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Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Tuesday at the Table

Due to Scraptastic Tuesday last week, I held off telling you about our family's outing to Bill's Berry Farm, which ended up being a good thing, as it gave me time to do a little 'research' in the kitchen. Long story short, 15 of us met at the farm as part of a fun family weekend, and among other fall farm activities, we made fresh apple cider. If I had ever done that before, I forget. For one thing, I certainly didn't remember how many steps were involved. It took all of us (even the youngest kiddos) about 45 minutes to make 10 gallons to divvy up and take home.
Of course, in addition to "just" drinking it, I had to use it in a few recipes.

  • Next was tweaking my recipe for Honey-Balsamic Vinaigrette:
Honey-Cider Vinaigrette
1 cup fresh cider boiled down to 1/4 cup and cooled a bit 
2 Tb. finely chopped or grated red onion (or a shallot would work well)
1 Tb. honey
1/2 - 1 tsp. Dijon mustard, to taste
1 tsp. salt
a few turns of freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
     Add everything except olive oil into a jar with a tight-fitting lid. Cover and shake well. Whisk in olive oil, cover, and chill until time to serve.

Now caramels aren't an every-day make in our kitchen, but though a little time-consuming, these were not finicky one bit. We just followed the steps one by one, and before long, we had chewy bites of caramel to nibble, and the best of all? They honestly tasted of that fresh apple cider. Keeper!

9 comments:

  1. Yummy! Those caramels look amazing. I love pork with any kind of apple. Might need to try that tonight. I've watched cider being made, but I've never been to a place where you can make your own. Fun!

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  2. Times well spent results in such great memories. Your caramels look ever so good.

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  3. How fun, what a great outing and experience and those caramels looks just delightful!

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  4. Making memories with your family -- and yummy cider and caramels too!

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  5. Remind me, this is the apple juice kind, right?

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  6. oh my!!! now I know what I'm doing tomorrow instead of what I had planned!! XX!

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  7. Apple cider caramels sound delicious. And that pumpkin placemat is awesome. Is there a tutorial somewhere in cyberland for it? :)

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  8. Jenny, I don't have your email, but here's a link to the pattern I was inspired by for my pumpkin table runner: http://www.theplaidscottie.com/2011/10/pumpkin-patch-table-runner.html

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