Frittering Time & Apples




For the most part, (words you don't normally associate with following a recipe)
 we followed the recipe found on Ree Drummond's site. She has much better photos- if you plan to make this, I highly advise checking her coverage out. 
What follows is really just a documentation of our attempt to re-create tasty apple fritters- not a "how-to".

We had to scrap our deep fryer as the inside coating was beginning to flake. I knew you could fill a pot with oil as a makeshift fryer but I had never been brave enough to try it until I saw Ree's photo coverage. It was less daunting to see that not only had someone else successfully made fritters in a pot of boiling oil, but that they had done so without burning down their kitchen. 
Heat the oil on Medium... a test drop of batter will let you know if the oil is too hot or not hot enough baed on shade and speed of browning. 


We halved the batter but not the fruit. So 3 apples went into half the batter. To the other half we added bananas. 


I used a small ice cream scoop- because the oil was not deep enough for the fritters to float and roll, I flipped them with a spatula. 

I removed the fritters when they were an appetizing golden brown. 

The fritters were then drained on paper towels before dunking in glaze. 


We opted for glaze over powdered sugar.   




All fritters made & glazed- waiting to be served for breakfast. 

Test Bite

The banana fritters reminded all of us of a crispier banana pancake.

Cut-A-Way of our deep fried healthy breakfast fritters (they DID have fruit in them!) 


REE's RECIPE

FRITTERS
  • 2 cups All-purpose Flour
  • 1/2 cup Sugar
  • 3 Tablespoons Sugar
  • 2-1/4 teaspoons Baking Powder
  • 1-1/4 teaspoon Salt
  • 2 teaspoons Ground Cinnamon
  • 2 whole Large Eggs
  • 3/4 cups Whole Milk
  • 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
  • 2 Tablespoons Melted Butter
  • 2 whole Granny Smith Apples, Peeled And Diced
  • Powdered Sugar (optional, For Dusting)
GLAZE (optional)
  • 1-1/2 cup Powdered Sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon Salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon Vanilla
  • 1/4 cup Milk

Preparation Instructions

In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.
In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with a fork, then add milk, melted butter, and vanilla.
Gently fold dry and wet ingredients together until just combined (do not overmix.) Fold in apples. Add enough apples to make a very chunky batter. You want the apples to shine though!
Heat a couple of inches of canola oil over medium to medium-low heat. When it gets hot, drop a little drop of batter into the oil. If it sizzles immediately and rises to the top, the oil is ready; if it burns quickly, turn down the heat.
Drop teaspoons of batter into the hot oil, six or eight at a time. Sometimes they'll flip over by themselves; sometimes you have to flip them. Just watch them and make sure they don't get too brown, but cook them long enough to make sure the batter's cooked through, about 2 to 2 1/2 minutes total.
Remove and drain on a paper towel. Dust very generously with powdered sugar, or dip fritters in a light doughnut glaze (mix all glaze ingredients together, then dunk warm fritters).
Serve warm!
**May be heated up the next day in a 350 degree oven for 8 minutes.



Summer Reading Log 3

BUTTER SAFE THAN SORRY by Tamar Myers

This was my first time reading Tamar Myers. I loved the featured Amish and Mennonite characters, as well as Methodist, Baptists, good old fashioned pagans-(wait, is that redundit?) and nudist nuns to boot.

Amish themes make me nostalgic for our time in Kentucky. I welcome writing that incites nostalgia.

The story is full of word play, while the storyline itself is a little zany. This was the last title in a series of 18 and if I'm not mistaken, meant to be read in a particular order. Most of the characters were spoken of in familiar tones with little time spent re-introducing them. Many 'incidents' were referred to as if everyone had already heard the gossip (or read the previous books)

I love interactive books, though I have yet to try the butter based recipes included between chapters. I am looking forward to trying at least a few of them and probably, every single one.

Myers offers some other genres that I may check into. To me, the most interesting writing by Tamar was what I read of her own, personal bio. Perhaps it's that PK/MK bias, but I like her.

After I finished the last page, one element keeps coming back to me: the protagonist's unwitting ability to mimic the mating calls of various nearby farm animals with her singing or other cacophonous. emanations.

I remembered that smirky device again recently at a baseball game, where the high pitched calling from a lady in the stands put me on alert for a sudden convergence of amorous  ganders in our midst.  

THE DARK by Lemony Snicket


It's Lemony Snicket. For children.  What else needs to be said? I wish it had more pages. I wish it were a new chapter book to read aloud to The Big Kids... perhaps we will re-visit Unfortunate Events as a read aloud selection... just as soon as we finish Moby Dick... (what was I thinking?!) Still- it's Lemony Snicket- we'll take what we can get.

SUPERNATURAL WAR   (an eBook) by Bill Myers


Unlike most titles I've read by Myers, this book is an account of real events in the author's life. It was easy to see how these events, amongst others, have informed much of his fiction that deals with super natural elements. I am still processing what I read and mulling over the thoughts and questions that have arisen since I finished the last sentence. Though the era of 'The Jesus People' was a little before my time, and though I've never attended any of the 'spin-off' groups that resulted from the original cluster of 'Jesus Freaks' (at least, not to my knowledge) the spiritual atmosphere in which this account is described is familiar to me in some distinct ways. Maybe I'll attempt to dissect those in the future... for now, I've got some pondering to do. 

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