Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chippers

Sense of Home Kitchen

These soft and chewy cookies are a danger to have around, putting them in the freezer for the "out of sight, out of mind" does not help, they thaw quickly since there is no flour in the recipe and can be eaten within minutes of taking them from the freezer.  No place is safe, it is best to quickly share them with friends.  The combination of chocolate and butterscotch chips is wonderful, but that can easily be switched out for other ingredients, nuts, dark chocolate, white chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, whatever sounds good to you.  This recipe makes several dozen which is perfect for sharing or taking to a gathering.

As the weather turns colder I like to have a few cookies in the freezer for snacking, this keeps my husband from wanting to buy goodies, keeping the budget in check, plus homemade is healthier and better tasting.  I also like to have a few in the freezer to share with friends.  Tonight we are taking some cookies and a homemade card over to a friend who recently had surgery.

Caprese Salad with Balsamic Vinegar

Sense of Home Kitchen

I can think of no better way to eat the last of my garden tomatoes.  We have eaten fresh salsa, sliced tomatoes, BLTs, and this salad, all very good, but nothing compares to Caprese salad with balsamic vinegar.  It is so good we ate it for dinner two nights in a row, the second night with ciabatta dipped in olive oil and the balsamic vinegar, along with a dessert of fresh pears (which are also good dipped in balsamic vinegar) and grapes.  We have not been home much lately, out of town on weekends, and out of the house for most of the day so this has been a quick yet delicious dinner.  My son ordered a version of this salad at a very nice restaurant a couple weekends ago, looked so good I had to come home and try it myself.

Our gorgeous fall day yesterday turned into 30 to 50 miles per hour cold winds today, while intermittently spitting rain, not fun to be out in.  The wind is howling, leaves are dancing down the street, and the house is creaking, forecast is for this to continue through tomorrow.  Not sure there will be any leaves left on the trees after that, or garbage cans in the alley for that matter.  I am looking forward to being home tomorrow and warming the kitchen with the oven and some baked goods, perhaps it will be a good day for a pot of soup as well.  I also think it is time to clean out the main floor closet pantry,  I had it so neat and organized not long ago, now it looks like the wind outside has been in my pantry.

Honey Date Walnut Bread

Sense of Home Kitxhwn

It's Medjool Date season again, they are nicknamed "King of Dates" and it is not hard to see why.  These sweet fruits are softer than most other dates and my favorite way to eat them is all by themselves, pop one or two in my mouth and my sweet tooth is satisfied.  They are so soft, moist and rich they seem to melt in your mouth.  They are not all sugar though, they are high in fiber, and several minerals.

I have quite a few dates at the moment so I took the rare opportunity to do some baking with them.  This honey date walnut bread is the perfect breakfast bread with a cup of coffee or tea.  Most of the leaves have left the trees around here and there is a serious chill in the air, I have been in the mood for baking to both warm up the house and have something good to eat with my morning coffee.

A little homemade kefir or yogurt is added to the batter to produce a softer, fuller texture to the bread and provide some protein.  I try to do a quick batch of both yogurt and kefir at the beginning of the week, milk and kefir granules process on the counter in a quart jar for about 24 hours and milk and culture becomes yogurt in my crock pot. I turn my crock pot on low and let it heat up fully, when the milk and culture are at the right temperature for combining I mix them and pour them into my warmed crock pot, turn off and unplug the crock pot, wrap it in a large towel and let it sit on the counter for about 10 hours before placing in the refrigerator, works great and I can make a larger batch than I could in my little yogurt maker.

A Year of Preserving

Sense of Home Kitchen

I have spent a lot of time this year preserving produce from our garden or the gardens, trees and bushes of relatives and friends.  Some of the results of that time spent are shown in the (somewhat blurry)  photo above, some are tucked into our freezer.  I have recorded in the list along the side the items preserved.

I have now moved from preserving to using the product in the foods I prepare.  I have used the red onions in vinegar on a simple snack: cracker, cheese and pickled onion, unbelievably good.  I need to add homemade crackers to my To Do list over there on the right hand side of the website, I have wanted to do that for a long time.  We have already gone through two jars of salsa, we love that stuff.  Applesauce is what I have been eating for breakfast, mixed with plain yogurt or eaten alone, either way there is no comparison to the applesauce or yogurt I could have purchased, making all this time and effort worthwhile, not to mention the amount of money we have saved.  There are hundreds of dollars worth of food in the pantry and freezer that I preserved for a small fraction of the cost.  Some of the food is from foraged sources, such as the asparagus soup and the crab apple juice.  Others are from free sources, our family's apple trees or rhubarb plants.  Much of it came from our garden, not free, but nearly.  The canning jars I have reused for years, next I will invest in reusable lids, should have done that years ago.

These pie pumpkins provided seven quarts of purée and a quart of toasted seeds.  The purée will be used in pumpkin walnut bread, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin brioche, pumpkin pie, and these pumpkin chocolate chip muffins that I am making today.  There is so much more that can be done with pumpkin and I look forward to discovering some new recipes this winter, I believe I have seen some savory sauces made with pumpkin and that intrigues me.

I have gotten a start on my To Do list by making apple cider vinegar.  At least I have begun the process, it takes a month or more to ferment.  I used the scraps (peelings and cores) from the apples I canned and dehydrated.  I have wanted to do this for a couple of years, just to see how the process works, not sure it will turn out, but I have nothing to lose, these scraps would have just gone into the compost pile.  I let the scraps brown and then poured water over them, leaving room at the top of the jar for the fermentation process.  Covered with a clean, breathable cloth (cheesecloth works good, I am using an old, thin flour sack towel) and placed them in a dark, room temperature place (my pantry) and now I wait.  If the whole process works I will share the "how to" information in a post.

As per my "to do" list I have also harvested rose hips.  In the photo above they are resting in the slightly curved base of my mixer, where they fit perfectly.  The larger hips are from bushes with larger flowers, leave the flowers on the bush after they die and you will be rewarded with rose hips, in the same family as apples and crab apples, they sweeten after the first frost so that is the best time to harvest.  They are packed with vitamin C, though there is more present in the fresh than in the dried rose hips, some is lost in the drying process.  I have made myself tea with the rose hips, just steep 4 to 8 fresh hips in boiling water for 10 - 15 minutes.  After they have steeped, drink the tea and eat the rose hips, they still hold some of the nutrition.

I would like to make rose hip jelly, though I am not sure I have enough of the berries yet, there are a few on the bushes that had not turned red yet so I will gather them and see if I have enough.  If so I will share the information in a post.  If not they will make more delicious tea.

Sense of Home Kitchen / Homemade Living / Kitchen and Pantry