When life gives you apricots, make apricot jam!

Our tree went a little crazy! Our super nanny had the great idea to make jam with the girls. Here's what happened.

 

Cut them up

 

Cook

 

Blend and then cook a little more

 

Sterilize

 

Fill and, not shown is the cooking of the jars after the jam is inside. You stick the filled jars in water and boil for 10 minutes. This is the essential step to insure the food is properly canned! See directions below.

 

Cool and enjoy!

Here are the complete directions from our super nanny:

Cut them into pieces (8 Cups to be exact), put them in the pan with 1/4 cup lemon juice, and I used 4.5 cups of sugar (the recipe said 6!) (Note, Natalie I made this again with low sugar pectin and used what the amount of pectin and 3 cups of sugar.)

Stir them as they cook, once they boil set a time for about 30 minutes and stir often, otherwise the sugar will stick and burn.

Once its done it will look slightly chunky (but because I didn't think the girls would like it with chunks) so I put it in the blender for 5-7 seconds.

While the fruit was cooking I sterilized the canning jars in boiling water, you put them in for 10 minutes. (You can sterilize them in the dish washer but we didn't have time to do so.)

Once the jar are done let them cool and they are VERY hot! Once the jars are cool enough for touch and the jam is done FILL them up about 4/5 of the way leaving a little room at the top--(just fill to the bottom of the place where the lid screws on.

After you pour them in the jars that have been sterilized you put them back in the water; once the water boils you set a timer for 10 minutes and let them can.

Then you have JAM!!! Let them sit for a day to cool and Enjoy!!

Note again...SO YUMMY. Thanks, Chelsea! I followed her directions and made it again with Natalie. We also made a lot of apricot crisps. Now, we are a little sick of apricots. Next year, our plan is to make jam and to freeze apricots all cut up so we can make jam later in the year (or crisps). 

vegan umami

I'm not sure what to call this except, YUM, vegan umami!

It doesn't taste like bacon, but that's what One Ingredient Chef, who inspired the recipe, was trying to create. One Ingredient Chef made his version of "bacon" with tempeh. I tried the recipe his way and it was good, reminiscent of bacon, but a little too time consuming around here. I'm all about easy and fast!

I have a lot of these:

And decided they would be an excellent way to use his marinade, and that it would be a lot faster to not have to cut anything.

I used a pack of the soy curls. I put them in a 9x11 baking pan and spread them out. I poured a cup of boiling water on them and stirred them around. (Pour the water slowly and make sure it's not too much. You want to soften them but not soak them. If you need a little more, add it.) Sprinkle the soy curls with onion powder (about 1/2 to 1 teaspoon), and garlic powder (about the same amount).

Next pour on the following:

1/2  cup Maple Syrup
1/2 cup Tamari
1 tablespoon of smoked paprika

Stir and let soak in the yummy marinade for 10-15 minutes.

Cook, in a frying pan, for 10 - 15 minutes, while stirring well. (I cooked in two batches.) The edges of the soy curls will get crispy. Because the soy curls are pretty thick, they weren't going to get really crispy throughout.

While they were cooking I spooned on another teaspoon or two of smoked paprika. Mix the smoked paprika in well as you stir the soy curls.

The smoked paprika is really essential to make this tasty and a little more bacon-like. Make sure you get the smoked kind of paprika! I had to hunt for it in the store, but it was definitely worth the hunt.

 
Cooking!


 
And then I made a salad with a yummy umami topping (I ate mine this way).


And I made the other four people in the house a yummy sandwich--reminiscent of a BLT.

Rating: 5 out 5 of us liked this! It was a fun Sunday night dinner. I made a second batch the same way so we have leftovers for lunch!

Momba v2

I'm always changing things up, trying to get more veggies in and to make things more whole-foods-ish. (I don't think that's a word, but I'm sticking with it.) The last time I gave you my green shake recipe I did it a little differently. This year, it evolved. We still drink this every night as an appetizer for dinner. A salad in a cup!

This serves 5
2 carrots
1/4 -1/2 cup of raw almonds
1 banana
2-3 cups frozen kale (or 2-3 cups packed fresh kale)
10-16 ounces of water (adding a mixture of ice and water is good--more ice makes it thick. You do need enough water to blend it all though, so it's a careful dance)
4-5 teaspoons of Calcium powder (see pictures below)*

Blend well
Now add:
10-16 ounces of frozen strawberries
(I sometimes stick in apples, or other fruit.)
Add more ice if you need to for thickness.

2 of us drink it this way, so we serve up two 12 -14 ounce servings in 2 glasses.
Then  we add 2-3 tablespoons of chocolate chips and blend again (well) and serve up another 12-14 ounces; now all 3 vegan have their green drink.
Next, we "doctor it up" for the 2 remaining non-vegans who like to add a little yogurt and whey.**

I'll try to get pictures of Momba blended up someday. I forgot!

 

*We started adding calcium (both calcium citrate and calcium with magnesium) to our smoothies because we weren't sure if the girls were getting enough calcium in their diet. It's TOTALLY easy to get enough protein. Calcium is harder to get, especially for growing girls who don't eat enough greens. 

**Yeah, I wish that we had 5 vegans in the house, but the two non-vegans are cute.