Candied Pears

I would have posted yesterday, but I didn't have access to a computer at all! I swear, things to post about are piling up! Today I thought I would share my new favorite dessert, Candied Ginger Pears from The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone.

I hope I get better at this food photography thing. My recipe is adapted, since I haven't used ginger yet when I've made it, and I cook the almonds in maple syrup instead of brown rice syrup. I'm not even sure I'm supposed to post adapted recipes from books :]
Candied Pears
1/4 cup finely ground almonds (I normally just chop mine finely, but you can put them in the food processor)
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 pear, halved and core scooped out
1/2 cup apple juice
1 tbsp cornstarch mixed with 1 tbsp cold apple juice to help dissolve
Extra tbsp maple syrup, optional
Place pear halves in a small saucepan and add apple juice and bring to a boil, reduce heat and boil for 8-10 minutes until pears are soft. While pears are cooking, heat a dry skillet over medium heat, add the almonds and toast, stirring frequently, for 3-5 minutes until fragrant and golden brown. Add the maple syrup, stir, and cook until the mixture thickens, set aside. Remove pears from apple juice and place on a plate. Add cornstarch mixture to apple juice in saucepan and whisk constantly over medium-high heat fir 3-5 minutes until mixture thickens, remove from heat. Fill hollows in pear halves with almond mixture. Top with apple juice sauce and more maple syrup if desired.

This is seriously my favorite dessert. I definitely recommend The Kind Diet, I would have bought it just for the recipes! And this dessert is even from the "Superhero" section, so it's super healthy, but it's such a treat!

Let me know if you try it! Have a nice day!

Apple Butter

When I made this apple butter, about a week ago, I had plans to take lots of pictures and do a tutorial, but, I've never made it before, so I had some trial and error, and I didn't take pictures of every step :] The apple butter came out completely delicious and I will share with you what I did, with all of the 3 pictures I ended up taking :]
Begin by cutting your 2 1/2 pounds (I used about 14 medium) tarte cooking apples. Cut them into quarters without peeling or coring them, I read that the core contains a lot of the natural pectin from the apple, and the peel has a lot of flavor, plus, I'm lazy and just figured I could pick out the peels later, even though I don't have a mesh strainer, it will be easy to get the cores and peels out right? ...
Put your apples in a pot along with about 1 cup of liquid to boil it in, I used apple cider, but you can use apple juice or water. I also added some apple cider vinegar, which is optional, I was chicken and added only 1/8 of a cup, but it smelled so good I added another 1/8 :]
Boil the apples for about 20 minutes, or until soft. Speaking of which...

This was about the point where I started panicking because the apples were so soft that they were falling out of their peels, so there was no way I could just take out the peels and cores, I was so naive at the beginning of this :]
You'll also notice one red apple that I used because I ran out of green, but I didn't realize red apples take much longer to cook than green apples, so I had to throw it out :]

Anyways, after the apples cooked, I took my plastic strainer, which is all I had, and used a wooden spoon to press all the apple sauce out.
Then I added 1/2 cup sugar for every one cup of apple sauce, I had 2 cups, so I used 1/2 cup of brown sugar and 1/2 cup of regular sugar.
Next I added spices, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp allspice, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, and 1/4 tsp cloves. I stirred it all together and put it in a glass baking dish in a 300 degree oven for about 3 hours, stirring every so often.
After I took it out of the oven, I put it through the food processor to make it super smooth, and then I canned it, I filled 2 pint jars, and about 1/2 of a 3rd jar, which I just kept in the fridge. The other jars I processed in boiling water for about 10 minutes.
Apple butter is so good, it just tastes like fall, I put it on toast all the time, and biscuits. Let me know if you try this!