12 Weeks of Christmas 2024: Week Two

12 Weeks of Christmas 2024: Week Two

Today's meal was a full Christmas dinner. I tried three recipes that all turned out amazing! All three are online recipes, so I can't write them out here, but I will tell you the changes I made.

First up was Apple Dijon Pork Roast. This recipe needed very little adjustments for it to be ok for me to eat. I misread the apple juice as applesauce, and it turns out that unsweetened applesauce was much better for me to use than apple juice, anyway, so I just used that instead. The only thing you have to make sure to do is to strain the sauce after before thickening it cuz the applesauce will mess up the texture.

Here are all the assembled ingredients. This is a slow cooker entree, which is lovely.

The sauce ingredients, pre-stirring.

And post-stirring and over the roast. This makes a lot of sauce. You can probably cut this in half, for the 2lb. roast I used, and still be just fine.

I loved being able to just turn this on and walk away from it. It doesn't use the oven, which is also really nice if you're planning a meal with lots of oven components. You do need a sauce pan to thicken the sauce on the stove, so plan on that.

Next up was the Cranberry Applesauce. This recipe had the most adjustments made to it. I didn't have 6 apples, I had 4, and I used the entire bag of cranberries. I used honeycrisp apples and thought they were wonderful with this. Instead of 2/3 cup of white sugar, I cut it all the way down to 1Tbsp. of brown sugar. I used water instead of the cider. This turned out to be delicious and perfectly sweet. I possibly would have gotten away without even adding the brown sugar. A serving is 1/2 cup but can't imagine eating that much in one sitting. It's so good, though! I'm going to use it for my overnight oats and see how that works for breakfast this week.

I was thinking originally of grating some of the apple to replace the cider, but decided not to since I have to cook it all down anyway. I figured it doesn't matter what shape it was in.

Here's the whole thing on the stove, just getting started.

5 minutes into cooking.

10 minutes in.

15 minutes.

And 25 minutes in. Make sure to stir this well because it will burn on the bottom if you're not careful.

After letting it cool down a bit, I pureed this in two batches, but tried to keep it from being too pureed. Keep it a bit rustic.

The color is so pretty and striking! At first taste, when it's just finished, you might think it's too tart and be tempted to add more sugar. Resist this urge and let it chill properly for several hours. It will be perfect by then. This was really delicious!

The last recipe was a simple mashed sweet potato recipe. This is from a member-only site, so you might not be able to see it unless you open an account. But the general idea is to make mashed potatoes the same way you normally do, but use peeled and chopped sweet potatoes and no salt in the water. When the potatoes are soft, you mash them with melted butter, soy sauce, and put chopped green onions on top. I really liked how these turned out. I don't like it when people take sweet potatoes and make them even sweeter. I like more savory applications, and this was a great one. I used the yellow sweet potatoes instead of orange, cuz rumor has it that they are better on the glycemic index.

I just used one sweet potato and adjusted the rest of the ingredients to work for a smaller amount of potatoes. 

I mean, does this look like a proper Christmas dinner, or what?! Before I changed my way of eating, I would have had rolls or biscuits with this, but found that this was plenty of food and I didn't need that.

The potatoes were good on their own, and also with the sauce mixed in. I was worried that the sauce might be too Dijon-y with the amount used, but it all blended well with the chicken stock and applesauce. I also wasn't sure about having zero spices, but decided to try that element as is, and think it's fine. If anything, I might have added some sage and/or poultry seasoning. If I make this again, I'll probably try that.

This is a really festive meal. It felt fancy and used basically all the pots and pans, so that made it feel like holiday cooking. I will be eating leftovers for a couple days, so that feels like Christmas, too!

I recommend all three of these recipes and hope you enjoy them!

The 12 Weeks of Christmas: 2024-Week One

 

Week One: Apple Desserts

Yes, I'm doing another round of Christmas recipes this year! After starting a new way of eating, and having lost over 50lb so far this year, I wondered if there was a way to continue with this annual project. Then I realized, there was nothing keeping me from doing it! I'll just make sure the recipes are, or are modified to stay within my new way of eating. So this year's overall theme is: Healthier for me.

I started off this week with two desserts. Yes, I still eat dessert! In fact, I eat dessert every night! It's just less than it used to be, and usually involves fruit as all or part of it. I won't be shying away from sweet treats this holiday season. The holidays are only for a short time, after all, and I have a long time to walk off any indulgences!

My dad makes apple pie every year at the holidays, and since he is also changing his eating habits, I was concerned that I might not get apple pie this year. So, I tested out a couple options, and am happy to say that both of them were successful!

First up was Crustless Apple Pies that I made after dinner on Friday. They are in fact, very easy, and very quick to make. The recipe is from Delish, which is subscription only, but I had a daily calendar from last year and this was one of the recipes. Because it's not mine, I can't write out the recipe here, but you can use the ingredient list from the link above, and see how I did it, and know how to do it yourself.

I did the recipe based on making a single serving. I added more spices than just the cinnamon. I added ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and cardamom, as well as apple pie spice. Just a dash of each. And the cinnamon was a cinnamon-sugar blend, so I left out the actual sugar it called for.

This is a Hasselback apple. Apple halves, cored, that you slice down width-wise, but not all the way through so it creates an accordion effect. After brushing it with melted butter, I did more sugar-cinnamon on the outside, instead of just sugar. When you reduce the amount of sugar in a recipe, one that doesn't affect the texture, such as this one, you want to replace it with more flavor. Something highly spiced will taste better than something with less sugar and no spice.

You bake the apple for about 25 minutes before putting the filling in and baking for 10 minutes more. This is what it looks like after you bake the oats in it. I think it looks pretty cool! I had some extra oats, and rather than throw them away, I put them under the apple to bake. It all turned out pretty good, except that I would try two things differently next time. 1-I would add chopped walnuts for a bit of crunch. And 2-I would cook the oats separately from the apple and then put it in the slits afterwards. I found that the moisture from the apple essentially cooked the oats into oatmeal, instead of what I thought would be more of a crunchy granola.

This calls for cool whip or whipped cream or ice cream, for sure. Something special on top. I used cool whip so I didn't have to deal with the dairy. This definitely tasted better when I let it cool off and come to room temperature to eat. Right out of the oven is too hot to let the flavors really come forward.

This is a really satisfying recipe for this time of year. It would make an easy Christmas dessert, too. If you wanted to be extra fancy, you could crush a gingersnap over this for added texture and a bigger holiday flavor.

My second recipe was Hand-Held Apple Pies and this was definitely way more time and energy intensive. Make sure you are at your peak for energy for the day when you start on this, cuz once you start, you're committed to finishing it. After making the dough, the portioning, rolling, filling, assembling, and baking took the entire length of time it took me to watch Empire Strikes Back in my Star Wars rewatch.

The dough uses butter and cream cheese. Cream cheese is not something I've actually ever made dough with before, so this was cool to try out. I used a mixer for that first mixing step, and for the first part of mixing in the flour, but you have to use your hands, eventually, to properly mix this dough.

The first of my alterations to this recipe was to use half whole wheat flour, and half King Arthur keto wheat baking flour. I had a bag that I haven't had a chance to try yet, and was very curious about it. I was very happy with the results. They say you use it basically as a 1:1 substitute for regular flour. I was impressed with the texture and flavor of the dough. I was also impressed that this flour didn't have weird, fakey stuff in it, either.

Here's what the dough looks like when it all comes together. It's darker because of the whole wheat flour, and feels grainier.

This is a recipe where measuring on a scale is really handy. Each dough half then gets divided into 12 pieces, so making sure the halves are equal to start with, and then measuring each piece, ensures the same size portion. Portion control is vital to how I eat now.

The second set of changes I made, was to the filling. Instead of white sugar, I used an equal amount of apple butter, and then added 1tsp. of brown sugar. I think when cutting down on the sugar, replacing what you do use with brown sugar gives you much more flavor. And apple butter just increases the apple flavor overall. It also has sugar, but overall less than just adding the 1/4 cup of sugar the recipe calls for.

Here it is, all blended together. I did stick with just the cinnamon and allspice, this time, as I wanted to see what that spice combo was like, without adding more flavors to it.

Here's the chilled dough, cut up into equal-weight pieces.

I found, because of the space I had to work with, that doing some from start to finish was better than doing all of one step for all 24. I also don't really care about putting a lot of effort into making the dough round or equal. They get rolled out into whatever shape they end up in, and that's how the tart ends up shaped! It all tastes the same!

I carefully measured 1 Tbsp. of filling for each one. They probably could have handled at least twice that much.

I'm calling these "rustic" style. None of them look the same. Some of them I forgot to cut slits in the tops to vent as they baked. It's all good...!

I ran out of filling with two pieces of dough left, so instead of making more filling, I just spread them with butter and sprinkled them with sugar and cinnamon, a dessert I grew up with at my parents' house. If you make this recipe, I used two large apples, plus one quarter of a large apple. I'd use at least one half of that last apple's leftovers and add a bit more filling ingredients to stretch it further. That way you can use all the dough.

Of course I had to put cool whip in this one too! These were really tasty. I'm going to try a couple leftover, but I froze the rest in hopes of thawing some out at Thanksgiving and again at Christmas.

Autumn and the winter holidays are the best time for apple desserts. If you love apple pie, but want to try something a little more carb-friendly, but still incredibly indulgent, these are for you!! And I jsut thought of a possible additional way to make these, if you wanted. I will have to try it some day to ee if it works. You could put the dough into mini muffin tins and put the filling in them and bake till done. They'd be little pie bites. Not sure if it would work or not, but with a shot! 

Enjoy!

Cranberry Muffins

My place now smells like lovely cranberry orange almond muffins, thanks to the recipe I tried this afternoon. Since I can't track down the source, I'll write it out. I think they turned out to be really delicious! 

Cranberry Muffins

1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour(if you can't find this, like I couldn't, use 1/2 cup whole wheat flour and 1/2 regular flour)

1 cup flour

1 1/2 tsp. baking power

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

2 Tbsp butter, softened

2 Tbsp. canola oil

2/3 cup sugar

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 tsp. vanilla

3/4 cup orange juice

1 tsp. orange zest(I forgot to write this ingredient on my recipe card so I'm assuming it was orange zest and assuming this is a good amount. Just add whatever you want, there's no rules for zest!)

1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries, whole

3/4 cup sliced almonds, divided

1.) Preheat oven to 400 degrees for muffins, or 350 degrees for mini loaves or a loaf pan. Coat pan of choice or line muffin tin if doing muffins.

2.) Whisk together whole-wheat flour, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in bowl. Beat butter, oil. and sugar in a large mixing bowl with electric mixer until creamy and pale. Add egg, zest, and vanilla, and beat until smooth. Alternately fold in flour mixture and orange juice, making 3 additions of flour mixture and two additions of orange juice. Stir in cranberries and 1/2 cup almonds.

3.) Scoop batter into prepared pans. Smooth tops and sprinkle with remaining almonds. Bake muffins 18-22 minutes, large loaf 50-60 minutes, or mini loaves 35-45 minutes, or until golden brown and tests clean when you test it with a toothpick. Cool 5 minutes. Loosen edges, and turn out onto wire rack to cool completely.

Makes 12 muffins, 1 loaf, 3 mini loaves. Per muffin: 173 calories, 5 g fat, 2 g fiber

Here we have the dry ingredients mixed together. Good luck tracking down whole wheat pastry flour. I went to three grocery stores and ended up googling substitutes, which I included in the ingredient list.

The wet ingredients ready to mix. I actually didn't have quite enough orange juice so I just used water to make up the difference. It's still plenty flavorful. I also didn't know I needed the zest until it was too late for the orange so I just threw in some dry lemon peel I had, and I think it worked just fine.

The finished batter looks really amazing! It's pretty thick but it made 12 perfect muffins.

Ready for the oven. Pre-almonds on top.

Just out of the oven. The almonds toast on the top so you don't need to toast them ahead of time.

And the finished product. Pre-butter, of course! These were really good. The almond and cranberry come through really strongly and you'd never know there was no almond extract in the recipe! The texture is really god. I was very happy with these! Especially with the butter!

Muffins are generally a really easy type of recipe to make. They don't take too many steps and don't dirty too many dishes. This time of year we can finally get fresh cranberries. This is a great way to use some!

The 12 Weeks of Christmas Baking-Week 1

Yes, it's October and I'm starting the Christmas baking project in order for it to be done by Christmas! I started off easy, and luckily it turned out well! The recipe says it's from tasteofhome.com but I could not find it there or anywhere online so I'll go ahead and write it out.

Sweet Potato Biscuits

2 cups self-rising flour*

1/8 tsp. salt

1/2 cup shortening

1 cup mashed sweet potatoes

4-5 Tbsp. milk

In a bowl, combine flour and salt. Cut in shortening and sweet potatoes until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in enough milk, just until dough clings together. Knead lightly on a floured surface. Roll dough to a 1/2" thickness. Cut with a 2" biscuit cutter and place on lightly greased baking sheets. Bake at 450 degrees for 12 minutes or until golden brown.

Makes: 1 1/2 dozen

*As a substitute for each cup of self-rising flour, place 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder and 1/2 tsp. salt in a measuring cup. Add regular flour to measure 1 cup.

I used the tip to make my own self-rising flour. It's a lot cheaper than buying a bag of self-rising flour. definitely don't waste your money. In case you're wondering how to cook the sweet potato, you can bake/roast it if you want, but I peeled, cubed, and boiled it like with regular mashed potatoes. I think it worked out really well. It made more than I needed and I froze the leftovers in hopes that it'll thaw ok for another use another time.

Everything blends together very easily. I ended up using 4 Tbsp. of milk and that made a perfect dough.

This was a really nice dough with a really pretty orange color!

I couldn't find my rolling pin easily so I just patted out the dough with my hands and it worked just fine. 

This made 3 more than the 1.5 dozen, so this dough goes a long way!

Here's the finished product, fresh out of the oven.

And the texture of the inside. This had a really great texture.

The flavor is pretty mild, but let's be honest, biscuits are merely vehicles for butter, honey, jam, or gravy, so that's where most of the flavor comes from. This was a good way to get a little more veg into your diet. If you're gonna make biscuits with a bunch of fat in them, you might as well have some veggies in them too, right?!

This would go well at the holiday table. If you're not a fan of sweet potato casserole or pie, give these a try, I think you'll enjoy them!

Autumn Baking: Week 4-Pumpkin Coconut Soup

I know you're thinking, hey this is a baking project, why is there recipe soup? That's because I made two recipes today, and the pumpkin biscuits, sadly, were a fail. But the pumpkin soup I made was amazing! So, I'll share it here. Since I was unable to find the source of the recipe, I'll write it out, but it's not mine!

Pumpkin Coconut Soup

1 Tbsp. canola oil

1 onion, chopped(1 cup)

2 carrots, chopped(1 cup)

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 (14oz.) cans chicken broth, divided

2(15oz.) cans unsweetened pumpkin

1(140z.) can coconut milk

2 Tbsp. lime juice

1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper

1 Tbsp. sugar

1 1/4 tsp. salt

1.) Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat; add onion and carrot, and cook, stirring frequently, 5 minutes or until vegetables begin to soften. Stir in garlic, and cook 30 seconds. Add 1 can chicken broth; bring to a simmer, and cook 10 minutes or until vegetables are very tender. Remove from heat; cool 10 minutes.

2.) Use a hand-held blender to puree the soup until smooth. Return to the heat and add pumpkin, coconut milk, and remaining can of chicken broth, stirring with a whisk. Bring to a simmer over medium heat; stir in lime juice and next 3 ingredients. 

Note: Can be made 1 day ahead. Reheat when ready to eat.

Makes 8 (1 cup) servings

This recipe is really easy to cut in half, and since I'm only one person, I don't need 8 cups of soup, so I made a half batch.

It doesn't puree as well as it should with the half batch, but I did what I could until the next step.

After mixing this, I used the blender to blend it all again and this worked well to finish pureeing everything. I ended up using one whole small lime, and I did not add any of the sugar. I recommend holding off on the sugar until you taste it to see how it is. The carrots can be very sweet, and so is coconut milk. You may not need it.

Here is the very autumnal-looking finished product! It's really tasty, and I can tell it's gonna be even better tomorrow! I'm not a big fan of squash recipes that lean sweet or use desserty ingredients. If I want to eat pumpkin pie, I'll make one, I don't don't want pumpkin pie soup...But if you want to experiment with herbs and spices, go for it! Curry is a very common addition to soups like this. If you don't want the cayenne, that might be a great addition. 

This is the perfect soup for the start of autumn. It still has a couple hold-outs from summer, but the finished product is all autumn!

Autumn Baking-Week 3: Pumpkin Cookies

So, this week I put off doing the baking until after a work day, for some reason, but I had time and energy, and luckily this ended up being a ridiculously easy recipe to make. It was also fun in that I was able to try out my Princess Tiana flour sifter for the first time and it worked really well! She makes everything more delicious. I am also reminded that while I have the big fancy Kitchen-Aid stand mixer, sometimes the cheapo electric hand mixer just makes life so much easier.

This particular recipe is one that I cannot track down the source of, so I will write it out here.

Pumpkin Cookies

1 cup butter or shortening(I used butter)

1 cup sugar

1 cup canned pumpkin

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

2 cups sifted flour

1 tsp. double-acting baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. allspice

1 cup chopped nuts(I used pecans)

1 cup raisins(I used golden raisins)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the pumpkin, egg, and vanilla and mix well.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and allspice, and add to the other mixture. Stir in the nuts and raisins.

Drop cookies onto a well-greased cookie sheet and bake about 15 minutes.

Makes about 5 dozen

The creamed butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, and pumpkin don't look very good at the start, and don't worry if some of the liquid starts coming out of it, it'll all mix together again.

So, I made a judgement call on this one. The ingredients say to use sifted flour, and the instructions say to sift the flour with all the dried ingredients. Sometimes they just mean to do it all in a single sift, but I took the instructions literally. I sifted the flour after measuring it, and then sifted it with the other dried ingredients. This made it all very airy and fluffy, I think. It's worth it.

I didn't bother chopping the pecans. They're pretty flimsy, so I just crushed them with my hands. Why waste a knife and cutting board and having to wash them later when you don't have to!

Here is how the batter looks after it's fully mixed. My sister doesn't like raisins, so half the dough remained raisin-free, and the rest got raisins.

Here is the finished raisin-free product. The cookies are small, but this is actually the size cookies are supposed to be. I got 64 out of my batch, if I did the math right. The amount you use per cookie is basically a rounded teaspoon. A literal teaspoon measure, though I just eyeballed it. These were light and fluffy on the inside, but actually a little crispy on the sides. They were amazing!

Here's the interior of the raisin version. These are great too! The smell of these cookies makes the whole place smell like autumn! A great dessert for a chilly, cloudy day today!

I highly recommend these. They are so easy and not time-consuming. Well worth the time and effort! Happy baking!