This afternoon I got an e-mail from the owner of the house across the street from us, her renter (a bachelor) was OK with us picking the apples and asian pears off the trees in the front yard, she was also fine with it, as long as we didn’t bend any branches.

I wish I’d spotted the tree and asked earlier in the season (I saw it yesterday on my walk with O and e-mailed her the moment we got home) as most of the fruit was already rotting on the ground. We managed to salvage a few pieces and get a few more from the tree. They were all rather ripe, somewhat bruised and it seemed unlikely we’d eat them all before they got worse, so I decided to make apple sauce.

It was quite simple as I already had things out from my WTF-Sauce, so while P napped and O splashed water around our backyard, I peeled and cored the dozen or so apples we’d gathered.

They simmered, softened, and were pureed. The puree was boiled, ladled into jars, and the jars were processed for twenty minutes. I now have 3 pints of homemade, sugar free, locally sourced apple sauce.

I also have a better idea of how to make my next batches of WTF-Sauce.

Last night after dinner three deer showed up in the back orchard.

This evening for dinner we had brisket pot roast with carrots, garlic herbed mashed potatoes with gravy and corn bread muffins. We had chocolate covered strawberries for dessert.

I would like to thank the wading pool, floor gym, Busytown Mysteries and a longer-than-normal nap for making dinner possible.

When Gavin saw the feast he asked if I was preparing a final meal, no, today is not the end of the world, it just felt like it, after all, today was Monday.

The roast was fall-apart tender, and Gavin made honey butter to go with the corn bread. Thankfully everything turned out very well, as we will eat a lot of leftovers this week.

In an attempt to incorporate more fruit into our diet I’ve been picking up watermelon quarters and halves at the grocery store. I get the seedless variety because the seeds cause the toddler to freakout on an epic scale. Last week, however, they were out of both quarters and halves so I picked the smallest seedless watermelon they had.

We now have an excess of watermelon. I quartered the melon and cubed it for easier eating. We’ve had it with lunch, we’ve had it with dinner, we’ve had it as a mid-afternoon snack. We’ve been eating a lot of watermelon, and we still have 3/4 of it in the fridge.

Yesterday, I was struck with inspiration. I happened to be skimming the NYTimes homepage – I’ve cut back my daily reading to weekly skimming now that they’ve become a pay site – and found a recipe for Watermelon Mint Smoothies.

With 9 kinds of mint in the backyard and a fridge full of watermelon it seemed like the perfect recipe.

Then I got lazy, I knew if I opened the backdoor, the toddler would want to go “side” (outside) and inevitably he’d want to strip down and play in the “woa-way” (water) in his kiddie pool. I also wasn’t sure which variety of mint to pick, so I decided to leave it out entirely.

I also left out the sugar (the watermelon was sweet enough) and the melon balls for garnish (seriously, who bothers to garnish a toddler smoothie). I upped the ice to two handfuls for a nice slushy consistency.

The results were shockingly pink, and surprisingly tasty. There were a few larger ice chunks that floated to the top, and I skimmed those off before I poured any for O. The watermelon wasn’t quite as seedless as advertised so a few seeds got blended in, they provided an occasional earthy, nutty taste, which was a nice contrast to the sweet melon (I don’t know why they said to add sugar)!

The toddler enjoyed it, and demanded “moar!” It complimented his afternoon snack of taquitoes nicely, the sweet balanced the savory. This would probably go very well with our Grilled Pizza Sandwiches.

Shockingly Pink Watermelon Slushy – my variation:

• 2+ cups cubed seedless watermelon (I tossed in about 3 handfulls)
• 2 handfulls ice (more or less to taste)
• Place all of the ingredients in the blender. Blend until frothy. Pour into a glass. Serve immediately.

I don’t have any photos of this shockingly pink smoothie, we finished it before I thought to find the camera. Maybe next time I’ll remember to take one.

This month we have been working diligently to plan out our weekly lunch and dinner meals. We’ve been doing it for a variety of reasons: it gives our week some structure – no more wondering “what’s for dinner?” It helps with our grocery budget, and creating a shopping list. It helps us eat the food we already have on hand – we’re still working on some of the food stashed in the freezer that I made during my huge stock-the-freezer-before-the-baby-arrives cooking spree.

Today’s lunch was “grilled cheese & fruit” and dinner is “baked macaroni, broccoli & salad” (the baked mac is leftover from my pre-P cooking spree, it made enough for 10 so I divided it out into 4 portions of just over 2 1/2).

“Grilled cheese & fruit” sounded rather dull, so I decided to do something a little different: grilled pizza sandwiches.

In a recent pantry-clean-out I found several packs of pre-made pizza sauce. I’ve made pizza before, but it is too hot outside for me to want to crank up our oven to 450-500*F. So, how to make pizza in the middle of the summer without heating up the whole house?

I’ve made english muffin mini-pizzas before, but the english muffins always end up slightly soggy and the end result doesn’t taste all that great. I thought about making pizza quesadillas, but when I ran that idea past Gavin he vetoed it – apparently he’d tried back in Boston and found that flour tortillas don’t make good crust. So much for that idea.

So I looked around our kitchen to see what we had on hand: an untouched loaf of sourdough. Sourdough makes nice grilled cheese sandwiches, it holds up well and has good flavor, I decided to give it a try.

I liberally butted the bread, and then slathered on the pizza sauce. Freshly grated mozzarella and mini-pepperoni made up the filling, and it was all grilled to perfection in our cast iron skillet.

The end result was “very good” so good in fact I can “make it again!”

I’ve included a self-created recipe with approximate measurements and hopefully followable directions. It is a bit tricky to heft this sandwich into the skillet as stuff falls out, but it is well worth the effort and slightly buttery fingers.

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Before the International Herald Tribune (aka NYTimes global) became a paid-subscription site, I was an avid daily reader. Now I skim the headlines and have become far more selective in the articles I choose.

I was particularly fond of the lifestyle-esque sections, as they frequently posted interesting recipes, reviews, and useful tips. A little while back, I came across a recipe for Apple Clafouti, it met my requirements: it looked easy, and it looked tasty.

The idea behind the recipe was to make a “healthier” dessert, using low-fat milk and yogurt. Because Oliver will (hopefully) be partaking in this concoction (and he needs all the fat and calories he can get), the low-fat milk was replaced with full-fat, and I found the fattiest yogurt available at Safeway (not an easy task in the land of low-fat/no-fat everything).  Apparently apples contain something healthy called phytonutrients, I happen to think apples are tasty, and Oliver enjoys them so any extra benefits are a bonus.

I posted about my plans to make apple clafouti on twitter, within moments Gavin hollered downstairs “You’re making apple WHAT!?” I’m not sure how to pronounce clafouti either.

I finally got around to printing the recipe today, and decided to give it a try.

I made a few modifications, I used two heaping tablespoons of brown sugar, instead of the recommended “light brown sugar, preferably organic.” I used a small tub of full-fat greek yogurt, and whole milk. I also left the peels on the apples, because I loathe peeling them. I’m pretty sure the ceramic dish I used was not designed specifically for clafouti, looking at photos I probably should’ve used something wider and shallower.

As I was caramelizing the apples praise came from above. Gavin hollered from the office “Something smells really good!” Hopefully it tastes as good as it smells. We will be waiting until after dinner this evening to dig in (or possible breakfast tomorrow, depending on how the evening goes).

the clafouti fresh from the oven, it has since fallen

I don’t remember exactly when I snagged this recipe, but it was well before I hit my 20-article a month limit.

Update (later 4-11-11):

The clafouti was still slightly warm to the touch when I cut into it. The batter formed a slightly springy crust over the apples, which slid around and attempted to escape the spoon.

A few notes to self: use a larger, shallower baking dish so the apples bake into the crust instead of parallel to it; find some sort of spice to put in the batter, it is a little bland, although baking it with the apples in it might make a difference. The apple peels make no difference and provide a nice bit of structure for the apples.

Overall, I would say it is a most excellent dish, although I think I will withhold final judgement until I see how it holds up overnight in the fridge and being reheated for breakfast.

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The original recipe called them Easter Hunt Cookies, because the m&ms looked like Easter eggs hiding in the grass, mine lack the green food coloring, so they look more like something the Easter Bunny might’ve dropped in the grass (other than eggs). I think I also used too many m&ms (if there is such a thing), because several of the cookies seem to be made entirely of m&m and just barely held together by the tiniest amount of dough possible.

Oliver loves them. Gavin dislikes peanut butter cookies.

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It has been a while since I’ve shared any recipes I’ve made. Today I felt inspired to do make a modified version of a recipe my online-buddy CookieChef* shared a while back for Praline Apple Bread.

I made a few changes, some intentional, and some accidental. I intentionally cut back the sugar to 1/2 a cup, and left out the pecans and praline topping because nuts are still tricky for Oliver to eat, he can, until he gets distracted. I tossed in a few hand-fulls of crasins instead. I also made two smaller loaves so I could freeze one for later.

I accidentally doubled the amount of apple the recipe called for, I wrote down 1 1/2 lbs instead of 1 1/2 cups. Oops.

Thanks to the doubling of the apples, the bread is very moist, and a little crumbly to cut. It’s quite good, so I’m going to stash this recipe away for later and try it again with the praline topping.

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Oliver turned two on Thursday. Two is a huge milestone (especially when you’ve only been around for 2 years) so we had to find a fitting way to celebrate. Last year I made carrot cake cupcakes, this year I’ve decided to go skip the “healthy” facade of carrot cake and go for chocolate cupcakes with sprinkles, because sprinkles make everything that much cooler.

I used Martha Stewart’s One Bowl Chocolate Cake recipe, and accompanying Chocolate Frosting. I did not make my own sprinkles!

Tomorrow will bring the Demise of the Cupcakes, photos to follow.

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