Bagels, hamburger rolls and french bread are three breads I no longer buy at the store, unless I am feeling lazy. The hardest one of these for me to overcome mentally was making bagels at home. I just could not see how these could be as delicious as a bagel shop's bagels. Let me tell you how wrong I was! The hamburger rolls are literally the best ever. It's hard to not eat them all plain with butter as they come from the oven. French bread is something I learned to make early in my life. It is … [Read more...]

Honey cinnamon applesauce in the crockpot was on the to-do list. Honestly, what was on the to-do list was "get the apples processed!" They were everywhere in the kitchen since I felt the need to bring home a couple bushels of apples from the orchard. And in my own haphazard style, I ended up mixing up the tart apples I bought for eating and canning with the apples bought for pie filling and applesauce. Now I had a large crockpot of the the most tart applesauce ever made.  Sugar would … [Read more...]

Other beverages will pale in comparison to a Pear Blueberry Kompot. Before the day began, I had no idea that I would be googling "What to do with pear peels" and going down a rabbit hole learning the history of kompots. The pears were getting past the point of no return. I planned to preserve them canned in water but ended up making a batch of pear butter and pear blueberry kompot.   That's life when you don't want to waste any of the harvest goodness. I have a hard time looking at the … [Read more...]