Cleaning out the fridge

Put 'em Up! Fruit

6 of 171 recipes...

49 to go...

Turkey day TreaTs!

Put 'em Up! Fruit

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55 to go...

Cranberry Quince Preserves &

Filled Crêpes

Welcome to the first of a few recipes that feature the fruit Quince.  I spent many hours looking for the beautifully fragrant fruit and thanks to our hometown Kowalski's I found the hard to find fruit.

This pear/apple like fruit softens up within 25 minutes and because of the very high pectin levels, the preserve set incredibly fast.  To finish up this pairing, making the crêpes was a fun treat on Thanksgiving morning because I made them with my dad.  The flavors were really good, but the experience of this recipe was awesome.

Frozen Berries &

Double Berry Pie

Four different types of berries were piled high in my freeze for months, as I was waiting to make this dessert until Thanksgiving; and the wait was worth it.  It made a great holiday addition to the dessert table, right next to the mini cheesecakes (see below) and homemade caramels.  This pie was tart due to the ratio of cranberries over the other berries: raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries; but with the addition of fresh, sweet whipped cream it was fantastic.  

Side note: my dad topped with the sweetened cream cheese and raved about it, I didn't try it thought.

Pear and Honey Preserves &

Mini Pear and Walnut Cheesecakes

These were one of those recipes that I put off continually because they seemed time consuming; but I was missing out!  These little bits did take a little bit of time to prepare and set up, but not difficult to do at all.  I'd love to try a full flavor berry jam, as I think that might make them pop a little more.

Quine Syrup &

Quince Kiss Cocktail

Sweet Sweet Sweet!  Tasty if you looking for a sugar shock.  Perhaps a chardonnay over a pinot grigio would have been a better route with this recipe.

COOK ON!

WIN or LOSE...Cook on!

Put 'em Up! Fruit

8 of 171 recipes...

63 to go...

I've enjoyed experimenting in my kitchen with the recipes out of this book, and I'm very thankful for all the wonderful dishes that we've been able to indulge and savor.  I began to write little blurbs for all the following recipes and deleted them because none of them were positive or constructive; rather than explain in detail that what I didn't like and only write a little sentence of what I didn't enjoy.

Grapefruit Sections in Lavender Syrup &

Vanilla Custard

The vanilla custard was yummy and stayed in fridge for a couple days and was still just as yummy as the first day.

 Maraschino Cherries &

Momma's Manhattan

Cherry infused vodka is the final product from the maraschino cherries recipe and the vodka mixed with soda water is outstanding.  The cherries reminded me of a wapatui from high school.  I have a lot of vodka leftover, please share any yummy recipes.

Peach BBQ Mop &

Sticky Ribs

The 'low & slow' method used to cook these ribs made them ultra tender.  

Berry Apple Leather &

Stained Glass Cookies

The fruit leather reminded me of a fruit roll-up.  They were a hit with the boys in the house.

Cook on!

Who's hungry?

Put 'em Up! Fruit

4 of 171 recipes...

71 to go...

As this project nears the end, I'm taking great pleasure in paper clipping the sections closed.  Each of these recipes are the last recipes in these respective sections.  I have six paper clips in my book of cooks; and will keep cooking.  If you'd like to join me on a Sunday or Monday (generally) and eat to your heart's content; please join me.  We have food flooding our refrigerator.  Thank you...

...and now back to your regularly scheduled programming...

Black Bean Panini with 

Tomato Chutney

The recipe for the tomato chutney was simple and straight forward; add all ingredients in a pot and simmer for 30 mins (my only adjustment: I x-ed out the mustard seeds because, through this journey, I've learned that I don't enjoy them).  The panini was super tasty, especially with some shaved ham squished in there.  
There is leftover chutney, and I'll either use it like salsa or make some more paninis for the car ride up to see my pops; either way this stuff will NOT go to waste!

Peel and Pip Pectin &
Farmstead Cheese Wrap with Earl Grey Jelly

Holy hell people, please learn from my mistake...secure your jelly bag well!!  Otherwise a huge, BIG, monstrous mess will be all over your walls, ceiling, and cupboards when the bag plops into you pectin below it!!  My ceiling is now clean, however it has spots of a beautiful tint of red apple.  Hopefully you've learned a thing or two from this episode of D.A.S.H.

Because of my little issue, I yielded only two cups of pectin rather than four; and for that I could only make the earl grey jelly rather than that AND herb jelly (a similar jelly that had thyme and wine in it; but because I don't like thyme, I'm okay with this).  
I was surprised that I already had all the ingredients for the farmstead wrap from past recipes; this has been a rarity.  The wrap was ultra simple to make, however while making the wrap I noticed that I probably overcooked the earl grey jelly by a couple minutes.  It was a little extra stiff than wanted or expected.  Regardless there was good flavor from the tea to the jelly which complimented the cheese and greens nicely. 

The app, entree, and de55ert...

Put 'em Up! Fruit

6 of 171 recipes...

75 to go...

Quick Rhubarb Jam &
Skillet Cornbread with Rhubarb Orange Sauce

Rhubarb + sugar = greatness!!  'nough said, right?  
No!  I'd like to take this time to give a big shout out to my friend, Susan, for gifting me her stoneware that, coincidentally, contained cornbread from our BACON party we hosted back in August.   Thank you!
Now time to critique the recipes.  Jam was awesome.  The cornbread was a tad bit dense, but I'm a sucker for cornbread regardless.  I'll make this again cornbread again, however I'll be adding a little jazz and pazazz to it next time.

Whole Canned Tomatoes &
Quick Marinara

Yesterday I made a recipe that called for me to blanch some tomatoes, similar to this recipe;  I now know how to properly do it, unlike how I did it for this recipe.  Canning these tomatoes was tough because I didn't follow the directions the first time.  Lesson learned!
A recipe for marinara is great, sadly there was no amazing recipe to use the marinara so I got creative by adding some chorizo & bell peppers which was a home run mix.  Unfortunately the quinoa pasta that I made to go with it topped with blue cheese was edible but not good.  For leftovers, I used this mix and made a breakfast burrito...SO GOOD!

Limoncello & 
Lemon Pepper Martini

When my girls and I were in Italy together, Limoncello was enjoyed on a daily basis with dinner.  I was excited to make this for that reason, but I had a feeling that I might not enjoy this because I didn't care for it in Italy either; I was an odd ball and thought it tasted & smelled like floor cleaner.  My opinion hasn't changed.  But the process was pretty cool.  I sealed a jar air tight, suspending the lemons over everclear for six months (that's rihgt, I started this one in April) creating a greenhouse effect; which gave me a concentrated lemon flavor liquor.  Add in some sugar and water, and it's it.
Shayne drank it, but I don't think he enjoyed it though.   

THANK YOU!

'JUST DO IT'

Put 'em Up! Fruit

6 of 171 recipes...

81 to go...

Savory Cranberry Relish &
Blue Cheese Biscuits

Thanks to my journey with this book, I now know that I'm not the biggest fan of mixing mustard seeds with fruit based relishes; however, after the flavor settled on my palate, the relish and biscuits complimented each other very well.  Everything was super easy to make, especially the biscuits; which were not as fluffy and moist as I thought they were going to be, but still tasty.  My boyfriend, Shayne, didn't share the same opinion.  He absolutely loved every minute eating this stuff, even the leftovers were enjoyed.

Avalanche Sauce &
Fish Poached in Tomato Sauce

Using our new and exciting stainless steal food mill to crush the oven roasted tomatoes was less eventful, but the product was yummy and healthy; the ONLY healthy recipe in this book without sugar.  Within twenty minutes: vegetables were sauteed, tomato sauce has thickened, and the tilapia was poached.  Very unsure about this dish, Shayne and I plopped our butts on the couch where we found out that Shayne likes fish and I was on the fence.  After a few bites, it eventually grew on me, but it wasn't exciting.

Rhubarb Ginger Cordial & 
Rhubarb Gimlet

WOW!!  Rhubarb ginger cordial is a fantasy way of describing infused vodka.  I don't care what name it's given because this stuff is smooth and tasty.  'WOW' is the first word I thought to myself when I sampled the cordial after weeks sitting and infusing in the fridge (recipe only calls for one week, but I didn't get to this stuff until a couple weeks later).
The 'USE IT UP!' recipe is a rhubarb gimlet that completely washed out the amazing flavor of the outstanding cordial I waited weeks to try.  With a 1/2 ounce of lemon juice, this cocktail tasted like floor cleaner to me.  Working with simplicity, Shayne and I mixed the remaining (all of it) cordial with orange flavored soda water and that was dreamy.

THANK YOU!

I'll CURRY you to the END

Put 'em Up! Fruit

8 of 171 recipes...

87 to go...

There is under two months to complete my 2014 New Year's resolution (which, if you just joined the show, is to complete all the recipes in Put 'em Up! Fruit), and I have sadly come to the realization that I won't be able to finish all the recipes in this book due to  my lack of research of when certain fruits were in season.  I could use frozen fruit for some of the recipes, but there is one fruit that has me stumped.  QUINCE, I can't find this fruit anywhere.  If someone can help me, I'm open for any ideas.

To get as close as I can to triumph over a book that has simply taught me how to cook, I'll keep cooking on...

I'm clustering recipes together again because I'd rather keep cooking than writing to finish this project.

Pear and Prune Compote & 

Turkey Curry

In two words: HELL YES.  There are a couple home runs in this book thus far; both of these recipes separately are outstanding.  I mixed the pear and prune compote with yogurt this morning and I had curry leftovers for dinner tonight for dinner; but together the mix of flavors when hot danced on my pallet like Romeo and Juliet would have.

Pears Poached in Wine & 

Hearty Greens with Poached Pears

I'm a wine-o and I enjoy my fruit, though I wasn't sure how this recipe would turn out.  With my b.s. radar on high, I made a beautiful salad with a homemade vinaigrette, blue cheese, and toasted pecans (rather than toasted walnuts, per the recipe, because the pecans were on hand) paired with a amazing flavor of arugula and poached pears.  This salad was awesome.
  

Peach Melba Compote & 

English Meringues

Hello sugar, topped with sugar, served with a side of sugar.  This recipes was overly sweet and hard to eat because it was so stinkin sweet.  They are both good separately, but together the level of sweetness was too much for me.

Berry Jelly & 

Berry Vinaigrette

The berry jelly takes some time to prepare because you have to wait for the berries to drain; and for that, I expected this stuff to be awesome and sadly it fell short.  I had the recipe for the 'Use it Up' vinaigrette, but I wanted something special to add the vinaigrette to rather than building my own salad.  Overall, the mix was tasty; I make a damn good salad.

THANK YOU!