And still more blackberries...

This morning after church, we had an all-church potluck. I didn't remember this until I woke up this morning and checked my Facebook page, and the church posted a reminder about said potluck. According to the first letter of my last name, I was to bring a dessert (I'm always upset when it works out that I have to bring a side - desserts are my forte). So at 7:30 this morning, I had the task of figuring out what wonderful dessert I would take. Remembering the 2+ pounds of blackberries in my freezer (see previous post), I decided to make a blackberry cobbler recipe that I had printed off from The Pioneer Woman.

It is a really simple recipe. Self-rising flour, sugar, milk, butter, and blackberries. Upon examining my pantry, I discovered that I didn't have self-rising flour, and I had given my son the last of our milk last night before bed. I did however, have heavy cream, and the I was able to find a way to make self-rising flour out of all-purpose. (To make self-rising flour, for every cup of flour needed, add 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt)

Mix 1 cup self-rising flour, 1 cup sugar (I accidentally added 1 1/4 cups), and 1 cup milk (or heavy cream in my case). Stir in 1 stick of melted butter. I then poured the batter into a greased 8 by 8 casserole. Then, 2 cups of frozen blackberries were sprinkled over the top. At this point, you are supposed to sprinkle 1/4 cup of sugar over the whole thing, but I had already added it to the batter - oh, well! Bake at 350 for 50 minutes, then sprinkle more sugar on top and bake 10 more minutes.

Fast forward about 5 hours, when I was getting ready to leave the potluck. I went to the dessert table to pick up my dish, which looked like it had been licked clean, and as I was walking out the door, I was accosted by an elderly woman. She informed me that she and her daughter had been watching my dish to see who would pick it up. She said that her daughter had to have my recipe. I laughed, and went over to meet her daughter, and wrote down my recipe. She said that her entire table had been talking about my cobbler.

I decided that I would make it again for my in-laws. We drove down to their house this afternoon, and I made it for dessert after our yummy dinner of hamburgers and baked beans. It is currently sitting in the kitchen, waiting for us to be hungry enough to devour it.

Ketchup, A.K.A. my son's favorite food

My son will put ketchup on anything. Last night, we fed him a hot dog and peanuts for dinner (among other things). He not only dipped his hot dog, but also his peanuts, into the last of the organic ketchup that we had on hand.
We buy organic not because tomatoes have to be organic (we have a list of the fruits and veggies that need to be organic, and those that conventional is just fine). We buy organic ketchup because, it is the only ketchup that does not have HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) in it. (Although I just saw a non-organic brand that says right on the label that it is HFCS free - I don't remember the brand). We try as best as we can to keep it out of our house. Occasionally, it slips in, but for the most part, we are HFCS haters.
Organic Ketchup is expensive, as is most organic food. I vowed that as soon as we ran out of it, I would try to concoct my own HFCF-free stuff. I sputtered out the last of our Ketchup last night, and, as I'm fairly certain that we could not go a day without the stuff, I experimented and made some last night.
Naturally, I had done my research. A google search for "homemade ketchup" yielded many methods for making your own ketchup. They ran the gamut from growing your own tomatoes and cooking them down, to buying tomato sauce and doctoring it up. I decided upon a method that starts with tomato paste. Here's what I did:

I gathered together:

tomato paste -organic does taste better,
but I almost went with hunt's brand.

vinegar (yes, we buy vinegar in bulk - there's very little

that a little vinegar or baking soda won't clean)

brown sugar

and various spices I thought would work

I threw it all in a bowl, mixed, and added some water for the right consistency. I ended putting too much brown sugar in, so I had to overcompensate by adding more vinegar. I ended up adding red wine vinegar, white vinegar, and also rice wine vinegar before I was happy with the level of acidity and sweetness. I bottled it up and put it in the fridge overnight.

This morning, I tried it to see how the flavors had melded and was not really happy. I dumped it back into a bowl and added onion powder and a little sriracha for a little heat.


It turned out super complex and yummy. Not so yummy that I'd be willing to dip my peanuts in it, but definitely worthy of some french fries.

Cheez-Its Anyone?

We love Cheez-Its.


However, they are far far away from the natural, healthy(ish) snacks that I prefer to feed both myself and my family.

We used to buy an organic version, but they became too expensive for our budget, and they just didn't taste as good. One day, my husband stumbled upon these:

Okay, so they're still not health food by any stretch of the imagination. We figured as long as we were going to eat them, we may as well get 5 grams of whole grain per serving!

Then came my idea to make my own. I found a few different versions. One, that I still want to try, requires the purchase of organic cheddar cheese powder, at about $10.00. The crackers sound yummy, but I'm not willing to pay that price just yet. I found another recipe that just called for shredded sharp cheddar. They seemed really easy, so I gave them a try.

They were... okay. Definitely not even close to a cheez-it. They were more like square cheese puffs. Delicious, but these would not break our addiction to the Cheez-its.

Then I stumbled upon this recipe for Parmesan Cream Crackers. I thought it might be a good compromise, as the reason my previous recipe was a failure was the big chunks of cheese. So, I wrangled up the ingredients:

You can use regular all-purpose flour, but I always buy unbleached.

These probably would have been much better with freshly
grated Parmesan, but this was what I had on hand.


Special note: do not do as I did, which was dump in all of the ingredients
only to realize that I only had salted butter. The salt, plus the salt from the
Parmesan cheese, plus the salt in the butter made these crackers REALLY salty.

Having tasted these crackers, I think that even with
unsalted butter, they really don't need extra salt.
Parmesan cheese is rather salty on its own.

They were really easy. I just threw the flour and salt in the food processor, mixed, then added the butter. I drizzled in the cream (I used a little more than the 1/4 cup that the recipe called for). Then, I took half of the dough and rolled it out on parchment paper to about 1/4 inch thickness. I then took a pizza cutter and cut it into about one inch squares. They baked for about 10 minutes.

As you can see, I had to sneak one before I even took a picture! They are delicious!

Blackberries, Blackberries, and More Blackberries!

I love berries! Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, boysenberries, and blackberries. This seems to be the summer of blackberries for our family. It all started about a month ago with my desire to make jam. It was my first time to can, and I was afraid of traditional canning methods, but I heard that freezer jam was pretty much fool-proof. I thought I'd give it a try.
We went to the Edmond Farmer's Market, and looked for berries to fulfill my jam-making desires. We found strawberries and blackberries. Once we had the berries at home, I commenced with the jam-making. It really is super simple. It's called "freezer jam" because it's stored in the freezer--NOT on the pantry shelf. It tastes more like fresh fruit because you don't cook the fruit!

I used about 4 cups of blackberries (I made a separate batch the same way with the strawberries), a lemon, 1 1/2 cups sugar, and a box of this:
1) Stir sugar and contents of package in a bowl into well blended.
2) Add berries and lemon zest. Stir 3 minutes.
3) Ladle jam into jars. I used ziplock twist lid containers, and they worked perfectly.

Both the blackberry and strawberry jams are delicious! One month later, and this is all of the jam I have left:

Yummy!

Last Thursday, John and I took Cohen to a blackberry farm to pick more blackberries. I don't think I've picked berries since I was 10, when I picked blueberries with my cousins in Canada.

I really want Cohen to grow up being connected to the food he eats. I figured picking berries is a good start.

We ended up with 4 pounds of blackberries. As we left the farm, the farmer gave us a pamphlet with recipes and general blackberry information. Like the fact that blackberries will remain good up to 2 days in your refrigerator.

Wait a minute - 2 DAYS?!?!?! We can't eat 4 pounds of blackberries in TWO DAYS!

So, it was off to the internet to try to find suitable ways to use up my blackberries. I ended up with four uses.

1) Eat them straight out of the carton (washed thoroughly, of course - do you know my husband?)

2) Freeze them

3) Blackberry Popsicles (recipe)

4) Blackberry Fruit Leather (recipe)


I think that I have fulfilled my blackberry needs for the summer. However, I have read about a pick your own peach orchard in the area...

Homemade Laundry Detergent

When I first started thinking about trying to make my own homemade products, I scoured the internet looking for cleaning products that I could make at home. It seemed to me like laundry detergent would be the easiest place to start, so I found a bunch of "recipes" from various sites, read about what worked for people, and what didn't for others. I compiled this research into my own recipe.

Ingredients:

Castille Soap - I buy this at a local grocery store called Crest for 99 cents a bar. I've also seen it at Akins for much more.


Borax - I have also found this at Crest. I don't remember how much is costs, but I think it's under $3.00 a box.



Washing Soda - I had never heard of this before I started looking for laundry detergent recipes. This is not baking soda, although I think they are chemically similar.

To make the soap, grate 1 bar of soap into a container. Some sites recommended using a food processor, but since I didn't feel like dirtying mine, I just used a handheld grater. It only took a minute or so. Mix in 2 cups of borax and 2 cups of washing soda. Put cover on container and shake until well incorporated.



I use 1/8 of a cup per load of laundry, and love that I know exactly what is in my detergent. I taped a label right on the container, so I never had to worry about forgetting or losing the recipe.