Apples and Pears, Oh My! Part 1

This past weekend, my mom visited me and brought about a half a water bucket of pears, and a little less of apples from our ancient trees back home.  Back in the 1970's, when my parents bought the small farm that I grew up on, there was already an antique apple tree and two pear trees.  One of the pear trees and the apple tree still exist.  There are two other apple trees of six planted by my parents.  

The pears are a Kieffer Pear (cooking pear), that, while tasty raw, have a grainy texture.  Apparently it grows well both in the south and in the north.  It is usually used for canning.  Our horses also love them.  The apple tree produces tart Macintosh like apples with a soft milky texture.  They make a great apple sauce.  Of course our trees go unsprayed, so everything is edible.  

My mom gathered the fruit about a week before visiting me (right before the great October snow storm of 2011).  Therefore, I had to prepare it for storage quickly before it spoiled, and in a manner that is not labor intensive, given that I do not have time for making mincemeat or pies.  

Unsprayed, our fruit looks "unattractive," but this means that it is 

healthier to eat. 

Taking a cue from a similar dilemma that a friend of mine had a few weeks ago, I made pear butter and apple butter.  This normally labor intensive task can be made simple by using a crock-pot.  

First up:

Pear Butter with Ginger and Clove

Cooking Pears

1/4-1/2 cup real lemon juice

Organic Apple Juice - no sugar added  (I used Apple and Eve brand)

fresh minced or grated ginger (or dry if you want) [I keep ginger that I grated in a jar submersed in sherry in the fridge.]

ground cloves

1. Peel, core, and chop up pears.  Use lemon juice to minimize oxidation while you work.
2. Put in crock-pot.  You should go no higher than within an inch of the top.  I used a 5.5 quart crock-pot.
3. Add enough apple juice to reach the top level of pears, but you do not need to cover. You can add some water if you do not have quite enough juice.
4. Add ginger and cloves to taste.  I used about three tablespoons of my ginger sherry mixture (not the measuring spoon tablespoon, but the real tablespoon) and 1/8 heaping tablespoon ground cloves.
5. Cook on low for up to 19 hours (assuming that you are sleeping or out of the house, otherwise you can use high).  Make sure to prop the lid slightly open to vent and let out moisture.  If you are doing a smaller batch, you can reduce time accordingly.  The whole mixture should reduce by about 1/3 before making your puree. 
6. Run through a food mill or blender, and return sauce to crock-pot.
7. Reduce by at least half or until you have a spreadable fruit sauce that is not runny.  You can use high or low depending on if you will be there to watch it.  (I ran it on high while I was up and low overnight.)
8. Store in airtight containers in freezer or fridge.  

Starting out, the crock-pot if filled to within one inch of the top, and

the lid is propped open by a wooden spoon.

Nineteen hours on low, the volume has dropped by a third, and 

the edges have browned.  (I do stir it occasionally, but here it has been

sitting all day while I was out.)

A couple of hours after passing through a food mill, the sauce has been reducing on high.

I turned it back to low before I went to bed.

The fruit butter is ready after reducing overnight on low.

Fruit butter after stirring.  Looking just right.

Quick Bread on a Whim

I had the itch to bake, so I made the following based on what I had available.  Ingredients in parenthesis are suggestions for alternate ingredients that I have not tested.

Poppy Seed Bread (Dairy-Free, Gluten-Free, Soy-Free)

Preheat oven at 350°F.  Grease a 9x5 loaf pan with preferred shortening.  

Blend together:

• 1 - 12.5 oz. can of poppy seed filling (OR 1-2 cups poppy seeds and 1/2 cup sugar of choice [may need to adjust volume of flour] OR equivalent volume of homemade filling)
• 1 cup almond milk
• 1/4 cup lemon juice (OR apple cider vinegar)
• (optional lemon zest to make a lemon poppy seed loaf)
• 2 eggs (or equivalent substitute for binding)
• 1 tbsp. vanilla extract (You can leave out if you are using another flavoring extract like: lemon extract OR almond extract.)
• 1/2 cup grape seed oil

Blend until seeds are well dispersed.

Sift together:

• 2 cups sorghum flour
• 1 cup brown rice flour
• 1 tbsp. xanthan gum (or 1/2 tbsp. guar gum)
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• dash of salt (You can leave this out if you are watching salt intake.  The baking powder adds sodium.)

Flour can be roughly measured.  Stir into wet mixture.  It will not be batter like, but will not be very stiff.  It will be like a soft cookie dough.  

Pat into pan with spatula.  

Bake for 1 hour.  The top will be golden and knife inserted will come out clean.  Completely cool before slicing.  

The bread will rise nicely and have a nice fine crumb.  Enjoy with you favorite spread!

Poached Egg and Probiotics

Since giving up dairy I went looking for a new source of probiotics in an edible form of course.  One of the first I have tried is miso.  I did a google search for soy-free, gluten-free miso and found South River Miso.  They have three varieties that are both soy-free and gluten-free, and each of them is good.  My favorite is the Azuki Bean Miso stirred into hot water and drunk like tea.  I use the Garlic Red Pepper Miso in salad dressing.  It is great to have a rich tasting dressing for salad again.  I use the Garbanzo Bean Miso in the recipe below.

All of their miso contains live culture, so they only ship during the cool months of the year.  See their website for a shipping schedule.  It costs a bit up front, but if used in moderation the miso will last a while.  This was a product worth waiting for.  

Poached-Egg in Miso Broth (Gluten-Free, Soy-Free, Dairy-Free)

Serving 1-2 (one meal or two sides)  You can easy increase this for more servings as needed. 

2-3 celery stalks chopped

2 small onions diced.

olive oil

sesame oil

hot water

1-2 eggs

2-3 tbsp. miso

1. In pot or pan, add olive oil and sesame oil to taste.  Heat on medium-low heat and add chopped veggies.  Cook until onions are soft.  Celery can still be crunchy when soup is ready.
2. Add hot water until the veggies are not quite covered (or a little more if making for two) and gently boil for a few minutes.
3. Take off the heat and turn heat back to low.  Once broth settles, stir in miso and return to heat.  Do not go above a simmer once the miso has been added!
4. Cover and simmer for one minute.  
5. Form a well in center (or one for each egg) of pot by pushing veggies to sides and add egg.  Cover and cook egg.  I like my yolk super soft, so I flipped the egg with a rubber spatula rather than letting it cook sunny side up.

You can probably get a prettier more presentable egg if you use more water for your broth, but for my purposes, this method worked just fine.  The main part of the egg stayed intact and there were some extraneous bits of white floating about.