Food&Recipes – Mary's Musings

Dehydrating Pineapple and Zucchini

The last few days, when I needed a distraction, I decided to get the dehydrator ready for garden season. I look forward to planning what we’ll be canning, freezing and dehydrating. I also had fun with a new canning tool.

It all started with an ad for a tool, called a masongenie, that would suck out the air in a canning jar to seal it…as a way to preserve dry goods, like cereal, rice, beans or dried fruit. It looked pretty simple and could be used to re-seal the jar after using some of the contents. (NOTE: This is not a substitute for regular canning processes of raw, uncooked produce.)

I thought it might substitute for my usual way of taking the air out of a jar with little packets of “oxygen absorbers.”

They worked, but if I opened the jar to use some of the contents, they had trouble sealing the jar again.

The masongenie works with regular-mouth and wide-mouth jars. It can be charged with a USB connection and can seal most jars in 60 seconds.

I started with a partial bag of rice just to give it a try. In 60 seconds, the lid sealed and I could put the jar on the shelf. Looked much better than the wrinkled bag of rice and should keep the rice fresher. Now, when I use some, I can easily reseal the jar.

Of course now I looked around to see what else I could seal! I got distracted with the package of dried bananas we had been snacking on. When we read the packet, it said, “Made in China!” Yikes! Certainly, we could do better than that. I started thinking about other snacks I could make in the dehydrator.

I understand these bananas were freeze-dried…which is something I can’t do with my dehydrator. However, I can do regular dehydrated bananas. I didn’t want to go to the store to buy them right then, but I did have cans of pineapple that could be cut up and dried. They might make a good snack until I could buy bananas!

With the can of chunk pineapple, I cut each chunk in half to make it thinner and laid them out on my dehydrator tray. I had several cans of pineapple slices so I cut them into quarters and laid them on trays. Frankly, the slices worked best!

I filled three trays and started the dehydrator…135 degrees for about 16 hours!

The dehydrator ran all night until noon the next day! Delicious!

The pineapple is the first of several fruits I’ll experiment with…this batch is going into the fridge…the pieces were too big to bother putting in a jar!

Dehydrating Zucchini

Now that I had the dehydrator ready to go, I decided to work with the 4 medium zucchini I had on the counter. I use zucchini in a sausage/tortellini soup recipe, but I never seem to have zucchini at the time I want to make the soup. So…time to chop zucchini. Thinking ahead…that I wanted to dry the zucchini and store it in mason jars…I peeled the zucchini and cut it into small cubes. I filled up 4 trays with zucchini cubes.

When dried, the chunks were pretty tiny, but all four zucchini made about 1 cup of dehydrated chunks! Next time, I won’t cut them so small.

I put a lid on the jar, set the masongenie on top and in 60 seconds the jar was sealed! I added the jar to my shelf!

I’ll let you know when more produce and dry goods make it to my shelf! Garden season 2025 is coming soon!

Recipe Bonanza

I seem to be a collector of recipes. By now, almost every other post I read on Facebook is a picture of some delicious-looking dish or baked good. Since I open these posts to read the ingredients, Facebook offers me more recipes! Of course.

I have found recipes in cookbooks written by various community and church groups as fundraisers. Recipes are in every newspaper and magazine I read. Sometimes the recipes are easy to follow; others have complicated steps or ingredients. Some cookbooks focus on a specific topic, like low-fat or vegan ingredients. I seem to gravitate to recipes that use basic ingredients…flour, eggs, sugar, etc. Other cookbooks focus on a kitchen appliance, like recipes for crockpots, air fryers and instant pots. I have those appliances but they are stored in cupboards. It has to be a recipe I really want to try to pull the appliance out to the kitchen counter.

I just found a link to a huge list of recipes compiled by two women for their church…The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints…the Mormans.

https://safelygatheredin2.blogspot.com

https://safelygatheredin2.blogspot.com/2008/11/alphabetical-recipe-list.html

It is similar to many other cookbooks offered by church groups with breakfast, main dishes and desserts, but the focus is on recipes that use the ingredients that can be found in long-term storage, like flour, sugar and rice. The church guides their members to store basic ingredients for 3-months, 6-months and beyond.

Their advice to have a stockpile of food and supplies is now a common suggestion for non-church members who just want to be prepared. Even the government suggests a 72-hour store in case of an emergency. It sounds unnecessary, unless you remember all the shortages we just went through with the Covid lockdowns!

The website also has links to how to store the ingredients, how to store enough water for emergencies and a list of tutorials that show How to Pressure Can, Make Whole Wheat Bread and Plan Your Garden, among other topics.

It appears the whole website was written in 2008 and 2009, but because the recipes are timeless…meaning they use basic ingredients and simple cooking appliances…they won’t go out of style when a new appliance is developed.

I searched the internet for the guidelines for food storage and I think the label “prepping” must have been first attributed to the Mormans as they suggest food storage. Now we can learn from their advice.

I think I’ll start experimenting with the recipes in the list. I’ll cite the website so you’ll know the recipe came from that blog. Enjoy!

Making Cinnamon Apple Cake

I seem to be on the lookout for Apple Cake recipes. I’m interested in recipes that use apples without having to roll out pie crust for apple pie or cut butter into tiny pieces like apple crisp topping. So far I’ve written about French Apple Cake (https://marykisner.com/making-french-apple-cake/) and German Apple Cake (https://marykisner.com/making-german-apple-cake/).

This recipe for Cinnamon Apple Cake looked easy but the recipe was not in my preferred format. The ingredients were not even listed in order of use so I ended up having to search the list of ingredients at every step to confirm amounts. When I was done mixing and put the pan in the oven…I realized I didn’t measure out the brown sugar correctly! No problem. The cake was delicious with less brown sugar so I corrected my recipe.

Here is my version of this recipe:

Here are the steps to make this delicious cake.

In a medium bowl, whisk 2 eggs and 1 cup of oil.

2. Measure out the cinnamon, white and brown sugars and vanilla extract. Add them to the bowl. (Original recipe called for 1 cup of brown sugar. I used 1/2 cup.)

3. Measure out the flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder and add to the bowl.

4. Chop 1 large apple (I had two small ones) and 1/2 cup of walnuts. Fold into the batter. This made a VERY stiff batter. Using a spatula, press the mixture into a round 9″ pan (sprayed with PAM).

5. After baking for 45 minutes, here is the cake! It obviously didn’t rise very much but it sure smelled up the house with cinnamon!

The directions said, wait 15 minutes to cut…but I will tell you…wait a little longer! The first piece sort of fell into crumbs when cut while warm:

When the cake was cool, it was much easier to cut!

This is when I knew I didn’t need that extra half-cup of brown sugar…it was sweet enough! I think this recipe for Cinnamon Apple Cake is a winner! Enjoy!

How to Make Gravy Like My Mother

My mother was the queen of depression-era cooking. Her meals weren’t fancy but they were frugal. She was married in 1935 and raised two kids during lean times while my dad was in college and finances were very tight. By the time I was born in 1946 our family was preparing to leave dad’s teaching job in New Jersey and move to State College and Penn State.

The lean times were finally in the past but my mother never let go of her efficient recipes and could make a meal out of a few leftovers. To this day, my favorite dish was her casserole that had some meat chunks, leftover vegetables and gravy topped with biscuits.

The Paul Bixby family around 1950

Somehow, I never watched how she made the gravy and I spent many years of my married life trying to duplicate those casseroles. I usually ended up with vegetable soup but could never seem to figure out how to make the broth into gravy. I often gave up and opened a jar of pre-made gravy or used a dry packet to make a cup of gravy.

A few years ago, I finally looked up on the internet how to make gravy and I’ve enjoyed being able to produce a nice gravy with juice left from cooking a roast in the crock pot or roasting chicken in the oven. Last week, I made a delicious chicken vegetable soup and wanted to convert it to my mother’s familiar casserole. I’d like to share the simple recipe with you.

How to Make Gravy

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons butter (or coconut oil, vegetable oil, olive oil, margarine or bacon fat)

1/4 cup all-purpose flour (or 2 tablespoons cornstarch)

2 cups chicken, beef, turkey or vegetable broth (or pan drippings…strained to remove gristle or fat)

Instructions:

In a medium-size saucepan, melt butter (or other fat) over medium high heat.
Whisk in flour (or cornstarch) until well combined and no white specks remain. Cook 2 minutes.
Slowly pour in broth and whisk well.
Bring to a simmer and heat until thickened to desired consistency, about 2 minutes, whisking constantly.

Making Gravy Out of Soup Broth

I started with a big bowl of my homemade chicken vegetable soup.

I pulled out my strainer and dumped the soup in to strain out the vegetables.

The recipe above is based on 2 cups of broth. You can see I had 3 cups of soup broth. So, I just increased the measurements of the fat and flour to make sure it would thicken properly.

I like to use coconut oil and all-purpose flour to make this gravy.

I measured out 3 tablespoons of coconut oil and melted it in the pan.

Then I added about 2/3 cup of all-purpose flour and stirred them together until all the flour was absorbed by the coconut oil.

Then, I added the soup broth to the oil/flour mixture and whisked until it was all combined. On medium heat, I stirred until it came to a boil, turned the heat down and stirred until it thickened…about a minute or two.

Finally, I added the gravy back to the vegetable soup and had the base for a chicken vegetable casserole!

Now for the biscuits! Of course, I had to try Bisquick like my mother used. She reminded me back then that in her high school Home Economics class she had memorized the ingredients to make biscuits from scratch and had usually done so. By the time I was born, she was thrilled to use Bisquick…such a time saver!

Luckily, I could use coconut milk (or almond milk) to make the biscuits. Of course, with the arthritis in my right hand, I had Bert mix up the biscuits. I just formed them into biscuit shapes and put them on a cookie sheet.

My mother would have spooned the raw biscuits on top of the gravy and vegetables and baked the casserole in the oven. I broke up a biscuit and spooned the hot gravy and vegetables on top of the biscuit. Worked for me!

Save this recipe and make your own gravy anytime! Enjoy!

What to do when the kitchen is off limits!

Yes! It’s that time again! For at least a week each December the kitchen is tied up with Bert’s marathon cookie baking! He makes about 170 pounds of dough and bakes about 140 dozen chocolate chip cookies. Of course, the refrigerator in the kitchen, the extra refrigerator in the basement and various tubs in the garage are packed with dozens of eggs, butter, flour, sugar and chocolate chips for a week before the mixing and baking begins.

Bert has been doing this for the last 60+ years so this is just a normal December for me. You can see the recipe and more photos in the two other posts I wrote about his yearly project:

https://marykisner.com/berts-yearly-cookie-marathon/ and

https://marykisner.com/kitchen-tied-up-with-cookies-and-bread/

Before I got out of the way this time, I planned ahead and made a batch of chicken salad and egg salad and got a loaf of bread out of the freezer so we could grab food for lunches around all the baking activities! There is no counter or table space available once he gets started!

While the kitchen is off limits for any baking I want to do, I took a few pictures of my ongoing projects in other spaces in the house.

In the dining room I’m keeping my microgreens growing. This batch of sunflowers is about ready to cut. They are not very thick because many of the seeds did not sprout. The seed was saved from last year and it is probably time to order some new seed. The peas (on the right) need a few more days to fill out.

In my sewing room, I have 4 greyhound coats to finish before Christmas. I have a TV to entertain me with the latest Christmas Hallmark movies!

In my sewing room, I also have my beads stored ready to finish a few bracelets. Can you see the second shelf down with flat boxes? All my beads fit in those 6 flat boxes! Of course, when I want to work with them, I lay them out on the bed and choose the beads I need. Work on the bracelets has to happen at my desk in the office.

In the office, I can write my posts OR I can make bracelets! Such a multipurpose desk with a good light!

Here’s the latest bracelet I finished today!

So, you can see I have many choices of things to do when I can’t get into the kitchen! I can always do laundry around my projects…but you’ll seldom see me choosing to clean or dust or vacuum! Just too many fun projects to distract me! Haha! Enjoy!

Exploring Gluten-Free Baking

Gluten and gluten-free are words that are familiar to many of us that bake. Gluten is a protein found in wheat (and barley or rye) that is the main ingredient that holds together all that lovely bread. Unfortunately, some folks have an immune reaction to eating gluten and over time this reaction damages the small intestine’s lining. This prevents them from absorbing nutrients from their food. This immune reaction is called celiac disease.

The intestinal damage from eating foods that contain gluten often causes symptoms such as diarrhea, fatigue, weight loss, bloating or anemia. It also can lead to serious complications if it is not managed or treated. Because there’s no definite cure for celiac disease, most people find following a strict gluten-free diet can help manage symptoms and help the intestines heal.

Years ago, when I was trying out recipes to bake with whole grain flour, I encountered a few people who had difficulty digesting wheat products. I found it very difficult to find recipes made with gluten-free flour that actually tasted good. Recently, I found a few friends who were avoiding gluten and even discovered folks at the Auxiliary (to the Boalsburg Fire Company) bake sale asking if any of our products were gluten-free. If I could find some good recipes, that might be something we could offer at the next bake sale.

With a little research online for the best tasting gluten-free recipes, I discovered a basic all-purpose gluten-free flour that could be used almost cup-for-cup as regular all-purpose flour. They also offered a bread mix. I found their packaged flour and bread mixes available on Amazon and ordered some bread mixes to try. The company is https://gfjules.com started by Jules Shepard. See her profile below. Check them out! Besides an all-purpose flour, they offer bread mixes, pancake mixes, etc.

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About Jules Shepard:

Jules Shepard didn’t set out to lead, inspire and advocate for the gluten-free community. But to anyone who knows her, it’s no surprise she does.

As a celiac diagnosed in 1999, and as an indomitable perfectionist with a penchant for equality and fairness, this former domestic violence attorney was simply unwilling to accept the dry, gritty, vacuous foods that were the norm then. Two years in her kitchen later, Jules had perfected an all-purpose gluten free flour blend that enabled her to continue her passion for baking.

All of her products are certified gluten free and kosher, and are made in a dedicated gluten free facility. They are also certified Free From the Top 9 Food Allergens (NO: wheat, soy, dairy, egg, peanuts, tree nuts, sesame, fish, or crustaceans), non-GMO and proudly made in the USA.

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The best thing about this mix is the variety of ingredients. I used to have to stock up on individual ingredients and mix up my own gluten-free flour mix. Someone (Jules Shepard, actually) who must have been very motivated to find a mixture that tastes good, did the work for me!

Making a Loaf of Gluten-free Bread

First, I mixed together the liquid ingredients:

Next, I mixed up the dry ingredients:

I added the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in the mixer bowl. It was very sticky and didn’t take long. Next time I’ll just mix it with a wooden spoon! The mixer just made too many dirty dishes.

I dumped the wet dough into the prepared pan, covered it with plastic wrap and let it sit for about an hour.

When baked, it was a little bigger, a little browner and smelled great!

It did not rise very much (remember, without gluten it had nothing to “stretch.”) The texture of the bread is more like cake or cornbread, but it tasted great. Of course, I forgot to take a picture of the finished loaf! Since I would be the only one eating it, I sliced it up and froze the slices.

I ended up ordering a 4.5 pound bag of the gluten-free all-purpose flour so I could try a few more recipes. I printed out just a few recipes to try. More about those over the next few weeks!

Here are the details about the all-purpose flour.

Here are the ingredients for the gluten-free all-purpose flour from https://gfjules.com.

Over the next few posts, I’ll share some other recipes using some mixes I found at Trader Joe’s and Wegman’s. There seems to be a lot of interest in gluten-free products. I’m hoping by the next bake sale I’ll have some great recipes to share!

Making German Apple Cake

I just came across another recipe for an Apple Cake…this time called German Apple Cake. Several years ago, I shared a recipe for a French Apple Cake, so of course I had to try the German one! I’m always interested in ways to use apples without having to roll out pie crust for apple pie or cut butter into tiny pieces to make an apple crisp. The French Apple Cake appealed to Bert because it had rum in it, but I don’t care for the taste of rum so I don’t make it very often. The German Apple Cake recipe I’m sharing here does not have rum, so I was hopeful I would like it.

Here is a picture and a link to the French Apple Cake recipe: https://marykisner.com/making-french-apple-cake/

The German Apple Cake recipe has similar ingredients and the instructions are pretty much the same. Here’s the recipe:

I started the recipe by cutting up the apples. I wasn’t sure how many I would need, so I bought 3 very large “Honeycrisp” apples.

I put the diced apples into a bowl of water to keep them from turning brown.

When I finished cutting up the three apples, I drained them and put them into my 4-cup measuring cup. Oops! I had more like 6 cups of diced apples!

So, I spooned off the extra into a zip bag and put them in the freezer. They will be great added to my morning smoothies.

Continuing with the recipe…I mixed up the wet ingredients and added the dry ingredients. Then I folded in the cut apples.

Finally, I dumped the mixture into the prepared baking pan.

Of course, before I could take a finished picture, we had to have a taste! Delicious!

It looked dark, almost like it had chocolate in it (it did not!). I think the cinnamon made it look dark. Yum! I will cut it up and freeze it in portions…we can’t possibly eat that much in a day or two.

I guess I’m on the lookout for other “apple cake” recipes. I wonder what other countries make with apples? Enjoy!

Discovering Cut-Your-Own Silicone Mat

In the last few weeks, I’ve tried a few recipes that suggested I use parchment paper on a baking sheet or to line a bread pan. Frankly, it’s a pain in the neck! I have a roll of parchment paper, but it requires me to cut to fit my specific pans every time, and then it’s so slippery that the whole sheet slides off when I try to take a cookie off the tray!

I have four small baking sheets (8″ x 11 1/2″) that just fit in my oven side by side on two racks. I use them for everything but I haven’t found a silicone tray liner that just fits. And then, I have my bread pans! I recently made a zucchini blueberry bread that really needed parchment paper on the bottom because the mix was so wet. I just didn’t stop to cut paper to fit. I learned the hard way that it was really needed!

The bread tasted great, but the bottom came out in pieces! See the recipe at https://marykisner.com/making-zucchini-blueberry-bread/

While I was searching on Amazon for silicone mats in various sizes, I discovered this one that I could cut to size myself! Great idea!

Silicone Baking Mat Roll 16IN*5FT Free Cutting, Non-Slip Pastry Mat, Non-Stick Reusable Air Fryer Liner, Oven Liners, Counter Mat, Freeze Dryer Mat, Easily Cut to Size Fit All Ovens Pans Tins Dishes $18.99

I got the mat in the mail yesterday and got to work.

It just fit! I cut three more and I now have one for each of my baking sheets!

How about my bread pans? I measured the bottom of the pan…3″ x 7″.

I cut six so all my bread pans would have one. I also have a set of very small bread pans I use occasionally. The bottom is 2″ x 5″. I cut four of the very small size.

Finally, how about my square and round baking pans? The square pan was 7″ x 7″ on the bottom but the corners were rounded, so I cut two 7″ squares and cut off the corners! Perfect!

The round pans were a little tricky and I could probably do better, but I made two 8″ squares and tried to round the edges. Not pretty, but functional!

This is how much mat I had left over. (I’ll toss the corner pieces.)

I’ll put the extra pieces in a zip bag and will store them with my cookbooks…just in case I need a little piece to put under a flower pot or vase.

I can hardly wait to bake something to try these mats out. I’m sure they will lower my frustration level! Give it a try if you assorted pans like I do. Enjoy!

Remembering Patty and Her Italian Bread

This is a repost of an article I wrote exactly 3 years ago today. I would not have remembered it but Facebook reminded me about it! The pictures were just too cute to not share again!

September 18, 2021

I pulled out my recipes today to make some Italian bread. It’s been a while so when I found the recipe I was reminded of my sister-in-law, Patty…my big brother’s first wife. She was a real sweetheart and my mentor when I started my own family. Here’s an early picture with two of their kids, Eric and Pam. Paul, Todd and Teresa rounded out their family by the early 1980’s. We were sorry to lose her in 1984, but my memories keep her in my heart to this day.

In 1980, Ted, Kathy and I spent a few days with my brother’s family on the farm in northern Pennsylvania. We borrowed my sister’s motor home while she was out of town and had an adventure going to Uncle Mark’s farm.

Ted was four and a half and Kathy was three. Such sincere smiles!

We parked the motor home in the backyard of the farm house and enjoyed visits with the barn cats and the cousins. Early on the first morning, we were awakened by the neighbor’s sheep. What a surprise to look out the window and see we had been surrounded by a whole flock of sheep! That was the beginning of our adventure!

Of course, this post is about making Italian bread so let me just say every time I make this recipe, I’m reminded of those days visiting the farm. Patty was always baking something and I was inspired by her ability to whip out this Italian bread or homemade Pizza crust in a flash. We had many conversations about baking with whole wheat flour and making our own yogurt. Great memories!

So, here is the recipe for her Italian bread:

When I make bread, I often start with the liquid ingredients and then add flour. This recipe started with all the flour in the bowl and then added the liquid ingredients. I had forgotten this, but it worked out just fine.

At this point, I dumped the dough out onto the floured table, gave it a few “kneads” and put it in a bowl to rise.

An hour later, the dough had raised to the top of the bowl.

I shaped it into two long loaves and let it raise on the pan.

In 20 minutes the whole kitchen smelled great!

Of course, before I could get a picture of the loaves, SOMEONE had to have a chunk!

So that’s the story of Patty’s Italian bread recipe, memories and all! Enjoy!

Busy Week, Various Activities

This has been a very busy week with our son visiting from California, my yearly eye doctor’s appointment, a luncheon with my high school friends, a pot luck dinner with the Ladies Auxiliary to the Fire Company, and the two-day yard sale at the Fire Hall. In the middle of all that, I tried a new recipe for apple hand-pies in the air fryer! At the same time, our son was pulling a bunch of tubs out of the attic that had his mementoes from preschool through college graduation. His goal was to sort, purge and organize his memories. He flew here from California with plans to rent a car/van to drive back home…with all of his stuff that had been in our attic for many years!

It was such a joy to watch him discover his past memories! A great “life review.” I imagine we will have a similar process to go through when we finally downsize our house. Of course, to sort through papers and mementoes…the living room became the best place to set up!

It started with the first few bins…

As he emptied bins and started sorting into piles, he could see he had his work cut out for him. Such a process!

It wasn’t long until I could see the organization begin to make sense.

His stuff is now organized into bins with labels so when he unloads his car in California he’ll know where to store them. Whew! I’m so proud of him in getting it done…and our attic has an empty space. Hopefully it will not get filled with more junk!

Good time for a selfie! (I think I always look like I stuck my finger in a light socket!)

Now, about those Air Fryer Apple Pies!

I started by cutting up apples into tiny pieces. I sprinkled lemon juice on them, added the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and stirred them together.

I filled a small bowl with water to use as “glue” to close the egg roll wrappers.

I had a little trouble finding the wrappers at the grocery store…they were on a high shelf in the vegetable cooler. Luckily, a very tall employee found them!

A tablespoon of apples just fit on one wrapper:

Then I folded the sides in:

…and the bottom up…

…and finally folded the top over, using a dab of water along the edge to help it stick.

My air fryer has two shelves, so I could cook all 12 at once, turning them over halfway and rotating the trays.

Of course, I forgot to get a picture of them coming out of the air fryer! Sorry!

If you look at the recipe above, once fried they were to be dusted with extra sugar. I did not do that but within half an hour of coming out of the fryer, the pies were gone! They tasted great, but egg roll wrapper got pretty crunchy. Seemed like a lot of work for a few bites!

So today, Saturday afternoon, I’m finally home from the yard sale at the Fire Hall. It was successful, but I’m exhausted! Tomorrow our son will begin loading his rental car with all his memories. His visit has been fun for us and successful for him. On Tuesday he’ll begin driving home to Santa Barbara.

I’m looking forward to getting back on track…with my own projects. I’m finding my Morse Code bracelets are a hit with some friends ordering them for Christmas gifts. Other bracelets feature favorite colors, birthstones and meaningful beads.

It’s probably time for me to start thinking about what to do for Christmas too. Any gifts that involve crafts or sewing take time. Let me know if you think of any craft projects that would make interesting gifts! Enjoy!