Tag Archives: fall

Slow Cooker Apple Butter

14 Wednesday Sep 2016

Posted by in Breakfast, Easy, Sauces

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This year, Lulu’s apple tree went crazy! We had tons of apples in the middle of the summer. They weren’t very big at first, but there were so many that we needed to do something about it. They were small and tart yet perfect and beautiful. Over the years, I have found Northwest gardening can be very strange…We got our fall apples super early yet my heirloom tomatoes didn’t seem to ripen until mid-September. Regardless of the unpredictability of our gardens, there is nothing quite like picking fresh fruit, vegetables, and herbs from your yard and feeding your family with them.

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For someone like me it’s hard not to just make apple cake and tortes and crisps and everything in between…but a lot of baking recipes don’t use enough fruit to get you through your bounty before things start taking a turn for the worse…so this was the year it was time to make apple butter.

I wanted to find an apple butter recipe that could go straight to the fridge or freezer, no hardcore canning skills required. Something easy like my mom’s strawberry freezer jam. The crazy part is this recipe was even easier! Throw apples, sugar, and some spices of your choice in a slow cooker. Turn on. Walk away. Maybe stir it every few hours if you are feeling crazy. The biggest effort you have to make is coring, peeling, and dicing your apples. If you have a spiralizer, your job just got way easier.

This recipe is very adaptable, depending on what kind of apples you use. You can choose to add more of less sugar depending on how tart your apples are, and no one is going to get mad if you decide to add some nutmeg or allspice to your mix. Right now we are spreading our apple butter on toast and mixing it into greek yogurt. I’ll update you with more ideas down the line!

Recipe
Slow Cooker Apple Butter
By Baked Northwest
Makes 4 (12 oz) containers of Apple Butter

Ingredients

  • 5 pounds of apples; peeled, cored, and diced
  • 2 cups of sugar (can use more or less here, depending on how sweet your apples are)
  • 1 tbsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp ground cloves
  • 1/2 tsp salt

Directions

Place the apples in a slow cooker. If you have a 6 quart slow cooker like me, it will be very full. Don’t worry – the apples will cook down by more than half. Mix the sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and salt together in a bowl and pour mixture over the apples in the slow cooker. Mix well. Cover and cook on high for one hour.

Reduce the heat to low, stir mixture again, and cook for another 9 hours. This can be done overnight, but I found I liked being able to stir my apple butter every few hours during its low cook time, I think it made the mixture smoother in the end. At the end of about 9 hours the mixture should be thickened and dark brown. You should be able to stir the mixture and have a great consistency without having to use a blender or anything.

Turn off the slow cooker and spoon apple butter into sterile containers. Refrigerate or freeze. You should definitely give some to friends as well.

Pumpkin Sugar Cookies with Maple Frosting

30 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by in Baking, Cookies, Desserts, Holidays, LuLu's Classics

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Pumpkin Sugar Cookies

While my cookie decorating skills aren’t really getting any better with the sugar cookie of the month, I at least got to try out a fun experiment in altering the recipe: swapping out the sour cream for canned pumpkin. I’m happy to say…success!

Pumpkin Sugar Cookies with Maple Frosting

These cookies have a very subtle hint of pumpkin and fall flavors along with maple icing. You can save these for Halloween, or skip the pumpkin shape and decorations altogether. As you know by now, I’d rather have a tasty cookie than a pretty one.

Recipe
Pumpkin Sugar Cookies
By Baked Northwest
Makes about 32 pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies (you will only use half of the cookie dough)

Ingredients

For the Cookies:

  • 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
  • 1 ½ cups sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
  • ½ cup canned pumpkin
  • 4 cups flour, plus more for rolling out the dough
  • 1 tsp. baking powder
  • ½ tsp. baking soda
  • ½ tsp. salt
  • 1 tsp nutmeg
  • 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice (can sub cinnamon)

For the Maple Frosting:

  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/3 cup maple syrup
  • 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • 3 cups powdered sugar
  • 2 tablespoons milk (nonfat is fine)
  • orange food coloring, or a mix of red + yellow food coloring (optional)
  • Black tube frosting (we used store bought, and this is totally optional. If your decorating skills are like mine you may want to skip this).

Directions

For the Cookies:

In a large stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg and vanilla, mix thoroughly. Add pumpkin, mix thoroughly.

Sift together flour, salt, soda, baking powder, nutmeg, and pumpkin pie spice. Add to butter mixture in two parts and mix thoroughly.

Divide the dough into two parts and wrap each in wax paper. Refrigerate at least 1 hour. For the amount of frosting we are making, you will only use half of the dough. You can freeze the 2nd batch of dough for another use, or just double the frosting recipe!

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

On a clean, floured surface, roll out the dough with a rolling pin. Roll the dough so it’s about 1/4 – 1/2 inch thick, and use your favorite cookie cutters to cut out shapes of the dough. For these cookies, I used a pumpkin cookie cutter. Use a cookie spatula (better known as a pancake flipper) to move your cookies from the floured surface to a well greased baking sheet. Ungreased silicone baking sheet liners work great here too.

Bake the cookies at 400 degrees F for 8 minutes. You never want them to get too browned around the edges, or they’ll be super crunchy. We like ours on the softer side. Baking time depends on what shapes you cut your cookies into – we have adjusted baking times from 8-12 minutes depending on the size of our cookies. Let cool completely before frosting.

For the Frosting:

Combine butter, salt, maple syrup, vanilla, and 1 cup of the powdered sugar. Add milk and remaining sugar, alternately. Mix until smooth & creamy. Add the food coloring to make the frosting orange, if using.

Frost the cooled cookies. If desired, decorate the pumpkins with fun jack-o-lantern designs. We used store bought black frosting for this, and it’s totally optional. Cookies keep well in the fridge for a up to a week, a few days at room temperature. Enjoy!

NOTE: I made a full recipe of the dough and only used half. This cookie dough freezes really well and can be saved for another use, or you can double the frosting recipe and go crazy and bake all of the cookies!

Happy Halloween!

31 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by in Events, Holidays

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Happy Halloween everyone! Today marks the first holiday in our new house and we are very excited to see all of the cute trick or treaters tonight!Carved PumpkinsTonight we are making these cute pumpkin and bat shaped ravioli – I found these at the store and screamed out “CUTE!” like a weirdo in front of everyone and had to pick up the package and awkwardly walk away.Halloween RavioliHere are some other Pumpkin recipes that would be festive and great to enjoy around this holiday (most people are too busy eating candy, but why stop there?)Pumpkin Gingersnap TartThis Marbled Pumpkin Gingersnap Tart is a total winner – it’s almost like a pumpkin cheesecake, but it’s a bit on the lighter side.salted caramel pumpkin cheesecake with a chocolate crustThe more decadent side is this Pumpkin-Orange Cheesecake with Chocolate Crust and Salted Caramel. Try saying that 5 times fast! Or just make it to impress all of your friends.Pumpkin SoupAnd then there is this year’s new fave – Pumpkin Soup with Bacon and Croutons. If I didn’t have the cute pumpkin ravioli, I would be eating this for dinner as I waited for trick-or-treaters. By eating this soup you can feel a little better about following it with tons of Halloween candy…I mean what?Wheelbarrows at Pumpkin PatchSee you next year, Halloween!

 

 

 

 

Pumpkin Soup with Bacon and Croutons

30 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by in Entertaining, Events, Holidays, Main Dish, Soups

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Nothing says Fall like a warm, hearty bowl of soup. Pumpkin Soup with Bacon and Croutons, however, takes Fall to a whole new level.Pumpkin SoupI was blown away with how this soup turned out. Normally I associate the canned pumpkin with sweet treats and desserts, but this soup has changed my mind. I also couldn’t help but think baby food as everything was cooking down (aren’t I super good at convincing you to try my recipes?)…but dammit, it’s a really freakin good adult version of baby food that I would be proud to feed my baby/kids someday (showing them this blog with all the swearing probably won’t be on my list though).Pumpkin SoupAnyways, Pumpkin Soup ended up being a huge success! The bacon and croutons are a must – so was the sprinkling of goat cheese on top. Another thing that blew my mind was the soup was even better the next day. I think this soup will become a yearly October tradition in our house. Next time I will likely double the recipe since the soup is great as leftovers. I also see new versions of this soup surfacing in the years to come, and I can’t wait!Pumpkin Soup

Recipe
Pumpkin Soup with Bacon & Croutons
Serves 4

Ingredients

  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 1 cup chopped carrots
  • 1 (15 oz) can unsweetened pumpkin
  • 2 cups cooked, diced bacon
  • pinch nutmeg
  • 32 oz (2 lbs) low sodium chicken broth
  • dash thyme
  • dash red pepper flakes
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 4 – 6 slices day old bread, depending on what size of loaf you are using (I used a few slices of a crusty artisan loaf)

Additional Garnishes:

  • Goat cheese or sour cream
  • Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a large pan. Add the chopped onion and carrots and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, for 5 – 10 minutes or until softened. Add a few dashes of salt and pepper while the veggies are cooking down.

2. While the vegetables are cooking, dice raw bacon into small pieces and add to a separate pan. Cook on medium until bacon pieces get slightly crisp. Set aside and drain on paper towels. Leave remaining grease in pan for the croutons. To make croutons, cut bread into small squares and cook on medium-low in the bacon pan until brown and crisp. Set aside to drain on paper towels.

3. Add the pumpkin, half of the cooked bacon (about 1 cup), and nutmeg to the carrot and onion mixture, stirring well. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 5 – 10 minutes.

4. Pour in the chicken broth, increase the heat to medium, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for at least 15 minutes. Add a few dashes of thyme and red pepper flakes, season to taste with more salt and pepper if needed.

5. Remove the pan from heat and let cool slightly. Use an immersion blender to blend up the soup until smooth. If you don’t have an immersion blender, I highly recommend you get one…but transferring the soup to a food processor or blender and blending in batches also works fine. If so, return it to the pan and reheat.

6. Serve soup with the reserved bacon bits and croutons. Soup is excellent with a few sprinkles of goat cheese on top, or sour cream. Toasted Pumpkin Seeds add a nice seasonal flair as well.