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Easy Baked Acorn Squash

Karen and Denny's Kitchen — Tue, 27 Sep 2022 12:39:31 +0000

Baked Acorn Squash With Brown Sugar And Butter

Simple And Delicious

There are probably more ways to cook squash than there are varieties of squash out there, but one of my favorites will always be baked this way.

We make ours with homemade butter, homemade brown sugar, and natural maple syrup. I gotta say, when it comes to this particular squash, I think it’s hard to beat.

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Easiest Ways To Save Green Beans

Karen and Denny's Kitchen — Sat, 27 Aug 2022 14:47:32 +0000

The Easiest Ways To Save Green Beans

For Long-Term Storage

There are many ways to save green beans, but as long as you have the freezer space, freezing is probably the easiest way. Plus you have the convenience of just grabbing a few beans at a time if that is all you need when using them for soups, stews, stir fry, etc.

Whether you grow green beans in your garden, pick them up at a local farmer’s market, or even just find a great special on fresh green beans at your local market, you’re going to need to find ways to save green beans and freezing is one of the best ways to preserve green beans for future use.

Freezing green beans does more than just keep them for later use though. When done right, freezing is one of the best ways to save green beans because it will bring a level of convenience to your kitchen that is hard to beat.

To properly freeze green beans you need to blanch them before freezing. This helps to ensure that they retain nutrients, color, texture, and flavor throughout their life in your freezer.

To create convenience you’re going to want to freeze them in a two-step process. Start by flash-freezing them in a single layer after blanching, then move the frozen beans to a large bag.

Taking this step allows you to freeze large bags of beans that are not all stuck together. Then you can simply take out a few handfuls at a time or the amount you need for dinner, rather than having to deal with a large clump of frozen beans.

Prepare Your Green Beans Before You Blanch Them

It is best to work in small batches so start with about a pound of beans.

Place a gallon or so of water on the stove to boil and another gallon of ice water in a large bowl. “One side of a clean sink works well for this also.”

Wash the green beans and break the stem ends of the beans. Green beans sometimes have a tough stringy thing that runs down the side. When you snap off the stem ends also bull any string from the bean. See the video for more info.

You can leave the beans full length if you wish but if the beans ate long enough you may wish to break them up into inch-long pieces. “It’s just personal preference here”

Another great way to save green beans is by creating french style green beans.

Blanching Green Beans

One of the ways to save green beans is by blanching them with a steamer or you can boil them. Personally, I find blanching by boiling to be one of the easiest ways to save green beans. Simply drop the beans into a pot of rapidly boiling water, then return to a light boil and cook for about 3 minutes.

Pro Tip: “Work in small batches, no more than a pound of beans to a gallon of boiling water.”Your water should return to a light boil within about a minute, if not you are overcrowding the pot, and should try fewer beans on the next batch.

The goal here is not to cook them all the way through but lightly. This will stop the enzyme process which otherwise causes a loss of color, flavor, and texture.

Cool The Beans

Lift the beans out of the boiling water and drain the excess water. Immediately place them into your ice water and allow them to sit in the ice water for a good three or four minutes to stop any internal heat from continuing to cook the beans. Then lift them out into a strainer and let them drain in a strainer for a couple of minutes to remove excess water.

Flash Freeze – Single Layer

Spread the blanched, cooled, and drained green beans out on a sheet pan in a single layer. It doesn’t need to be perfect but the less crowded the beans are the better your results will be. Place the sheet pans of beans into the freezer, undisturbed for at least an hour or two.

Long Term Storage

Remove the pans from the freezer and place the beans into large freezer storage containers or large freezer bags. Squeeze out as much air as possible, seal, and label the packages with the month and year.

How Long Will They Keep

One great reason freezing is one of the best ways to save green beans is because frozen green beans will keep for a year no problem. Yes, they are still okay to eat after that but at that but at that point, their quality will begin to decline slowly.

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How To Make Vinegar With Peaches – Easy

Karen and Denny's Kitchen — Wed, 17 Aug 2022 14:07:07 +0000

How To Make Vinegar With Peaches

Ever wonder how to make vinegar? Or better still, how to create fantastic, various types of vinegar at home. Or vinegar that you would likely never find on the big box grocery store shelves. This homemade peach vinegar recipe definitely fits the bill and is so easy to make. It’s very inexpensive and will keep pretty much forever.

Having unique vinegar flavors is one of those top secret chef hacks that make dressings, sauces, and even meat dishes from your home wholly original, and people will wonder how you did it.

There are a couple of ways to make peach vinegar. This recipe focuses on how to make it completely from scratch when you do not have a starter.

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Easy Homemade Mashed Potato Recipe

Karen and Denny's Kitchen — Wed, 27 Jul 2022 04:15:40 +0000

Follow this easy homemade mashed potatoes recipe and you’ll never need to buy those frozen, or instant mashed potatoes again!

My Favorite Mashed Potato Recipe

For me, potatoes are just one of those all-time favorite comfort foods. There are endless ways to prepare them alone, and no end to the number of ways to use them in other recipes.

One of my favorite recipes though has got to be mashed potatoes. Quick, simple, and so easy to make.

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Easy Wrapped and Roasted Garlic Scapes

Karen and Denny's Kitchen — Sat, 23 Jul 2022 14:34:49 +0000

Roasted garlic scapes are a great way to use fresh garlic scapes are in season.

Wrapped And Roasted Garlic Scapes

Freshly roasted garlic scapesare easy to make and there are several ways to do it. When you make roasted garlic scaFes the flower head gets a kind of stringy texture to it, so you will want to trim those off and discard them or chop them up for use in a different recipe. Wash and clean the scapes placing them in a large bowl. Add your olive oil and massage the scapes with salt. Lay out a large piece of aluminum foil and wrap the garlic scapes tightly in the foil. You can toss them on the grill or lay the package on a sheet pan in a hot oven to roast them

Why Don’t They Sell Garlic Scapes In The Store

Of course you can’t make roasted garlic scapes if you can’t find garlic scapes.

First, they typically have to cut the garlic scape off the plant by hand, but you can find garlic scapes in some markets, especially farmer’s markets.
You’ll have to be quick about purchasing your garlic scapes because garlic scapes are a very short-season crop. If you find them at all, it will likely be in the last few weeks of June.

The First Problem, store-bought sour cream is cheaper because they reduce the cost of making the sour cream by adding regular milk instead of cream along with a lot of thickening agents, starches, and gums, among other more artificial ingredients.

The Second Problem is, When you find a quality store-bought sour cream that doesn’t contain all the added junk, the price tends to become prohibitive. Therefore you do not save any money by making it yourself, so unless you’re just experimenting, you may as well have just purchased the cultured butter.

When, Where, and How To Plant Garlic

One great solution for having freshly roasted garlic scapes is to grow your own garlic.

While you can plant garlic in the early spring, garlic, people will usually plant it during the cool of fall as temperatures begin to come down.

Zones 1-4 plant bulbs in late October – November.
Zones 5-7 September – October
Zones 8-9 November – December(In Zone 8-9) You’ll need to store your garlic bulbs in the refrigerator for at least a couple of months before planting them, allowing the garlic to go through the vernalization process of a cold winter.

To grow garlic in 1 year, you will want to plant garlic cloves instead of seeds.

You can plant 4-9 garlic gloves per sq. foot in a garden bed, raised bed, planter boxes, or even in pots, and the bulbs will grow throughout the fall, winter, and spring. I usually plant 5 leaving plenty of room for the bulbs to grow. Cover them with a few inches of leaves or straw for the winter and rake most of that back in the spring.

Buy garlic for planting here

Easy Homemade Butter – American Style

Karen and Denny's Kitchen — Tue, 21 Jun 2022 04:31:49 +0000

If you’ve looked at the price of butter lately, you’ve probably wondered how hard it is to make homemade butter yourself. I must admit that the sky is the limit on the price of heavy cream. but if you look around, I’m sure you can find quarts of heavy cream for about the same price as butter and what you do with that heavy cream, might save you money.

You Can Make This Easy Homemade Butter

This quick and easy homemade butter recipe for simple American style or sweet cream butter is so smooth, creamy, and easy to make, that it will probably have you wondering why you’ve been buying store-bought butter all these years.

Do You Need To Use Cream From Raw Milk

Contrary to what you may read on other websites, the answer is a resounding no you don’t need to use fresh raw cream. You can make homemade butter from any store-bought cream.

Would using fresh raw cream make better butter, possibly!

If you can get your hands on fresh raw milk or cream, I’d highly recommend going that route. You’ll likely be very pleased; with the results. The trouble is, while you may be able to buy raw milk in all 50 States, it can be difficult to find if not expensive.

FAQ’s

Does homemade butter need to be refrigerated?

Not necessarily, according to usdairy.com.

If you prefer unsalted or whipped butter, you should refrigerate your butter. Salted varieties are less likely to spoil on the counter. If the temperature in your kitchen goes above 70 degrees Fahrenheit, no matter what type of butter you use, your butter should go into the fridge to avoid going bad. You can even store it in the freezer if you want to keep it for a few months.

How can you tell if your butter has gone bad?

Use your senses, if it doesn’t look right, smell right, taste right. toss it.

Looking For A European Style Butter Instead

If you want rich, full-bodied European-style butter, may I recommend you check out our European Style Butter Recipe (Coming Soon) It’s really no more difficult to make than American -Style butter but it does require some patience to prepare.

How about checking out a few other homemade condiment recipes?