Pumpkin Yum

I taught a class today on cooking with pumpkin and since I made edible handouts, as promised, here are the instructions of some of the things that I talked about.

Pumpkin Crisp

Follow the recipe on the back of a large can of pumpkin (puree, not pie filling) except cut the milk back to 1 can instead of 2. Mix well and pour into 9x13 baking dish.

Sprinkle dry yellow cake mix on top and drizzle 1 cube of melted butter over dry cake mix.

Bake at 350* for about an hour.  Can be served warm or cold with a dollop of whipped cream. Serves about 20

Pumpkin Pie Spice (I didn't mention this, but here is the recipe if you want to make your own)

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp Cinnamon                             4 tsp Ground Ginger

2 tsp Ground Cloves                       1 tsp Ground Nutmeg

Directions:

In a small jar, whisk together all spice ingredients. Seal in an air tight container.

2 tsp of spice for one pumpkin pie.

 1 ½ Tbsp of spice per two-pie recipe (such as Libby's 28 oz can of Pumpkin).

Add or subtract more spices for your own custom pumpkin pie spice blend.

Pumpkin Cheesecake (Gunn Family Tradition)

4 oz softened cream cheese                                      1 cup cold milk

1 tbsp milk                                                             16 oz can of pumpkin                    

1 tbsp sugar                                                            2 (4 oz) box instant vanilla pudding

1 ½ Cup Cool Whip                                                 1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp ginger                                                            ¼ tsp ground clove

1 LARGE graham cracker crust

Mix cream cheese, 1 tbsp milk & sugar with wire whip until smooth. Gently stir in cool whip. Layer in crust.

Beat 1 cup milk, pudding, pumpkin & spices until mixed. Layer on top.

Refrigerate 4 hours and garnish with cool whip.

Make sure to use LARGE pie shells or it won’t all fit.

Our tradition for this recipe is to make one for each person in the family, then we give them all away on the Monday night before Thanksgiving! It started as a lesson for my family about sacrifice and charity and has been an annual tradition now for many years.

Basic Pumpkin Recipe

1 box dry cake mix                                                           1 15 oz can pumpkin (not pie filling)

Mix two ingredients together and add whatever sounds good.

I have added:

White Chocolate Chips, Chocolate Chips, Cinnamon Chips, Oatmeal, Pretzels, 

You can also try other cake mix flavors such as white cake and spice cake… really whatever you have on hand.

You can take this basic recipe and embellish it different ways. Here are a few suggestions:

Cream Cheese Filling for bread  (layer batter in bottom of pan, then layer of filling, then layer of batter on top)

8 oz reduced fat cream cheese (room temperature or softened slightly)

4 tbsp sugar

1 egg

2 tsp flour

1 tsp vanilla

Cream Cheese Cookie Filling (use as filling spread between two cookies for a cookie sandwich)

1 - 8 oz. package of cream cheese, softened

1 stick of unsalted butter, room temperature

1 - 16 oz. package of powdered sugar

about a capful of vanilla extract

a pinch of cinnamon (to taste)

Apple Glaze for cake: really good served over warm cake!!

1-1/2 cups powdered sugar

3 Tablespoons apple cider

3/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

For cookies… place on lightly greased cookie sheet bake 350* for about 15 min.

For mini bread loaves… bake 350* for 35 min until knife comes out clean

For Muffins… bake 350* for about 18-20 min until knife comes out clean

For 7x11 cake…grease baking dish and bake 350* for 40 min until toothpick comes out clean. Let cool 10-15 min, then glaze. For thinner cake, use 9x13 pan and reduce cooking time slightly.

For instructions on roasting the pumpkin, see Roasted Pumpkins

If I missed anything that I talked about that you wanted more information on, just let me know and I can update the blog.

Roasted Pumpkins? Yes please!

If you are one of those people who carves up the old pumpkin just for the decoration, then I am here to tell you, that you are missing out on some serious delish!

I have talked about doing this a lot, but never actually taken the time to take document the steps I take to use the best parts of a pumpkin. I am here to tell you that roasted pumpkin puree is SOOOO much better than canned pumpkin. And have I mentioned how yummy the seeds are?

So before I get to the how to, I have to share a story….

I have been asked to teach a class to a group of women on cooking with pumpkin. So of course, I wanted to showcase a recipe on cooking with ACTUAL pumpkin that I roasted myself. I brought home a couple of sugar pumps and stuck them in the oven. I was in the kitchen cleaning the seeds when my daughter came in the room and asked what I was doing… I told her I was cleaning the seeds so I could roast them. She sort of bounced off to her room for a bit… fast forward an hour….

She came back into the kitchen as I was pulling the roasted pumps out of the oven. She asked what I had done. I explained to her that I roasted the pumpkins. She stood there with a dumbfounded look on her face and asked how I did that… I said that I put them in the oven and turned it on. She then proceeded to ask me what happened to the seeds…..  Apparently she thought I put the seeds in the oven and somehow turned them into pumpkins!

Now I am not talented enough to turn seeds into pumps just by sticking them in the oven… in fact, I am not even talented enough to turn seeds into pumpkins by sticking them in the GROUND… But I do have a bit of a talent into turning a pump into yummy puree and the seeds into a yummy healthy snack!

You will want to start with a 2-4 lb sugar pumpkin (they work best for roasting because they are smaller than carving pumps, but really, any old pumpkin will do!)

Cut it in half (if it has a stem, cut the stem off first so you don’t have to cut through it)

Then scoop all the seeds and stringy stuff out and lay them face down on a parchment lined cookie sheet.  (I try to separate the seeds from the stringy stuff as I pull it all out of the center).  Set seeds aside.

Place the cookie sheet in the oven at 350-375. Depending on the size of the pumps, it will take 45-60 min to roast. You will know when they are done because the skin of the pump will get wrinkly. If you can easily stick a fork in it, then it’s probably done. You want it to be soft, but not gooey.

Set aside until it’s cool enough to handle, then peel the skin off the pumpkin and put the cooked flesh in the blender to puree. This works the blender pretty hard, so it’s not for a wimpy blender. It works best if you start it on a slower speed until the bottom part starts to puree, then gradually increase the speed until you get to the puree setting. Let it run until it is really smooth. At this point, you can use it for your favorite recipe or save it for later. I usually pack 2 cups (most of my recipes call for a large can, which is pretty much 2 cups) in a pint size mason jar and freeze it. You could actually can it yourself, but I use mine up before the holidays are over, so I don’t go to that much trouble. It will keep for a few days in the fridge, but if you need it to last longer than that, just pop it in an airtight container or freezer bags and stick it in the freezer for a few months.

While your pump is roasting, rinse the seeds until there is no more pumpkin goo on them, pat them dry and set on a cookie sheet overnight to dry. They roast better if they are dry when you stick them in the oven. When ready to roast, toss them with a tablespoon of olive oil and some garlic salt, spread them back on the cookie sheet, as thin as possible and roast for about 15 min at 350*. Don’t over-cook them or they will taste like burnt popcorn. They are done when they START to turn brown. Break one open to check. You don’t want the centers to be brown because they are a little too done at that point.

From 4 3lb sugar pumpkins, I got a sandwich bag full of seeds and 10 pints of puree and paid about $10. That is equivalent to 5 small cans of pumpkin. 

Enjoy!

Rotate Your Food Storage (Without Your Family Knowing They Are Eating It)

Recently I taught a class on how to rotate your food storage without your family knowing they are eating it. Manipulative, you say? Absolutely! It's a mother's right to trick her children into doing what's in their best interest. You know that game that we play as adults.... "Guess what we did when you were gone, mom?" (admit it... you totally know this game because if your children aren't old enough to play it, you have done it to YOUR mom)... Well now I give to you the ability to come right back at them and say "Guess what i put in your meatloaf when you were growing up"   Two can play those games...LOL
I had lots of people, who couldn't attend the class, ask me if I could do a handout or something to share the information.
It's never quite the same in print as it is in person because you miss all the conversation on the topic, (and all the admissions of experiments gone wrong) but here are a few of the highlights of what we discussed at the class:

Store what you eat and eat what you store.
It in no way benefits you or your family to stockpile food that you don’t know how to cook or that your family won’t eat. If you are going to store it, have a plan on how you intend to cook it. Keep in mind that you might not be able to simply use the stove or oven like you normally would, so I encourage you to experiment with other ways to cook your food such as a crock pot, dutch oven, BBQ grill, etc...
It can also potentially be a negative experience for your family if your bodies aren’t used to some of the food, so you need to have it be part of your diet on a regular basis. Our bodies need time to adjust to certain foods and by introducing it in your diet now, you will know if any family member has any allergies or unpleasant reactions.


Food Tips and Trick

Instant  Potatoes – can be used as mashed potatoes, in casseroles, add to potato salad as a filler so you don’t have to use so many potatoes, use as a base and ladle soup over it in a bowl to make the soup a little more hearty. Can also be made very runny and added to soup or gravy to thicken. Make the potatoes a little on the thick side and add cheese, pepper, ham, and form patties for fried mashed potatoes (this is how we use our left over mashed potatoes and they are a big hit at our house) Make sure you keep an eye on the expiration date for potatoes that have butter flavor added as they will go rancid over time.

Oatmeal – Oatmeal, add to favorite cookie recipe, add to favorite meatloaf recipe to make meat go farther, also soaks up some of grease, add to taco meat to go further (put dry oatmeal in blender to disguise it when using it in other recipes). I have added this to my meatloaf for over 25 years and my oldest child (nearly 24 yrs old), just recently found out, only because I told his wife my trick and she said something about it at a meal when we were eating it.

Beans – put a few cups of dry beans in a crock pot and fill crock with water. .(I am a working mom, so I need the beans to be ready in the morning so I can toss them in soups) Cook on low over night.  Rinse well in a colander before using in recipes The juice from certain beans cooking can become toxic, so I just rinse them all as a rule of thumb. You can use these cooked beans for any recipe that calls for canned beans such as soups/chili or you can mash them for re-fried beans … I also add re-fried beans to my taco meat to make the hamburger go farther, you can mix re-fried beans and rice and even some oatmeal for great burrito filling. It’s so much easier to use them if you have them ready, so I always cook twice as much as I need and freeze the extra. Put them in an airtight container or a freezer bag.

Rice – Rice with gravy, fried rice, casseroles, add a handful to any soup recipe, burrito filling. You can also use rice as a base for recipes that call for being served over noodles, such as Stroganoff. We had quite the discussion about rice and it did come up that certain kinds of rice will still be a little crunchy even when fully cookes. Experiment with different varieties to find out what your family likes the best.

Dry onions – any recipe that calls for chopped onion or any recipe you need to add a little flavor to, it's quicker and easier than peeling and chopping onions. It is chopped super small so most of the time you don't even know there are onions in the dish.

Powdered Milk – Hot Choco mix much better than store bought. If you can't do chocolate, you can still make the recipe with the cocoa and use other things to flavor such as flavored syrups, crushed up mint candy, caramel, etc.. You can substitute as milk in most recipes (not pudding, or gravy) 2 Tbps/1C water = cup of milk in recipe. I have a quart jar next to my stove so it's handy to add it to most recipes. If using in soups, add some flour or instant mashed potatoes to thicken. If using as actual milk, you can add a little vanilla to it for better flavor.

72 hour kits – Rotate food in them by using them as snacks to cut back on some meals during conference weekend. That way you always know the food is fresh and no bugs or rodents have gotten into packs. Rotate batteries in flashlights (I store mine in flashlight backwards so they don’t get bumped in the on position and run the batteries dead.) Rotate water if you store in 2L bottles at conference time so you always know how old your water is.


Other Storage Tips:

Use your empty canning jars to store food/water.  Oven canning (Google how to) works well to preserve dry foods in canning jars. Just don’t put in anything that has moisture content or it won’t last. You can also “can” water, so that you have safe drinking water or clean water for first aid. Don’t store empty bottles, put SOMETHING in them! It takes up the same amount of space and most people have empty bottles hanging around already.

Don’t store plastic buckets/ water bottles directly on concrete. Chemicals will leach into plastic and contaminate food/water. Put boards, pallets, or cardboard under them to create a barrier from the concrete.

Refill empty liquid laundry detergent containers with water (don’t let the suds run out) and you have soapy water ready to go in case of emergency. You can wash dishes, laundry, or people with the water. (Not for drinking, but it frees up your other water for drinking/cooking if you don’t have to use that water for hygiene/cleaning)

Use soda can dispensers to rotate canned foods or write DOP on lids with sharpie to help keep canned foods rotated. Most exp dates are only when the manufacturer guarantees nutritional value. Generally, canned foods, that are in undamaged cans, can be used long past exp dates.

Chicken and Homemade Noodle Something Something.

Several people have recently asked me for my recipe for Homemade Chicken & Noodle something something. I say it like that because it is quite a versatile recipe.  Those who know me, know that I like things simple. This is such a simple recipe that can be used in many different ways. It saves me having to have several chicken noodle this or that recipes... I just use the same recipe and modify it slightly for different dishes.

I usually like things simple but I take the time to make the homemade noodles.. it's totally worth the effort, but if you are in a hurry, you can just toss in some egg noodles. In my opinion, the noodles totally make or break the yumminess of the recipe.

My family doesn't like celery, so I skip that ingredient and add frozen peas about 15 minutes before I serve it.

For the dough for dumplings, you can make regular biscuit dough, or you can mix some pancake mix up to a thick dough or for even quicker dumplings, you can break up Pillsbury biscuit dough and drop on top about 15 minutes before you want to serve it..

for a pot pie, you can make homemade pie crust for the bottom and top crust, or you can get the pre-made crust from the grocery store. If you are doing it as a pot pie, use a lot less water and more flour to thicken it up.

My family prefers to have it over mashed potatoes. You can do real mashed potatoes or instant mashed. If you do instant mashed, make them thick so they will withstand all the juice in the soup.

It all depends on how much time you have and what you are in the mood for.

Another tip to make it easier,... I put the chicken breasts in the crock pot and cover with water and cook them overnight. Then I pull them out of the water and can shred them with a fork while they are warm.  Save some of the water to use in the soup.

So here's the basic recipe:

Chicken Noodles over Potatoes

Put 3-4 inches of water in large pan. Dice ½ onion, 1 ½ cup carrots & celery (each.. more if you want). 1 can chicken broth + 1 can water. Boil 2 chicken breasts – strain water and add water to rest of soup.

Boil til veg are tender, add chicken and noodles. Salt & pepper to taste along the way. 

(you can make in stock pot and then move to crock pot to keep warm until ready to serve.)

Noodles:

3 eggs + 2 half shells of water, a sprinkle of garlic salt, 1 ½ cup flour. You can add more until you can roll out to ¼ “ thick. Flour the top a little and fold over both edges to the middle. Be sure to flour wherever the dough touches so it won’t stick, especially under the dough. Cut into thick strips ¼” or so (I use a pizza cutter to cut the noodles). Unfold them and let sit while veggies are cooking. In a hurry, you can also use egg noodles from the store.

Improvise

I love spending time in the kitchen. I think that is my favorite part of the holidays… having people over and spending all day cooking for them. On more than one occasion I have found myself needing to come up with an emergency substitute for a recipe because I frequently experience mental pause… and because more than once, my children have decided to consume something from the pantry or freezer that was meant to be used as an ingredient at a future date.

For example, one year I stocked up on Cool Whip because I knew I would need a lot of it to make our traditional pumpkin cheesecakes at Thanksgiving time (see post from last November for more details on that tradition) I went to the freezer to get them out on the SUNDAY that I was going to make them and discovered that my son, D, who lived in the basement where the freezer was, had decided to eat the frozen cool whip like ice cream…. That also explains where all my spoons went…. You guessed it… UNDER THE BED!

My daughter, E, has also been known to alter a recipe or two. When she was in middle school, she decided to make no bake cookies after school one day to surprise me… since it was a “surprise”, she didn’t want to call me and ask where the oatmeal might be. Instead, she opted to just eliminate that ingredient…. SURPRISE!!! It doesn’t really work when you  eliminate the most important ingredient.

So back to my latest improv…

If you know me, you know that as soon as the “Ber” months arrive, it is pumpkin everything at our house… pumpkin hand soap, pumpkin air freshener, pumpkin dessert almost every day.  So yesterday I dug out the flannel sheets and dreamed about pumpkin cookies ALL NIGHT LONG!!!!

I woke up all excited about making cookies and by 8 am on a Saturday, I was up and showered and in the kitchen. Several weeks ago, I busted out the pumpkin a little early and tried a new recipe for a pumpkin cake with apple cider glaze. If you have been on FB in the past several weeks, you know the one I am talking about. (If I knew who started that I would totally give them props for the idea!!!)When I made it, I thought it might be an easy way to make pumpkin cookies as well, so I was way excited this morning to try it out. I mixed up a double batch which consisted of two cake mixes (pick whatever flavors you happen to have in the pantry… and a large can of pumpkin (not the pie filling). It is tradition at my house to add chocolate chips to the pumpkin cookies so I went back to the pantry…. WHAT???? I was fresh out of the 10 lbs of chocolate chips I bought at cash and carry not too long ago…. After cussing the kids under my breath, I went back to the pantry to improvise… Necessity is the mother of all great recipes!!!! I found half a bag of white chocolate chips and half a bag of butterscotch….

Can I just say that pumpkin cookies will never be the same at my house again… these are TO DIE FOR!!!! And how easy is it to mix a dry cake mix, a can of pumpkin and a bag of chocolate chips? I could make these in my sleep!!! Trust me… you will want to bust out the cookie sheets and make some RIGHT NOW!!!

So here's the recipe:

You can use any kind of cake mix that you have in the pantry... I'm kind of excited to try spice cake next time! If you use a small can of pumpkin, use only one cake mix...

Mix these ingreds, drop onto greased cookie sheet, bake at 350* for about 14 min and this is what you get:

MMM...MMMM...MMMM!!!!!

Homemade Creamed Fudge

AFTER I made the fudge this year, I realized that I should have taken pictures of each stage so you can see what it does and what it looks like....

For now, you will just have to figure that out by trial and error....
This takes some time and you can't rush the steps, especially the creaming part.
If you have questions, you can message me or leave a comment and I will do my best to answer them.

I have to actually give credit for this recipe to Mike Howell.... 

He taught me to make it many years ago and it has become part of our Christmas traditions ever since.
 Most years, I end up making it more than once because it disappears so quickly...

A word of warning though... once your family has experienced it,
 you will be FOREVER stuck making it this way.
You won't be able to go back to the marshmallow fudge or other

 "cook and pour into a pyrex pan" recipes!!!

I tried making a new recipe this year using candy bars and sweetened condensed milk.... 

I ended up with a mutiny over it....

BASIC CREAMED FUDGE

4 cups sugar

2 Tbsp white Karo

1cup cream or evaporated milk (cream is preferred)

¼ cup water

6 Tbsp butter (not margarine)

6 Tbsp cocoa

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup chopped nuts

Combine first six ingredients in a heavy bottomed 3 quart pan. Heat over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden paddle, until all ingredients are well blended. Continue stirring until it comes to a full boil. Wash down sides of the pan with hot water on a small pastry brush. Continue boiling until it reaches 240® on the candy thermometer, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and place the pan in a sink of ice water. Leave it alone until it is fully cooled (about room temperature). Place the pan briefly in a sink of hot water to loosen the candy from the pan. Then carefully remove the candy to a heavy duty mixer. (Kitchen-Aid or Bosch) **CAUTION** This process works the mixer hard and a mixer that is not a very heavy duty type may not do the job or may burn up.

Allow it to mix at low speed until it starts to cream – it will lighten and change consistency. (As an alternate to creaming in a mixer, if you have a marble slab, you can pour the hot candy directly from the stove to the prepared moist slab. Allow it to cool and then cream it by hand with a wooden or heavy paddle). Then, add the flavoring and nuts if desired. Remove the candy from the mixing bowl and place on clear plastic wrap. Wrap up the candy and knead it until it is well blended and the shape you want. After it is shaped make sure it is completely wrapped in the plastic. Allow it to cool overnight. All of the heat does not leave the batch until it is allowed to rest. That is what makes it really creamy. It will then keep at room temperature in the plastic wrap – probably longer than you can keep it around.

Alternate versions:

For white fudge, omit the cocoa. Otherwise follow the recipe. This is good alone or as the center for dipped chocolates using different flavors instead of vanilla – mint for mint crèmes, maple for maple crèmes, orange, etc. I usually mix the flavors and leave the candy in a kneaded mound, wrapped in plastic, overnight and then shape the balls and freeze them for dipping the next day or later.

For Penuche, substitute one or two cups of brown sugar for the same amount of white sugar and omit the cocoa. Otherwise follow the above recipe. It is good alone or at the center of pecan logs.

***HINTS***

The white fudge and penuche tend to be a little softer and keep well in the refrigerator, beginning the day after it has cooled naturally. If you find you have overcooked or undercooked the fudge and it is the wrong consistency or doesn’t cream right, or heaven forbid it sugars, just add some water and re-cook it and start over with the cooling and creaming process – provided you haven’t added nuts. In your final batch, experiment with additions, marshmallows & nuts for rocky road, raisins in chocolate, cashews are delicious in white fudge, pecans in penuche, etc.

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

Let me just start by saying that i am obsessed with pumpkin... I love the colors of them, I love the time of year they represent and I especially LOVE any food containing pumpkin!!!

So I started a Pinterest board dedicated to All Things Pumpkin.

I have an old family recipe for pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, which is probably where my pumpkin obsession started. These cookies are a right of passage each year in ringing in the fall season, which if you haven't guessed, is my FAVORITE time of year....

well, almost!

Christmas is actually my favorite time of year, so I sort of consider Fall, the beginning of the Christmas season. In fact, I have already added my Christmas playlist back on the ipod.

But I digress....

back to the reason you are here...LOL!

I decided to try a few new recipes this year to see if anything could possibly live up to the childhood memories I have of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.

Oh.My.Gravy... YES!!!!

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles combine TWO of my favorite things into one little ball of awesomeness!

Since I don't have to eat a snickerdoodle AND a pumpkin cookie, I figure with this creation, I can simply have TWICE as many!!!

So here it is exactly like I found it on 

Recipe Girl

pumpkin snickerdoodles

Yield: 3 dozen cookies

Prep Time: 25 min (plus chill time)

Cook Time: 10 min

ingredients:

COOKIES:
1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated white sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
3/4 cup pure unsweetened pumpkin puree
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

ROLLING SUGAR:
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon allspice

directions:

1. In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to cream the butter until fluffy. Add sugars and pumpkin puree and beat well. Mix in egg and vanilla, scraping down sides of the bowl to incorporate all of the ingredients.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and ground cinnamon. Beat flour mixture into liquid mixture a little at a time just until incorporated.

3. Cover dough with plastic and chill at least an hour, or until dough becomes slightly firm.

4. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350°F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper (or spray with nonstick spray). Mix rolling sugar ingredients in a small bowl.

5. Remove cookie dough from refrigerator. Use a medium cookie scoop (1 1/2 Tablespoons) or a large spoon to scoop out dough and roll into balls. Use your hands to roll the balls in the cinnamon sugar and make sure they're coated really well. Place 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Use a glass with a nice, flat bottom to dip in sugar and flatten the balls.

6. Bake at 350°F. for 10 to 14 minutes, or until they are slightly firm to the touch. Let cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes or so, then remove them to a wire rack to cool completely.

tips:

*Store in an airtight container. These cookies freeze well too. Place them in freezer zip bag and remove from freezer when the craving hits.

Source: RecipeGirl.com (Adapted from dlynz.com)

Homemade Salted Caramel Sauce

I ran across this recipe by clicking on a link in a link from a link kind of thing....

Let me just say ..I'm in Heaven!!!

This is so easy and I totally nailed it the first time.

I have included a link  in case you want to look at the actual site where I ultimately found the recipe.

Bakers Royale 

They have fabulous pictures and it only took me about 15 minutes to whip this up!

I am thinking it will be great in hot chocolate, hot cider, in cupcakes, the possibilities are ENDLESS!!!!

Homemade Salted Caramel Sauce

Makes approximately 14-16oz

1 cup sugar

6 tablespoons water

4 tablespoon butter

¼ c heavy cream

1/4 teaspoon salt (optional, for salted caramel sauce)

Instructions:

Place sugar and water into a saucepan over medium low heat and stir the  until sugar has dissolved. Dissolve any crystals forming on the side with a wet pastry brush.

Once sugar has dissolved increase heat to high.

At this point do not stir the mixture directly. Now and then, using the handle, give the pot a swirl to keep the mixture moving. The mixture will start to bubble after a minute or so.

After 3-4 minutes the mixture will turn from a light amber to medium amber and then finally to a dark reddish brown color. Once the mixture starts to smoke, add the butter and heavy cream. The mixture will bubble wildly. Whisk to combine (bubbles will subside upon cooling). Set aside to cool completely.

Notes:

The longer the caramel cooks the harder it will become as it cools.

If after cooling the caramel is too hard, re-heat it and add more water, milk  or heavy cream to thin it.

If after cooling the caramel is too liquid-y, make a second batch and cook the caramel slightly longer, then mix the two together.

For a deeper caramel flavor add your butter and cream after the mixture has smoked for about 30 seconds. 

Salted Caramel Steamer

For those of you who don't know me,
I don't really drink coffee or tea, but sometimes ..

I like to sit and relax with a warm cup of yum to sip.

I get a little tired of Hot Chocolate (unless, of course, it's white chocolate)

 and Caramel Apple Cider is kind of a seasonal thing,

So....

This is the next best thing (actually, in some ways...its WAY better!)

Some of you want to know what I have been talking about when I mentioned having

 a Salted Caramel Steamer.

Start with the above items.

Pour the milk into a tall microwave safe cup. 

(MUCH taller than the mug)

Heat in microwave until hot (about 2 minutes)

...or you can heat on stove in a pan. Nana swears it tastes better that way.

Add a tbsp (or so depending on how much flavor you want)

of any flavor of Torani Syrup.

Use hand blender to froth milk in TALL glass.

It will splash up when you turn on the blender, so don't try to do it in the mug.

And make sure you have a firm grip on the blender...

The first time I tried it, the blender got away from me 

and my steamer ended up mostly on the ceiling.

When milk is frothy...

sit by the fire

or on the deck in the early morning or late at night

or in the swing by the pond....

and enjoy a quiet moment of YUM!

Caution... this can be quite addicting....

not because of the ingredients,

 but because the warm milk & solitude can be very relaxing!