Candied Cranberries

Long ago, we bought a house and the agent sent us a recipe for candied cranberries. It looked delicious, so I promptly tried it and have never bought canned ones since. It is simply amazing, and I've shared the recipe with many over the years and several friends have asked me to put it on my blog, so here it is (finally)! Maybe you all can start a new tradition just like I did. I make it every year, and since I learned to can, I make enough to last for the whole year. Last year, I had one jar left over from the year before, and everyone agreed that it's even better after aging a year. I also tried a new trick, adding some baking soda to one batch and reducing the sugar by half, and we liked those even better than the regular ones! The flavors were much bolder, the orange and ginger notes came out beautifully (my Dad threatened to steal the whole batch he liked it so much) so this year I'm planning on experimenting some more with that and I'll update this post when I do.

Candied Cranberries
2 lbs cranberries or 3 12 oz bags
2 ½ C sugar
zest and ½ C juice from 2 large oranges or 3 smaller ones (Try to get organic ones, since we are using the peel, or get a good veggie wash that removes the wax and chemicals. Trader Joe's has one made from grapefruit seeds that I like.)
2 T grated fresh ginger

Optional modifications:
1 tsp baking soda
Reduce sugar to 1¼ cups

Wash oranges to remove the wax, chemicals and transport grime.

The easy way: use a vegetable peeler to peel off the zest. The hard way: use a zester to zest the oranges.

Slice the oranges in half and juice them. If you don't have a juicer, get a fork and stick it in the meat of the orange and then squeeze the juice out. You only need half a cup of juice, so feel free to enjoy the rest!

 Rinse the cranberries, picking out the ones that look bad.

The easy way: peel and slice the ginger. The hard way: use the zester to grate it.

The easy way: pour some cranberries into your food processor until it's about half full, then put the peeled zest and sliced ginger on top. Chop it all up nice and fine, scraping the sides if needed.

Put everything into a large sauce pan (I make double or triple batches so I use a stock pot) and cook over medium high, stirring frequently until everything is nice and gooey.

The easy way: use an immersion blender to blend it all up until it's at the consistency you want. The hard way: use a spoon to stir and pop cranberries against the side of the pot until it's at the consistency you want.

If you're canning, fill prepared jars to a quarter inch from the top and water bath for 20 minutes. If not, it's ready to serve or put in the fridge for later. If served fresh it can be kinda tart so I'd add a bit more sugar. A few days of sitting sitting in the fridge, or in jars if canned, mellows it out quite a bit.

Notes: The half sugar batch came out delicious, but it never firmed up like the full sugar recipe does. It was also a bit more acidic than I prefer, so I'm planning on playing with the recipe this year and seeing if I can tweak it and if adding some pectin might help it firm up. I'm not sure about the chemistry of the baking soda and natural pectin in the cranberries. Perhaps the baking soda interacts in a way that disables the pectin and that's why it never firmed, but I really don't know. If you know anything about it, leave a comment or shoot me an email!

Edit: I did some searching online and found an interesting article which mentions that baking soda breaks down pectin. Apparently to such an extent that it was used to speed up the softening of boiled vegetables and other interesting uses. So there appears to be no way to have firm cranberries that have baking soda in them. It's good to know! Here's the article if you're interested in being a bit of a geek with me. Unfortunately it's only available as a pdf, but it's still a neat read.

Nut Butter Bread

I was glancing at Heavenly Homemakers for the first time in almost a year, and she happened to have a post about bread made from nut butter.  She also made small buns with her muffin pan.  I was intrigued.

I have lots of friends who are gluten/dairy free, and other friends who poke sticks at paleo once a year, and I myself have been having problems handling anything resembling something sweet...sooooo, I gave it a try.  And was promptly amazed.  It truly is like bread.  A good, hearty whole grain, nutty bread.  And best of all it's insanely easy!

I made mine from almond butter since I don't care for peanuts as a rule.  (I also have yet another friend who is allergic to them...lol)  Even family who are iffy about trying my weird gluten free experiments tried it and liked it!  So I'm reposting a repost of a repost (yay internet blogs!) so all those friends who tried it can make it at home.

And to whoever was brilliant enough to come up with something so unexpected, hats off to you and thanks so much for sharing with all of us!

The Most Amazing Peanut Butter Bread! (Naturally grain/gluten and dairy free!)

Author: Laura from HeavenlyHomemakers.com

Serves: 12-16 slices

2 cups natural, unsalted peanut butter
2 teaspoons honey
Pinch of sea salt (omit if your peanut butter is salted)
6 eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 Tablespoons white vinegar (mandatory to activate the baking soda)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix all ingredients together in a blender or with a hand mixer.
Pour into a well-greased 9x5" loaf pan.
Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the bread comes out clean.
Allow the bread to sit in the pan for about 10 minutes to cool.
Remove bread from pan and cool on a rack.

Candied Spiced Nuts

When Hubby and I lived in Germany, we fell in love with their traditional candied spiced nuts.  They are really amazing, but seemed impossible to make at home because of the specialized equipment they used: a special cooker shaped like a bowl with a spinning paddle that got hot enough to fully melt and cook the sugar.  In Germany these treats were relatively easy to find, inexpensive and super tasty.  I'd buy several bags of them every time the vendor made the rounds.  They are much harder to find in the States, usually only at special fairs or something similar, and when I can find them, they are pretty expensive.  But then I ran across a recipe to make them at home!  I was super excited and made some right away.  We enjoyed the results, but I've tweaked the recipe to fit our tastes better.  I increased the spices, because we love the flavors and they weren't quite coming out enough in the original recipe.  I also added a bit of maple syrup, to help the sugar melt and coat the nuts better.  Lastly, I used bowls instead of the plastic bags the original author used, because it is much easier to work with bowls, and it doesn't waste 2 bags for every batch!

Candied Spiced Nuts

4 cups of nuts, whatever you like.  We like cashews, so I use those.  A great place to get inexpensive nuts are indian food markets.

1 egg white.  You can grease a small container with a few drops of oil and put the yolk in it to use for something else later.
1 T water
1 T maple syrup, or if using white sugar substitute molasses instead

1 C sugar, preferably brown sugar or sucanat.
1 T cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg

Preheat oven to 250.

Put nuts in a bowl large enough to stir everything together.  Measure the sugar and spices into a medium sized bowl and whisk until combined. 

Whisk egg white and water together until a little foamy, then add maple syrup or molasses.

Drizzle over the nuts and stir until coated.

Pour sugar mix over the nuts and stir until all the sugar is moistened and coats the nuts.

Pour the nuts onto a lined baking tray and spread them out.  Don't forget to scrape all that tasty sugar out of the bowl too!

Bake for about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes.  When stirring, make sure you scrape all the melted sugar off the bottom of the tray and mix it back into the nuts.  I've found it helpful to just kind of pile everything in the center of the tray, use the spatula to scrape up the sugar and dump it on top of the pile, then spread everything out again for further baking.

The nuts are done when the sugar is dry and they break apart easily.

Set on the counter to cool, then store in an airtight container.  These don't last all that long around here, but I imagine they would stay good for several months.

Yield: 4 cups

Refried Adzuki Beans

Adzuki beans are small, easy to digest and you don't have to soak them before using them.  They are the only dry bean allowed on the diet because of how easy to digest they are.  They also have an odd flavor compared to my personal favorite, black beans.  Black beans are deep, rich and have a very full flavor all by themselves.  Adzuki beans have a higher flavor, not as rich or rounded, so they need some help when they are the main part of the dish, like in these refried beans.  So I've added onions, garlic and a bit of spice make the flavor richer and more well rounded.

Refried Adzuki Beans

2 T olive oil
1 small onion, chopped, or around 1 cup chopped onion
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp salt
2 pints home canned adzuki beans, or 3 cups cooked beans, drained

Add oil, onion and garlic to a 2 quart sauce pan.  Cook the onions on medium-low heat until browning and translucent.  Add the spices and cook for 30 seconds or so.  If you like chunky refried beans, add beans to the pot 1 spoonful at a time, mashing them with the back of the spoon and stirring them in before adding the next spoonful.  Or if you like smooth beans, just dump them all in, stir them good to blend the spices and onions, and then use an immersion blender or food processor to blend them smooth.  Continue cooking over low heat stirring often until the beans are as thick as you'd like, then refrigerate. 

These beans are best the day after they have been made, to allow time for the flavors to blend.  And they sure are tasty on tacos!

Yield: about 3-4 cups

Kim-chi for the Elimination Diet

I made some of this a few weeks ago to prep for the ED when I was reading Wild Fermentation.  Here is my modified version that I will definitely be keeping in stock as a condiment!  This is an incredibly flexible recipe: the onion, garlic, ginger paste (I left out the chilis that are usually a part of the paste) is the basis for all kimchi, and then you can add whatever you have on hand or sounds good!  Here's what I put in mine.

Kim-chi for the Elimination Diet

1 lb bok choy, rinsed well and chopped into thin, short strips
5-6 radishes, coarsely grated
2 carrots, coarsely grated
any other veggies you have around that sounds good

1-2 onions (or onion type things like leeks, shallots, scallions, etc)
3-4 garlic cloves (or more!)
3 T fresh grated ginger (or more!)

2-4 T salt

When preparing the kim-chi, I keep in mind that I'm going to be using it as a condiment, not as a dish by itself.  So I focus on keeping the pieces small enough to eat in bites with other things.  I coarsely grate the carrots and radishes instead of chopping them so they can add their flavor to bites without being large pieces that fill up the bite by themselves.

I cut the leaves of several stalks of the bok choy into about 1 inch strips, and then cut those into about 1/4 inch strips.

I cut the stems in half (or even thirds if they are wide enough) lengthwise and then chop them fairly finely.  

 

Mix a brine of about 4 cups of water and 2-4 T salt, depending on how salty you like things.  I don't like them terribly salty, so I only used 2 T.  Stir well to completely dissolve the salt and pour over the veggies in the bowl.  Put a plate or a plastic bag filled with water on top of the veggies to weigh them down and hold them below the brine.

 Let it sit for a few hours or overnight, until the veggies are tender and flexible.

Drain the veggies, reserving the brine.  Taste them for saltiness.  You want them to be salty, but not unpleasantly so.  If they are too salty, rinse them off, if not salty enough sprinkle a teaspoon or 2 over them.

Chop the onion, mince the garlic and grate the ginger, then put them all in a food processor and process them into a paste.  Mix the veggies and the paste together and pack it into a clean quart jar, pressing down until the brine rises.

 

After packing it all in, if the brine is having trouble staying over the veggies, add a little of the reserved brine from soaking the veggies.  You want it all to be completely submerged so it can safely ferment.

Once it is all in, I like to use a 4 oz jam jar in the mouth of my wide mouth jar to weight down the veggies and keep them under the brine.

Then I write the date on a coffee filter turned upside down over the top of the jar and and screw a metal band on top of it.  This allows the kim-chi to breathe and prevents random things from getting inside.  If you have a fermenting lid with an airlock, that works great too.

Put the jar in a bowl (to catch overflow during fermentation) and set it in a room temperature environment, some place out of the way, but where you won't forget about it.  If you aren't using an airlock lid, the smell of the garlic, onion and ginger can get pretty strong, so take that into account.  I get small food safe buckets from my local bakery, and I've delegated one for smelly ferments.  I just put the jar in the bucket, put the lid on loosely and then it doesn't smell up the whole house!  It has the added benefit of catching any overflow from the bubbling ferment too.

Let it ferment about a week, and then taste it to see if you like the tang.  Keep tasting it every few days until you like the flavor, then remove the weight, put a lid on it and place it in the fridge.  It will keep for months, and I'm finding it a very delicious condiment for my tacos!

Yield: 1 quart

Cranberry Green Smoothie

I ran out of blueberries for my blueberry smoothie.  I was very sad.  But I found some cranberries in the freezer and decided to try those.  If you've ever had a cranberry, you know they are super tart, so I also added a date, hoping that just one would be enough to make it drinkable instead of puckerable, lol.  It was really good!  So I thought I'd share :)

Cranberry Green Smoothie

1 1/2 oz greens (I used 3/4 oz baby kale and 3/4 oz spring salad mix)
3/4 C coconut water
3 oz cucumber, sliced
3 oz frozen whole cranberries
1/2 oz fresh ginger, sliced
1 large medjool date, pitted

Blend the greens and the coconut water together for a while, then scrape the sides of the blender and add the rest of the ingredients.  Blend until smooth and enjoy!

Yield: about 2 cups

Honey Spice Muffins

Hubby and I were eating at Jason's Deli one day, and someone walked by with a small plate of the lovely gingerbread muffins they have out on the salad bar for everyone to enjoy.  We hadn't eaten there since he went gluten free, and he turned pleading eyes to me and said, "I forgot this was the place with those muffins!  They are gluten free, right???"  "No," I had to tell him, "they aren't.  But I'll make you some."

So I went to Ali's blog Nourishing Meals, certain that she would have a wonderful gingerbread muffin recipe, and sure enough, she did!  I made it and it was pretty good, but not spicy enough, so I traded the maple syrup for more molasses and increased the spices and we both decided that they were just as good as the ones at Jason's Deli!

I was glancing over the recipe again the other day, and noticed that except for the teff flour and the molasses, they are completely ED friendly!  I did the substitutions and made them today and they are fantastic!  So much better than the muffins in the ED book....  I will post an update on how they age, the only problem with the gingerbread is that they were dryer than I'd prefer.  I traded 1/4 cup applesauce for 1/4 cup coconut oil when I made these to try and keep them moister than the gingerbread was.

Honey Spice Muffins, adapted from Gingerbread Muffins by Ali at Nourishing Meals

Dry Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups (215g) superfine sprouted brown rice flour
1/4 cup (30g) tapioca flour or arrowroot
2 teaspoon baking powder (Bakewell Cream link)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Wet Ingredients:
1 cup (170g) prunes
1 cup very hot water
2 tablespoons ground chia seeds
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup melted coconut oil
1/2 cup honey
2 teaspoons vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners.

Place the prunes, hot water, and ground chia into a blender and let soak for 10 to 15 minutes.  Meanwhile, in a large bow,l whisk together the dry ingredients.  Measure remaining wet ingredients into a bowl to make adding them to the blender easier.  After the soaking time is done, puree the stuff in the blender, then add the rest of the wet ingredients. Puree again until very smooth. Pour into dry ingredients and stir together until combined. Spoon batter into muffin pan. Bake for approximately 30 minutes. They will still be heavy and feel dense after baking, so don't over bake them because you think they aren't done.

Yield: 12 regular muffins or around 30 mini muffins

Update 1/27: They still had an odd, dryish texture the next day and I'm not sure what is causing it.  It was easily solved when I put on in the microwave on high for about 20 seconds though! 

Guacamole

I have a new favorite way of making guacamole!  Have you ever seen one of these?

It's a hard edged pastry cutter which you can pick up in any restaurant supply store for less than $5, or on Amazon for slightly more.  I don't know if I'm wierd, but I like my guac with chunks of avacado in it as well as a nice smooth base.  So I don't just blend it up with my immersion blender, I've always used a spoon to stir and cut and stir and cut....and stir....and cut.  Takes a while, but I've thought the end result is great.  Well, I'm not sure what clicked in my brain today, but while I was scooping out avacados, I remembered my pastry cutter and thought it might make cutting and stirring easier.  And it sure did!  With 5 blades instead of 1, and a wide flat plane instead of a round slippery one, making chunky guacamole was super easy and fast. It took about 2 minutes instead of 15, totally worth getting something else dirty (I just throw it in the dishwasher anyway...).

I like my guac simple.  I used to just take a spoonful or 2 of a nice chunky salsa, mix it in and call it good.  But I needed something different for the ED.  So I got to thinking, something crunchy is great, and a little spice is nice, but not too much to overpower that delicious avacado flavor.

Elimination Diet Guacamole

4 Avocados (because you can never have enough guacamole, right?)
1/4 C finely chopped onion
1-2 garlic cloves, VERY finely chopped.  I didn't use my mincer for this, I did it by hand and used the flat of the blade to reduce the garlic almost to a paste
salt to taste

Yield: 8 servings, or 1, if we are being really honest... :- )

Savory Black Rice Porridge

I love porridge.  It's so creamy and soothing and satisfying.  I grew up on Malt O Meal and Cream of Wheat, and as I've gotten older porridge of any kind has become a comfort food, especially during the cold months of winter.  Ali has a recipe for rice porridge in the Elimination Diet book, which calls for grinding the rice in her Vitamix, but the last time I did the diet was in summer, and I was craving the cooling smoothies more than porridge. 

Since then, hubby and I have discovered black rice, also called forbidden rice, and have fallen in love with its rich, nutty flavor and the way it makes us feel.  Doesn't hurt that it has as many or more antioxidants as blue berries either!  It makes a lovely rice pudding that hubby enjoys for breakfast, but I can't eat sweets like I used to, so I've been working on a recipe for a savory version of porridge.  I haven't tried grinding it in my blender, but I imagine it would work ok.  Instead I use the mill that was my birthday present last year, so I've included instructions for using that.

Set stones til they are just barely brushing, then grind rice.  Should also be possible to coarsely grind it in a blender or a coffee grinder that is specifically used for spices.  Don't use one that grinds coffee though, or it will be cross contaminated if you are doing the ED, or just taste like coffee.  Here's my attempt at showing the texture it should be in a 1/4 cup measure.

 Savory Black Rice Porridge

1 C cool chicken stock
1/4 C coarsely ground black rice
2 tsp dried chives
1 tsp dried parsley
1/8 tsp (dash) turmeric
1/8 tsp (dash) coriander
1/16 tsp (pinch) cumin
salt

Add all ingredients except salt to a pot and cook for 10-15 minutes.  Start with a medium temperature burner, stirring constantly.  When it starts simmering, turn the temperature

down so it doesn't burn but is still lightly simmering and let it finish cooking until thick.  Salt to taste, depends a lot on whether your stock has salt in it or not.

ED add ons: caramelized onions, chopped sunflower or pumpkin seeds, cook with some finely chopped veggies like green beans and carrots...use your imagination!

Yield: 1 serving

Tip: Using cool ingredients and stirring constantly while it all heats up avoids lumps in your porridge.  They are almost impossible to avoid if adding ingredients to hot liquid.  Once it is simmering you can relax a little bit, but there's the risk of it burning, so don't ignore it.  Also, you might want to invest in these little measuring spoons so you can measure less than 1/4 tsp reliably.  I found some years ago and use them all the time!

Blueberry Cucumber Ginger Smoothie

Most green smoothies have quite a bit of fruit in them to help sweeten up the typically bitter greens, but this was causing the same upset stomach and general feeling of unwellness when I have too much sweet anything.  I definitely didn't want to give up the smoothies, so I started trying to think of things that might be able to sweeten up the greens without so much fruit.  I came up with cucumbers!  They have a lovely sweet, mild flavor that mellows the flavor of the greens nicely.  I also put in some blueberries, which are not very sweet in general for a bit of flavor balance, and some spicy ginger I bought that is too hot to do what I bought it for (making syrup for ginger ale).  This smoothie has become my staple smoothie the last week or so, and I'm not sure I'll be changing it any time soon!

Blueberry Cucumber Ginger Smoothie

3/4 c coconut water
2 oz greens (I'm currently using 1 oz baby kale and 1 oz of a spinach arugula blend)
3oz cucumber, washed and unpeeled
3 oz blueberries
1 oz (or more) fresh ginger, sliced against the fibers
a good sized pinch of broccoli sprouts

Blend coconut water and greens until smooth.  Add remaining ingredients and blend until smooth, adding a bit more coconut water if needed to keep it flowing in the blender.

Yield: about 2 cups

Waffles: Whole Grain and Gluten Free

This is the recipe that started it all.  After Hubby went gluten free in February 2015, I asked my friends who were also gluten free what to buy, and they recommended the flour blend Namaste.  Now, I'm not trying to bash Namaste, but after using it and having everything turn out soggy and gummy, I was getting frustrated.  I also started to have digestion problems and feeling bad from all the starches and gums that seem to comprise main stream gluten free baking.  I knew that there were grains that were naturally gluten free, after all, there is more to life than wheat, barley and rye.  So I went searching for a gluten free whole grain waffle recipe and happened upon Alissa Segersten's blog, Nourishing Meals.  Turns out that she loves whole grains too, and tries to avoid the gums by using naturally gelling things like flax, chia and psyllium.  I spent weeks looking for all the weird flours her recipe calls for, and when I was finally able to make it, we knew that it would change our lives.  This is my adaptation of the recipe off of her blog, mostly just downsizing and streamlining it, because hubby and I can't eat 16+ waffles by ourselves!

Waffles: Whole Grain and Gluten free, adapted from Nourishing Meals
Yield: about  6 waffles

Dry Ingredients
1 1/2 C (210g) whole grain gluten free flour (I like to use equal amounts of teff, sorghum and millet, but you can mix and match whatever you want or have!)
1/3 C (46g) starch (I use arrowroot, but tapioca, potato, corn or some other kind of starch will work also)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1-2 tsp cinnamon

Wet Ingredients
2 eggs (I've also used flax eggs, which are 1 T ground flax seed and 3 T water per egg, mix and set aside 5 minutes to allow to gel up)
3 T liquid oil, (I prefer melted butter, but coconut oil or something else works great too)
2 T maple syrup or honey
1 1/4-1 1/2 C milk (Dairy or non-dairy, buttermilk is awesome too)

Heat waffle maker.

In a large bowl whisk the dry ingredients together until uniform.  This is an important step in baking, but especially in gluten free baking because of the many different flours that are used.  In a separate bowl mix the wet ingredients together, then add to the dry ingredients. Start with the lesser amount of milk and add more if needed.  Depending on which flours and starches were used and how you measure depends on how much milk will be needed.

Yield: around 6 waffles, depending on your waffle iron

Spoon batter into waffle maker, cook until done and enjoy!  One of our favorite toppings for waffles are lingonberries!  I find these at my local Wal-Mart in the canned fruit section for around $6 a jar.

When we are feeling like we want something really special, I open a tin of this Herren Konfiture that we learned to love in Germany.

Greek Salad, from Greece (honestly!)

Back in 2006 my hubby had to work, but our church took a trip to Greece and he sent me along with them as a present!  It was really an experience of a life time.  One of the best things about traveling is experiencing different culture's foods, and I fell in love with the ubiquitous cucumber salad that was served everywhere.  It was pretty warm there and I never wanted a very heavy lunch, so I would get this where I could!  When I got back to the States, I missed it so much I decided to recreate it so I could enjoy it any time.  The amounts are approximate, it all depends on what you like.  Sometimes I put more feta in because I'm wanting it a lot, sometimes I put less so it's just a taste.  Sometimes I don't even put olives in if I'm lazy and don't have any around.

Greek Salad

1 large cucumber, try to find a sorta skinny one, the fat ones can get dry and hollow inside and aren't as tasty
2 medium vine ripened tomatoes, because it really does make a difference in taste
1/4 cup chopped sweet onion
a nice feta, preferably from sheep
pitted kalamata olives, or get a nice european olive blend.  The standard american pimento or black olives don't have the zing the kalamata olives have and won't work the same in this recipe.
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
sprinkle of garlic powder
a nice olive oil

Sometimes the skin on cucumbers can get bitter, especially if it's thick.  You can completely peel the cucumber, or leave zebra stripes on it if you want a bit of skin.  Cut into quarters lengthwise, and then cut slices around 1/8 inch wide or thinner.  Put in a bowl that's big enough you can stir everything together.  Dice the tomatos into around 1/4 inch cubes, chop the onion and add both to the bowl.  If you have feta crumbles, add a goodly amount to the bowl, if not, chop some up into 1/4 inch cubes and add.  Put your kalamata olives in, leaving them whole is traditional, but you can slice them if you want.  Sprinkle spices over everything and then pour enough olive oil to coat.  Mix it all up good, allowing the spices and oil to coat everything.  Serve right away or set it in the fridge to allow the spices to blend and leech their flavor into the oil and veggies.

Apple Fritters: Whole Grain and Gluten Free

This recipe is one of mine and hubby's favorites for an easy breakfast.  I found it back when he still ate gluten, but it easily adapted for gluten free!  You can make it with just about any fruit you like, though if you use frozen fruit, the batter might not stick as well to the fruit, because it's wet.

Apple Fritters

Fritters

~3 C apples, cut into approximately 1/4 inch pieces
1/2 c (70g) whole grain GF flour (we like teff) and 1/2 c (70g) sweet rice flour OR 1 C all purpose flour (non GF)
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon (+1/2 tsp for teff mix)
1 egg
1/3 - 1/2 C milk, dairy or non-dairy (1/2 for teff, then keep adding 1 tsp at a time until the right consistency, described below)
oil for frying

Glaze

1 C powdered sugar
3-6 tsp milk, dairy or non diary

I usually mix the batter first, then turn the oil on to heat, then chop the apples and mix them in. But I only make 2-3 apples at a time, depending on their size.  If you are doing more I'd wait to heat the oil so it doesn't get too hot.

Mix all fritter ingredients except the apples in a large bowl. If making wheat fritters, the batter should be thick and kind of elastic. For GF it should be barely loose enough to stir easily, just a little smooth and slumpy, not stiff and not even close to runny enough to pour. 

This batter is too thick.

 I added about 2 tsp more milk and now it's just right.

If it's too thin, add a bit more flour, too thick a bit more milk.  After mixing the batter, set it aside to hydrate while you chop apples and heat the oil.

Heat 1/2 inch of oil in a wide frying pan on the stove. On a regular burner, usually about medium is a good temperature, on a power burner, it's a bit lower.  Chop the apples and mix them into the batter. There should be just barely enough batter to cover the apple pieces and kinda glue them together.

Drop piled spoonfuls of the mix into the oil and use the spoon to move the apple chunks into a single layer so it cooks evenly.

Fry until golden-brown and crispy, about 5 minutes, flipping them half way through.

Mix powdered sugar with 3 tsp milk, stir and add more 1 tsp at a time until its a nice thick glaze. 

 

Dribble onto fritters and serve.

Yield: 8-12 fritters depending on how big your spoonfuls are