Simple Apple Butter

I don't like peeling apples. So I didn't.
Recipe:

All your apples (8-10), cored and roughly chopped (I just sliced around the core and put the pieces in)
1/3 c white sugar
1/3 c brown sugar
2 Tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp cloves
1/3 c water

Put all ingredients into the slow cooker, cook on low for 4 hours. When apples are very soft and darkening, remove apples into a blender and blend smooth on the pulse setting. Put it all back in the slow cooker on low for another hour or so, until you start getting a crust forming on the edge of the cooker.
Ladle into boiled jars and (if you want them canned) do a hot water bath for 10 minutes before cooling under a cloth.

Peach Upside Down Cake

• ¼ pound/114 grams unsalted butter, softened, plus more for greasing the pan
• 3 large, ripe peaches
• 1 ¼ cup/250 grams sugar
• 1 cup/128 grams flour
• ¾ teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 3 eggs
• 

Persian sour cherry and saffron baked rice

2 c basmati rice, washed three times and soaked in water for 30 minutes
2 tbsp butter
A quarter of a white onion, finelu chopped
Large pinch of saffron, soaked in 2 Tbsp water
1 can sour cherries, lightly sugared and drained
3.5 c boiling water (I measured into a tea kettle and boiled in there)

Preheat oven to 350
Melt butter in 10" cast iron skillet, sweat onions til soft, add a pinch of salt.  Remove from heat
Add in soaked rice (drained), cherries, and saffron (with water), salt with a pinch of salt (yes, for the second time)
Add in boiling water

Cover with a sheet of tinfoil and then with heavy lid, bake for 30 minutes. Let it rest for a few minutes after you take it out.

Breadmaker sandwich bread

3 cups bread flour
1/2 cup oatmeal
1 1/4 c water
1/4 c honey
2 Tbsp avocado oil
2 tsp salt
2 tsp  yeast

Wet ingredients, plus salt, at the bottom of the breadmaker. Flour and oatmeal next, slightly mixed. Yeast on top, where the salt and liquids won't affect it.

Use program 1, 1.5lb loaf, light crust setting. When bread is on the last rise (about 1 hour left), punch it lightly, let the top fall. Unplug the maker with about 8 minutes left on the program. Leave for a few minutes, but take out before it cools, and wrap in cloth to let cool fully.

Rosemary lemon beets

2-3 beets, peeled and cut into bite sized cubes

2-3 small carrots, rough chopped

1 stalk of fresh rosemary

1 tbsp lemon juice

Sautee the beets and carrots in a little oil and salt, 20 minutes or until fork tender. Move to bowl, mix with chopped rosemary and lemon juice and serve as it cools.

Vegetarian Asian tacos

• 1 1-inch piece ginger, peeled, finely grated
• 4 garlic cloves, finely grated
• 2 tablespoons (or more) vegetable oil
• 6 ounces shiitake mushrooms, thinly sliced
• 6 cups very thinly sliced Napa cabbage, divided
• 2 tablespoons seasoned rice vinegar
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• ⅓ cup thinly sliced chives
• 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

Treat like a stir fry, adding in ginger and garlic first with the oil, then the mushrooms. When the mushrooms are browned, add in 3 cups of the cabbage and the rice wine vinegar (or you could use just soy sauce here), let the cabbage wilt down and the skillet to dry out. Then turn off the heat, add in the sesame oil, chilves, and the uncooked cabbage, toss, and cover for a minute or two. 

Fill corn tortillas with the mixture and garnish with sriracha. Enjoy!

Note: you could also add in julienned carrots and/or sliced jalapenos for more color and bite. Jalapenos could go in at the beginning with the garlic. Could even use thinly sliced radish as a great garnish.

Einkorn Sourdough

Ingredients:

1/2 c sourdough start

2 c tepid water

3.5 cups einkorn flour

1 tsp salt

2 Tbsp honey


Mix 1/2 c flour and 1/2 c water into the sourdough start, place the leaven covered in plastic bowl in a warm place and leave to rise for 1.5-2 hours

When the leaven is bubbly, you're ready for the first rise: mix the salt and the honey into the 1.5 cups of tepid water until its dissolved, then sift in the remaining flour in a large metal bowl. Then add in the leaven, mixing everything just until combined.
Leave on top of the stove, with the oven on to 170 or 180, for 4 hours or so, until nearly doubled in size, folding the edges into the middle every hour or so to keep the top from drying out

When its doubled in size, pour the dough into greased bread pans (makes about 2 loaves) and cover, leaving to double in size again, 1.5 hours or so

Preheat the oven to 450, when its hot, put the bread in. Five minutes in, slash the top of the loaves to make sure they crack correctly. 10 minutes in, turn the heat down to 350 and bake for another 30 minutes.

When done, let it rest for 10 minutes or so, then turn out, cover, and let rest for 2 hours.

Coleslaw

Best coleslaw with a spicy option

Ingredients:

Chopped cabbage/carrot matchsticks (I buy bagged coleslaw bc I hate chopping cabbage but you can chop it if you want to!)

Your favorite mayo (mine is Dukes)

Pinches of salt, pepper, paprika, and/or Tony Chacheres 

Mix it all up together in the amounts you like, I promise it will taste better than any salad dressing coleslaw you've ever been subjected to

Spicy option: add a swirl of Sriracha to it and mix it in well. It will give a pinkish tinge to the slaw but adds a lot of flavor

Paleo fish and chips

Dinner: paleo fish and chips

Take sliced almonds, grind in coffee grinder with sea salt and pepper until its almost as fine as flour
Cut tilapia filets into 2x2 inch nuggets, coat in egg wash, coat in almond flour, fry in a mix of olive oil and grapeseed oil on high heat

Spicy cocktail sauce:

1 part Sriracha

4 parts Ketchup

1 TBSP Minced garlic

Splash of white vinegar

Sweet potato wedges:

INGREDIENTS:

3 Medium Sized Sweet Potatoes, halved and cut into large strips

4 tablespoons Olive Oil

Kosher Salt and Fresh Ground Black Pepper, to taste

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees and toss the sweet potato wedges in the 4 tablespoons of olive oil.

Sprinkle with kosher salt and fresh black pepper to taste. 

Spread evenly on a foil lined baking sheet and place in preheated oven for 15 minutes, flip and repeat until the exterior is crispy and dark golden and a knife pierces easily.

Nispero Jam

Nisperos are loquats are nisperos

Ingredients:
however many ripe (very yellow) nisperos you have, seeded and with the black bits at the ends pulled away
3/4 as much sugar (so if you have 1 c of nisperos, you need 3/4c white sugar, 4 c of nisperos, 3 c sugar)
Juice from one medium lemon

Combine all in a heavy bottom saucepan and cook on medium-high, stirring often, until the sugar is melted. Take off the heat and use an immersion blender to break up the nisperos (this is the first of two blends, so you don't have to work too hard)

Cook on medium, stirring often, and watch the jam. After about 30 minutes it will be boiling steadily and the color will be turning from white-yellow to golden-brown.

Remove from heat again, immersion blend for a second time to break up the skins and get things more smooth (leaving lumps is ok, jam is kind of lumpy)

Put back on heat and finish cooking, til the jam sheets off the spoon and is a dark honey color. Look for seeds or hard bits you might have missed when you prepped the seeds (there are always some), and take them out.

When the jam is soft and sheeting hard from the spoon, ladle it out into canning jars for hot water bath (10 min) or for the fridge.

(jam settling and cooling after their bath)