Ooey, Gooey, Fudge Brownies

You may be wondering why I am writing about brownies, thinking "didn't she say they were eating healthy?" Well yes I did say that, but every once in awhile it is good to have a treat. And when they are homemade instead of from a box, then they have the ability to be healthier depending on the ingredients you use.

These brownies are ah-ma-zing! I got the recipe from my mother-in-law. They are the easiest, yummiest brownie I have ever made. Did I mention how scrumptious they are?

If you like fudgey brownies, then this is the recipe for you. The ease of the recipe and they way you start out reminds me of my Lazy Woman's Cobbler recipe. But my favorite part about this recipe, besides the chocolaty goodness, is that it is made with staples that most people already have in their kitchen!

The other thing that I like about this recipe is that it makes a full 9x13 pan full of brownies. You can't get that size from a box mix!

So I won't keep you waiting any longer, here is the fabulous recipe for brownies.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter (2 sticks)
• 2 cups of sugar
• 6 tablespoons of cocoa
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 4 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Simple pantry staple ingredients. I love recipes like this!

Preheat your oven to 350°F.  As your oven is preheating, put your two sticks of butter in your pan and put it in the oven to melt.

Butter ready to be melted.

As you are waiting on the butter to melt, mix your dry ingredients together in a bowl.

Dry ingredients. Be sure and mix well before adding melted butter.

Put your eggs in a separate bowl.  As you can see, I only have 3 eggs.  That is because those are duck eggs I am using.  They are huge so I only need 3 instead of 4 and the reason I love using duck eggs in baking is because they make your baked goods, lighter.  If you only have chicken eggs then use 4. I also added in the vanilla with the eggs after I beat them.

The duck eggs. Great for baking!

Once the butter is melted, add it to the dry ingredients and mix.  The mixture may be a little hot, so instead of adding the eggs, take a little of the butter/dry ingredients mixture and add it to the eggs to temper them. Then add the eggs into the mixture. If you don't do this, you will end up with scrambled eggs.

Put the mixture back into the 9x13 pan and bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Ready for the oven,.

This next part is the hardest part of this recipe. Do your best to let cool, before cutting and eating. It was almost impossible for me to follow this step. In fact I went ahead and cut them while they were still warm, which means they fell apart a little. Really, I don't care, they were still delish!

Why yes, I did take a big bite out of that piece. Yum yum!

The only thing better that I could think of would be to add a scoop of ice cream right on top!

The great thing about this recipe is that you can have add-ins to this mix. Like nuts? Add a cup of chopped pecans or walnuts in. Want it to be extra chocolaty? Add in some chocolate chips. I have added in the Andes mint chips before for mint chocolate brownies. So good!

The other thing that you can do (to keep you from buying the box mix) is to mix up the dry ingredients and put them in a sealed bag ready to add the wet ingredients and bake. You've just made your own box mix! And it is so much better than the store bought stuff!

Now I'm ready to make another batch.

Try out this recipe and let me know what you think! Cooking from scratch has never been so easy or so good!

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Cheeseburger Salad

My husband and I decided to go on a diet.  After the holidays we both had put on a couple of pounds.  Okay, maybe it was more than a couple.  I knew that I had been feeling extremely bloated, exhausted, grouchy, etc.  I thought I would follow in my sister's footsteps and cut out wheat and sugar.  We are on day 4 and I feel so much better!  No more bloat, I have a ton of energy, and I can actually remember things.  I think this is going to work!

You may wonder what we are eating, well it is a lot of veggies and fruit with lean meats and grains that aren't wheat or have a high glycemic value (think white rice).  I thought I would share with you one of our favorite meals, that is perfect!

My husband loves cheeseburgers.  He could eat them every day. Every. Single. Day.  In the spring, summer, and fall he grills every chance he gets.  This salad is perfect in recreating the cheeseburger experience without eating the bun.

The first thing to do is to make a basic salad based on what you would put on a cheeseburger.  Here are the ingredients that I used.

Salad Ingredients

If you want to be authentic about it, I would use iceburg lettuce shredded, and a red onion.  However, this is what I had on hand.  I love romaine and I also love to get the artisan lettuces that Aldi has, so since I had both, I used both.  Then I added cherry tomatoes (they were on sale), homemade dill pickles (lime pickles would also be yummy!), shredded cheese (any kind you like or have), and of course some bacon pieces.  You could also make it into a mushroom swiss burger salad by using swiss cheese and adding mushrooms to the mix. 

This looks yummy just like it is!

 After your salad is made and chilling in the fridge, then get your burgers ready to cook.  Since it is winter and extremely cold at the moment, I got out the stove top grill to grill up my burgers. It's not quite the same, but it's better than nothing!  You can find a great burger recipe here.  Or just season up your burgers how you wish.  Besides using my go to recipe, I also like to use Cavender's Greek seasoning.  A friend of mine got me started on this seasoning and it is great on hamburgers and steaks!

While your burgers are cooking, you can make the dressing.  The dressing is of course, what you would put on your cheeseburger. 

Dressing Ingredients

You will want to mix:

• 1/2 cup of whipped dressing (or mayonnaise if you prefer)
• 1/4 cup of ketchup (make sure and get a low sugar one if you like)
• 3 Tablespoons of mustard
• Salt and pepper to taste

You can see from the picture above that we used spice brown mustard.  I actually prefer Dijon mustard in this recipe, but I didn't have any on hand.  You can also use just regular table mustard.  If you would like you could also add in a little relish to your dressing as well, but we don't care for that.  If you want to play around with the amounts, go ahead.  Be sure and taste the dressing and adjust to suit your tastes.

 

Dressing, just waiting for that delicious salad.

All that is left is putting it all together.  I don't put the hamburger patties in the salad.  I like to put the salad on my plate, then the hamburger patty, and top it off with shredded cheese, bacon pieces, and the dressing.

So good!!!

This really is a great salad.  It is really good during the summer when you can grill the burgers outside and also grill some onions while you are at it.  

I hope you try this recipe out and let me know what you think!

Leave a Comment cheeseburgers, hamburger, homemade, recipes, salad

Homemade Grape Jelly (It's Easier Than You Think!)

Our winter weather has finally hit.  After a very warm and rainy December, the snow and ice are here.  I guess I should have known that the warm weather was too good to be true.  And to be truthful, I really want a good snow and cold weather.  It will help with the garden come spring.  Snow will put nitrogen into the ground and the cold weather will help kill some of the bugs.

Even with the winter weather, I have been bitten by the canning bug.  I really didn't get to can much this past summer because of how horrible our garden did due to the massive amounts of rain we had. Our fall garden did very well, but not enough to can, just enough for us to eat as I picked it.

Some years back, my dad made the best apple jelly.  I asked him how he did it and he told me he used apple juice that he bought at the store.  I was shocked, I didn't even know at the time you could do that!  I was used to my parents making jellies, jams, and fruit butters from actual fruit that they either grew or bought from a farm.

Fast forward a few years and I have finally made jelly from juice.  I decided to make grape jelly because my family loves grape jelly and the kids eat a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  I want to make sure that they jelly that they eat is as wholesome as a jelly can be.  So making it myself would not only ensure that, but would also save money in the long run.

I had all natural grape juice on hand and found the pectin I wanted to use which requires little to no sugar added.  I just can't fathom adding 7-8 cups of sugar to something that is already sweet!

So here it is, some of the easiest jelly I have ever made.

Jelly ingredients

Pictured are the ingredients.  That's it.  That is all it took.  You can add in a cup of sugar if you like.  I didn't for my first batch.  Please note that I used Lite Fruit Pectin.  If you do not want to add sugar or very little sugar, or even a sugar substitute you must use a pectin that says it is for low to no sugar.

Put 4-5 cups of juice into a pot and bring to a gentle boil. I used 5 cups.

Grape juice ready to cook.

Once boiling add in pectin.  Cook for 1 minute while stirring.  DO NOT OVERCOOK!  If you do, it breaks down the pectin and it will not jell.

Once you have cooked for 1 minute, skim off the foam that has formed on top.

This is the foam that I was able to take off the top.

Then ladle the juice into clean sterilized jars.  I used pints because we do use quite a bit of this at one time.  You could also use jelly jars.  I was able to get 2 1/2 pints from one batch.

Ready to go into the water bath canner.

Put it in a water bath canner and process for 10 minutes.  Once processed, let sit for at least 24 hours to make sure that they have sealed.  If any have not sealed, put in the fridge immediately and use. We put the 1/2 pint jar in the fridge and are using that.

Like I said earlier the first batch I made was with no added sugar. The next batch I will make I will add sugar.  I decided that no sugar was going a little too far.  One cup of sugar should be enough to help give it some added flavor.

The jelly jelled very nicely.  I will absolutely use this method again.  In fact the pectin that I used has detailed instructions on how to make jelly using juice you have bought.  After grape, I will be making some apple jelly using store bought apple juice since that is one of my favorites!

Since I had the canner out and I had several jars cleaned and sterilized, I decided to can some other items.  I ended up canning spaghetti sauce and pizza sauce.  I love using Mrs. Wages brand seasonings because it is so easy (just add canned tomatoes if fresh are not available) and the seasonings are really good!  (I am not getting paid to say that.)  I really would suggest trying them.  The only thing that I have not tried of Mrs. Wages is their pickle seasonings.  I like my own version of dill, sweet and spicy, and bread and butter, so I don't see a need to buy the premade seasonings.

Pizza sauce, grape jelly, and spaghetti sauce.

Remember that canning does not have to be just a summer thing.  You can can food at anytime of the year.  I realize it might not be with food out of your garden, but it is still better than store bought canned versions.

Do you can in the winter?

Leave a Comment canning, cooking, homemade, Jelly, recipes

Throw Back Thursday: Goulash

I love today's post, because I get to share with you one of my family's favorite meals.  In fact, I believe this is probably the most requested meal that I get from my family.  It is also a dish that I grew up with, and one that is easy to make, and budget friendly!

My mom always called this goulash.  I know that there are other variations of goulash and I have tried a couple of those recipes, but I always come back to the variation that I grew up with. Well, kind of.  My mom made her goulash with hamburger meat, diced onions, elbow macaroni, and home canned tomato juice.  For us, I use my home canned pasta sauce so that there is a thicker sauce that already has spices added.

Goulash ingredients, yep that's all there is!

You can see from the picture above that there really isn't much to it.  The ingredients I use are:

• 1 pound hamburger meat (this would be good with ground deer meat for you hunters out there)
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups dry pasta, we prefer elbow macaroni, cooked according to package directions
• 1 jar pasta sauce of your choice

For this recipe, we like to use elbow macaroni, but when I made it this time, I didn't have enough. You can see in my picture of the finished recipe that there is also penne pasta thrown in as well.  Remember this is my no grocery month, so I had to use what I had on hand.  The bowl in the picture has my homemade pasta sauce in it.  I opened a jar to use some for pizza, and needed to use the leftover sauce for something else.  This was the perfect dish to do that!

To make the goulash:

1. Cook pasta according to package directions 
2. While the pasta is boiling, brown 1 lb. of hamburger meat.
3. After the hamburger meat is cooked through and chunked - my husband loves bigger chunks - add any spices you like.  I add a little minced onion (remember I'm using already seasoned sauce).
4. Pour the pasta sauce in with the hamburger meat and let it simmer on low heat.
5. When the pasta is done (I cook it to al dente), drain the pasta and add it to the sauce.

 And that's it!

There almost wasn't any left to get a picture of it!

Once I finished cooking this batch, I set the pan on the table and went to get my camera to take a picture.  When I came back, there was hardly any left!  I had to scrap together a small pile just to get a picture. That is how much my family loves this dish!

I like to serve this with a salad and homemade french bread.  Of course some nights, we don't even bother with a veggie or bread, we just grab a big bowl of this pasta dish and enjoy.  This is comfort food at its finest!

Let me know in the comments below what you think of this recipe, and let me know if you have made this recipe before!

Leave a Comment budget, cooking, food, hamburger, homemade, meals, recipes, tbt

DIY Teacher Gift for Christmas!

I am so excited that I finally get to share with you a DIY Christmas gift!  I had really wanted to start sharing my gift series with you sooner, but it seems like life always has other plans.

For the first Christmas gift post, I thought I would share one of my favorite ones to make. It is a cool gift for a teacher.  This is something that I have given to my kids' teachers in the past and they always love it!

I have family members that are teachers, and their usual gift they receive is something like hand lotion, soaps, or a coffee mug. Instead of giving them the usual items, give them this wonderful little goodies box that can be personalized in a way that can include items that teachers need in their everyday use at school, as well as include some nice treats.  So without further ado, here is how I made these.

Items I used to make the boxes

You'll want to start with the box.  In the past I have purchased small tackle boxes from Wal-Mart that are around $3.00 per box.  They are great because you can customize the size of the compartments inside.  The boxes are sturdy, and they can continue to use them for small desk supplies.

Then one day while I was at Target and I found these great plastic boxes for only $1.00!  I loved these and picked up a couple, one rectangular, and one square.  Of course you can't change the size of the compartments inside, but for the price, these are perfect!

The magnets and the pretty alligator clips I got from Wal-Mart, the rest of the supplies I purchased from Dollar Tree.  I loved the fact that our Dollar Tree had some pretty paper that I could use to decorate the lid of the box and the best part is that it had an adhesive backing!  How easy!  Before I had always used scrapbook paper and a glue runner.

Adhesive paper.  If you look real close, you can see where I scored it to put on top of a box.

The first thing I did was to make a mark, or score the paper to the size of the top of the box I was using.  You can see in the picture above the crease of where I need to cut the paper to size.  You could also be more exact and measure, and I even thought about getting out my rotary cutter, but to be honest, I was a little lazy.

After I cut the paper to size, I peeled off the backing and stuck it onto the lid of the box.  Here is where I had some trouble.  I found out that once it sticks, it sticks!  There is no re-positioning this paper, so you have to be very careful.

Once I got the paper on the box lid, I then decorated it with stickers and glitter letters.  This is where to get the kids involved so they can customize their own teacher's box.  I usually put the teacher's name on the lid as well as some stickers.  For this project, I used what I already had on hand.  It just so happens that I had leftover glitter letter stickers and some 3-D stickers that I had purchased from the Dollar Tree for the Back to School Backpack Craft.

Here are all three boxes, decorated.

Next, comes the fun part of putting the goodies inside.  I used some items that I already had on hand, paperclips, staples, and pencil lead, and then added in the decorative magnets, alligator clips, and of course the candy!

Inside the smaller boxes

You can see that in the square box, there were four compartments.  Besides the school supplies and candy, I decided to add in some tea.  For the rectangular box, there were only three compartments so I wasn't able to add as much.  The one good thing about these compartments though is that they are deep, so I can double up on items and fit more things in.

Inside the bigger box

As you can see the bigger box has more compartments and they are adjustable as well.  I have several different things that a teacher may need.  You can customize this however you like.  If you know there is something special that the teacher needs or likes to use, then you can throw that in there as well.  I do plan on adding a few more items before I give these to our teachers this year.

Ideas on what to add to the compartments (provided by my Aunt Linda, a retired teacher...thank you!)

• Post-It Notes
• Chapstick
• Nail File
• Nail Clippers
• Stamp pad
• Emergency Sewing Kit
• Safety Pins
• Gift Card (Amazon or iTunes)

One thing to remember when you are making teacher gifts, don't forget the special teachers!  That would include music, art, gym, computer, and whatever else your school might have.  They too deserve a great Christmas gift!

I hope you all enjoyed the first in a series of DIY Christmas gifts.  Let me know in the comments below what you think of this idea.

Leave a Comment Christmas, crafts, diy, gifts, holidays, homemade, teacher

Throw Back Thursday: Chocolate Chip Coffee Cookies

The throw-back Thursday recipe post is back!  I know some of you have missed it and to tell you the truth, so have I.  I really enjoy making these recipes and I enjoy remembering the story behind them as well.

Today's recipe comes from my husband.  When we were dating 12 years ago, he decided to try and impress me with his baking ability.  At that time his cooking abilities were just ok at best and so I was a little leery of him cooking me anything.  He went through several recipes and instead of sticking with one (which I thought he should do), he combined several recipes together to make chocolate chip coffee cookies, because he knew I loved chocolate and coffee.

I can admit know that I was worried about tasting them when they were done.  But boy did he surprise me!  He made the most wonderful cookies.  One bite and I was hooked...on the cookie and the man!

I thought I would share that recipe with you today and hope you enjoy it as much as we do.  He still makes them for me, in fact he really wanted to make them for this post, but I asked if I could try my hand at it.  While these cookies turned out really good, I think I should have let him make them.  He definitely has that special touch.

Cookie Ingredients

So let me say a little something about the ingredients.  It calls for instant coffee.  I normally have instant coffee at home.  Not to drink of course, blech, but to use in various recipes.  Of course when I went to retrieve it, I found out that I was out.  So I decided to try it with regular coffee, but still follow the instructions.  THEN I found out that my husband just makes extra strong coffee and uses that!  Geez! I wish I would have known.  So in the coming pictures you are going to see coffee grounds in the cookies.  Guess what?  It ain't so bad!

First you want to dissolve 1/3 cup of instant coffee in 2 tablespoons of hot water.  Then while it is dissolving (and cooling at the same time), cream together 1 cup of butter and 1 1/4 cups of sugar.

Butter and sugar creamed together.

Once the coffee has cooled, add it to the butter and sugar mixture along with 2 eggs and 1 teaspoon of vanilla and mix well.

See? Coffee grounds.

Then in a separate bowl, mix together 2 2/3 cups of flour, 3/4 teaspoon of baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.  Add that to the coffee ground mixture. Once you have that mixed well.  Add in 2 cups or one 12 ounce bag of chocolate chips.

Cookie batter, yum, yum!

Drop by spoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet, or in my case a parchment lined cookie sheet and bake at 350°F for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.

Ready to go into the oven.

Once they are done, let them cool on the cookie sheet for a couple of minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.

Yummy cookies!

These are so good, even with the coffee grounds.  I love the flavor of coffee and chocolate together and these were perfect.  Well almost perfect. ;-)

If you want a printable version of the recipe, then click HERE.

Try this recipe out and let me know in the comments below what you think.

Leave a Comment baking, cookies, desserts, homemade, recipes, tbt

Mushroom Swiss Burger

I know it has been a little while since my last post.  Life has happened and unfortunately some things had to be put on the back burner.  However, at Henslee Farm Adventures, we are trying very hard to get back to where we need to be, especially since winter will be here before we know it.

It seems strange to be talking about winter when we have had some absolutely beautiful days.  In fact the temp is supposed to be up to 80ºF today!  It is days like these that we like to take advantage of the nice weather and grill outside.  Steve's favorite meal happens to be burgers and fries.  Well this day he decided he wanted a mushroom swiss burger.  It sounded good to me, so I thought I would share with you how we make our mushroom swiss burgers.

First, I am going to let you in on a little secret of how I make my hamburgers.  I don't even tell Steve how I make them because he swears that plain is best.  So I secretly season the meat before cooking and of course he loves it!

Burger ingredients

We use ground beef that we have had butchered.  Seriously folks, if you haven't tried grass-fed beef you need to.  Of course you can use just regular hamburger from the store.  And another kind that is really good is what my grocery store calls Boston Burger.  It is 60% beef and 40% pork.  This makes wonderful burgers and meatloafs!

To make the patties, I put 2 lbs. of hamburger in a bowl and add in 4 splashes of worcestershire, 2 tablespoons of mined onions, and 1 tablespoon of seasoning salt.  I mix this with my hand until just incorporated.  You don't want to over mix.

Carly loves to help me cook!

You can see we make some pretty big patties.  There will be some shrinking, but if you make an indention in the middle, there will be minimal shrinking (I forgot to get a picture of the indention).  Then you grill to your taste.  We like ours medium well.

Usually while we are grilling, we take the opportunity to grill onions as well.  We love grilled onions!  I slice them pretty thick, put them on some foil and drizzle them with some extra-virgin olive oil.

Onions ready for the grill

I also found some great seasoning at our local farmer's market.  The lady that makes it smokes her salt with applewood.  Man is it ever good!  She calls it Stove-Side seasoning.  You can use it on just about anything.  Besides the salt there are other things she puts in there.  It is definitely yummy!  You can also use just plain kosher salt, or a seasoning blend of your choice.  After I season the onions, I wrap them up in a foil packet and put it on the grill.  We do flip the packet after they have cooked about 10-15 minutes on one side.

Now for the mushrooms.  I have seen many recipes for the mushroom sauce for burgers, but I concocted one of my own with what I normally have on hand.

My ingredients for mushroom sauce.

I know what you are thinking, it doesn't look like it would be that good, but trust me on this.  I lucked out and was able to get some mushrooms on sale at ALDI, one of my favorite places to shop!  Also the brown gravy mix I get at ALDI as well and love it because it does NOT have MSG in it.  I love this gravy mix for when I want a quick gravy, it is always so good and cooks up easy.

First I washed my mushrooms by wiping them off with a damp paper towel.  You do not want to submerge them in water because they will absorb the water and you will end up with mushy mushrooms (ha ha!) in the end.

After washing them, just slice them, not to thin because they will cook down.

Fresh mushrooms in the pan.

I add a little extra-virgin olive oil to my pan and put the sliced mushrooms in.  Then I took advantage of that smoked salt and seasonings and added a little bit of that.  I cooked this on medium heat.

Cooked mushrooms

After they have cooked down to where they are soft (again I don't want mushy ones), then I am ready to season them.  I add in two splashes of worcestershire sauce, then I take about a 1/2 teaspoon of the brown gravy mix and sprinkle it over the mushrooms.  I cook it for just a minute more and then I have my mushroom sauce!  So easy!

My mushroom sauce!

All that's left is to build my burger.  I of course got the swiss cheese at ALDI as well, I love their selection of cheeses!  Steve put the slice of cheese on the burger while it was still on the grill so that it would be nice and melty.

My burger, nom nom nom

Here is my burger.  I of course had to add some grilled onions to it as well.  And let me tell you, it was so good!

Steve wanted me to share with you his burger so here it is...

Steve's burger, looks pretty good!

We decided to go with a side of tator tots instead of fries this time.

The burgers were awesome!  The mushroom sauce was perfect.  I hope you try it and let me know what you think in the comments below. 

Leave a Comment beef, cooking, grilling, hamburger, homemade, mushrooms, recipes

Old Fashioned Apple Butter - A Family Tradition

Have I told you how much I love fall?  Enjoying the cold, crisp days.  Fresh apples from the orchard.  Corn mazes, and pumpkin carving.  What's not to love? 

Another reason I love the fall is due to a family tradition that was started by my niece and her husband.  Actually it is a family tradition that his family started and they decided to carry it on.  Making old-fashioned apple butter!

Stirring the pot...literally!

When I talk about making old-fashioned apple butter, I am not talking about using an old recipe, but about the process of making the apple butter.  We make it outside, over an open fire, in a big kettle.  I have a picture in my head about how pioneers must have done something very similar. 

Our apple butter making day includes a gathering of family and friends.  We use this time to visit with each other and tell stories.  We also catch up on what is going on in our lives as well as relive the past.  And of course we each take a turn stirring the pot. ;-)

Carly's turn!

It is a true group effort.  I wouldn't want to try and stir this all by myself.  It does get tiring after a while.  And before the apples break completely down, it can be quite hard to stir.  While the apple butter is cooking, we eat a potluck lunch, and continue visiting with each other. At the end of the day, when the apple butter is cooked, we each get to take home a pint jar to enjoy. 

I talked to one of the men that was there and we discussed how people used to come together to help each other out.  They would have a big barn raising, or help each other butcher, make soap, etc.  It was a way to lighten the load of work that was very taxing.  For us in this process, we helped each other out by taking turns to stir to make the process easier.

Drew's turn!

To the pioneers this was their social time.  To be honest, it is my kind of social time as well!  It is a great way to pass down the traditions of the old ways of doing things.  To be able to pass down these types of traditions to our children is the whole reason why we moved to the country and started our farm in the first place!  We wanted our children to learn the "old" ways of doing things.

Steve's turn stirring!

When it comes to a recipe, our family doesn't have one written down for the apple butter.  Each year it is slightly different, and each year it keeps getting better.  I can tell you that my niece uses apples from a local orchard, apple cider for the liquid to help break the apples down, and spices which consists of sugar, cinnamon, and cloves. 

I will tell you my niece's secret to making the apple butter over the fire.  She starts it on her stove first and then puts some of the apples in the blender.  To be honest, if we had to cook down the apples from slices, it would take all day!  This helps to hurry things up a bit, which I can't blame her for doing.  Once it goes into the pot, it simmers for several hours before its ready to be eaten. 

Steve would say I'm always stirring the pot! ;-)

I always enjoy these times.  I love creating new family traditions and continuing on the traditions of our ancestors.  I hope to be making apple butter with my family and friends for many more years to come!

Let me know in the comments below what types of traditions your family has.

Leave a Comment apple butter, apples, cooking, fall, family, homemade, simple living, sustainable living