Food Happenings in the Odell Cross Household

Maple Almond Butter

My lunch today with Ryan's homemade bread, my mom's strawberry jam, and my almond butter.

Peach raspberry jam

Ryan's healthy pumpkin bread (recipe courtesy of CFW)

I suppose it was a bit premature to call an end to the canning season a couple of months ago. When I saw more local frozen sliced peaches at the grocery store I couldn't say no. I finally used them up, along with some raspberries I froze last summer. The peach raspberry jam is my favorite of all the jams I made this year. I put in a little more sugar than I normally do for peach jam to balance the tartness of the raspberries. I used about 3 lbs of sliced peaches, about 2 cups of raspberries and 1 1/4 cups of sugar. I do think that next time I would use slightly less raspberries, they quickly overwhelm the peaches. I've decide this jam is also the prettiest of all the jams I've made. I'd like to get a photo of the jars in the sunlight, but sunlight tends to be scarce in Seattle and I am never home during daylight hours anyway. Maybe this weekend...

I also made my own almond butter last week. I was inspired by a recipe on the "Food in Jars" blog. I roasted the almonds with a little bit of maple syrup, and then put them in the food processor with some peanut oil. Mine didn't turn out quite as creamy as the example I saw, but I didn't want to push my food processor too hard and the motor got really hot! I'm not a huge peanut butter fan so I do like trying different nut butters. I had never really considered how easy they would be to make myself until I read the recipe on Food in Jars. Ryan baked more bread this weekend and with my mom's strawberry jam, I was able to eat an all-homemade sandwich in my lunch today. I forgot how delicious my mom's strawberry jam is. It's hard to compete with something that good.

Tonight Ryan tried a healthy pumpkin muffin recipe posted by our friend Catherine on her blog. It's a good thing they are yummy because the recipe made A LOT of muffins as well as the small loaf Ryan is holding in the photo!