Summer 2011, Day 3: Apple Brown Betty

Today we made Apple Brown Betty from Ellie Krieger's SO Easy cookbook.

I had actually never heard of an Apple Brown Betty, but it reminded me of an Apple Crisp, which I love, so I wanted to try it. It's exactly like an apple crisp, but a lot healthier. The ingredients are apples, apple cider (except we used apple juice), cinnamon, 2 tablespoons of butter, bread (GF or regular), vanilla, and brown sugar.

You basically just simmer the apples and the brown sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and juice in sauce pan. You peel the apples first, then chop them.

Later, when it's simmered (10 minutes), you add a little butter.

Then you get a food processor and blend the bread, add cinnamon and a little brown sugar, then mix in 1 tablespoon of butter.

You put the apples into a pan and put the crumble and bake it.

This tastes exactly like an apple crisp, and I suggest if you like apple crisp, you make this dish.

The good thing is that it's healthy. You cut down on the butter, and you whole grain bread, if you can, you only add a little sugar, you use juice (or cider), and that's where it gets the sweetness. It reminds me of autumn, and me and my mom love that.

So it's really good. 2 Thumbs Up!

Day 74 - Stewed Fruit and Crumble

Recipe from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution and Jamie Online

Hi, hi, everyone. It's 9:15 and my mom just got home from a book signing. I cooked at, like, 4:00 this afternoon, but now it's past my bedtime, so we're writing a quick post.

Today I made stewed fruit and Crumble. I used plums and a pear which we got from the food co-op yesterday. I'd never made stewed fruit before, but I have made a little crumble before.

This was a very easy recipe. It took about 30 minutes. A little bit more if you do the crumble. It's sort of like an apple sauce, almost, except we used the pear and plums. It was chunky. Stewing fruit is not as easy as it looks. You have to cut all the fruit, which is weird because you really notice the texture of the fruit.

It was juicy. You just cook it with a little water and sugar.

I used sugar in the raw, which my dad uses for his coffee.

When it's done, the fruit is very hot.

You add the crumble topping and then bake it. The crumble topping is just flour, sugar, butter, and oats (we used GF Bisquick).

The crumble topping

I had to get the skin out!

I only had a taste because it's not our dessert night. Yesterday was dessert night. Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday are dessert nights. I think we're a healthy family because we don't eat dessert all the time and we don't go to fast food places.

1 1/2 THUMBS UP

I would have liked it a little less chunky. But it was good.

Day 66 - Baked Apples

Recipe from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

Hello! Wassup?

Today Jared and I made baked apples. I've never had baked apples in my life and so was my chance. We wanted to do something different. When it got out of the oven, it looked like apple sauce on an apple.

There's lemon and orange zest in the apples, too.  When you're zesting, you don't actually go to the orange or lemon fruit.  You grate the skin that you don't eat.  It's kind of weird that the skin has so much flavor, but it does.

The skill I learned today is to not core an apple with a glass bowl next to you. If your brother gives you a corer with part of the apple still in it and tells you to get it out, never get it out with a knife. Because if you accidentally slip, you can tip over the glass bowl and it will fall on the floor right where your cat is laying. Plus you could cut yourself, but I was using a butter knife, not a sharp knife, and the bowl broke but the cat was like, zzzzppppp, out of the kitchen.

One Jared noticed is that we never have all of the ingredients for any recipe. Jamie Oliver must have a ginormous pantry and cabinets to have every ingredient. We did not have all the ingredients today. We didn't have cloves or almonds or mixed spices. So we used ground cloves, pecans, oats, and we figured the mixed spices were cinnamon, ginger, and maybe nutmeg.

You stuff the cored apple with the filling.

Jared did his the way he wanted and I did mine the way I wanted, so we each got our own apples. I put butter, raisins, brown sugar, pecans, the spices, and a little oats in mine. Jared didn't put the raisins or pecans in his.

They bake, which is something that surprised me.

What I discovered is that baked apples are yummy. They taste like apple sauce on an apple with little toppings on it. Jared thinks it's a little sweet or tart or something. I think it's good, but I didn't like the skin.

Baked apples are something I will definitely do again.

2 THUMBS UP

Day 56 - Funky Coke Float

Cookbook - Jamie's Kitchen

Hi Everyone! It's me, Sophie. Today is Friday! We did a dessert!

First off, you should know that I did not eat this morning until 9:00 because I had to get a blood test and I couldn't eat in the morning, so I couldn't go to school right when my dad does. So I stayed home until 7:45, then after my appointment, me and my mom went to Starbucks where where my mom's HOT HOT coffee spilled on me. My shorts were dripping with coffee on them. I had to rinse them off, and then I went to school.

What a morning.

My dad had to take me and my little brother home today late because my brother was playing The Star Spangled Banner at a pep rally and my mom wanted to see that.

So by the time we and finished with dinner, it was eight o'clock and we made our dessert.

This Funky Coke Float is from Jamie's Kitchen called a Funky Coke Float. It's just like doing a regular float. You just put vanilla ice cream in first, then add Coke, only we didn't have Coke, we had Diet Dr. Pepper, which in Texas some people call Coke.

Every soda is Coke, apparently. There's a joke in Texas where you walk into a restaurant and say you want a Coke, and they say, Sure, what kind? And you say Dr. Pepper. I thought that was pretty funny when I heard it.

The one thing I really liked about this recipe was...it's called...wait for it...Sugar Encrusted Walnuts or Pecans. What you do is get pecans or walnuts and wash them in a colander.

Then you get powdered sugar and roll the nuts around in the sugar.

Then you bake them at 350 for about 15 minutes.

They are one of the best things I have ever tasted, truthfully. You put them on top of the float, but I didn't like them so much in the float, but I liked them plain.

1 1/2 THUMBS UP

Day 49 - Ice Cream with Smush Ins

Recipe from Jamie Oliver Online

Can you believe it? Today is day 49. Sophie or I have cooked everyday for 49 days! Only about 130 days to go to get to our 6 month goal. I feel this is pretty intense and awesome. I'm very proud of myself, and of Sophie.

Sometimes it's been a hassle because of our schedules, but most of the time it's good. I've tried so many new things.

I'm so glad I'm doing this cooking challenge, even if I challenged myself.

Today was one of those busy days. Older brothers are at the football game (they're in band) 2 hours away. Sophie went to a friends. There was school, art club, and doctor's appointments. So I went easy tonight. We made an interesting recipe called Smush Ins. The reason behind the name is that you just take ice cream and just smush in whatever you want.

It's basically really easy. I hadn't ever thought of doing this, but it is quite ingenious. It definitely reminds me of a place called Cold Stone Creamery, but way cheaper for my parents.

I did vanilla ice cream with rainbow sprinkles. I'm a simple kind of guy. It was delicious.

My dad did chocolate ice cream with nuts, chocolate chips, and peanut butter.

Next time he said he's adding a banana.

My mom didn't really want any. She's not an ice cream lover. Crazy, right? She ate one of the cookies from yesterday.

I say you can't fully experience life until you've tried Smush Ins. So, go on, get cracking!

2 THUMBS UP!

Day 43 - Lovely Lemony Curdy Pud, aka Lemon Pudding

Recipe from Jamie Online

Hello my fellow people! Today we made Lovely Lemony Curdy Pud, which is really like a lemon souffle. We think.

We chose this today because we were in Granbury for the whole day because my grandparents got a lake house and they're remodeling it and we wanted to see it, so we did. What we did at the lake house was walk around their neighborhood, looked through the canal, met some people. We had to watch out for nails on the staircase and in the rooms. I like the outside of the house. I'm not quite sure what the inside will look like yet, but I think it's going to be awesome.

It's going to be so super cool.

That took part of the day, then we went to the Granbury Square where there was a Pirate Festival going on. It was pretty cool because they have a tea house, an art studio, a cooking supply shop, a playhouse, and a fabric shop! I LOVED the place.

We also went to out to lunch at a bbq place, and we had ice cream, and we walked around a lot, so we didn't really want to make a dinner tonight. So we decided to make this Lovely Lemon Pud because my mom found the recipe and Jamie says it's, "Dead easy," and my mom didn't want to help us make anything super big, so we decided this would good.

It was semi 'dead easy'. You actually have to mix two different things. You have to mix butter, sugar, lemon zest, flour (we used GF Red Mills), milk, lemon juice, and egg yolks.

And then you have to blend egg whites which is annoying because if you get one little strand of yolk in it the whole thing doesn't get fluffy.

But this was my first time when that didn't happen! 25 thumbs up for me!!

The egg whites got super fluffy, I mixed in the rest of it, and it made an awesome looking kind of fluffy looking mixture that is now cooking.

I'll be back in one hour to say how it tasted. Stay tuned.

Here it is, done.  It separated...pudding at the bottom, cakey stuff at the top. It was pretty good to me.

1 1/2 THUMBS UP
Mom: 2 THUMBS UP
POP: 2 THUMBS UP

Day 27 - Strawberries with Gingersnaps and Vanilla Ice, Only We Didn't Have Ice Cream

Cookbook - Jamie's Food Revolution

Today was a very busy. I had friends over and Jared was working at my dad's school getting ready for school to start. Then I had to drop off my friends at their house, go all the way to Joann's to buy fabric for a sewing project I'm doing, then we had to take stuff to my dad's school. I don't need to go into anymore details, but the point is today I made something easy.

One problem with our recipe choice was that we didn't have vanilla ice cream, kind of important to the recipe since it includes strawberries, gingersnaps, and ice cream. "Kind of ironic,: Jared keeps saying.

So we had to use whipped cream (Jamie Oliver, if you are reading this post, don't get mad at us because we didn't have vanilla ice cream).

The ingredients you need for this desert are strawberries, already made gingersnaps (and we used Lucy's Cinnamon Thins which are REALLY good), and ice cream or whipped cream.

Lucy's Cinnamon Thins, pretty close to gingersnaps, purchased at Starbucks!

All you do is smash the gingersnaps, then cut the strawberries into even slices and put them on the crushed gingersnaps (already in a bowl)...

Step two

...and put your ice cream or whipped cream, and you can top it with shredded bittersweet chocolate. In this case I grated chocolate chips by putting the chips against my palm and grating.

Without chocolate

With chocolate

This was good!

2 Bagillion THUMBS UP

Day 13, part 2 - Lemon Drizzle Cake

Recipe from Jamie Oliver's Website (his cake looks way better than ours)

This is the second part of, like, a duo, for today's cooking. I, Jared, am writing this. We made a lemon cake that was a failure.

Using our new hand mixer

We're not really sure why. First it didn't rise. It was really lemony because all the lemon was really concentrated when it was supposed to be spread out. So I didn't like it at all, really, and this is the first thing I didn't really like, so I was disappointed.

It took a lot of lemons!

I didn't like it because it was too concentrated and the texture was kind of weird for me. Part of the problem might also have been that the recipe ingredients were in grams and we had to convert it and we may have done it wrong. We also used a new gluten free flour mix.

We couldn't get the cake out of the pan!

So, next time, we'll use a smaller pan, double check our measurements, and leave out the tangy syrup stuff.

Our first failure

But my madre liked the cake even with the lemony craze.

It was only 1/2 inch tall! Guess the pan was too big.

One a happier subject, we found Jamie Oliver's cooking show, called Jamie Oliver At Home and it was pretty awesome.

0 THUMBS UP for me, but 29 THUMBS UP for my mom.

Day 10 - Rice Pudding

Cookbook - Jamie's Kitchen

My brother again today was not home. He is at his friend's house. So I decided to do something quick and easy and that tasted really good. I made rice pudding and it tasted so good.

The part that makes it easy is that all you have to do is get sugar, milk, butter, and rice. And a little vanilla and salt. You let it simmer for about 30 minutes to 35 minutes and then let it cool for 5 to 10 minutes.

It's a really fun and easy meal. I like rice pudding. I like rice. This is nice and sweet. Just put some cinnamon on top to even out the flavors.

2 THUMBS UP!

Day 6 : Chocolate Biscuits with Soft Chocolate Centers

From Jamie Oliver's Website

Okay, today, (dramatic pause) I made some very yummy chocolate biscuits!!!

Sorry this post is so late, tonight we went Hobby Lobby, then to Pei Wei (all fresh!), then to Target and it ran late so we got home at like 7:50.

First, let me just say it. I don't love a lot of chocolate. It's too...chocolaty.

But I went for it anyway.

I found the recipe on Jamie Oliver's website. The biscuits I just finished making were chocolaty. I didn't love 'em because of that, but they were pretty good.

Now even though we went to Target and got groceries, my mom didn't get butter so I had to use shortening. I didn't even know what shortening is. And I used Bob's Red Mill GF baking mix instead of flour.

The recipe says the cookies are crumbly and the are. My mom said they'd be great with coffee. Of course she likes anything with coffee.

Here I am rolling out and cutting the dough.

Here they're going into the oven.

Although they were kinda dry, with milk they were great!! I really like the gooey stuff on the inside (which is just chocolate chips).

These were really good and I liked them.

1 1/2 THUMBS UP.

So until next time...

Day 4 - Baked Pudding

Cookbook: Jamie's Kitchen

This is probably my favorite dessert I've ever tasted! Ever. Except besides tiramasu (maybe). It has a light fluffiness like tiramasu. It's really creamy. You take a bite into it and there's the gooeyness and fluffiness of it, so it's a really good combination.

You let it sit for about 5 or 10 minutes. It stays warm so the outside isn't too hot, but then the warm gooeyness inside kind of spills out.

And actually this recipe itself is gluten free! We didn't have to replace anything. It uses rice flour instead of wheat flour, which was the best part. You do have to be a chocolate lover for this, though.

It wasn't that hard to make, but it is difficult for when you're a beginner because you have to separate the eggs because you need the whites for part and the yolks for part, so it's harder for beginners because if you've never done egg whites before it is difficult.

We also had to do the chocolate and espresso early but we didn't have any ice tray molds so we used an old halloween jello mold which was funny.

We also didn't know if it was supposed to be unsweetened chocolate or not, so we used chocolate chips and eliminated most of the sugar because we figured the sugar in the recipe meant we were supposed to use unsweetened chocolate, but it turned out great.

All in all, I thought if this was judged in a restaurant, it would get 5 stars.

2 THUMBS UP!