Corissa Morales

3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 lb stew beef, in 1″ cubes
1/4 cup flour
1 tbsp sea salt
2 tbsp ground black pepper
Pan deglazer – see note below*
3-4 large Russett potatoes, cubed, skins on
3 small white onions, quartered
4 large carrots pealed sliced
5-6 large white mushrooms, sliced
5-6 cups beef broth

Heat oil in heavy bottomed large pot. At same time, combine flour, salt and pepper in deep bowl. Toss beef in flour mixture until completely coated. Sear beef in oil until brown on most sides, about 5 minutes. *Deglaze pan with 2 dashes Worcestershire sauce and choice of 1/4 cup of red wine, beer, coffee or broth; scrape bottom well. Add vegetables and cover with broth. Bring to boil, reduce to simmer and allow to cook for 3 hours, stirring occasionally.

My CSA has reached the end of its season and has left me with an abundance of root vegetables. The idea is store them for the winter…but I know I won’t last long. Last night was an “I need a comforting soup” kind of night. Here’s what I whipped up (in my current favorite kitchen tool: my pressure cooker)

Ingredients
2 pounds peeled and chopped carrots
1 pound peeled and chopped parsnip
1/4 cup minced white onion
6 cups vegetable broth
salt and pepper to taste
8 oz coconut milk
1 tsp tamarind paste
1/4 tsp ground ginger

Just a disclaimer here – I don’t actually measure anything (well, the broth I did) so those are all approximations…especially the veggie weights, I suggest making this your own and adjusting however you like, just resist the urge to use more tamarind.

Combine carrots, parsnips, onion and broth in pressure cooker, bring to boil, and simmer under pressure for 30 minutes. (If you are doing this in a regular pot I suggest shredding the veggies and simmer for closer to an hour).
Release the pressure and using an immersion blender make sure there are no veggie chunks left. Add remaining ingredients and blend well. Serve. (If I had had the patience, or the idea last night, I would have topped with crispy onions)

The DH and I recently went (actually, it was more than a month ago) apple picking at Carver Hill Orchards. I’ve been trying my hand at home preserving this year (jury’s still out) and decided to buy extra apples to “put up” this year. The lady at the farm stand was giddy when we asked for the half bushel bag – happy to have supported local farmers. We went early in the season so many of the good baking apples weren’t ready yet, but Cortland are pretty versatile, so we loaded up on those.

Originally I was going to preserve apple pie filling, but decided against it because I’ve made a whopping 1 apple pie in the 9 years I’ve been with my husband…seemed silly to store 7 quarts of apple pie filling when I couldn’t be sure I’d even use them. So I decided on apple sauce. It was *incredibly* easy to make and DH admits its the best he’s ever had (just humoring me? maybe.)

Ingredients
10 pounds apples
2 cups water
1 cinnamon stick*
6 TBS lemon juice
1 cup white sugar

Peel, core and quarter the apples. Load them into a deep pot and add remaining ingredients. Bring water to boil, reduce to medium heat and boil for 20-30 minutes. Remove the cinnamon stick and mash any remaining chunks of apple. Yielded about 3 quarts (though I chose to can 1/2 pints and refrigerate 1 quart)

*Lesson learned about the cinnamon stick: I thought I’d be clever and smash the cinnamon stick to “get more use” out of it. Guess who spent 30 minutes fishing bits of spice out of what felt like gallons of apple sauce.

I chose to use my pressure cooker to make the apple sauce since I was short on time. The one rule I follow strictly when using the 10 pound beast is the fill limit – 2/3 capacity including food and liquid. This meant that I had four apples hanging out that had already been peeled and cored…what to do? Dried apple rings!

Using my mandoline to ensure even slices I quickly cut the remaining apples into 1/4″ slices and laid them out in a single layer on several baking sheets. I set my oven to 200°, but if you have an efficient oven I’d reduce that to 175° – 180°. After 2 hours I flipped the apples (also, you may consider switching the sheets around if the bottom ones are drying faster than the top) and dried for 2 more hours. Yielded about 2 pints.

For a super sweet treat toss the rings in cinnamon sugar before they have fully cooled!

What better way to welcome the cooler weather and changing leaves than a hot buttered scone? How about a hot buttered butternut pecan scone.

Ingredients
2/3 cup puréed cooked butternut squash
1 room temperature egg, beaten
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp allspice
2 1/4 cups Pamela’s GF baking mix
1/4 cup millet flour
4 TBS vegetable shortening
1/2 cup chopped pecans
3 TBS milk

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375°. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a bowl combine the squash, egg, sugar, vanilla and spices.
Add flour to a stand mixer (or using pastry knife in a deep bowl) begin to add shortening one tablespoon at a time until mix crumbles. Add pecans. Slowly add in wet mixture until completely mixed in, but do not over mix. One tablespoon at a time add the milk until the dough forms a firm ball.
Roll handfuls of dough into small balls and then flatten on baking sheet. Mix will make 6 large or roughly 8 small scones.
Bake 15-17 minutes until centers spring back when lightly touched.

Real quick – 3 down. w00t!

Started 4th, 21 more to go to hit goal.

Brussels Sprouts in A Sausage and Tomato Reduction

Alright, hear me out on this – I know Brussels sprouts are a long time “kid rejected, mother disapproved” veggie, and yes, I know the flavors are complete opposites, but there is just something about the acidity of the tomato that works really well with the sweetness of the sprouts, I swear.

Ingredients:

2 garlic cloves, minced
3 TBS olive oil
2 ounces Andouille sausage, chopped
1 lb. Brussels sprouts
1 large tomato, about 1 cup
1 TBS oregano, fresh
1 tsp sugar
salt & pepper to taste

Directions:
First you need to “juice” the tomato. I cheated here by doing the following:
Cube your tomato and place it in a deep, microwave safe bowl. Toss it with 1 TBS of the olive oil, the sugar, salt, pepper and oregano. Microwave on high for 2 minutes. Smash up the tomato and microwave for an additional 2-3 minutes. Using a fine strainer separate the juice from the skins and seeds (I kept the skins and used them as pizza sauce). I got about a cup of juice from this, you can always add water as needed.

Heat the remaining oil in a pan over medium heat and sauté garlic for 2 minutes. Add sausage and tomato juice, bring to boil. Add sprouts and reduce heat. Cover and allow to simmer until sprouts are tender, about 10 minutes. Return heat to medium, remove lid and allow remaining liquid (if any) to evaporate.

Garden update:

In order to make sure I have gorgeous strawberries for DH’s smoothies next year I pre-winterized today. I dug the plants (and their many daughters!) out of their apartment garden containers and moved them to a clear large size tote, gave them one last healthy watering and covered them with the lid. When the time comes (another month or pre-first frost) I’ll bury them in a thick layer of moist mulch and tuck away.

Apartment garden tip: winterize your strawberries in a clear tote that can double as next year’s sprouting greenhouse!

I also took a look at the compost totes and I’m really really happy with how they are looking. Not too bad for a first year amateur’s attempt at composting if I might say so myself. My kitchen waste and garden clippings have composted so well that I was able to bring 2 bins down to one.

Apartment composting tip: Tamp down your bins by stomping around in them (with a pair of boots of course!), then place them in the sunniest spot possible. This will ensure you get the maximum heat possible to properly breakdown everything you put in there.

Drying more hot peppers:

As you may know I’ve decided to join this year’s Pine Street Knit-a-Thon.

The Pine Street Inn Knit-a-Thon achieves two goals: First, it raises money to benefit Pine Street Inn’s Supportive Housing Program. This program provides permanent housing to women and men whose lives have been derailed by homelessness, giving them a new lease on life.

Second, the participants knit 9” squares that are sewn together to create afghans for the Supportive Housing Program. Upon moving into their new home, each tenant receives a beautiful, unique, handmade blanket. Last year, they received thousands of squares, made 40 blankets in one day and raised nearly $20,000 to support the program.

My goal is to knit at least 25 squares and today is day one!

If you’d like to sponsor me please visit my fundraiser page www.firstgiving.com/corissamorales It would mean a lot to me!

Materials:
(1) inexpensive wood photo frame to fit your picture of choice, like this
(1) picture of choice from last year’s now on sale calendar
(1) pair of scissors or utility knife
(1) ruler
(1) sheet of metallic tissue paper

Directions:
Remove the staples from the calendar and separate the pages. Measure your “usable” margin and trim the picture to fit the frame being sure to leave space around for the tissue to show.

Trim the tissue paper to match the full size allowance of the picture frame. Now here comes the fun part – take out your day’s stress and crumple the hell out of the tissue paper. Lay it flat and smooth it back out enough to still fill the frame but not enough to take the crinkles out.

Carefully (okay, I didn’t do it carefully, but you should) secure your tissue paper to the frame backing, then your picture to the tissue paper and set in frame.

Voila! Time to hang!

You now have an adorable frog in a tub to direct your guests to the best place to tidy up!

A dear friend from my hometown recently got married. I knew I wanted to handcraft a gift for her that was both unique and useful. While scoping out her registry I came across this – her fine dining place settings:

I decided that matching dish towels were her must have.

Using Lion Brand’s Lion Cotton I knit up three towels to match the base plate and three to match the accent. The accent plate has an adorable, modern polka dot motif that I tried without success to recreate. The Glitterspun yarn worked well for the trim but was simply too tacky to double as dots (if I had kept it I would have had a Craft Fail on my hands), so I settled on dot-free accent towels.

The final product: