Melon Balling Skills = :(

So, I'm not sure if you've seen posts for these beautiful little mini caramel apples.  I've seen them everywhere and I decided that my family needed them!

Well, this time, I decided to actually read the ENTIRE recipe before I got started (novel idea I know).  Uh oh...do I have a melon baller?  Not that I know of - I've never "melon balled" anything.  Well I got to searching because you never know what could be lurking in the drawer of weird kitchen tools that never gets used.  Ah Ha! I think I found one...or maybe it was a cookie dough scoop - I've never used one of those either.  Oh well....it should work....I think....

What's In It:
Apples
Caramel
Skewers

What To Do With It:
What kind of skewers?  I used shish-ka-bob sticks that I cut in half.  Maybe sucker sticks or fancy toothpicks....do what ya feel.

How many apples you ask, well that depends on your melon balling skills.  Mine are terrible, embarrassing really, so it took me 4 apples.  But the original site says you should be able to get 6-8 apple balls out of one apple.  Not sure if they are using super freak mutant apples or I am just not being hard enough on myself.

I used 3 little bags of caramel flavored chemicals from Target.  I couldn't find a big bag and I hated the fact that I was buying the stuff in the first place, so I just grabbed and dashed.

Coat the inside of your pan with a thin layer of butter and then melt the caramels slowly over super low heat.  I actually have a melt setting on my stove, so I used that.

While the caramel is melting, give your melon baller a try.  There was cursing during this step, so it's a good thing Te-Man was asleep. :)

Place the apple balls into lemon juice, toss, and set aside.  I skewered each apple ball with a stick, be sure to skewer through the skin side.  At this point, I cut off a bit from the bottom of each apple ball to make it flat so they didn't roll all around my plate.  Dry each ball really well before dipping into the caramel.

The caramel will not stick if the apple is too wet.  Or in my case, wouldn't stick to the apples at all. :(  So, I just did the next best thing, line them all up on the plate and poor the caramel on top!! :)

Oh...and then the sprinkle adventure began...you better get those sprinkles on ASAP if you want to use them, do not wait until the caramel is too cool because then you are setting of a sprinkle bomb in your kitchen and will be finding sprinkles until Easter.  I would know.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

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Mmmm Mmmm Good

My poor family was stuck with a left over's night and I wanted to make it up to them by giving them a little something special.  A few weeks ago when I made the pumpkin pie, I was at the store and didn't know if I was going to need evaporated milk or condensed milk, so I bought both.  Turns out, I need evaporated milk and now I had a can of condensed milk in my cabinet and it was driving me crazy.

Ah ha! I can turn it into caramel!  But wait....it's so hard....I don't know if I'd be able to ever find enough time to get it done. This will be, hands down, the hardest recipe I ever tell you about.   *notice the extreme sarcasm*

Sweetened Condensed Milk Caramel

What's In It:

1 can of sweetened condensed milk

What To Do With It:

Put it in a crockpot, cover the can with water, and cook on low for 8 hours. 

SERIOUSLY, that's it.

Now, you can take it a bit further if you want to and use a plate, bowl, or cup to prevent any rust spots from forming on your crockpot bottom.

Or, you can be super crazy like I am and pour the milk into jelly jars.  

I did this for 2 reasons.  1. I am crazy and like I use my jelly jars for everything. Seriously, I will dice pepper and onions and store them in the jars. It's so pretty!  Which leads me to number 2.  I wanted to be able to see when the milk actually turned to caramel.  My crockpot is we'll say temperamental, and I wasn't sure how long it would actually take.

Now, you might run into an issue like I did and those darn cute jelly jars were floating! ACK! What do I do?  Well, I found the shortest "bowl" and wedged it between the lid of the crockpot and the top of the jelly jars. :) I just showed you jelly jar!!! 

Then, dip apples or graham crackers or a spoon or your finger......mmmmmmmmmmmmm

Finally I've Found It...

So, the other day, when I was talking about pumpkin pie and how I wanted to like it, but didn't really.  And then I proclaimed that I LOVE pie....well I'm starting to think that I was lying.  Maybe I don't actually love pie, I just love the idea of pie, and I want to love pie.  Well, maybe I am on a pie adventure and I will learn to love pie....one pie at a time.

Most of the time I don't like strawberry pie because the strawberries are either too raw or too cooked.  I feel a little like Goldilocks, but that's just the way it is.  This pie has the perfect mix of both!

Strawberry Pie

What's In it:
1 9" baked pie crust
2 1/2 lb fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced
1/2 c white sugar
3 T cornstarch
3/4 c water
1 t vanilla (optional)

What To Do With It:
Crush roughly 1/3 of your berries with a potato masher.  Mix all the berries, sugar, cornstarch, and water together in a pot and boil over medium high heat for 2-3 minutes.

Cool in the pan for about 5 minutes, then pour into your baked pie crust.

This pie crust clearly isn't baked yet, but I wanted to include the picture.  It makes me want to play that crazy connect the dots into squares game....too many long car rides as a kid I think :)

Refrigerate until completely cooled or at least until pie is set, typically about 1 hour.  Serve with cool-whip...or without.  You know my feelings on that! :)

P.S. These strawberries were free!  How awesome is it to fill my family's tummies with delicious home-cooked food that would have otherwise gone to waste?! :)

Perfect timing!

So, produce guy has been giving me some great stuff lately!  I know beggars can't be choosers, but once I got a taste of that cantaloupe a few weeks back, I'd been dying for some more fruit.  And guess what - this week was the jackpot!!

On Sunday, I picked up all of this beautiful produce

STRAWBERRIES!!!!!!

I'm not sure if you could tell, but I was jumping up and down like a little kid when I saw those berries! :)

Also, look at all those green beans!  I had enough for a crockpot full, a gallon freezer bag, and enough to give to a friend. 

The mushrooms were phenomenal in a salad and I made some more scrumptious pickled jalapenos.  

But what did I do with the strawberries....oh....you'll see.

 

Stop drooling....it's bad for your keyboard!

Monday was another score - not that you could tell from the world's worst cellphone picture.  Don't even get me started on this droid2's camera. ugh. 

Now...you might not be able to tell, but there are three bags of sliced apples there in the top left next to the eggplant! Sliced apples! That's incredible.  It's fate.  Just yesterday morning I was feeling guilty that I was subjecting my poor family to left-over night.  Hey, when you run out of storage containers, you know you have a fridge full and it's time to clean 'em out buddy! Anyway, back to the guilt....so I was thinking that since I picked up 80lbs of pink lady apples the other day, I could spare a few from the endless applesauce and dried apple sweatshop routine I've been running, and we'd have some with some homemade caramel dip for a surprise dessert.  Well, now I don't even have to do any work because the apples are already sliced and everything!  And talk about no work, I made a crazy easy and amazing caramel dip. :)  

I'm so excited to turn that broccoli into some more veggie patties - even Te-Man eats them and that boy has a serious green food-phobia.

You seriously should ask your local grocer for some of their left over produce to feed to your "chickens". Our chickens eat so well, 3 families of "chickens" have been getting more produce than they can eat from just one store!!! :)

Oh.....My.....Gosh

So for anyone that has never had Super Mom's Oyster Crackers....my heart bleeds for you. Seriously, they are messy and whoa do they make your breath stink, but I dare you to stop eating them.

I decided that until I can try out and perfect a homemade butter cracker recipe, it was unacceptable to deprive my family of this culinary delight.  In comes the perfectly timed, sized, and amazingly delicious pumpkin seeds.

What's In It:
2 1/2 c pumpkin seeds, cleaned and rinsed
2 T butter, melted
pinch salt
1 1/2 T ranch dressing powder (homemade or Hidden Valley will work)
1/4 t garlic powder (scant)
1 t dill weed
1/4 c oil (scant)

What To Do With It:
Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.  Toss seeds with melted butter and salt.  Spread onto a large baking sheet in a single layer and bake for about 45-60 minutes.  Stir them about every 10-15.  You want them to start looking tannish, but not brown.  Also, try one to make sure you like the texture.  If it is too chewy for you, pop them back in for a few minutes.  Allow the pumpkin seeds to cool.

Mix ranch dressing, garlic, and dill weed together.  Whisk powders into the oil.  Add your pumpkin seeds and mix.  This is easiest if you use a large lidded container and shake the begesus out of it, but if you want to be boring and use a spoon, that works too. 

Note: I let my pumpkin seeds dry on a towel overnight, not because the recipe calls for it - how could it...I'm making it up haha - but because snuggling up on the couch with my Wolverine was far more important last night after the mini super heroes were off to bed.  

Pumpkins and Patron....

FINALLY!  Yesterday we got around to carving some pumpkins. :)

I would like to pose the question of why on earth I am the one that has to scoop out the insides of these poor  squash?  Why then am I also the one to sift through the orange stringy brain mess to find the precious little kernels of tastiness?  AND then I am also the one to cook them?  But I digress.....

So, Ze-Ra had quite the accomplishment yesterday....it was the first time she carved her entire pumpkin by herself!!!  I was so proud of her - she didn't get upset or frustrated once!  YAY for patience!*

Wolverine took charge of carving the Te-Man's pumpkin )while I made us some pineapple juice and patron with orange slices- YUM).

I'm not sure if it was intentional, but Te-Man's favorite (out of the three he has seen) movie is Finding Nemo.  Doesn't the pumpkin look like the Marlin face the moonfish form?

Great Job Wolverine and Ze-Ra!

I'm trying something new with the pumpkin seeds - they are in the oven right now!  I'll post the results in a bit.  I need to get a pot of applesauce cooking first.

*Just for giggles, whenever Ze-Ra is being a little bit low on calm and patience, I always tell her that I have a pocket full of patience and she is welcome to have some.....she never takes me up on my offer.  I guess I should start using some of it myself. :P