Bread Machine / Apple Cider

So the saddest thing happened on Friday... The belt on my bread machine is shredded and the company doesn't make them anymore so... Going to have to get a new one, but thats not going to happen for awhile so doing it by hand for awhile. Ugh.

In other news, I made homemade apple cider yesterday, and it is Delicious. I used granny smiths that were getting pretty soft. Here is the recipe:

• 8 -10 apples (I used 12 small granny smiths)
• 1/2-1 cup sugar
• 4 tablespoons cinnamon (or 4 cinnamon sticks)
• 4 tablespoons allspice

Directions:

     Quarter your apples (no need to remove peel or seeds). In a large stock pot add your apples and fill with water--just enough to cover the apples. Add your sugar. Wrap your cinnamon and allspice in a doubled up cheese cloth and tie, and add this to the apples and water. 

     Boil on high for one hour (uncovered) checking on it frequently. Turn down heat and let simmer for two hours (covered). Take off the heat after two hours of simmering and let cool. Remove spices and mash up the apples to a pulp like consistency (a potato masher works well for this). 

     Once cool pour into a strainer over a large bowl. (At this point you can either restrain the juice to get out the little bits of pulp that remain with a cheesecloth draped inside the strainer to catch them or just leave it like I do). You can store in an air tight container in your refrigerator for up to a week or you can freeze it for later use if you like.

And in even more news... still can't get my chocolate chip cookie right. Kinda frustrating, I just want a cookie... and idk how many more cookies I can't get Donnie to eat... he's going to explode at some point. lol

Bread Machine Garlic Parmesan Dinner Rolls

So in my house.. everything is better with garlic and parmesan. So I adapted this recipe by adding about 1 1/2 tbls granulated garlic, and about 2 tbls parmesan cheese. Definetly do the melted butter on the top at the end. I also usually only get 12 regular sized rolls out of this recipe, but nine makes them man-sized. BEST rolls I have ever made. They are so light and fluffy, and require so little hands-on time that I can make these even with the baby home.

Christmas Care Packages

So with my grandma now being mostly blind and confined in a wheel chair, I have officially taken over all the baking... EEKS.  So for the care packages we are looking at about 20 different items to put in them, thankfully some are truffles and fudge so they are easily frozen and can be made ahead of time. Yay! Only problem is I won't be getting most of the other ingredients until the 8th or 9th, so it will be an interesting week, because I am pretty sure I am supposed to have it all done by the next weekend.... hmm. Well they get what they get I suppose.

Anyway so far made:
Gingerbread Truffles
Trash Piles
Banana Chocolate truffles
and I had basic brownie truffles... but they all disappeared... hmm wonder where they went. lol

And I am currently on the search for my perfect chocolate chip cookie, and its not going so great. But I just got a scale, so hopefully that means that when I do find it, that it will be easy to replicate.