washed all the fruit, and discarded the really weird ones. For the strawberries, I hulled them, cut off the squishy parts, then cut the rest of the fruit in quarters. For the cherries, I de-stemmed them, pulled off any weird twins, cut off the super-over ripe part, then just pushed out the pit. Then it all went straight into the blender! The recipe called for two full cups of fruit… I was a little bit short, so I threw in a ¼ cup of blueberries I had laying around, and blended the mixture up again.

The recipe that follows, is straight from the instructions that come in the regular Sure-Jell Fruit Pectin box:

Strawberry Freezer Jam 

• 2 cups crushed strawberries (buy 1 qt. fully ripe strawberries) 
• 4 cups sugar, measured into separate bowl 
• 3/4 cup water 
• 1 pkg. SURE-JELL Fruit Pectin 

Directions:

1. Rinse 5 (1-cup) plastic containers and lids with boiling water. Dry thoroughly. Discard stems. Crush strawberries thoroughly, 1 cup at a time. Measure exactly 2 cups prepared fruit into large bowl. Stir in sugar. Let stand 10 min., stirring occasionally.
2. Mix water and pectin in small saucepan. Bring to boil on high heat, stirring constantly. Continue boiling and stirring 1 min. Add to fruit mixture; stir 3 min. or until most the sugar is dissolved. (A few sugar crystals may remain.) Fill containers immediately to within 1/2 inch of tops. Wipe off top edges of containers; immediately cover with lids.
3. Let stand at room temperature 24 hours. Jam is now ready to use. Store in refrigerator up to 3 weeks or in freezer up to 1 year. (If frozen, thaw in refrigerator before using.)
4. Substitutions: The cherry freezer jam recipe called for exactly the same quantities as the strawberry one, so I felt confident substituting half cherries. Also, I wasn’t preserving it for the long term, so chemistry wasn’t 100% important.

Also, what I make is Jellam. I hate big chunks of fruit in my jam. It makes it hard to spread on toast, it has a weird mouth feel, and the chunks often float to the top of the jar… I don’t know, I just don’t like it. But, I also, don’t love jelly. It takes longer to make, its super thin, I don’t think it’s as flavorful. So, I just blend my fruit, to just about smooth. Kind of a half way between a jelly and a jam – a Jellam!

This recipe would work for those leftover strawberries and cherries in your fridge, that didn't get eaten at their peak and their just not that appealing to pop in your mouth as a snack. This jellam ended up being sweet concoction of fresh fruit goodness.

Rotten Tomatoes

Ok, not quite rotten, but pretty darn ugly. While at work the other day, I was doing my daily rounds of produce inspection, and I looked down at our organic Roma tomatoes and uuuhhhh ohhhh. Rotten tomatoes. 

I went through the whole bucket of them, about half of them were still perfect and beautiful, and a third were so disgusting or fuzzy they had to be thrown out. But, the other little bit – well – I donno, maybe had potential. Either, the tops were rotty, or there were big ole bruises, or they had weird black spots on them. I figured no one would buy them, but I kept them out for the last few hours. No one did, so I bagged them up at the end of the day and took them home. 

 

When I got home, I did a bit of research, and found out tomatoes are rather easy to can. In fact, the recipe in my Ball canning book was only like 10 lines long… At first I was thinking tomato sauce. I mean, my tomatoes were pretty ugly, I didn’t want that to show through the clear jar. But then, I realized my 16 romas did not equal the 45 pounds the recipe called for… I also didn’t want to can them whole – cause again… they weren’t gonna be whole when I cut the bad parts off. So chopped it was.

 

Here is the recipe I used - straight out of the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving also found here.

Tomatoes – Packed in Own Juice

Ingredients:

• 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 lb ripe tomatoes (about 8 to 11 medium) per quart 
• Ball® Citric Acid or bottled lemon juice
• Salt, optional
• Glass preserving jars with lids and bands

Directions:

1. Prepare boiling water canner. Heat jars and lids in simmering water until ready for use. Do not boil. Set bands aside
2. Process filled jars in a boiling water canner 1 hour and 25 minutes for pints and quarts, adjusting for altitude. Remove jars and cool. Check lids for seal after 24 hours. Lid should not flex up and down when center is pressed.
3. Wash tomatoes. Dip in boiling water 30 to 60 seconds. Immediately dip in cold water. Slip off skins. Trim away any green areas and cut out core. Leave tomatoes whole or cut into halves or quarters. (I diced mine… Cause they were weird shapes after trimming the gross off. I also squeezed out most of the seeds)
4. Add ½ tsp Ball® Citric Acid or 2 Tbsp bottled lemon juice to each hot quart jar. Add ¼ tsp Ball® Citric Acid or 1 Tbsp bottled lemon juice to each hot pint jar
5. Pack tomatoes in hot jars until space between tomatoes fills with juice leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Add 1 teaspoon salt to each quart jar, 1/2 teaspoon to each pint jar, if desired. (I only put a pinch) Remove air bubbles. Wipe rim. Center hot lid on jar. Apply band and adjust until fit is fingertip tight.
   
   
   
    

It was really easy actually. And most of the weird looking parts of the tomato came off with the skin! The deeper defects, I just cut off. Using my 16 romas, I was able to make 2 pints and 1 half pint jars. The tomatoes are beautiful in their jars, bright and real looking. They look wayyy better than commercial canned tomatoes!! 

 

The best part is – canning these old, ugly tomatoes gave them a second chance!