Apple Fritters for Early Autumn

Though summer is not technically over, its still nice to start using the bounties of the fall harvest as they become available. For me, nothing conjures up images of the fall more then apples, and specifically Jazz apples! Our local organic store has them coming in by the truck loads and I am quickly snagging them up to make apple butter, canned apple pie filling, apple jelly, and dried apples for later in the ear as snacks and oatmeal toppings.

  With the beginning of the apple bounty upon us, I wanted to share one of my favorite breakfast recipes, "Amish Apple Fritters". I don't know if they are actually Amish, but they sure are delicious!

Here is your list of your ingredients:

 

 

1 1/4 Cup of Flour

2 tsp Baking Powder

1/4 tsp Salt

2/3 Cup Milk

1 Egg

4 Grated Apples (I highly suggest Jazz apples)

Vanilla (A cap full)

Lemon Zest (to taste)



For those of you who are wheat and dairy free, this recipe works with substitutions, I like almond milk, and Toms Red Mill makes a fantastic gluten free flour.

To start, mix your dry ingredients: Flour, Baking Powder, Salt.

Put your pan on - if you have cast iron it is best. You will need 1 inch of your preferred cooking oil, I use coconut oil for all my frying. If you do not have that, try grape seed as it has a higher heat tolerance. Canola is crap for you and olive oil will burn.

Next, grate your apples and set them aside.

Once your dry ingredients are properly mixed (by hand or by blender), slowly add your wet ingredients: Milk, Egg, Apples, Vanilla, Lemon Zest.

Make sure there are no doughy lumps, your batter will be a little runny which is fine, it will stiffen up once it hits the heat of the griddle.

Spoon large table spoon amounts of dough onto your hot griddle and fry on each side until golden (generally about 2 to 3 minutes, be careful to check your center, it should be cooked all the way through.

 

 

Once the fritter is done, place them on a plate lined with paper towel, sprinkle with sugar while they are still hot.

Let them cool just a bit and enjoy with a cup of English breakfast tea, or beverage of your choice!

Happy Eating!
-Nicey

Seed Saving and Good Mutations

Last year was our first garden at the new house. We are renters and are lucky in the fact that our landlord hates yard work - he has been really wonderful in giving us free run of the front yard which is quite a substantial size. Because of this we turned the entire east portion into a raised bed garden. We did fairly well, but we also made some mistakes in not knowing quite how the light moved in our yard-in all honesty I should have paid more attention. Some of our plants like our tomatoes which were in a full sun location did amazingly well, while others like our kale which hardly got any sunlight due to a large oak tree- ended up stunted.

With spring approaching we will be pulling up the remaining lawn on the east portion of the lawn and simply making a full size garden from this portion of the yard (I will document this as we start the project). I have already made a list of vegetables and herbs which I will be growing in our Pacific Northwest zone 5 garden which will be mostly root vegetables, leafy greens, and medicinal herbs - not to mention one hot housed tobacco plant for a friend of ours.

In all the excitement of simply having a garden last year, I failed to do one very important things - Save Seeds. I have never saved seeds and have always just purchased the organic variety of various veg for the next garden - as I have learned, this is much to my detrament.

This months Urban Farm magazine had a really interesting little side article which I thought to share with you in regard to saving seeds, and how plants change according to their environment, passing this unspoken knowledge to the next generation (seed).

Saving Seeds:
"You're Really doing yourself a disservice if you're not saving seeds. Each plant becomes acclimated to your soil, to your microclimate and to your space spacifically, and will produce seed that will be rislient in your specific conditions.

The use of only open- pollinated seeds and learning to save seed are important elements to increasing  yield overtime. Hybrid seeds produce plants that are either sterile or untrue to type. Open-pollinated seeds will produce plants that will be pollinated by insects or by wind and will produce viable, true seed. Cross pollination is possible, seed saving is actually less cimplicated in urban areas than rural areas. Corn, for example is wind pollinated. Its more difficult to get far enough away from other corn crops that can contaminate your seed in rural areas, than it is in urban areas.

Each year, successful plants in a garden make seeds with slightly different characteristics. Plants adapt to their environment. Seed grown in a certain locale will be genetically different than seed from any other area. See saved in a certain area becomes tailired to the area's specific conditions, leading to greater plant vitality. Seed saving not only increases the resilience of your plants, but it also saves money and fosters genetic diversity in our seed supply." - Urban Farm January/February 2013 pg 24 Biointensive Article.

Rainbow..

When I was a young girl, I remember hearing about this..and also the indigo babies.

Listen to that little voice

"The man who neglects the whisperings of the Comforter will never comprehend the salient truths of the universe. Locked tightly in a world of his own construction, he will reject anything that does not fit the pattern he has created."

Do you get a slight nagging feeling when you know something is wrong? Do you hear that little voice in your head telling you to take action, or to be still, or to assist? Listen to that little voice of intuition, it is the directional compass to great things.

Teaching Little Piggies Table Manners!

My husband and I don't have children, but I could not help but smile with I saw this idea posted by Homestead Survival on Facebook.

The idea is this:

You bring a pig to the dinner table, it can be a stuffed pig, plastic pig, a picture of a pig - or really anything else with piggies on it. You set the ground rules for the table; no burping, passing gas, leaving the table without being excused, expressing "please" and "thank you", etc. When someone breaks a table rule you pass them the pig. The last person stuck with the pig is the person who has to clear the table.

I am guessing your little piggies will learn pretty fast!

Bad Weather - Amazing Split Pea Soup!

The weather here his horrendous! It is Saturday, November the 3rd and rumor has it that we are in store for a whopper of a storm. There are warnings of flooding and excessive rain, with high winds on Sunday. Woo (husband) and I were supposed to go to Chilliwack today to pick up wood for the winter, but the weather and bad roads have kept us from doing so, thankfully we found a fantastic guy in Richmond who is happy to deliver a cord of wood to our residence for $170 buckeroos!

This moment of convenience has allowed me the time to make some really good tasting slow split pea soup . I wanted to share it with you so you too can enjoy this old timey om nom.

What you will need:

2 Cups dried split peas
1 Medium onion
1 Small bag of mini carrots OR 1/2 medium bag of mini carrots
1 soup bone (either beef or pork)
4 tbs of "Better than Boullion Organick Chicken Base" or 2 32 oz organic chicken broth
2 tbs butter
4 Bay leaves
2 tspHerbamare

The night before you will need to soak your 2 cups of dried split peas in 4 cups of hot water, I left mine out for more than 12 hours, they were totally fine. Make sure you rinse your soaked peas well so that you don't get an icky bubbly froth on your soup.

To start your soup you will want to put your 2 tbs of butter into your pot and let it melt a little bit (on low or medium low), while your butter is melting add the 4 bay leaves and the 2 tsp of herbamare and add your soup bone. Once I notice the soup bone is a little browned, I add just a bit of chicken stock to get the steam going.

Cut your onion fine (I do mine in the food processor) and either grate or cut your carrots (I also do mine in the food processor). Combine your onion and carrots with the contents of your pot, stirr it together. Add more chicken stock, enough to very lightly cover the contents, stirr and cover, let it come to a very easy simmer.

Once your pot has simmered for about five minutes, drain and rinse your peas and add them to the pot as well. You will need to either add more chicken stock, OR you can add water and spoon in a bit of the better than boullion in (this is what I do). Stirr the contents and make sure that everything is covered well with liquid. Cover and let cook on medium heat, the key however is to not reach a rapid boil, if you DO reach a rapid boil then take the cover off, stirr, and turn the heat down until you are once again at a simmer. Cook with the lid on, stirring and checking every 20 or so minutes - once the peas are done (about an hour) then turn the heat off, remove the soup bone (if you have a dog, this is a most excellent treat), and enjoy!

A pinch of this, an ounce of that!

Being a huge stumbleupon.com fan, I like to share some of my helpful finds. The link below is called "Kitchen Helpers" and is a really cute conversion chart which you can print and laminate. I printed all of the available charts in color, laminated them, and put them on the fridge where I can see them.

Pretty darned handy!

www.liveoriginally.com/kitchen-helpers/