A Berry Good Day

Abby was Mommy's special helper today

This morning, Abby and I prepared blackberries to make blackberry fruit leather in the food dehydrator. Actually, she did most of the work!

First, she emptied the containers of blackberries into a large colandar and gently rinsed them with cold water. Then she moved the clean berries to a 1-quart glass measuring pitcher. She measured out 1/4 cup sucanat (sugar) and added it to the berries. I held the immersion blender and swirled it around while she pressed the button. (She wanted to hold the blender while I pressed the button. But sorry, no, that wasn't going to happen.)

Abby enjoyed the pureeing part. We talked about the little seeds and, as she pointed out, how there was red, blue, and purple colors. Since the puree was pretty liquidy, I had her measure out and add a tablespoon of arrowroot to thicken it a bit. (Arrowroot acts like a thickener much like cornstarch, but it doesn't deplete the flavor like cornstarch does, in my opinion.)

Abby lined the dehydrator trays with the nonstick Teflex sheets. I poured the puree onto the trays while she "made it into a square" (as she put it). She did as much of that step as she could. I definitely helped her with this part. I went around the edges of each tray to wipe the excess so that "it wouldn't go out the door". That Abby has such a way with words!

By tomorrow, hopefully, we will have some sweet and chewy blackberry fruit leather. Stay tuned!

Ready for the dehydrator! I wiped the excess off the edges,

first with a dry towel, and then with a damp towel.

Farmers Market Fun

The Santa Maria Valley produces strawberries practically year-round now

Here on the Central Coast, we are so fortunate to have a mecca of agriculture directly available to the consumer in the forms of u-pick farms and farmers markets. Be it San Luis Obispo county, about ten miles north of us, or our very own Santa Barbara county, there is a famers market within 30 minutes away, at least six days a week. For our town of Orcutt, the farmers market is every Tuesday morning, in the parking lot of the CVS/Oak Knolls Shopping Center, located at Clark Avenue and South Bradley Road. It is only a mile from our house.

Since Alyssa was still on Christmas break from school and Chloe takes a huge nap in the mornings, I recognized the need for that one-on-one time and took Abby down there. (She's normally in preschool on Tuesday mornings but she's also on Christmas break until next week.) There's not nearly the selection this time if the year as in the summer or fall. But it was still a pretty neat sight to see tables covered with all sorts of fruits, vegetables, nuts, flowers, honey, eggs, jams and jellies, all very colorful and so fresh you can smell them from several feet away.

We got some lemons, a flat of really nice strawberries (really nice for off-season), and a flat of blackberries. The blackberries were phenomenal! So fresh, no squished berries, and sweet too. I grabbed two cartons from the flat and brought them inside for the girls. I left the remainder of the berries in the back of the Suburban until I am ready to use them tomorrow. Those berries would never survive the night in our kitchen. Abby will help me make fruit leather from them tomorrow. I am leaning towards jamming the blackberries though. Hmmm . . .

Pristine best describes these blackberries

I wanted to make some Red Lentil Soup for Justina and Alyssa today. So I picked up some onions, carrots, and celery at the market. In addition to those three things, there is also olive oil, broth, red lentils, paprika, cayenne pepper (just a pinch - nothing volcanic), and some sea salt. I had hoped to put it in Justina's lunch for school but I cut it too close on time. So I used up the rest of the leftover lemon pappardelle with pesto, some green beans, crackers, and the blackberries. She can have the soup tomorrow. But not the green beans. Alyssa devoured those.

One item that was we picked up from a Nipomo area farmer was feijoas, or pineapple guavas, or guavasteens. We've never had them before. So I bought four for us to try. They are green and shaped like little watermelons. They are about three by four inches in size. There is a blossom end that you cut off. Then you slice the fruit in half (either lengthwise or crosswise) and scoop the fruit out with a spoon. These were interesting. The more soft they were, the more they tasted like a combination of strawberries and kiwis. The more firm they were, there was a pronounced note of pineapple. The texture was very much like a guava and a banana. Such a complex and delicious partnership of flavors. As for the kids, they just simply loved them! I'm thinking that these will definitely be a repeat purchase.

These were a couple the feijoas we bought

Our outing to the farmers market was a nice miniature adventure. I think Abby enjoyed it. And I hope it will spark an interest to try new vegetables too, and not just fruit. She is a little on the picky side. It is very difficult to take her to places like that. She is so high-energy and can be such a handful. But I was thinking about the fact that she is already four! Soon she will be in kindergarten and all these opportunities will be lost.

Fruit Leath-a

In yesterday's blog post, I mentioned that I made fruit leather. Apple leather to be exact. To recap, I chopped about 8 cups of apples and cooked them over low heat with about 1 cup water. When they were soft, I pureed them and spread them on Teflex sheets and put them in our Excalibur dehydrator. (Fruit leather can also be made in an oven on the lowest setting or outside in the sun.) We have the Ronco dehydrator as well, but we do not have anything to line those trays. I suppose that I could use parchment paper or even microwave-safe plastic wrap. But that would be a pain to cut sheets to fit their circular shape. I like the Excalibur the best out of the two. My only regret is that I didn't get one with more than four trays. I didn't think I would need more than that. Yet once I used it, I wished I went with the larger model. Sometimes when we dry food, both dehydrators are filled! Oh well, enough of my review of food dehydrators. Let's talk about the finished product.

Overall, the leather turned out nice. At least, the kids thought so. They gave it thumbs up reviews in the midst of chews. Justina helped me peel the apple leather from the Teflex sheeting. Then I cut it into pieces that were about 2-by 3-inches and sealed them in a plastic bag. I didn't spread this mixture out as thick as I should have but it was still a good texture, soft and pliable.

Making fruit leather is a great way to use up fruit that is in the use-it or lose-it category. In fact, I hope to hit the farmers' market in Orcutt tomorrow to see what else I can whip up. This stuff didn't come out as fancy as the stuff you can buy in a box from the supermarket shelf. But the kids don't seem to care. And what's more, I can say with 100% certainty what is in it - just apples and cinnamon.

Justina peels the apple leather from the Teflex sheets in the dehydrator

Pumpkin Pancakes and Applesauce

For some unknown reason, I woke up wanting to make pancakes this morning. I was going to whip up my mother's pancake batter recipe but then I remembered that I had picked up a box of Trader Joe's Pumpkin Pancake & Waffle Mix a couple months ago. My thinking behind the purchase was that I had just had a baby and where in the heck was I going to find time to whip up pancakes from scratch. It's silly when I think about it now because making pancake batter is one of the simplest things to make in the kitchen. But whatever, I had the mix so I just went with it.

For six to eight pancakes (about 5-inches), the directions called for 1 cup mix, 3/4 cup milk, 1/4 cup melted butter, and 1 egg. Well I doubled that and ended up with some extra which I refrigerated to use for breakfast and snacks later this week. They were good and had a really nice pumpkin flavor. From a mix eno less! Justina helped me with making the coffee and scrambled eggs. And Abby also got to help by making a few of the pancakes.

Later on in the afternoon, I got bit by another bug. I wanted to make some fruit leather. I peeled and chopped some apples, a little over 8 cups. Then I added them to a pot with a cup of water and heated them on low for about 15 minutes. After the apples were soft, I pureed them until they were really smooth. I added a little cinnamon to the mix also. Then I spread the mixture on lined trays and placed them in the dehydrator. By sometime tomorrow, we should have apple fruit leather.

Pureed apple mixture in Excalibur dehydrator (cell pic)

So What Do YOU Think?

I posted a new poll question - When do YOU think Christmas decorations should come down? The poll ends on Sunday, January 9, 2009 at 11:59 p.m. (PST). So vote, vote, vote! And if you have a comment about what you see here, those are welcomed also.