…ain’t got nothin’ on me.
OK yeah, she* could wipe the floor with me, both in crafty homemaker skills and prison-acquired street skillz.
But I’m proud of myself, because I successfully finished the apple butter AND whipped up a quick pumpkin butter and CANNED BOTH!!! By “canned” of course, I mean “jarred,” but that’s not the word you use…dunno why.
Here’s a refresher…my two bags of apples looked like this yesterday morning:
After a million hours in the crock pot, several hours in the fridge overnight (I’m a wuss and didn’t want to leave the crock pot plugged in overnight), and a billion more crock pot hours today, here’s how it looked in the end:
I made it with Splenda so it’s lower in calories, and of course there are bunches of spices in there that made the house smell frickin’ amazing (sidenote – anyone watch SNL last night and see one of the new girls drop the F-bomb? Ha!). It didn’t yield as much as I’d hoped, and it definitely wouldn’t fill all 12 jars I bought today, so I looked up a quick pumpkin butter recipe. I haven’t been able to find pumpkin ANYWHERE around here for over a month (save for a couple of cans of too-expensive organic pumpkin – which we bought anyway), but over the past 3 days I found it in two different places, so I had 3 of the big cans on hand, one of which I used in this recipe.
Here’s the pumpkin butter (it only took ~45 minutes on the stove). I also made it with Splenda…the little smidge I tasted was nowhere near as good as the big jar of Amish pumpkin butter I got last fall, but I’ll give myself credit and admit it’s not bad!
I can’t believe I didn’t take pictures of the canning process! Grrr! I was so scared the jars were going to explode and I’d die of glass and metal shrapnel to the face alone in my kitchen. I’m dramatic. I’m trying to think of cute ways to label the jars and have a few ideas I’ll have to tinker with. I’ll definitely take a picture of the final product tomorrow.
Holly Homemaker stuff aside, I ate today, too.
I’m trying to eat fewer processed foods and more fruits/veggies, and while I’m not doing a stellar job at it, I did eat better than I have been recently.
Breakfast was an egg-cheese-fake sausage sandwich with fruit:
Late morning snack was a pumpkin latte (which I’m convinced contained 2% milk even though I asked for skim…I can’t drink scalding hot coffee like others can, so I didn’t even discover the problem until I was halfway home).
Yeah, that’s Spongebob in the background. Deal with it.
I had stuff to do around the house all day and was a little surprised that I wasn’t hungry for lunch, though often when I drink lattes, they fill me up for awhile. In the late afternoon, I made a salad with homemade apple vinaigrette dressing (!!!!), Granny Smith apples, gorgonzola crumbles, and honey slivered almonds:
This salad was the tits, yo! (I’ve been saying that to myself way too much lately, in Cartman’s voice, of course) It’s no Panera Fuji Apple salad, but nothing could ever compare to the real thing. This recipe called for fresh parsley and fresh basil (both of which I thought were weird), but sadly I only had dried herbs on hand. I think it made a difference, because it tasted a bit funny. Don’t get me wrong though, it was still A-mazing.
The weird thing was, I wasn’t very hungry before I ate the salad. Then I ate the salad and was hungry for fatty sugary snacky foods. I hate a couple pieces of chocolate and a 100-calorie pack of Hostess strawberry cupcakes. What’s wrong with me? The salad should’ve filled me up and been enough…
A little while later, this just jumped into my mouth when I was looking the other direction…I had no control over it.
After more errands and tasks, dinner was simple – semi-pesto pasta (I only had a small amount left) and frozen steamed broccoli, both topped with parmesan cheese, of course.
I had a glass of some shiraz-y type wine on the side, but I forgot to take a picture. This, however, I did not forget to photograph:
It will be bittersweet when these bad boys are all gone. On the one hand, they’re really not doing me any favors, but on the other hand, OH MY GOD THEY’RE AMAZING.
* This is a classic case of “I’m making fun of her because I’m secretly jealous and want to be her.” Martha is my idol. The bedazzled shrine in the back of my closet proves it.
OK yeah, she* could wipe the floor with me, both in crafty homemaker skills and prison-acquired street skillz.
But I’m proud of myself, because I successfully finished the apple butter AND whipped up a quick pumpkin butter and CANNED BOTH!!! By “canned” of course, I mean “jarred,” but that’s not the word you use…dunno why.
Here’s a refresher…my two bags of apples looked like this yesterday morning:
After a million hours in the crock pot, several hours in the fridge overnight (I’m a wuss and didn’t want to leave the crock pot plugged in overnight), and a billion more crock pot hours today, here’s how it looked in the end:
I made it with Splenda so it’s lower in calories, and of course there are bunches of spices in there that made the house smell frickin’ amazing (sidenote – anyone watch SNL last night and see one of the new girls drop the F-bomb? Ha!). It didn’t yield as much as I’d hoped, and it definitely wouldn’t fill all 12 jars I bought today, so I looked up a quick pumpkin butter recipe. I haven’t been able to find pumpkin ANYWHERE around here for over a month (save for a couple of cans of too-expensive organic pumpkin – which we bought anyway), but over the past 3 days I found it in two different places, so I had 3 of the big cans on hand, one of which I used in this recipe.
Here’s the pumpkin butter (it only took ~45 minutes on the stove). I also made it with Splenda…the little smidge I tasted was nowhere near as good as the big jar of Amish pumpkin butter I got last fall, but I’ll give myself credit and admit it’s not bad!
I can’t believe I didn’t take pictures of the canning process! Grrr! I was so scared the jars were going to explode and I’d die of glass and metal shrapnel to the face alone in my kitchen. I’m dramatic. I’m trying to think of cute ways to label the jars and have a few ideas I’ll have to tinker with. I’ll definitely take a picture of the final product tomorrow.
Holly Homemaker stuff aside, I ate today, too.
I’m trying to eat fewer processed foods and more fruits/veggies, and while I’m not doing a stellar job at it, I did eat better than I have been recently.Breakfast was an egg-cheese-fake sausage sandwich with fruit:
Late morning snack was a pumpkin latte (which I’m convinced contained 2% milk even though I asked for skim…I can’t drink scalding hot coffee like others can, so I didn’t even discover the problem until I was halfway home).
Yeah, that’s Spongebob in the background. Deal with it.
I had stuff to do around the house all day and was a little surprised that I wasn’t hungry for lunch, though often when I drink lattes, they fill me up for awhile. In the late afternoon, I made a salad with homemade apple vinaigrette dressing (!!!!), Granny Smith apples, gorgonzola crumbles, and honey slivered almonds:
This salad was the tits, yo! (I’ve been saying that to myself way too much lately, in Cartman’s voice, of course) It’s no Panera Fuji Apple salad, but nothing could ever compare to the real thing. This recipe called for fresh parsley and fresh basil (both of which I thought were weird), but sadly I only had dried herbs on hand. I think it made a difference, because it tasted a bit funny. Don’t get me wrong though, it was still A-mazing.
The weird thing was, I wasn’t very hungry before I ate the salad. Then I ate the salad and was hungry for fatty sugary snacky foods. I hate a couple pieces of chocolate and a 100-calorie pack of Hostess strawberry cupcakes. What’s wrong with me? The salad should’ve filled me up and been enough…
A little while later, this just jumped into my mouth when I was looking the other direction…I had no control over it.
After more errands and tasks, dinner was simple – semi-pesto pasta (I only had a small amount left) and frozen steamed broccoli, both topped with parmesan cheese, of course.
I had a glass of some shiraz-y type wine on the side, but I forgot to take a picture. This, however, I did not forget to photograph:
It will be bittersweet when these bad boys are all gone. On the one hand, they’re really not doing me any favors, but on the other hand, OH MY GOD THEY’RE AMAZING.
* This is a classic case of “I’m making fun of her because I’m secretly jealous and want to be her.” Martha is my idol. The bedazzled shrine in the back of my closet proves it.
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