Homemade fruit leather

When my daughter goes to her ballet classes, I generally go for a long run/walk if it’s nice out, or I’ll read in my car if it’s not. However, before I developed these healthy habits, I used to while away the time at the shopping strip just through the trees from the side of the studio.  This is when I discovered the treasure trove of stuff at Bed Bath and Beyond.  Piled high from floor to ceiling is glorious household stuff – and it’s all stuff YOU REALLY NEED.  There was a point when I bought a new appliance every week – waffle iron, ice cream maker, portable heater, juicer…

Of all the appliances stored in my closet, the food dehydrator has come upon the most use.  As a gardener and frequent farmer’s market purveyor of ripe summer fruits, July/August/September means a lot of delicious drying food is working its way through those dehydrator trays.  A favorite?  Homemade fruit leather. 

You can get complicated with this, and many recipes do. You can add lemon juice to prevent the fruit leather from darkening, there are instructions for straining your mixture, you can add sugar (no!). But the recipe below is all you need to know if you’ve never made fruit leather and want to try:

Fruit Leather Recipe

1) Puree a few soft fruits like the peaches we used here.

2) Pour into the fruit leather tray – right up to the top of the fruit leather tray is fine.

3) Dry until totally leathery. You’ll know when that is (about 6-8 hours?  Food dehydrators are very forgiving and you can’t mess it up!). It won't be wet and you'll be able to lift and peel it off of the tray in one piece. 

4) Peel off the tray.  One side will be stickier than the other.  Stick that side to wax or parchment paper.  That’s it!

This flexible fruit leather tray sits on top of the slatted dehydrator below.
To make life even easier, place fruit leather tray on the rigid dehydrator tray before filling.

Durian Ice Cream

My mom has always loved durian.  With a few good Asian supermarkets around us, she's able to taste her favorite fruit from time to time.  She would probably describe it as unique, rich, tropical, pleasant, and sweet. This large and spiky "King of Fruits" however, is notoriously stinky.  Its taste and smell have been described by my family (and confirmed by the population at large) as similar to: gasoline, excrement, and rotting pineapple, with a texture like baby vomit.  This is why in some of my earliest memories, she is eating durian in the garage, on a stool, next to the car, by herself.  She was not allowed to enjoy her favorite fruit inside the house.

This year, I figured there would be no better homemade gift than to make her several pints of ice cream, starring her beloved durian.  No one in my family made me go outside like we used to make my mom, but I do warn against making this recipe while it's 30-something degrees out.  When I cut into the grand, sharp thing, it let out a "ppffftttt" and began releasing its intense odor.  Suddenly, I had a family of drama queens running around, opening every door and window, forcing me to make my ice cream while shivering in my winter coat. But as my younger daughter said, "You made our whole house stink! You really love Popo (grandmother) don't you".

The recipe below was adapted from this recipe, and uses the flesh from a whole, large durian. It is less sweet just like my mom would prefer, so add more sugar if you like a more conventional sweetness.  Just taste the custard before allowing to cool and add more sugar if you like.  Makes about 2.5 quarts or about 5 1-pint containers.  *Most ice cream freezers only spin about 1.5 quarts.  This recipe makes 2 batches.

Durian Ice Cream

1 whole durian
6 large egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups light cream
3 cups whole milk

Cut open durian and remove segments of flesh.  Remove seeds.  Puree in a food processor.  Press the puree through a sieve to strain out the stringy fibers.  You will have about 2 cups of smooth durian paste.  Cover and chill in the refrigerator.

In a medium bowl, whisk egg yolks with vanilla and sugar.

Bring milk and cream to near boil over medium heat.

Reduce heat to low.

Ladle about a cup of hot milk mixture and whisk into eggs.  Pour egg mixture into milk mixture on the stove.  Stir constantly until thickened, a few minutes.  Do not let the mixture come to a boil.

Allow custard to cool, then chill in refrigerator or in a large Ziploc bag set in an ice bath.

When very cold, pour half the custard into ice cream machine.  Add half the durian paste and spin until frozen. Remove to freezer-safe container to ripen in freezer.  When ice cream freezer bowl is completely frozen and ready to use again (usually in 24 hours), spin second batch of custard and durian mixture.

Sweet Apple Cider Butter Recipe

Nothing marks autumn more perfectly than a trip to the orchard. Anyone who has been apple-picking on a sunny October afternoon, driving a wheelbarrow through the rows, and especially with kids in tow, knows how fun it is to search for the biggest, tastiest apples in the trees.  When we went recently, the apples were so ripe and abundant they were raining down.  We'd pull one and two others would fall.  As always, before we know it, we're driving home with a trunk full of apples.  A couple pies put a little dent into it, a bunch were saved for fresh eating, a bunch were juiced, and the rest were made into an amazing apple butter.  I think people either love or hate the stuff, but as an apple butter aficionado, I can say there's no comparison to homemade, especially when the apples were on the tree just a few hours prior to being infused with spices and spread on a cracker.  The recipe below is an adapted double batch of Sweet Apple Cider Butter from the Ball book, and I used the honey alternative to sugar.  I also saved some pot-watching time by cooking down the apple butter in a slow cooker.  

Honeycrisp Apples

An apple peeler is a necessary gadget if you're working with a lot of apples

Making applesauce.  Spices are then added, and the whole thing is cooked down for hours.  

Sweet Apple Cider Butter - makes about 8 pint jars

12 pounds apples, peeled, cored, and quartered

4 cups apple cider

2 cups honey

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon allspice

In a large stainless steel pot over medium-high heat, combine apples and cider and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and boil gently, stirring occasionally until apples are soft, about 30 minutes.  

Process the apples just until a uniform texture is achieved (in batches in a blender or using a food processor or by using an immersion blender).  Do not liquefy.  

Scoop pureed apples into slow cooker.  Add honey, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice.  Cook on high for about 4 hours, stirring occasionally so the apple butter does not burn (alternatively, cook on low for about 8-10 hours).  

Prepare canner, jars, and lids.  Ladle hot butter into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace.  Remove air bubbles, adjust headspace if necessary and wipe rim.  Center lid on jar and screw on ring.  Process in boiling water canner for 10 minutes.  Remove canner lid.  Wait 5 minutes, then remove jars, cool, and store.  

The good, the bad, and the ugly

I'm so contrived these days, but seems every year, I do some variation of a good, bad, and ugly post.  

The good - finally, a cute little watermelon.  But too little, too late you little watermelon!!!! It's almost October!

The bad - well, bad meaning good... A frickin' plethora of apples on the trees at the u-pick farm, and after a glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, glug of triple sec and tequila, some jars of strawberry margarita preserves! 

And the ugly - some one has taken a hole-puncher to this foliage.  Either that or some nasty bug has decided to really piss me off.  And then to add insult to injury, this Sassy cat of mine needs to make my planter a kitty bed.  Ah well, she's 11 years old this October.  Maybe I'll just leave her be.  

GTTC - cool strawberry treats

After picking bowls full every day for a couple of weeks, it looks like the strawberries are just about done. This week, we kept cool with sorbet and ice cream. I particularly loved the sorbet - super fruity, sweet, light, cool, and incredibly easy to make. The recipe for Fresh Strawberry Sorbet:

• simple syrup (1 cup sugar and 1 cup water, heated and then chilled),
• 1 quart of strawberries, pureed,
• 4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice,
• 1/4 cup corn syrup

Throw this chilled mixture into a proper ice cream maker. You know, I'm finished with the cheapo 20 piece plastic hand crank/rock salt contraptions that break upon first use. I'm talking plug in the wall, no cranking, done in 30 minutes. It's totally the way to go. The strawberry chocolate chunk ice cream was...just ok...learn from my mistakes - don't cut the sugar. Ice cream is supposed to be sweet.

This week, I award the first Garden to Table Challenge drawn from the names of GTTC participants. Tangled Branches has won a canning book. I think she has the Ball book, so I'll send The Joy of Pickling - a book I haven't read, but that looks great and has received many great Amazon reviews. Entangled - let me know how it is!

Want to be in it to win it for the next prize (which will occur whenever I think it up)? Simply post about what you're harvesting/cooking up, then link below. Name will be added to the jar for the next prize. The GTTC post will be up every Saturday. Link on the current week's post, whenever you want throughout the week. Don't forget to mention the GTTC in the body of your post. It's the right thing to do. :)

Spring Break staycation and Garden to Table Challenge (starting 4/30th!)

Sure there aren't clusters and clusters of blueberry blossoms, but enough to start the Garden to Table Challenge creative flow! Will it be blueberry buckle? Maybe blueberry sorbet? Perhaps I'll try blueberry tarts, or... how about chocolate covered blueberries!?

Folks - the Garden to Table Challenge will begin this Saturday! Each Saturday, I will be posting about how I've used some part of my garden harvest that week. Each week, I encourage you to join me by posting on your blog and then linking via mr. linky. Or, if you choose, participate simply by leaving a comment. Here's a sample posting - I searched through the old GTTC posts and forgot about the week I made jalapeno pesto. Gaaawwd - am I excited for summer!

Last year I got so many wonderful ideas from people who joined me. I also found it super fun to think about creative ways to use my harvests. PLUS, I will be offering a contest for participants. Details will follow on Saturday. For now, go see what you've got in the garden and get cookin'! If you're not a vegetable grower - don't fret. You can still participate by posting about how you've used your seasonal vegetables purchased from the market. The goal is to think creatively and eat seasonally.

THIS WEEK ONLY - if you leave a comment explaining how you've helped advertise the opening date of this year's Garden to Table Challenge, I will give you two entries to the 2011 GTTC contest (probably in the form of a raffle for prizes to be drawn for at the end of the season).

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SPRING BREAK 2011

We've taken a reprieve from our usual Spring Break adventures. This year, we did the ultimate staycation. It was very low-key. One of the days, my husband even cancelled our day trip because...it was raining. My Spring Break started with my afternoon with the Satanic Boy Scouts. The next day, it was demo time. See that mess below? This is not a corner in a run down shopping mall stairwell where bums pee. This is my home.

After several hours of cutting out moldy drywall, jackhammering the concrete in my basement, a beautiful pipe and sump pump were buried in the ground, then all covered up with new concrete. Don't you just love (large!) expenses that you can't even show off to your friends?

The first of our official trips was to Longwood Gardens in PA. I want one of those orange hoses that shoot mulch! Can you imagine what life could be like? And if you could have a helper follow you around and unkink your hose and reload your mulch shooter? I could get so much more done.

This is the curved "Whispering Bench" - a large curved stone bench. If you sit on one end across from your friend sitting several feet away on the other end, you can have a covert conversation just by softly whispering into the curve of the bench.

I've posted about this before - this is a large hallway with living walls. The doors you see in the wall lead to individual "bathroom pods" - each with its own skylight.

The next day, we hiked our nearby Sugarloaf Mountain. It's a very steep (and fun) 1/4 mile to the summit.

Below, our second child - not quite the nature child - is very proud of how brave she's being holding a gigantic beetle (notice I'm several feet away shielding my face with a camera). Her dad is assuring her it is friendly and does not bite.

...though he failed to mention the sharp burrs on its legs that have just cut our totally freaked out child's hand. Tears don't help the descent.

Once on the ground and about to enjoy a picnic lunch, she's back to being the happy annoying little sister again. Big sis is not amused.

On a rainy day - hours of Super Mario Bros. Here, Lyric is again proud. This time it's because she's earned 99 lives. She tried to flip it to 100 but the game won't allow it. Remember the good old days when you got 3 lives that were totally precious and if you lost them all, you needed to go beg your parents for another quarter? Or sometimes you could get another life, but you'd have to earn 10,000 points first.

At the National Gallery of Art to see Gauguin. This is the moving walkway connecting the West and East buildings. The moving lights are actually a light sculpture by Leo Villareal. It's very cool and fun for kids to pass through.

At my parents' house. My father is fishing. In the house, the incubator is completely full of duck and goose eggs! I'm sure I'll have some fun photos to share soon!

Garden to Table Challenge - apple pie

For this week's Garden to Table Challenge, there was apple picking...

...followed by juggling...

...and then peeling...

...and canning...

Then finally, there was apple pie! See the jars above? There's an apple pie in each one - one needs only to supply the crust. What are YOU harvesting, cooking, eating this week?

End of summer fruits!

If I could do a virtual cut of this charentais melon below, you would be stunned by the gorgeous orange color and would be hit by its fragrant scent. This melon is a total winner and is a MUST for your garden next year if you have not yet tried it. It's a sweet cantaloupe with perfect texture, perfect everything. In my little garden, one vine managed to produce about 5 of these guys with total neglect. I'm certain you could do even better! I cover the melons with bird netting to keep them safe from raccoons.

'Anne' raspberries - also a winner - lovely golden color, really nice sweet raspberry taste!

'Black diamond' watermelon, recommended by the watermelon guy on a road in rural South Carolina. Haven't cut into it yet - fearful to move it and find damage underneath, on this sole watermelon. No pressure little guy.

The bright red berries of the asparagus all ferned out. I'll need to look into this to see if they can be eaten - I can't see why not...

At my dad's house, the date trees are completely covered.

These are honeydew-type Asian melons below. Very thin outer rind - people eat the rind as well (I don't, but my mom swears it's OK to). If I sent you seeds last month labeled "Asian melon", these are the melons you'll get. Really sweet and yummy.

Pomegranates - and such pretty flowers too!

Soon to come in a future post - MORE fruit. As you can see in this post, last year we began our first annual fall apple-picking event, and I think that time is rolling around again! Are you all feeling fruity too?