Meals For The Week: Hungarian Goulash, Barley and Mushroom Soup, Creamy Polenta with Eggplant Ragu, and Baked Oatmeal

Most of my comfort foods are asian, with one exception. Hungarian Goulash. I have great nostalgia for my mother's Goulash, which she made in a pressure cooker (because she excels at using pressure cookers and microwaves). The meat would be falling off the bone, succulent, tender. We usually had it with a side of green beans and the obligatory starch (noodles, potatoes, or rice).

Last week my husband wanted to make it, but we don't have a pressure cooker. So we found a recipe in our Cook's Illustrated The Best International Recipe book which uses standard atmospheric pressure. It turned out REALLY well. We ate it without modification for lunches all week. The Barley Soup and Polenta dishes were for dinners, and the Baked Oatmeal was for breakfasts.

Hungarian Beef Goulash

-From Cook's Illustrated
We made a double portion with a little less than double the meat, just based on the size of the chuck roasts we could find at Kroger. Also we tried doubling the onions and  they nearly filled up the pot we were using. So we took most of them out after we tried cooking them down a bit. We left about 2 cups of diced onion in the pot. BE CAREFUL about the size of your onions. Also when chopping lots of onions, you can soak them in water after you peel them to get most of the tear-inducing-juices out.
The recipe listed below is the original:

serves 6

3.5 pounds boneless beef chuck-eye roast. Trimmed of the fat(the outer fat) adn cut into 1.5 inch chunks
salt and ground black pepper
3 TBS veg oil
4 large onions, minced
6 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed through a garlic press (about 2 TBS)
5 TBS sweet paprika
1/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour
2 TBS tomato paste
3 cups Low sodium chicken broth
2 bay leaves
1 tsp dried marjoram ( or oregano)
2 large bell peppers (one red, one green, or whatever), stemmed,seeded, cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup minced fresh parsley leaves

1. Adjust oven wrack to low-medium position. Preheat to 325 degrees. Pat the beef dry with paper towels (IMPORTANT!) and season with salt and pepper. Heat 1 TBS oil in a LARGE dutch oven pot over medium-high heat until just smoking. Add half of beef and cook, stirring occasionally until well browned (7-10 minutes), reducing heat if the pat starts to scorch. Transfer browned beef to a plate or bowl. Repeat the process with 1 TBS oil again and remaining beef.

2. Add remaining 1 TBS oil to pot, reduce to medium heat until shimmering. Add the onion and 1 tsp salt and cook and stir until softened, about 5-7 minutes.  Add the garlic and stir until fragrant about 30 seconds. Stir in the tomato paste, flour, paprika and cook stiring constantly for 1 minute.

3. Slowly whisk in the broth, scraping up browned bits. Add the browned beef with any accumulated juices, bay leaves, and marjoram. Stir. Bring to a simmer and arrange meat to be covered by liquid. Cover the pot and transfer to the oven for 1 hour and 20 minutes. (ie 80 minutes)

4. Remove pot from oven. Stir in the bell peppers, cover and return to the oven until meat is fork tender(about 40 minutes more). If you want to store for 2 days, you can cool it to room temp, transfer to an airtight container and keep in fridge. Reheat it in the dutch oven pot before continuing to next step.

5. Remove pot from the oven/heat and let rest for 5-10 minutes. Use a spoon to skim excess fat from the stew. Remove and discard the bay leaves. In a bowl, stir about 1/2 cup of the sauce into the sour cream to temper it (so the cream doesn't curdle or separate). Then stir the mixture into the rest of the stew. Stir in the parsley, season with salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Optional:
We added about 1 pound of small red potatoes(skin on, cut into 1 inch pieces) after the pot was in the oven for 1 hour. That was for our double recipe. We really could have used 2 pounds.

Note:
We went through the step with the sour cream before storing it in the fridge, but didn't add the parsley until it was about to be eaten for the lunches. The cream didn't separate with reheating in the microwave.

Mushroom and Barley Soup

-from Cook's Illustrated

serves 6

3 TBS veg or olive oil
1 large onion, minced
1/2 ounce DRIED porchini mushrooms, rinsed and minced(see note)
salt
2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 pound white, cremini, or portobello mushrooms (or a combo), wiped clean and sliced into 1/4 inch thick bite-sized pieces (see note)
3 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed through a garlic press (about 1 TBS)
9 cups low sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup pearled barley
1 bay leaf
1 tsp minced fresh thyme leaves
ground black pepper

1. Heat oil in large dutch oven over med-high heat until shimmering. Add onions, porchini mushrooms, and 1/2 tsp salt and cook until onion is softened, about 5-7 minutes. Stir int the carrots and continue to cook until they begin to soften, about 3 minutes. Stir in the fresh mushrooms and cook until they release their liquid, about 8-10 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

2. Stir in the broth, barley, bay leaf, and thyme. bring the soup to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer covered, gently until barley is tender, about 45 minutes. Discard bay leaf and season to taste with salt and pepper before serving.

NOTE: I have used dried prochinis from the bulk bins at Whole foods and from the packages at Kroger with equal success. If you use portobellos, then scrape off the black gills before chopping because the gills will make the soup look and taste muddy. I used only white mushrooms this time, but I have used a combination of fresh ones before with equal success. The Dried Porchinis are the real star of this soup.

Creamy Polenta with Eggplant Ragu

-polenta recipe is from Cook's Illustrated, but the ragu is one of my own creations.

serves 6 as a side dish, 4-5 as a main

6 cups water
salt
1.5 cups polenta (or evenly ground medium or coarse ground cornmeal) see note
1.5 ounces parmesan cheese (about 3/4 cup grated)
3 TBS unsalted butter, cut into large chunks
ground black pepper

1. Bring the water to a boil in a heavy-bottomed 4 quart sauce pan over med-high heat. Once boiling, add 1.5tsp salt and pour the polenta into the water in a very slow stream from a measuring cup, all the while stirring in a circular motion with a wooden spoon. (this will keep the polenta from clumping, which is hard to impossible to undo. It helps to have one person stir and an other pour).

2. Reduce the heat to THE LOWEST POSSIBLE SETTING and COVER the pot. Cook, vigorously stirring ONCE EVERY 5 MINUTES, making sure to scrape clean the bottom and edges of the pan. COntinue until the polenta has lost the raw corn flavor and becomes soft and smooth, about 30 minutes. Stir in the cheese and the butter until incorporated and melted. season with salt and pepper to taste. SERVE IMMEDIATELY.

note: I have used both the Bob's Red Mill brand and the kind from the bulk section of Whole Foods. I Honestly don't know which one I had in my pantry for this time. I don't use a wooden spoon for this, instead I use a Spoonula, which is made of silicone and has a flat firm edge that can scrape up anything from the bottom of a pan.  This recipe is the easiest and most effective of all the methods we have tried. This makes a relatively firm polenta when fresh, and quite firm once it cools. It does reheat well.

for the Ragu: 

2-3 TBS olive oil
1 cup of onions, medium chopped or minced
1-2 bell pepper, cored, seeded, and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 large or 2 medium eggplants, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
2 cans of diced tomatoes (right now I have a case of them from Costco cause they were on sale for $5)

salt, pepper, oregano
Parsley garnish
optional: garlic, crushed red pepper flake, tomato paste, other veggies

1. Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed pot (either a 4 quart sauce pan or a 12 inch wide and 3 inch deep skillet) over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add onions and cook until softening. Then add the bell pepper and cook until softening. (if using tomato paste or garlic, add them at this point). Stir in the eggplant and cover.

Remove lid and stir only occasionally so that the eggplant has the chance to release it's juices, about 15-20 minutes.

Stir in the tomatoes and 1/2 tsp oregano.

Cover and cook on medium or low heat for 30 minutes (if you want relatively intact and chunky pieces of veg, which is what I did) or for longer, 45min-1 hour (if you want a very smooth and broken down sauce).

Serve over the polenta with some fresh chopped parsley garnish.

Also can be served over pasta, rice, or roasted spaghetti squash.

Baked Oatmeal

-adapted from Cooking Light, 5 servings 281 calories each ( I stretch it to 6 servings cause it's easier to cut)
I made a double batch, and used walnuts and dried peaches. If you are using fruits that are bone-dry, it works best if you soak them in water (for a couple hours or over night) before adding them. Sometimes when I make a double batch, I have to cook it for longer, about 40-60 minutes. This time, it was done in 30 minutes, go figure.

2 cups uncooked oats (I prefer regular oats over quick-cooking oats for textural reasons)
1/4 c each of honey and molasses (or 1/2 cup packed brown sugar) **if using liquids, then add them to the bowl with the other liquids, if using granulated sugars, then add it with the other dry ingredients**

1/2 cup raisins (or other dried fruit)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (or other nut)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 cups fat-free milk or other dairy equivalent (1 cup if using liquid sweets)
1/2 cup applesauce
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 large egg, beaten
Butter for greasing the baking dish. 

Preheat oven to 375°.

Combine the first 6 ingredients in a medium bowl. Combine the milk, applesauce, butter, and egg in a separate bowl. Add milk mixture to oat mixture; stir well. Pour oat mixture into an 8-inch square baking dish coated with butter. Bake at 375° for 20-30 minutes. Serve warm.

Before baking

After baking

For long-term storage: 

let the whole pan cool to room temp. Cut your portions. Wrap each individually with plastic wrap. Place them all into a freezer grade plastic bag. Keep in freezer. Remove individual portions, unwrap, reheat in microwave (covered) for 2 minutes on 70% power. If you want more liquid, then add some milk, etc. 

Meals for the Week: Beef Sandwiches, Acorn Squash Soup, and Barley Risoto.

I started helping in the kitchen as an older child: peeling, chopping, preparing the ingredients. But I always had to do the dishes, which I loathed more and more each year. Eventually my mother got tired of cooking meals, so we traded when I was a teenager. For each day of the week that I cooked supper, she would wash the dishes. And visa versa for the other days. I had to contribute to the planning and shopping, and I got to experiment and learn how to make things that my mother never had. I was able to incorporate the Kazak style of one-pot-meals with American ingredients.

In boarding school and college, I mostly ate from the cafeteria because it was easier. But I gained weight. So when I moved to Memphis, I was finally on my own and could cook for myself. But I was also very busy with school, more busy than I had ever been in my life. And I had to adjust my cooking style to cooking for 1 with lots of leftovers. I wanted to eat healthily, but fresh veggies would rot in my fridge before I could use them. So I started using lots of frozen veggies, and again the one-pot-meals.

And then I got married after being single for a very long time, and had to readjust to cooking for 2. Our levels of busy-ness have fluctuated. There was a time that we could make something fresh most nights of the week. But no more. So this is what we do:

1. Pick one day of the week for grocery shopping. 

(For us it's Saturday. Occasionally there will be an item that needs to be purchased later in the week for freshness sake)

2. Plan the nights/days that you will be cooking around your busy times. 

(For me, Tuesday afternoons and Wednesdays are "limited" to "no cooking" days. So I cook bigger batches on Mondays and Thursdays)

3. Plan your lunches ahead of time. 

(We don't like to eat the same thing for lunch and dinner multiple days in a row. So we plan for 1 or 2 large batches of hot food for lunches, or for sandwiches. Then we can eat leftovers for dinner that are different that the lunches)

4. Plan for alternate versions of leftovers. 

(I mostly don't like to eat the same thing over and over again. So I intentionally make the big batch as a "minimally adorned canvas." Then each time I eat it, I add something new)

5. Want to save money? 

Limit eating out to 1 time per week. (For us, it's date night or a gathering of friends)

Last Week's Meal Plan

Sunday: Make the Braised Slow Cooker Beef for the week's lunches
              Eat leftovers from previous week

Monday: Start Caramelized Onions in Slow Cooker
              Lunch: Beef Sandwiches on Rye Bread with Sriracha Mayo and Arugala, side of fruit.
              Dinner: Make and Eat Acorn Squash Soup with Pear Conserve

Tuesday Lunch: same as Monday
              Dinner: Acorn soup

Wednesday Lunch: Beef Sandwiches on Rye Bread with Caramelized Onions, Side of fruit.
              Dinner: Make and Eat Barley and Butternut Squash Risotto with Roasted Brussel Sprouts

Thursday Lunch: Beef sandwiches on Rye Bread with Caramelized Onions, Side of fruit.
              Dinner: Risotto and Brussel Sprouts

Friday Lunch: Make gravy from the slow cooker juices, pour over Beef Sandwiches.
              Dinner: Eat Out

Saturday Lunch: Annie's White Cheddar Shells with peas
              Dinner: Risotto with Sriracha Chicken Breasts.


The Recipes:

Braised Slow Cooker Beef

This is actually a modified version of a Cuban shredded beef recipe, Ropa Veija, from my brother-in-law's wife. Her recipe has veggies in it too, but I just wanted the beef.

Take a 2-3 pound Beef Chuck Roast. Salt and pepper both sides to your taste. Place in slow cooker. Pour in Apple Cider Vinegar so that it comes half way up the beef (in my case about 3/4 cup). Cover and turn slow cooker to low for about 6 hours without disturbing it.

Poke it with a fork. If it almost falls apart, then you're done. Reserve the liquid if you want to make gravy with it later. It will keep in a covered container in the fridge for about 1 week.
At this point, any fat that was around the meat will be very easy to remove. I threw that fat away. Let the beef cool on a plate/board on the counter, then transfer to a covered container in the fridge.

When you want to make a sandwich, cut a 1/4 - 1/2 inch slices (1-2 per person) from the short end of the meat. You can keep it as a relatively cohesive piece or break it up with your fingers (or 2 forks) so that it is more like Shredded Beef. I think it's easier to eat when shredded. Apply your condiments of choice, with the plan to put the whole thing in the toaster at work. Cause this is a sandwich that is best warm. I usually open it up so that the bread is on the bottom and the meat on the top, otherwise the center never gets warm enough.

Toppings

       Sriracha Mayo: 

       In a small bowl, mix mayo and sriracha to your taste. If you plan on using it multiple days in a row, then make a couple servings worth and keep it covered in the fridge.

       Caramelized Onions: 

       Clean out your slow cooker (after it cools completely). Slice sweet yellow onions into 1/4 inch   thick half-rings. Toss them so that they separate. (optional: toss with a little bit of oil, but I didn't).       Place them into the slow cooker, cover and set to low for 2-3 days. Stir twice daily. They are done       when they are darkened, soft, and sweet.

       Greens of any sort. 

      We like arugala and baby kale because they are tender enough to eat raw, but also taste good when heated. So they can stand up to the toaster oven. 

       Gravy. 

Take the braising liquid that you reserved. In a small sauce pan, melt 1 Tbsp butter (1 for every 1 cup of liquid). Make a roux by whisking in 2 Tbsp flour. Continuously stir until the roux is smooth and slightly darkening. Add half the liquid, stirring continuously. This will allow the roux to be evenly mixed into the liquid. Simmer on low, stirring almost constantly. Once it's smooth and slightly thickened, add the rest of the liquid and continue to simmer until you get your desired                consistency. I made a fairly thin gravy.

Squash Soup with Pear Conserve

This is Eugenia Bone's recipe from Well Preserved (see my post on Preserving Pears). Serves 4.

3 pounds Butternut Squash (or Acorn Squash). Peeled, seeded, and cubed.
1/4 c olive oil
salt and pepper
1 medium onion, chopped (about 1 cup)
3 celery stalks, chopped (about 1 cup)
2 tsp chili powder
1 Tbsp light brown sugar (or honey)
4 cups low sodium chicken stock
2 Tbsp butter
1 pint of Pear Conserve
Fresh thyme for garnish

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Toss the cubed squash in a bowl with 2 Tbsp of the olive oil. Salt and pepper to taste. Spread on a rimmed baking sheet. Roast in the oven until very tender(pierce with a fork), about 40 minutes. Its great if the edges brown a bit. Remove squash from the oven.

Heat the remaining oil in a dutch oven style pan over medium heat. Add onion and celery and cook about 5 minutes, until onion is translucent. Add chili powder and sugar/honey. Stir to coat. Add squash and stock.

Bring to a boil, then lower to medium heat and cook for 5-10 minutes.

Remove from the heat. Puree with an immersion blender (or 1 cup at a time in a blender or food processor or in a food mill).

Return to the heat and add butter. Stir while simmering until butter melts. Add the conserve and stir until hot. (or you can add the conserve before you puree the soup so that it all will be the same texture. That's just personal preference)

Ladle into bowls and garnish with fresh thyme.

Baked Butternut Squash and Barley Risotto

The changes I made were small:
Hefeweizen beer instead of wine (cause I didn't have any wine).
Left out the spinach cause I was going to make brussel sprouts. I have made it with spinach and baby kale, both were great.

 Picture above: before baking

 picture above: after baking

Roasted Brussel Sprouts

Roasting, grilling, and pan searing are the best ways to cook brussel sprouts, in my opinion. If you allow any liquid to touch them as they cook, its gonna get bitter. And that's gross. I would rather have them get slightly sweet and crispy.

Clean your brussel spouts if needed, allow to dry. Cut each one in half and then cut out the thick hull in a V shape. Toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Spread onto a rimmed baking sheet, and place in the oven(along side the risotto). Roast until softening and browned on the edges ( you can also eat them when they are firmer, but I like them slightly soft). Remove from the oven and serve along side your main dish.

Squash Seeds

Since you've got your oven going, turn it down to 350 when you're all done. Take the seeds of the squash you just cooked, pinching them to release them from the tangled mass of stringy squash-guts. Wash them off in water, even letting them soak in the water for a bit. Strain them out of the water, place on your rimmed baking sheet and toss with your preferred seasoning. I use Adobo usually. Make sure the seeds are spread out in an even layer, not clumped together. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes for Butternut Squash (less if your seeds are very small like with Acorn Squash, more for pumpkin seeds). They should be completely dry and crunchy. Let cool before eating whole. Great source of FIBER!

(squash seeds soaking in water)

Coming to you next week:
Beef Goulash with Potatoes, Mushroom and Barley Soup, Polenta with Eggplant Ragu....

Thanksgiving Plans...

...Smoking a turkey, of course!
Actually, we've never done it before. So as a trial run, I will be smoking a turkey on Monday the 25th. I am NOT a grill or smoker aficionado by any stretch of the imagination, but I am having a friend help me. So it should be an interesting process, hopefully without burns or firetrucks. Mainly, we need to work out the timing of smoking this size of a bird. The internet research so far is conflicting on the temperatures and smoking times. And there will be the added benefit of being able to post info and pictures here before Thanksgiving Day, so that someone else can benefit from my experience.

We are teaming up with some friends here in Memphis since our families are all far away. Some of these items will be made by said friends.

The rest of the menu:
Sage & Sausage Dressing
Grilled Brussel Sprouts with Chantrelles
Fresh Cranberry Relish (The Holy Grail of Holiday foods for me, I've been trying to recreate some that I had years ago with varying degrees of success)
Gravy or a different relish for the turkey (still haven't decided yet)
Salad
Rolls or Salt & Pepper Biscuits (likely the later)
Pumpkin Pie with Pecan Crust (there was a specific request to avoid using wheat flour)
Pumpkin Spoon Bread (possibly)

And I leave you with this delightful tune.

Preserving Pears: Butter and Conserve

Last year for my birthday, my oldest sister gave me a book about preserving, Well Preserved by Eugenia Bone. She had an inkling that I would get into canning, and I certainly have!

When my family lived in Kazakstan, we had to can our own jams, freeze our own veggies, etc. Otherwise you just didn't have those things during the winter. My mother was certainly up for the challenge, being skilled in that way; and my oldest sister has a green thumb, so there was always produce from our garden to use. My middle sister and I helped out with all these tasks, but I was never the one in charge (insert the sigh of the youngest sibling). So I have this nostalgia for home-grown and home-preserved foods neatly lined up in jars.

Now that my homesteading oldest sister has rekindled my preserving heritage, I can do it for myself! (insert evil laugh of youngest sibling all grown up)

I really like the book that rekindled this passion, because  I also use the Ball Jar book, as well as recipes that I find online.

These are some of the canning related blogs that I use:
Food52
Punk Domestics
Foods For Long Life
Pick Your Own
Oh She Glows

And sometimes I alter the recipes, but I always keep in mind the principle that I learned from Eugenia Bone: don't play fast and loose with the proportions of key ingredients that can alter the pH of the end product. Cause you might give yourself a trip to the ICU with botulism. Usually what I alter is the type of sweetener. I use converted equivalents of honey, agave, maple syrup, and rarely organic cane sugar in the place of standard white or brown sugar.

1 cup sugar = 1/2c honey
                   = 1/2 c molases
                   = 1/2 c maple syrup
                   = 2/3 c agave

Or I will use less sweetener and add pectin to increase the thickness of the jam,etc. This conversion is on the container of pectin that I buy.

Now to the nitty-gritty.
My husband and I picked a half bushel each of apples and pears from The Jones Orchard a few weeks ago.

I have learned over the last 2 years of doing this that is is quite hard to pick pears that are actually ripe. The variety that they have in the orchard can look yellow (especially at a distance since the trees are tall and the sun is in your eyes) but still be unripe. So I sorted the pears into categories: definitely unripe, half-way ripe, ripe, and significantly wounded. The ripe and wounded pears volunteered to become Pear&Apple Butter. The others were left to ponder their unripeness as a single layer in ventilated boxes until I had the time to turn them into Pear Conserve.

The ripe apples are much easier to discern on the tree and they keep pretty well for a lot longer, so they are still sitting in a ventilated box, waiting to become apple juice. Well, some volunteered to become apple pie for a dinner party. We stumbled onto a great pie dough recipe.

Caramelized Pear & Apple Butter

This recipe originally came from a blog which I can't find now (oops!) but I have modified it sufficiently to call it my own. Unfortunately I didn't do the best job of measuring as I went, so it's all approximate.
1. Core, peel, chop pears to half-way fill a 2-3 quart slow cooker. Cover and turn the slow cooker to low. Leave it going for 1-2 days, stirring 2-3 times per day. Sometimes I would turn it to "keep warm" for several hours or overnight if it was getting too browned at the edges too fast. DO NOT TURN IT ON HIGH. (The volume will be reduced and the color will darken as the natural sugars are caramelized. )
2. Core, peel, chop apples and stir into your caramelizing pears. Leave that going for 1-2 days, as above.
3. When you are ready to can it: add 1 TBS molasses, 1/4 tsp ground ginger, 1/4 tsp ground cloves 3/4 tsp cinnamon. Stir in the spices well. Adjust the sweetness and tartness with either honey/molasses and lemon juice as needed. (I didn't add anything more then the quantities I listed b/c it was sweet enough).
4. Use an immersion blender (my preference) or ladle it into a blender to break down any chunks that remain.
5. Ladle into your sterilized jars. Wipe the rims. Apply the lids and bands. Process in water-bath for 15 minutes. My yield was 5 half-pint jars. (go here for a tutorial on canning techniques)
*I did this recipe last year on the stove top and it turned out fine, but I had to add more sweetener because the natural sugars weren't developed like they are in the slow cooker. I am doing as many "butter" recipes in the slow cooker as I can because I have been burned too many times by spattering butter on the stove. Butters spatter much worse than any jam or jelly that I have made*

Pear Conserve

*Batch#2 on the left and Batch#1 on the right*

This recipe is reproduced almost exactly from "Pear, Port, & Thyme Conserve" in Well Preserved by Eugenia Bone, the only thing I changed is the sweetener and one step. I also had to do mine in 2 double batches because I had so many pears and not enough time. My hand was very sore after coring, peeling, and chopping more than 15 pounds in one sitting, so I had to stop for the day.
The quantities I used:

Batch #1 (Yield 5 pints)

1 cup raisins (kroger brand organic)
1/2 cup honey (Local Collierville Honey)
1 cup fresh squeezed orange juice (from navel oranges I had)
1/2 cup bottled lemon juice (kroger brand)
2 TBS grated lemon(and orange) zest
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 tsp ground ginger
2 pinches of salt
Combine all these in a heavy bottomed (preferably non-reactive) pot, like a dutch oven over medium heat. Stir until the honey is dissolved. Then add and stir until combined:

10 cups pears (cored, peeled, chopped into 1/4-1/2 inch cubes)
1 cup chopped raw almonds (Costco)
1/2 cup port wine (Sandeman's Tawny Porto from Buster's or Joe's Wines)
2 TBS chopped fresh thyme (pull off the leaves from the woody parts of the stems, the more delicate and green stems can be chopped up with the leaves on them cause it's too much of a pain to remove the leaves from the delicate stems)

COVER THE POT. DO NOT REMOVE THE LID (for any significant time) TO LET THE JUICE THICKEN. Because then you won't have enough juice to cover the pears in the jars. Better to have too much juice than too little, but that's just my opinion. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to simmer for about 15 minutes. If your pears were still not beautifully ripe, then let it go for a few minutes longer.
Ladle the conserve into your prepared sterilized jars. Wipe rims, apply lids and bands. Place in water bath and process for 20-25 minutes. (20 minutes for half-pint jars, 25 for pints). Go here for a tutorial on canning techniques

Batch #2 (Yield 5 pints)

The only differences were that the 10 cups of pears had been sitting chopped in the fridge for 4-5 days and were starting to soften and slightly brown. Also I used 1 cup honey, only lemon zest, and high-pulp Simply Orange juice from the store.
You can see the difference those days in the fridge made on my pears. There was more juice in batch#2, and there was more oxidation of the sugars as they cooked on the stove. That's why batch#2 is darker than batch#1.

How Do I Use These Preserves?

The Pear&Apple Butter can be used like regular Apple Butter. On toast/bagels,etc. Instead of pumpkin puree in a pie or quick bread.

The Conserve is great just eaten out of the jar, like a chunky apple sauce, or mixed in with hot oatmeal. In Well Preserved, she includes recipes for using all her preserved foods. This week I am going to try out her Butternut Squash soup, which is blended with some conserve in it. It would also be good in her recipe for cake-y gingerbread, folded into the batter.

You Just Gotta Start Somewhere

     Recently I was encouraged to start a blog about the way I cook, and to include details about how I find and use ingredients in Memphis, TN. So here we go!

     My husband and I have very diverse food interests. We preserve some food by pickling, canning, dehydrating, and curing. We try to use as few processed foods as possible, but sometimes we just gotta have queso dip. We have spent a considerable amount of time in Asia and enjoy cooking food from many different cultures. We also have friends with various dietary constraints, medical and voluntary, so we delve into recipes that are gluten-free or Paleo friendly from time to time.

     We are always open to ideas and questions, so feel free to comment or respond to any of our posts.