Easy tropical ham

Target had tropical fruit in juice on clearance for half price. It's two different varieties of papaya and pineapple. With a tropical tortoise in the house and a child who adores fruit, I bought them.

ALL.

My mother-in-law brought a big old ham steak with the bone. I slapped it in the cast iron skillet and poured a can of the fruit on top. Sprinkled a pinch of ground cloves and here we are:

Baked French Toast with Blueberries

I won't be home for dinner tonight and I saw some odds and ends around the kitchen that needed to be consumed. Eggs. Bread. Yogurt. We have fresh berries and those need eatin' quick.

So I prepped baked French toast. This will sit in the fridge and be baked uncovered at 350 for 40 minutes. This is a small portion. Serves 3 but the portions are not large.

I hope my family saves me some. I'm not sure how the yogurt will work out.

In a bread loaf pan, that I heartily greased with butter, I layered two slices of cinnamon raisin bread and then blueberries and a bit of brown sugar. Maybe two tablespoons. I had three layers of bread and two layers of blueberries.

Now the "sauce" I added to every layer as well. It went something like this:

- four eggs

- nutmeg

- ground cloves

- an ounce or two of half and half 

- about a cup very vanilla soy milk

- about 1/3 cup plain yogurt

Whisk. The yogurt may be a mistake. We'll see.

My husband baked it for 40 minutes at 350 and it turned out delightful. Though the child did not care for it. But she ate hers.

Apple butter, part 2

So if you read Saturday's post, you know I left off with a crock pot full of local apples.

Three hours later I had the best applesauce ever.

Five hours later I had runny apple butter.

At that point, I transferred it to the stove to boil off some of the liquid for an hour.

I processed in a hot water bath for ten minutes and have the equivalent of four pints of apple butter.

Really incredible stuff.

Today, I filled half the crock pot with apples with the same basic honey/spice recipe to get some more apple goodness.

Some spiced apples. Maybe applesauce. If some remain, apple butter.

Yield: 2 pints spiced apples and turkey sausage with apples in the crockpot for dinner.