not vegetarian appropriate....Apple Cider Hot Dogs!

This is something I meant to post weeks ago, but unfortunately, things came up and I never had the chance. Apple Cider Hot dogs are something of a childhood memory for me. The apple orchard we used to visit every fall to gather baskets of apples for pies, sauce, and crumbles would have these dogs for sale by the parking lot. It was an unwritten rule that you couldn't leave without eating an apple cider hot dog, or getting apple donuts (I wish I had the recipe for those!) 

Anyway, these are incredibly easy to make. 

Ingredients: 

Hot Dogs

Buns

Apple Cider

Onions

Peppers (optional)

Mustard

  First you put a pot of apple cider on the stove and bring it to a boil. We added the red pepper directly to the boiling apple cider. 

You x-cut or puppy tail the hot dogs before dropping them into the boiling cider. This way, when the ends separate you know they are done. 

After that, its really a personal choice on topping, but the best way is chopped onions, red peppers, and french's yellow mustard. 

If you like the hot dogs a little crispier, just throw them under the broiler after they boil! 

Kale Chips

Kale Chips are pretty darn delicious, Paige will tell you that! And she would also tell you that they are super simple to make!

All you need to make kale chips is a bowl, oven, cooking sheet, olive oil, Kale, and spices. 

Put the kale in the bowl and rub olive oil into eat leaf. Spread the leaves onto the cooking sheet. Sprinkle with spices of your choice. We found that just plain salt was good, but CHILE POWDER AND LIME was an even better flavor combination. 

Put the Kale in a 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes, until it gets dark slightly crispy but NOT burned. Keep a close eye on it. 

Remove the kale oven and put it back in the bowl (you can wash it while the kale is in the oven). 

Enjoy!

I am hungry and don't know what to cook: FRIED RICE!

          This evening I had a slight conundrum, I was hungry, I wanted Chinese food, and I didn't budget for a trip to the Chinese place downtown.  However, we did have fresh produce from the farmer's market on last Saturday! So I made the impromptu decision to make fried rice. Not that I know how to make fried rice in the least, I am an Italian girl from rural Maine. Look how tasty it looks though!

Pretty good for someone who has never made fried rice before!

Makes enough for 3ish people!

What's in it?

One Egg

The tiniest cooking onion I have ever seen in my life

One quarter bell pepper I found in the fridge

2 carrots, they were like the length of my index finger

a handful of broccoli florets and stems (stem was thinly sliced)

Rice (obviously)

Sesame Oil (Optional)

Stir-fry sauce (we didn't have soy sauce, and I didn't know until I needed it)

mmmmm fried rice!

I chopped up all the stuff, now what?

Pre-Step One: Cook some rice, CC made the rice I used, so I can't really tell you how to make it. 

Step One: Heat the wok up to medium heat, or a little less than that. While that is heating, scramble an egg until it is a little bit frothy. Add the egg to the wok and wiggle the pan around so the egg thinly coats the bottom. Cook until it is set and then try to flip it over. You might succeed, or you might not. If you don't and it sort of makes and omelet looking block of egg thing, have no fear just cook it the rest of the way though. Remove from pan and set aside on a plate, slice it up so its in those cool egg strips.

Step Two: Gather whatever veggies you want in there, be creative, yell at your housemates 55 times asking what is ok to put in there. Decide you don't care about their input and put everything in there anyway. Dice the veggies up pretty small. Thinly coat the bottom of the wok with canola oil (or whatever oil, I don't think it matters). Toss the veggies in an cook until they are softened, add some sesame oil because it is awesome and makes it smell like you know what you are doing.

Step Three: Stick the cooked rice, the veggies, and the eggs all together in the wok. Add the stir-fry sauce or soy sauce while stirring until you think it is the right color. Remember, you can always add more after you plate it, but you can never take it away. Continue to stir and heat the pan until the rice is all warmed up. 

so easy. so tasty.

TA-DA Fried rice. Eat it now, it tastes surprisingly good. Add other things you think it needs. Decide that it was wicked easy and vow to stop making pasta and veggies three times a week and start making fried rice more often. 


Sorry this was the first post I (Brittany) have written since I started this blog! I was away teaching baking at a summer camp this summer and haven't cooked anything worth recording until today! (That is lie, I cooked lots of things, but I am also generally super busy with work).

Stay Awesome!
<3 Brittany

How do you know its fall?

The sound of leaves is crunching around outside, which means that autumn has finally arrived.

 With the weather turning colder, I have come to the realization that our fridge is a perfect way to see what season we are in. With it now being fall, the amount of cabbage sitting in our fridge has us eating haluski for dinner (delicious) and contemplating making our own sauerkraut. There are apples everywhere in our kitchen, and we are even eating winter squash (which despite being difficult to cut, bakes up surprisingly good). 



There is another sign in our house that it is finally truly fall (and I'm not talking about my over enthusiasm for halloween decorations). There are pumpkins! Trista, Tiffany, and I went out to the garden to start gathering in our pumpkins. In the words of Peanuts, it is a most sincere pumpkin patch, and we are looking forward to carving them for jack-o-lanterns and cooking them down for pumpkin cookies/pies. 



Things Going On: 
Fall in Meadville is a great season. There are tons of haunted houses going on around us, there are apple festivals and pumpkin festivals. The farmers market is still going on, and there is only ONE more week of Davenport cider and apples!!!!!

Saturday 10/13- Fire and Food celebration up at the pavilion with Edible. Its an October Energy Challenge event and a harvest party. There will be a potluck and music by fellow students. Come check it out. 

Quick Catch up

Hey Everyone! 

So the month of September has gone by fast, and I feel awful that I have not updated in a while. So here is going to be the mad dash catch up. Are you ready? I know I'm not...

We have been to Davenport Fruit Orchard to help harvest. We went to the homesteading festival at Little Bit of Heaven Farm. Some even went to the Mother Earth News Festival. We planted fall crops. We are amazed at how big our pumpkins are. We hosted salsa making on campus with Eric from Beelzebub Salsas. We are planning apple sauce canning, indoor plant growing, raw foods, wild foods, and slow foods workshops. 

We are living, cooking, and shopping in local ways. Take a peek...

And speaking of cooking, we have made all of the following: 
Cinnamon Buns
Chocolate Muffins
Banana Bread
Blue Berry Whole Wheat Pancakes 
Udon Noodles
Shepard's Pie
Stuffed Peppers
Lasagna
Pork and Sauerkraut
Schnitzel Beans
Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup
Dahl
Stews
Veggie Soups
Cauliflower Soup
Roasted Veggie Pasta
Verde Salsa
Corn Salsa
Sweet Red Salsa
Snickerdoodles
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Canned Salsa
Canned tomato sauce
Canned Pears, Pear Butter, Pear and Apple Pie filling, Pear Jam
Apple and Pear Pie
Canned Pickles
Austrian Souffle 
Rye Bread
Hummus
Two Tier quesadias
Rice Porridge
Bacon and Green Beans
Perrorgies: too many varieties to describe
AND SO MUCH MORE!

And it was all made with local veggies, or meat, or something! The best thing is that our housemate, CC brings items from her CSA from back home, so now we even have locally made butter!!

We are even ordering organic flour in bulk from our local Market House, and tomorrow we get to pick up 25lbs! (I don't think it will last us long!) 

Things coming up in our area- 
Apple Festival
Pumpkin Festival 
Haunted Houses
Haunted Corn mazes

I promise to update better this October! 

Things to Do!

Hello everyone out there in TV Land... I mean Cyber Land. I just got an e-mail from one of our lovely professors about some great events happening this weekend. The Meadville Council of the Arts is hosting there M.C.A.rnival of the Arts, and all of the events are free! Yes, I typed that right, its FREE! 

Read bellow to see there itinerary and learn more!

 

Looking for something FREE to do Labor Day Weekend?

Interested in the Arts?

Want to join a local arts organization for more opportunities?

 

MCA has just the event for you!  We are offering this completely free event as a thank you to our current members/participants, as well as a way to showcase what we do to anyone who isn’t familiar with us!

Thursday, August 30^th through Sunday, September 2^nd, MCA will be hosting a a jam-packed itinerary of art, music, dance, theatre and more for all ages, AND IT’S ALL FREE!  Please visit our facebook page or contact our office for complete details of our events!!!

 

Thursday, August 30^th

4-5pm – Puppetry Showcase

5-7pm – Adult Writers Workshop with Matthew Ferrance  (GO TO THIS ONE, simply because its Ferrance) 

6-7pm – Free Zumba Preview Class with Heather Onderko (Recommended ages: 12+)

7-8pm – Tai Chi Demonstration

 

Friday, August 31^st

6-8pm – "Val & Dave Do Clay" Portrait Sculpting & Wheel Throwing Demos with Dave Mosbacher & Val Gilman

6:30-8:30pm – Improv Theatre (Adult)

9-11pm – Literary Open Mic (Adult)

 

Saturday, September 1^st

10-11am – Metal Working Demonstration

10:30-11:30am – Faux Painting Demonstration with Blair Hartman

10:30-12:30am – Theatre/Music Audition Techniques Seminar Panel

11-Noon – Quilt Talk with Michael Kashey

Noon-2pm – Art Attack Challenge

12:30 – 1:30pm – Free Voice/Acting Class with Dan Crozier

2-2:30pm – “Don’t be afraid of the Gallery” Talk

2:30-3pm -- “Mill Run” Mosaic Mural Talk

2-3pm – Allegheny Dance Intensive Presentation

3-4pm – Movement Workshop

3-4pm – Taste of the Arts Q & A

4-5pm – History Tour of MCA

4:30-5:30pm – Devised Project Workshop with Beth Watkins

5-8pm – MCA Board Member “Q & Art” – A live art presentation and a chance to meet some of our current Board Members. Have questions or ideas about MCA? Feel free to bring them and chat with us at this time!

7-11pm – “Blue Planet” Musical Presentation with Mike Litzinger and Friends

 

Sunday, September 2^nd

11:30-12:30pm – Creative Movement with Miss Heather (Recommended Ages 3-7)

12-1pm – Family Gallery Tour & Activity

12-1pm -- An ‘all genres’ Vocal Showcase with Diane Kalinowski

1-2pm – Fiber Demo with Medis Kent

2-4pm – Art Attack Challenge

3-4pm – Watercolor Demo with Nancy Apple

4-5:30pm – Musical Open Mic

4:30-6:30pm – Free sculpture class with Val Gilman

6-8pm – A Staged Reading of new one-act scripts by emerging playwrights. (Adult)

 

Meadville Council on the Arts

Meadville Market House, 2^nd Floor

PO BOX 337

Meadville, PA 16335

Phone: 814-336-5051

Email: artscouncil@zoominternet.net

Front Stoop Picnic

With the weather nice out, sometimes you just want to have a picnic. But our schedules don't always allow for us to pack up a basket or backpack and walk down to a park, spread out a blanket, and then eat dinner. So instead, we are having front stoop picnics. Armed with freshly boiled corn, leftover pesto pasta, and warm garlic bread, Nancy and I sat out on our front stoop and enjoyed dinner in the fresh air. 

The one downside was we find out there are adorable mice living under our stoop.