Dang, I’ve been all domestic lately! LOL!! My friends and family keep telling me, “Diana, you are becoming quite domestic.” I never quite know what to think of that, lol! I take it as a compliment My latest domestic challenge came from Steph Chow’s Jam Exchange. For this exchange I wanted to do something special, something a little different. I’d been thinking about making my own pectin for quite some time after having realized that it only takes apples. Having eyed an apple tree in my neighborhood, I decided it would be the perfect time to make a new friend, hehehe, and make my first batch of apple pectin to use for this exchange. I knocked on my neighbors door and he allowed me to pick some underripe apples needed in order to make the pectin. I walked away with a full bag of apples and a huge smile on my face

Ingredients:
(This recipe makes 4 cups of apple pectin)

• 8lbs underripe apples or crab apples, sliced. Keep the cores and all!
• 8 cups water  (1 pint of water for every pound of apples)

Method:

1. In a large dutch oven, bring 8 cups water to a boil.
2. Add the apples (skins and cores), to the water and boil for 20 minutes.
3. Stir. Apples should be soft and falling apart.
4. Lower the heat and simmer for an additional 20 minutes.
5. Strain the juice through a cheesecloth, tea towel, or t-shirt in a large pot or bucket.

   

6. Let this sit for a few hours or overnight, until all the liquid is seperated from the pulp.

   

Test The Pectin

1. Add alcohol to a small bowl
2. Add a spoonful or more of cooled down pectin to the alcohol
3. If the alcohol turns into a jelly blob, the pectin should jell your jam
4. If it doesn’t jell, and runs loosely through your fork, you will need to boil your pectin down some more.

Preserve

• The pectin can now be preserved by canning in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. Will save up to a year!

Here is a video on how I tested my pectin!

To use:  4 cups of homemade pectin replaces 3 ounces of commercial liquid pectin in most recipes.

This was alot of fun to make. Now I’m anxious to harvest my husband’s crab apple tree at work!!

This post is a part of the first annual Nourishing Jams, Jellies, Preserves and More Blog Hop.

As much as I hate seeing summer coming to an end, I love this part of the year because it’s time to preserve and can, can, can! I’m just beginning to harvest my tomatoes, however, with so many gardening buddies, I usually end up with excess tomatoes, peppers, and zuchinni’s. This past week, a friend gave me an entire bag of fresh tomatoes. Before they spoiled, I whipped up a batch of homemade spaghetti sauce to eat and freeze for the winter. The best part about preserving homemade sauce is knowing where all of your ingredients came from. In my sauce, everything except the olive oil, either came from my garden or from my friends at the farmers market. 99% organic, Iowa spaghetti sauce. Yeah, baby!! (1%, Spanish Olive Oil)

Homemade Spaghetti Sauce
This recipe makes enough sauce to freeze two, 24oz bags

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 2 onions, chopped (fresh from my garden)
• 8 garlic cloves pressed or minced (fresh from Tom and Mary Cory, Cory’s Lamb)
• 6 tablespoons, chopped fresh thyme leaves (fresh from my garden)
• 3 medium carrots, finely shredded (fresh from Yang’s chemical free in Pella)
• 13 – 15 tomatoes, chopped – (fresh from my garden and a friends backyard garden)

Method:

1. In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat.
2. Add the onion and garlic an cook until the onion is soft and transparent, about 8 – 10 minutes.
3. Add the thyme and carrot and cook 5 – 8 minutes more or until the carrots are soft.
4. Add the tomatoes and simmer until they start to break down.
5. Once they start to break down, with a potatoe masher, mash them to release the rest of their juices.

   

6. Bring to a boil, stirring often.
7. Lower the heat and simmer for 30 – 40 minutes until the sauce thickens.
8. Use on your favorite pasta or when the sauce cools down, freeze for later use.

   

Readers: So sorry!! I forgot to add to this post the most important part about soaking grains and whole flours, adding an acid medium such as cultured whey, yogurt, kefir, apple cider vinegar or lemon juice. A post is in the works about soaking grains!!

I’m so excited to share this recipe. A couple weeks ago, I made a Greek dinner for the fam! Homemade lamb gyro’s with homemade pita bread and homemade tzatziki sauce. It was so fun to have made everything at home including the greek yogurt for the sauce. The pita bread was especially fun to make. I found my original recipe from Brown Eyed Baker. It turned out just right and was so fun to watch it “puff” in the oven. After making this, I knew I wanted to try a soaked version using whole wheat spelt flour. It took a few tries to get the recipe to puff just right, as the dough tends to get moist in the soaking process. So after different trials and different variations in ingredients, I finally was able to get my pita’s to puff just right creating that pocket. They were warm, earthy and perfect for our BLT’s! Now that I’ve gotten them to puff I would like to add a bit more honey and maybe Vital Wheat Gluten to get these babies to rise a bit more. For the meantime, here is a recipe of what I’ve done and a video to show you how they puff like magic in the oven!

Soaked, Whole Wheat Spelt Pita Bread

Makes 7 Pitas

Ingredients:

• 3 cups whole wheat or spelt flour
• 1 tablespoon acid medium such as whey, yogurt, or kefir and enough water to equal 3/4 cups.
• 2 tablespoons coconut or extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 2 tsp water, temperature 110-115F
• 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Method:

The night before:

1. In a large mixing bowl mix the flour, 3/4 cup water and oil. Let it sit overnight covered with a dish towel on your counter or in your oven.
   This is what the flour looks like “soaked.”

   

2. The next day, activate your yeast. In a small bowl add 1tsp of honey, 2tsp of 110 – 115F water, and the yeast. Let sit for 8 -10 minutes or until the yeast has bubbled.
3. Add the yeast mixture and salt to the dough and incorporate by mixing with a wooden spoon.
4. Once everything is mixed, turn your dough onto a floured work surface and begin to knead. Knead for 10 minutes adding a bit more flour as necessary. You want your dough to be elastic and not stick to your counter. However, the dough will be slightly stickier.
5. Once you are done kneading the dough, place in a bowl that has been light coated with oil. Cover and set aside to rise for 90 minutes.

   

6. When it has doubled in size, punch the dough down divide it into 7 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball, cover the balls with a damp kitchen towel, and let them rest for 20 minutes. This step allows the dough to relax so that it’ll be easier to shape.
7. While the dough is resting, preheat the oven to 450 degrees. If you have a baking stone, put it in the oven to preheat. If you do not have a baking stone, turn a cookie sheet upside down and place it on the middle rack of the oven while you are preheating the oven. This will be the surface on which you bake your pitas.
8. After the dough has relaxed for 20 minutes, spread a light coating of flour on parchment paper. Sprinkle a little bit of flour on top of the dough, transfer to the parchment paper and use a rolling pin to stretch and flatten the dough. You should be able to roll it out to between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick – 6 inches in diameter. If the dough does not stretch sufficiently you can cover it with the damp towel and let it rest 5 to 10 minutes before trying again.

   

9. Keep the discs on the parchment paper and let rise, uncovered, until barely doubled in thickness, about 30-45 minutes.
10. Once the discs have risen for the last time, place a pita on the hot baking surface in the oven. They should be baked through and puff after 3 – 5 minutes.

    

Orange cranberry scones are my favorite morning pastry when meeting clients at coffee shops. Crumbly, buttery with a pinch of tartness. I havn’t had a coffee shop meeting in awhile and my cravings have started to hit an all time high. I decided to try my hand at baking my own. YIKES, I know!! I’m CRAZY like that, lol!! I’ve been trying my hand lately at baking and have been having so much fun experimenting through trial and error. I’m happy to say, these turned out great! My kids loved them as well as my parents. This was huge as my parents are not big on whole wheat, however, they didn’t notice or mention a wheat flavor at all. The soaking period really tamed the whole wheat down and the orange zest and juice really knocked these scones out of the park! I hope you enjoy them!!

Soaked Whole Wheat Orange Cranberry crème fraîche Scones

Ingredients:

• 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 6 tbls chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 2 tbls Raw Honey from Wholesome Sweeteners
• 2/3 cup chilled homemade crème fraîche or sour cream
• 2/3 cup cranberries
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 – 3 tbls fresh grated orange peel (zest)
• 2 farm fresh eggs
• freshly squeezed orange juice from 1/2 of an orange
• Raw sugar to garnish

Method:

The night before baking…

1. In a large mixing bowl add the whole wheat flour and with your fingertips rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine meal.
2. Stir in the honey, creme fraiche, acid medium and cranberries.
3. Soak overnight in the refrigerator. (You want to keep the butter cold)
   
   

   (I’m definitely going to have to write a post on why I’ve been soaking my whole wheat flour. In the meantime, Lindsay at Passionate Homemaking really does a great job at detailing the value of soaking your grains, according to Sue Gregg.)

The next day…

1. Take the mixing bowl out of the refrigerator and break up. It will be hard but as it gets warmer it will start to break down.
2. Separate 1 egg; place white in a small bowl and reserve for later. Place the yolk in a seperate bowl.
3. Whisk the whole egg, yolk, salt, orange juice, and orange zest.
4. Gently add to the flour mixture. You do not need to overmix.
5. Turn the dough onto a floured work surface.
6. Divide the dough in half.
7. Press each half into 6-inch round about 1/2 inch thick.

   

8. Cut each round into 6 wedges.
9. Beat reserved white until foamy; brush over wedges.
10. Sprinkle with sugar.
11. Transfer wedges to baking sheet, spacing 1 inch apart.
12. Bake scones until pale golden and toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, about 25 minutes.
    (I almost forgot to mention. Bake on a baking stone!)
13. Serve scones warm or at room temperature with fresh jam and crème fraîche.