Countdown to Christmas Free Printables

Christmas is fast approaching whether we want to admit it or not. I even started my shopping today. Maybe I won't be shopping at the last minute this year. Who am I kidding, I probably will be. Any how, I designed a few activities for the kids and thought I would share them; two advent type calendars where you glue cotton balls onto Santa's beard or a snowman and one pin the nose on Rudolph. I hope you enjoy these free printables. Please let me know if there are any problems, since I am new at the whole print from a blog thing. 

Free Pumpkin Labels

A few weeks ago I made pumpkin bread for a bake sale to support an animal rescue group. I thought they breads looked a little plain so I jazzed them up a bit with these labels that I made. I'm kicking myself for not taking any pictures, but I was in a crazy hurry to get them out the door. These labels are for individual sized loafs, but I'm sure you could do something with them for full sized loafs. A circle printed out with a ribbon would look lovely. I guess I need to make more pumpkin bread. It disappeared way too fast. 

This is the first time I've offered a printable here, so please let me know if you have any problems printing them out. Circles are 3 inches when printed at 100% scale. You could use these for cupcake toppers too. 

Homemade Ketchup

First let me say that I love Heinz ketchup. I really don't care for other brands a whole lot. They are too sweet, spicy, vinegary, etc. I can tell the difference. I think I might be one of those super tasters. Seriously, my sense of taste is on overload. So why would I make my own? For shits and giggles really. I wanted to see how hard it was and what it tasted like. The recipe I used had a lot of good reviews and took all day in the crock pot. Before my boyfriend tasted it, he told me that he probably wouldn't like it. He's a Heinz guy too.

I followed the directions almost exact with a few spice exceptions. I didn't have dried mustard or celery salt on hand, so I just didn't add those. Several reviews said that it was too sweet, but I used the amount it called for. After I made it and it cooled, I tasted it by itself and it did taste a little sweet, but when I tasted it with some fries, it was fine. Rather tasty in fact. Better than I thought it would. I honestly didn't have high expectations, so I was surprised.

The whole house smelled like ketchup, so I was craving french fries all day. It takes 12 hours and needed to cool, so I had to wait until the next day.

I've made fries several times since I first made the ketchup and today the consensus was that it was really good and definitely could take on the big boys in a taste test.

This recipe is easy to make, but does take 12 hours in the crock pot and needs a stir once in a while, so it's best to be home or don't go out for too long if you plan to make it. Do plan on having french fries the following day!

Update: We ran out and had to buy some. My boyfriend said that he actually preferred mine. Woo hoo! Go me. Or the person who actually developed this recipe, which I found on All Recipes. 

Ketchup
Yield: Three cups
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 12 hours
Total Time: 12 hours 10 minutes

Ingredients

2 (28 ounce) cans peeled ground tomatoes
1/2 cup water, divided
2/3 cup white sugar
3/4 cup distilled white vinegar
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 3/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon celery salt
1/8 teaspoon mustard powder
1/4 teaspoon finely ground black pepper
1 whole clove
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)

Directions

Pour ground tomatoes into slow cooker. Swirl 1/4 cup water in each emptied can and pout into slow cooker. Add sugar, vinegar, and spices; whisk to combine. 

Cook on high, uncovered, until mixture is reduced by half and very thick, about 10 -12 hours. Stir every hour or so.

Smooth the texture of the ketchup using an emersion blender, about 20 seconds. 

Ladle the ketchup into a fine strainer and press mixture with the back of the ladle to strain out any skins and seeds. 

Transfer the strained ketchup to a bowl. Cool completely before tasting to adjust salt, black pepper, or cayenne pepper. 

Argh Matey!

How awesome is this place? I took this picture with my iphone a few years ago right before Halloween. It must have taken some serious time to do this. It might be hard to tell, but it was built in their front yard and attached to their wrap around porch. They had cannons that were smoking and tons of skeletons.

Super Simple Crusty Bread

This is by far the easiest bread I've made and I don't think bread is all that hard to make. Time consuming, yes, hard, no. Other than waiting, this bread isn't even that time consuming. After reading about this bread, I've also discovered that I'm about 6-10 years late in the food blogging world. It's generally called no-knead bread and supposedly it appeared in the NY Times for the first time.  It's made its rounds over and over again and yet somehow I seemed to have missed it. Maybe that's because I wasn't baking as much bread as I do now, who knows. The point is, I'll be making this bread a whole lot more from now on.

It's perfect for dipping in olive oil and making panini or just as toast with melted butter on it. I'm starting to salivate. I'd be noshing on a piece right now if we hadn't finished it the other night with dinner. I do think this bread is best eaten the day you make it or the next. As with most homemade items without preservatives, it goes bad quickly. Plus it loses that outer crustiness. Unless you warm it up in the oven or toaster, like I did. (I put it in the toaster at 200° for about 12-15 minutes to warm it up and it turned out great.)

I don't own a cast iron pot, (the key to crusty bread) so I borrowed one from a friend, but I'm definitely going to be checking out the sales, because I must purchase one to make my life easier. I've read all different ways you can "make" your own using a pizza stone, crockpot insert, pot of water, terra cotta pot, etc. The list goes on. I honestly just don't want to bother with that. Although I do have a Pyrex that I might try. As long as what you are using can withstand 450°, you can use it. The other important thing here is that it must have a lid. The lid creates steam and therefore makes the bread crusty. Or at least that's what I read somewhere on the internet and we all know that everything we read online must be true.

It takes a whopping five minutes to put this bread together. Then let it sit. 12-18 hours. I find it's best to make it at night and then bake it the next day. The smell of freshly baked bread wafting throughout the house is fantastic. So far, I've only made it twice and both times it turned out great. I really want to add in some extras like rosemary and garlic with parmesan on top. Or cheddar and jalapenos. Maybe get a little fancy and add lemon zest, nutmeg and gruyere. I tend to go savory with a bread like this, but I guess you could also go sweet and add cinnamon, sugar and currants. Regardless what you add, I have a feeling it will be fabulous.

My boyfriend has already decided that I need to make this bread at least two days a week. He's a bit of a carb-aholic. He also said that of the tortillas, white bread and chips.

So how do you make this wonderful bread? I've read different resting times and different amounts of yeast, but this is what I did and it worked beautifully. Please let me know if you have any questions and I'll do my best to answer them.

Super Simple Crusty Bread
Yield: One loaf
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 45 minutes
Total Time: 12 - 18 hours including proofing

Ingredients
3 cups of all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups water
1 3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast

Directions
In a large bowl, combine flour, salt and yeast. Add water and combine until shaggy. Cover with plastic wrap and leave in a dry, warm environment for 12-18 hours. Dough will be full of bubbles and very wet.

Lightly flour a work surface and turn out dough. Work into a ball and cover for thirty minutes minimum. I used plastic wrap, but some like to use a flour sack. The flour sack will help it retain it's shape better.

Heat oven to 450°. Heat pot for about 30 minutes and carefully remove it. After dough has rested, drop it into the pot and bake covered for 30 minutes. Remove lid and bake for an additional 15 minutes. Remove from pot and cool on wire rack. 

Enjoy!

Sweet Potato Chips in Coconut Oil

Apparently these sweet potato chips were a hit, because the batch wasn't even done and my boyfriend was requesting more. They cool down fairly quickly, so you can start munching on them pretty much right away.

It only takes three ingredients to make these crunchy little snacks; sweet potatoes, coconut oil, and sea salt. I used a mandolin to slice these bad boys into the perfect thickness. I guess you could do it by hand, but they would be different thicknesses and it would take a long time. The mandolin is much quicker. Just watch out for your fingers.

I used a candy thermometer and heated the oil to about 300°. The oil can splatter, so be very careful. They only take a few minutes to cook. This is the slightly tricky part. Don't overcook them and don't undercook them. If they are undercooked, they are soft. You want a nice crispy chip. If they are overcooked, they turn brown and have that it's almost burned taste. Make sure you have good lighting to see when they are turning brown. Be sure to salt them as soon as they come out of the oil. The salt sticks to the chips better when they are still wet.

I made regular potato chips years ago and I didn't remember if I did this or not, but I flipped them a couple of times during baking. When they started to curl, you knew they were almost done.

As far as whether these are easy to make or not really depends on the person. It does take quite a bit of time and it's kind of a pain in the neck and frankly in the future I would stick to buying them. Just don't tell my boyfriend that.

They should keep in an airtight container for at least a week, but they won't last that long in this house.

Sweet Potato Chips
Yield: 4 - 6 cups
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 30 - 45 minutes
Total Time: 45 minutes to an hour

Ingredients:

2 medium sweet potatoes
1 1/2 cups coconut oil
sea salt

Directions:

Peel and slice two medium sweet potatoes preferably with a mandolin. Heat oil to 300° in a large sauce pan or use a deep fryer if you have one. Cook sweet potatoes in small batches for about 1 - 2 minutes. Be sure not to over crowd the pan. Keep a close eye on them as they brown very quickly.

Place on a plate covered with paper towels to absorb the excess oil. Salt immediately. Let cool and store in an airtight container for up to a week.

Enjoy!

Browned Banana Bread

What's browned banana bread you ask? It's not some new fancy schmancy way of making banana bread. It's just regular banana bread that you accidentally left in the oven a few minutes too long because the weather finally broke and you were outside playing with your son. Despite that in my perfectionist mind, it was overdone, it didn't seem to stop any of us from eating it. It was still quite good.

I don't think this recipe is as good as the banana muffins, but it's labeled as low fat and it's a bit easier to make, since it has a few less ingredients. It's a little heavier, but does transport well and freeze well. I have made a few adjustments to it over the years and added pumpkin to it when I only had two small bananas. That was delicious. I used four really old bananas for this. Most people would have surely thrown these in the trash. When my bananas start to turn, I try to freeze them for smoothies. Try being the key word here. It's like one day, they look perfectly good to eat and then you forget you have them and the next thing you know, you've got black bananas. The darker the bananas the sweeter they are. So, dark bananas work really well in baked goods.

I prefer walnuts in my banana bread, but I only had about a 1/4 cup, so I just put them on top instead of in the batter. Plus, it looks pretty. I like my food to not only taste good, but to look pretty.

Banana Bread
Adapted from Betty Crocker

Yield: 2 loaves
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 1 hour (cool 2 hours 10, minutes)
Total time: 1 hour and 15 minutes, plus cooling

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 large eggs
4 very ripe bananas, mashed
1/ 2 whole milk
2 tablespoons white vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped walnuts

1. Heat oven to 350° and move oven racks to lowest position. Grease bottoms only of 2 loaf pans, 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 2 1/2 or one 9 x 5 x3 loaf pan with butter.

2. Combine milk with vinegar and set aside for 5 minutes to "sour. Mix butter and sugar in a large bowl. Stir in eggs until well blended. Stir in bananas, "soured" milk, and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Stir in flour, baking soda, and salt until moistened. Stir in nuts. Divide batter evenly between pans.

3. Bake 8 inch loaves for about an hour and 9 inch loaf about an hour and 15 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pans on wire rack.

4. Loosen sides of loaves from pans: remove pans and place top side up on wire rack. Cool completely, about 2 hours, before slicing. Wrap tightly and store at room temperature for up to 4 days, or refrigerate for up to 10 days. Can also be frozen for up to two months.

Enjoy!