Making Sweet Potato & Yam dog treats

Here is a video on making sweet potato and yam human/dog treats. I have been making these for a couple of years. Right now sweet potatoes are on sale in every store and they also happen to be as local as they are going to get. This is the time to get the cheapest and sweetest sweet potatoes of the years. This is a treat that even I enjoy. I love eating these while watching TV and they make great hiking and backpacking treats for both humans and dogs.

Poached Pears and Vanilla Ice Cream

This is a recipe from The Food Network courtesy of Giada De Laurentiis, one of my favorite cooks.

This is the perfect recipe for the time of the year. Right now, bosc pears are local and abundant. This dessert goes perfect with a sweeter wine.


There is a direct link at the bottom of the post.

Ingredients
* 1/3 cup apple juice
* 1/3 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
* 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
* 3 firm Bosc pears, peeled, halved, cored (about 1 pound)
* Vanilla ice cream, for serving

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Arrange the pears cut side up in an 8-inch square glass baking dish. Whisk the apple juice and sugar in a small heavy saucepan over medium-high heat until the sugar dissolves. Whisk in the butter. Pour the sauce over the pears. Bake until the pears are crisp-tender and beginning to brown, basting occasionally with the juices, about 35 minutes.

Spoon the pears onto plates. Top with ice cream. Drizzle with any juices and serve.

The pears can also be served frozen. To do so, cool the pears, then place them in the freezer until frozen solid, about 8 hours.

Link to site

Making Apple Juice

This week, I got the chance to visit the Dickson family. I am blessed to have two of their wonderful kids in my classes. Every year the Dickson family puts away about 250 quarts of apple juice. They get their apples from windfalls from farms close to home. They are a wonderful example of how more of us should live.

Daniel Dickson is the main presser and you can tell just buy looking at what I have begun to call his "juice arms". Mrs. Dickson says that she loves the fact that they get to do this as a family and from the time I spent with them pressing juice, it was easy to see how much fun they have. Pressing juice is a lot of work but it is very much worth it.

I could not help myself and I created a little video from the footage I took while I was there.