Applesauce

This is usually the time of year my husband loves and I dread: Pear and apple canning time.  Don't get me wrong, I love having canned and frozen foods that we grew - or at least picked - ourselves*, and had total control over every ingredient added.  I just don't like all the prep work.  Peeling, slicing, washing jars, finding rings, waiting forever for our canning to boil, and so on.  About 3/4 of the way through the process, I get on board and get excited too.  Up until that point, I'm pretty much an unwilling participant.

We have about 13 quarts of canned pears at the moment - we filled a large laundry basket from a neighbor's Pear tree in exchange for some of our garden goodies - as well as peaches from last year.  (Never again - I hate canning peaches!)  We also grew our own pumpkins, which were roasted, pureed and frozen.  And applesauce.. oh boy, do we have applesauce!

About a month ago, Husband and I went to his aunt and uncle's house to pick their "leftover" apples (whatever is left after they and their kids get what they want - and we're happy to do it!)  We brought home about 35lbs.  I'm not exactly sure what types they have, but there's a tree with reddish apples and a tree with yellowish apples (helps, right?)  After I complained a bit about having to make applesauce, we started.  We got 9 quarts of applesauce from that batch.  I didn't want to can the applesauce, so I froze it in gallon bags - 6 cups per bag.

Then Wal-Mart had a sale on Golden Delicious apples that my husband couldn't resist.  So he bought more apples. They sat around for a while until we finally got motivated enough to make more applesauce.. which was last night.

Making applesauce is a lot easier than you may think.  Here's how to do it:

A tasty Pinned meal

Here is an example of a full meal planned with Pinterest. I know the picture isn't very pretty because I
used my phone rather than my digital camera - not that it's much better sometimes - so I apologize for that. Anyway, I had to post this because these pork ribs were amazing!

My husband usually like to use certain sauces on his ribs, and he had planned to grill these pork spare ribs. However, he'd decided to go play golf or something (my how my memory is short these days!) and I didn't want to wait around for him so I hopped on Pinterest to search for BBQ pork ribs. What I found now has a permanent place in my recipe book.

These ribs were moist and the sauce was bone-sucking good.  (I kid you not: I literally sucked the sauce off one of the ribs before my husband threw them to the dogs)  I like nice sticky ribs, and these were definitely that!  I did make a couple changes:
1. I used vinegar because I didn't have lemon juice.  I figured it wouldn't matter since it was probably the acidity needed, not the lemon flavor; it didn't seem to matter.
2. I threw in some sliced onions before baking simply because I love onions.  (I'm sure glad my love for garlic and onions didn't scare away my husband.)
3. I didn't use garlic salt and salt.  We aren't big salt junkies, so we were fine with just the garlic salt.

Delicious!

The noodles are Taste of Home's Parmesan Herbed Noodles. We're kind of on a whole-grains kick and I didn't want to use the egg noodles called for in the recipe, BUT I did have egg noodles to use.. and proably the last of our fresh basil (left out the thyme).  I liked them, my husband needed more flavor. (I threw together a similar side dish last night with whole wheat shells.. but they were a little bland.  My husband actually reheated his with milk and Velveeta *sigh*)

The Hassleback potatoes looked yummy, but I didn't cook them long enough.  I won't give my opinion on those until I give them a fair shot.

This was not exactly a "healthy" meal, but the ribs were a worthy splurge.

Nutrional Info*

BBQ Pork Ribs (Calculated as about a 5-ounce serving)
Calories: 455
Total Fat: 20.6g
Saturated Fat: 7.6g
Monounsaturated Fat: 7.4g
Cholesterol: 82.4mg
Sodium: 290.2mg
Carbs: 49g
Sugars: 46g - yowza!
Protein: 20.4g

Parmesan Herbed Noodles (As a side dish, I calculated these as 1/2c. servings)
Calories: 200
Total Fat: 14.7g
Saturated Fat: 4.7g
Polyunsaturated Fat: 1.3g
Monounsaturated Fat: 6.7g
Cholesterol: 15mg
Sodium: 106.7mg
Potassium: 9.2mg
Carbs: 13.7g
Sugars: 1g
Protein: 4.7g

Hasselback Potatoes (info only for one 5oz potato, not including the drizzle of olive oil, garlic or pad of butter I used)
Calories: 139
Total Fat: 0
Cholesterol: 0mg
Sodium: 21mg
Potassium: 1645mg
Carbs: 3g
Fiber: 7g
Sugars: 3g
Protein: 8g

*Nutritional info is approximate, is calculated using MyFitnessPal, and accounts for all revisions/substitutions made when I made these dishes.

Introduction

Well, I couldn't stay away from the blogging world for too long.  If you were one of the handful of followers I had at allthatblooms.net.. well, this blog probably won't be a whole lot different.  Maybe a little more interesting.. I hope. 

Because I'm slightly addicted to Pinterest, I decided I'd start a blog again and use it to share my favorite pinned recipes and projects (You know, if I ever feel creative and start a project.) I love pinning things - yes, mostly food stuffs - and then sharing the good stuff.  This will be my place to do that.. instead of boring my Facebook friends to death with pictures of food.

So this is it.  My new "place".  I'm still getting settled in, so don't mind the mess. :)