November Foodie Pen Pal Reveal

It's that time again, time to reveal the foodie pen pal stash of the month. YAY!

My pen pal this month was Robin Lourie - she sent me this fabulous box. You can check out what she got from her pen pal here. I sent to Anna, who doesn't have a blog but sent me this e-mail in regards to the goodies we sent her.

I hope you are doing well this day before Thanksgiving! I wanted to send you a BIG thank you for the great box of goodies!

I truly appreciate the thoughtfulness that you put into creating this package. The almonds were YUMMY!

The dark chocolate bars will be consumed post Thanksgiving! I can't wait to try the recipes you sent as well. The can of pumpkin is exactly what I needed!

The barbeque sauce looks so pretty! I think that will go great on tempeh for a vegan tempeh reuben.

Again thank you very much! It has been a pleasure exchanging emails! Thank you for reaching out!

I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving! I've got to get to the co-op to get my "turkeyless roast"

Here is what she got: 

So now on to what we got :) I must say that Robin was lovely and sent the most wonderful things.

Look at this haul! I mean seriously! Of course this arrived the day I was heading out to go to Mike's, the mailman freaked me out by knocking on my front door (mind you I consider my actual front door the back door so, this really does worry me when I hear a knock at that door). Come to find the mailman waiting there for me and handed me this loveliness which I immediately became quite excited about and began smiling. I don't think she quite knew what to do with me other than walk away from me.

First thing I busted open, even before Mike got to see it were these bad boys. Soo freaking delicious, they were gone in 3 days (would have been sooner had I not had will power or the need to share at least one pretzel with Mike). I will be recreating these for a Christmas treat to pass out, rather than bake a bazillion cookies like I normally do. Going easy this season with the baking.

Then we have enchilada sauce and smoky pulled pork seasoning sauce. Um, delish!!! Mike and I had to make pulled pork for sure. So bought a pork shoulder (couldn't find one unseasoned at Walmart so I bought a BBQ seasoned and slow cooker ready one). This is the result ----

Yes, it's as delicious as it looks, super simple too. Add 1 cup of water to the packet of sauce and one 2-lb pork shoulder and cook on low for 8 hours. Easy peasy and super delicious with some baked potatoes and green beans. Yummmm :) I still have leftovers hehe.

Then we have tea, Tazo Passion, Nature's Splash (a lot like Crystal Light) and then some green tea. I adore the Tazo passion tea - when I worked at Starbucks that was my go to drink. I haven't tried the green teas yet and have brought the Nature's Splash to work with me for my water - I use Crystal Light daily so this is perfect.

And at this rate I will never have to buy peanut butter again, I just have to ask that they include peanut butter in every FPP box I get haha!! I do love peanut butter A LOT. It's got to be my favorite food. I was also getting low on honey and this was a pleasant surprise. I prefer local honeys and this is just perfect. Actually used it for the first time last night in some oat bars.

And now for the adult side. She must have read that I like to make beer bread. :) So I received two cans of this Bombshell Blonde Ale. I drank one, was not overwhelmed or in love with the flavor, it's beer. But it made some fabulous beer bread, which I made the other night and have been enjoying since.

A big huge thank you to my pen pal for sending such a lovely box of goodies that I am still enjoying.

Wanna be a foodie pen pal? Check it out below.

Here’s a detailed explanation of the program:

-On the 5th of the month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.
-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal!
-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!
-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)
-Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you can choose to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month.
- Foodie Penpals is open to US, Canadian residents & UK residents.  Please note, Canadian Residents will be paired with other Canadians only. We’ve determined things might get too slow and backed up if we’re trying to send foods through customs across the border from US to Canada and vice versa. So, I’m going to keep two separate lists and match US w/ US and Canada w/ Canada!

***If you’re in the UK, please contact Carol Anne from This Is Rock Salt at rocksalt@thisisrocksalt.com to get involved!

Flavors of Fall: Homemade Apple Butter - In your slow cooker (crockpot)

Since we received the foodie pen pal box and since the day of Rugged Maniac and eating at Cracker Barrel with mom I have been dwelling on apple butter.

Our lovely foodie pen pal was gracious enough to make apple butter and send it our way - sorry honey, I didn't share.

Hers was smooth and creamy. Delicious too. Cracker Barrel tends to have a more grainy texture to it, not much though, still delicious.

I've always enjoyed apple butter but can never really justify the cost to buy a small jar of it. Well no need to try and justify the cost now.

Find apples on sale - like 88 cents a pound from your local grocer (or local apple orchard) and use ingredients you already have in house probably (ground cloves, apple pie spice, cinnamon, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla) then add to your fabulous crock pot and fo-get about it! (done in my best Brooklyn accent I can muster).

So to google I went to find a recipe. I searched and searched to find one that didn't contain 10 bazillion cups of sugar or required me to buy applesauce, I mean, that's cheating right? I want to make it myself not use Mott's applesauce to help me. Gosh, I will buy the apples - especially during apple season and when they are dirt cheap. Of course I'm that anti-box mix baker usually (not that I don't use boxed mixes on occasion).

So after searching and still modifying I found one over here at My Baking Addiction. A lovely blog if I do say so.

I still ended up modifying her recipe, which you will see here shortly.

First I had to go buy some apples - and by some, I mean about 15.

Then I had to prepare to peel, core, and slice. Of course do I have an apple corer? No, so old fashioned knife and wood shop made cutting board (from high school days) it was.

That's my apple army if you couldn't tell. They were taking over my counter space (what little my kitchen has - I hope to one day have a big kitchen with more room than I know what to do with. One day)

I ended up using 5 different types of apples - I wanted variety and something more than just a monotone flavor. I wanted depth, sweetness, tartness, and appely. Yes, appely - it's a word now.

So after peeling - which seemed to take forever and a day - my father called while I was doing so to congratulate me on my costume win at work.

After peeling for forever I finally was able to slice them up into pieces and add them to the crock pot.

Then it was time to cover in the cinnamon, cloves, spices, and sugars.

At this point it looks like I'm making apple pie filling.

So in all it took about 14 hours to make. You have to stir a few times, no biggie really - this turned out fine without excessive stirring (I slept through the first 10 hours of this cooking).

The recipe is as follows:

Slow Cooker Apple Butter
6 1/2 lbs apples - peeled, cored, and sliced (about 15-16 medium apples)
1 cup granulated sugar (I only used 1/2 cup)
1 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed (I only used 1/2 cup)
1 Tbsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp salt
1 Tbsp vanilla extract (pure tastes best)

1. Place apples in slow cooker. In a medium bowl combine spices and sugars. Pour mixture over apples and mix well.
2. Cook in slow cooker for 10 hours, stirring occasionally (or like me only stirring AFTER 10 hours because I went to bed), until the mixture is thickened and dark brown.
3. Use an immersion blender (if you have it - or use a potato masher like I did) and puree apples until smooth.
4. Spoon mixture into sterile containers, cover and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks or freeze.
5. Serve on whatever suits you - breads, muffins, sweet potatoes, pork chops, or even just eat straight up with a spoon (like I do)

NOTES:
---I cut back from 1 cup of each sugar to 1/2 cup of each due to the variety of apples I used. If your apples aren't as sweet you are more than welcome to add more sugar.
---My apples included, 3 gala, 3 braeburn, 2 golden delicious, 4 granny smith, and 3 Fuji. You are welcome to experiment with whatever suits your fancy.

And here is the final product, I used cans that I have collected from foodie pen pals and friends who can. I do not. I don't have the materials to can quite yet, though Mike and I would love to have a garden and do so.

Yum! This is a bit grainier due to not having an immersion blender to use to smooth it out. Oh well, tastes great anyway even when mashed with a potato masher.

That is all my friends. This proves you don't need to buy most things, you can make just about anything you find jarred, canned, or packaged at the store.

Now go out and cook!