My New Favorite Cookbooks

I have two new favorite cookbooks, Apples for Jam and The River Cottage Family Cookbook.  After lusting for them for weeks I finally ordered them from Amazon.  I've had them since last night and haven't fully gone through them or cooked anything from them, the fact that they are absolutely gorgeous makes them my favorites.

The fist one is Apples for Jam by Tessa Kiros.  It has her memories from childhood involving food, her hopes for her children, and some great looking recipes.  Plus, those are my favorite kind of shoes ever.  Oh, its also organized by color.

From Apples for Jam

From Apples for Jam

Illustration from Apples for Jam

The next book is The River Cottage Family Cookbook by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Fizz Carr.  Again, gorgeous photos, tantalizing recipes, and best of all, explanations as to why you do certain things during cooking.  For example, they explain what flour to use for different purposes.  The recipes are longer because they contain explanation as well.  Again, not done reading it and haven't cooked anything from it, but by looks alone - its a spectacular cookbook.

From The River Cottage Family Cookbook

From The River Cottage Family Cookbook

The River Cottage Family Cookbook and Apples for Jam back inside cover patterns.

And 14 Hours Later... (an apple butter tutorial)

I started at 9 a.m. and, fourteen hours later, ended with sweet and tangy apple butter made the old-fashioned way.  Oh, and pride coming out of my ears.  After washing, peeling, coring, paring, and cooking approximately 28 apples on the stove top, and then in the oven, I canned and sealed 8 half-pint jars (a half-pint equals one cup) of the best apple butter ever made (if only because I made it with my own two hands).  

Back in reality, I had just realized that 28 apples and some damn-hard work only yielded 8 cups of butter. Really? Eight cups?  My domestic experiment was a challenge to see if I could do something that my ancestors had to do to survive.  Canned and preserved food were staples at the dinner table during harsh winters when crop wasn't available. 

My most significant "apple butter realization" came later the next day when I'd given my Mom a jar of my apple butter.  She tasted it and said, "You've done your Grandma proud.  She really loved apple butter."  I looked away for a moment, realizing that I had no idea what recipes my grandmother held dear. Our family recipes, not to mention essential skills,  that blew away with the years could never be brought back.  The secrets of my grandmother's traditional domestic life that she kept to so silently to herself.  So I thought I'd share the one just like grandma's.

Traditional Apple Butter Recipe

wash

I chose three different kind of apples because I heard it tastes better.  I grabbed a bag of sweet Gala, crisp Machintosh, and several tart, green apples, name unknown.  In total I used about 28 apples.  The original recipe called for 8 apples so I really had to make this one my own.

The washing of the apples made my kids go nuts.  I did it as quietly as possible until one walked in and told the other.  All of the sudden both sides of the sink were filled and apples were being accosted.

peel

Then came the peeling of the apples;  I wasn't very careful leaving all sorts of peel.  After coring and paring, I felt compelled to visit my step-dad's compost pile with the significant offering.  I did just that because how could you really just throw it away.  I made new dirt and apple butter all in one day.

cook: stove-top

I haven't much to say about stove-top cooking of the apples, except to make sure you use a pot that can go from the stove top directly to the oven.  Sliced chunky, they filled an entire stock pot.  I added about a cup of water to keep the bottom of the pan from becoming too dry and let them bubble and cook, stirring occasionally, until the apples looked like apple sauce.  I used my immersion blender to smooth out the consistency a little more quickly.

season and cook: oven

Heat the oven to 300 degrees before you add the spices and the oven will be ready to go when you are. 

Add to the sauce:

1  cup brown sugar

a shake of salt

4 teaspoons cinnamon 

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

a hair shy of 1/2 a teaspoon ground ginger. 

Stir well.

Check on the mixture at least once an hour to stir and check consistency.  Perfect apple butter is dark brown and spreadable.  Its able to form mounds and not pour off the spoon.  Up to 10 hours of cooking seems to be what I spent waiting for the butter's maturation.  A 14 hour process from start to finish.

Sometime between now and then, sterilize 8 half-pint jars on the washers hot cycle.

jarring

Place the 8 sterilized jars on the counter near the butter and add one cup of butter to each jar, leaving 1/4 inch at the top for the seal.  Arrange the lid and then the threaded top on each jar.  I waited to see if the heat from the apple butter sealed the jars so I wouldn't have to boil them, but no such luck.  

I started a rolling boil in a stock pot and boiled each one for 5 minutes (you can fit about 4 jars into the bath at one time).  After removal, I waited an hour and checked the seals again.  Each had sealed, meaning there was no give at the middle of the top, as all the air had left the jar.

I'm not sure what to do with my 8 little pots of love.  One for the family which was devoured in 45 minutes, one for my parents, and now 6 more.  They do make good gifts, but I don't want to part with them either - that was hard work.

Pumpkin x 2

If there is one thing I have a weakness for (chocolate is a given), its anything sweet with pumpkin in it.  I know, I should have made this during the fall, but I craved it.

I've been trying to make as much of our food from scratch as I can - its part of a new thing of mine.  I feel like the world slows down when I'm making things for the family so I'm trying to "embrace" my position as homemaker.  I generally mumble it out of the corner of my mouth when someone asks me what I do, but now I'm saying it loud and proud.  I'm starting with pumpkin and french bread.

In the same spirit, I'm also trying to make all of our gifts.  Remember, I said try.  This is a Tasseled Pixie Baby Bonnett (pattern from She's Crafty) knit in 80% cotton/ 20% wool and - you guessed it - in pumpkin.  I also parted with 2 of my favorite vintage buttons.  I love the green against the orange.d

Remaking

 

My trip to Portland did wonders for my mental health.  I was not responsible for anyone but myself.  I went were I wanted to go, when I pleased, and for any length of time I deemed necessary to get my fill.  It was heaven, but I missed the kids and my husband.

One of the reasons I took this vacation was to have uninterrupted time to make the things I want to make, when I want to make them.  Spinning, knitting, felting, etc:  all on the agenda.    I just wanted to get it out of my system.

I have a voracious appetite for making things.  Its satisfied only by the release of my idea into sketch or prototype form.  Any time I have at home to craft is interrupted again and again by requests for juice or play, and I am left completely unfulfilled creatively and feeling guilty that I have yet to play with the kids or fold the laundry.   You can tell that it feels like a whirlwind to me, that nothing slows down for me to catch up.

This state of being is not good for any of us.  My attitude had to change without giving up the feeling I get when I make something with my two hands because that feeling, I could not do without.  It is a warmth that stirs below the surface an eventually puffs my chest with pride that I finished something conceived in my own mind.  After all, my greatest projects, Livy and Liam, are never-ending.

I am determined that everything I do, from laundry to making dinner, should be a "making" experience.  I promised myself that from now on I would slow down, have more patience, cook and bake more, make more of the things we need instead of buy them.

So far, I am quieter and I am more content.  I feel less of that crazy nagging to make something with fabric and fiber.  Instead I hand make the bread for dinner or continue work on the needle felted dinosaur Liam's been wanting.  I no longer put off the kids until "this row is done".

I am "craftizing" my life.  Finding a way I can in every facet of life to craft something special, to make something special for someone else, whether its banana muffins for breakfast or a special place on the closet door for cling wrap.  

And in that, I feel the "making" forces me to slow down from the dizzying pace at which I normally spin and accept that I cannot do everything.  The things I can do however will be hand-crafted. 

Homemade Banana Muffins for Breakfast.