American Dried Fruit
Hi fellow seniors,do you make your own Christmas cakes and or puddings?
Today is the day I traditionally start the preparation for making both.
I buy all the ingredients and soak all the dried fruit overnight.
I make quite a few medium sized puddings with the addition of a few silver coins and wrap them in festive paper and ribbons and give them out as gifts nearer the time.
The cake is a large size one decorated with a few seasonal fripperies and another fancy bow.
The pastries such as sausage rolls, sweet mince pies etc. are made in mid December and frozen until needed.
So do you make and bake prior to the festivities or do you rely on shop bought produce?
BTW American friends do you wait until after Thanksgiving to prepare for Christmas ?
@ YGG making the cake and puddings now is essential to allow all the ingredients time to infuse together.
@ Jackie your Red Velvet Cake sounds interesting and has a lovely name.
I make Christma cakes - using a recipe from a Be-Ro book. I don't make puddings every year, but I make mince pies. I love doing the Christmas baking and the process is as much a part of Christmas as is anything else associated with the season. I'm an ex-pat from Yorkshire and I've been in the USA for almost 40 years but the preparations for Christmas that I enjoyed as a child, teen, and young adult in England have stayed with me.
I do start the Christmas preparations well before Thanksgiving - if I waited until after Turkey Day there wouldn't be enough time for me to do it all and enjoy doing it. It would be a rush and there'd be very little time to enjoy the process.
I make preserves, pickles, etc. throughout the summer and then in late November I gift-wrap them and spend a day during December delivering everything. I love it!
This year I'll be going home for Christmas, my mother's 90th birthday celebrations, and New Year so my US Christmas plans have all been moved up a little to make sure I get everything done. Many people give me their empty jars back and I have to make sure they get the replacements before I leave for the "big doings" in England.
Happy baking!
All American Pressure Canner - Safety First
Fortunately, the All American Pressure Canner is built for safety but you must remember that it is a high temperature, high-pressure piece of kitchen equipment. You need to pay attention to the components of your pressure canner and take care when operating it. If you follow a few simple rules you will have no problems.
Here are a few tips you should follow.
· Make sure you have read all the instructions before you use your pressure canner. There is always something to learn from the instruction manual.
· Take extreme care when you are moving the pressure canner when it contains hot liquids. Plan exactly what you want to do before you actually start the move and remove all obstacles.
· Make sure the unit is completely closed before you begin operation. This means you should ensure the side clips and screw downs are safely in place.
· Make sure the unit is no more than two thirds full. However, with foods that expand, for example vegetables and dried fruit, make sure the unit is no more than half full.
· Ensure the pressure release devices are clear and clean before you use the canner.
· Never open the pressure canner until it has cooled down after cooking.
· Ensure that see pressure regulator weight event pipe is clear enough to see through it.
· Do not loosen any nuts until the steam pressure gauge is at zero.
· Turn the heat down when the operating pressure has been reached. This will ensure that the Canner will not vent out.
· Check the handles regularly to make sure that they are fastened properly; in fact you should do this every time you use it. Also ensure that none of the handles are cracked or broken or burnt in any way.
· Make sure the wing nuts are fastened by making for complete revolutions before bringing the assembly into the hold down position.
· Never use a pressure canner on a glass or ceramic top. The canners are extremely heavy windfall of liquid and may break the glass or ceramic cook top.
· Never leave food in the pressure canner overnight. This will not only spoil your food but can also cause a reverse vacuum. The bottom-line is you should make sure you have allocated enough time for you to be there for the entire process. Don't start canning late at night!
Most of these tips are simple common sense. Read the instructions and take note of any other safety tips and you will have trouble free and enjoyable canning all your life. The All American Pressure Canner comes highly recommended for its trouble free performance.
 Erewhon List Price: See Reviews For This Product DescriptionHaving been enabled by the kindness of the public to get through an unusually large edition of "Erewhon" in a very short time, I have taken the opportunity of a second edition to make some necessary corrections, and to add a few passages where it struck me that they would be appropriately introduced; the passages are few, and it is my fixed intention never to touch the work again.  |
 Nesco American Harvest FD-61 Snackmaster Encore Dehydrator and Jerky Maker List Price: Sale Price: $59.77 You save: $9.22 (13%)  Eligible for free shipping!Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours See Reviews For This Product DescriptionThe Snackmaster Encore has 500 watts of drying power and generates maximum speed and quality for dehydrating fruits, vegetables and jerky. Helps dry food in hours, not days. Hot air is forced horizontally across each individual tray, converging on the core for fast, even and nutritious drying. No flavor mixing and no need to rotate trays. Adjustable thermostat allows user to dry different foods at the proper temperatures. Opaque Vita-Save exterior helps block harmful light which destroys nutritional content of food being dehydrated. Features
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 Whitworth's Dried Mixed Fruit for Cakes 375gr (13.2ozs) Sale Price: $6.95 Eligible for free shipping!Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days See Reviews For This Product DescriptionWhitworth's Dried Mixed Fruit is ready washed and ready to use. Using Whitworth's dried fruit makes baking a Fruit cake or other Christmas Cakes all the more easier using this ready prepared fruit mixture. Just add the fruit mixture and bake the cake. The ideal mixture for all fruit cakes. Features
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 Classic Fruit Production Films See Reviews For This Product DescriptionRomance of a Lemon (ca. 1927)- Elegy to the sour fruit: how it's farmed and how it's used, with some unusual applications Producer: Castle Films Audio/Visual: Si, B&W Run time: 9:09About Bananas (1935)- Complete presentation of the banana industry from the clearing of the jungle and the planting to the shipment of the fruit to the American markets. Producer: Castle Films Audio/Visual: Si, B&W Run time: 11:03Journey to Banana Land (1950)- United Fruit's paternalistic vision of Central America and its banana business Producer: William J. Ganz Co. Audio/Visual: Sd, C Run time: 20:42Good Wrinkles- Sunny Sweet," a cartoon prune, gives us a tour of prune growing and processing operations in California. Also promotes health effects of prunes.Producer: All-Scope Pictures, Inc. Audio/Visual: Sd, C Run time: 20:02Gifts of the Sun (ca. 1946)- Beautiful Kodachrome film showing how California dried fruit is grown, harvested, processed, sorted, weighed, and packed. With alluring imagery of apricots, prunes, peaches, and raisins. Story: Gene Walker. Photography: Dave Butler. Recording: Bill Palmer. Narrator: Dr. Sunshine. Producer: Del Monte Food Products Audio/Visual: Sd, C Run time: 17:52 Features
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 Garnier Fructis Haircare Triple Nutrition Extra Nourishing Cream Fortifying Shampoo 25.4 fl oz (750 List Price: Sale Price: $7.02 You save: $0.47 (6%) Eligible for free shipping!Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days See Reviews For This Product DescriptionFor Dry To Over-Dried Or Damaged Hair3 Nutritive Fruit Oils: Features
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 Freeze-dried Astronaut Strawberries (10 Pack) List Price: Sale Price: $25.95 You save: $14.00 (35%) Eligible for free shipping!Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days See Reviews For This Product DescriptionYou will receive ten foiled-seal fresh envelopes of freeze-dried "Astronaut" strawberries. Features
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 Erewhon List Price: See Reviews For This Product Description"Having been enabled by the kindness of the public to get through an unusually large edition of Erewhon in a very short time, I have taken the opportunity of a second edition to make some necessary corrections, and to add a few passages where it struck me that they would be appropriately introduced; the passages are few, and it is my fixed intention never to touch the work again." |
 ISO 4125:1991, Dry fruits and dried fruits -- Definitions and nomenclature Sale Price: $55.00 Eligible for free shipping!Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours See Reviews For This Product DescriptionSpecifies terms and definitions in English, French and Russian. This second edition cancels and replaces the first edition (1979). Annex A is for information only. This title may contain less than 24 pages of technical content. |
 Nesco American Harvest FD-1010 Gardenmaster Food Dehydrator List Price: Sale Price: $121.33 You save: $28.66 (19%) Eligible for free shipping!Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours See Reviews For This Product DescriptionFD-1010 -4 trays included -Expands up to 30 trays with Add-A-Tray accessories (sold separately) -1 sq. ft. per tray -1000 watts of drying power -Adjustable temperature control -Patented Converga-Flow drying system -No flavor mixing and no need to rotate trays -Dries in Hours: Fruit rolls 3-6 hours, Beef Jerky 4 hours, Apples 4-6 hours, Bananas 5-8 hours, Pineapple 4-6 hours -Opaque Vita-Save Exterior blocks harmful light -1 sq. ft. per tray -Additional add a tray for this unit would be model TR-2 -Includes 52-page recipe & instruction book -Includes 1 solid sheet, 1 mesh sheet & 1 packet of jerky spice A ''Top of the Line'' unit! More powerful and larger than any other. Expands to a giant 30 trays so you can dry large quantities all at once! 1000 watts of drying power means you can dry faster. Patented Converga-Flow fan forces heated air up the exterior pressurized chamber, then horizontally across each individual tray, converging in the center, for fast, even and nutritious drying. No flavor mixing and no need for tray rotation. A quiet, 2,400-RPM motor and specially designed 4-1/2 inch fan mean faster, more nutritious drying. Drying apple slices in just three hours and beef jerky in four, this 1000-watt dehydrator is exceptionally fast, using a big, 4-1/2-inch fan to force air up through the drying trays' outer rings and across each tray. A thermostat adjusts from 95 degrees to 155 degrees for drying different items. Each of the four plastic trays is 13-3/4 inches in diameter and 1/4 inch deep—that's four square feet for drying fruits, vegetables, herbs, or flowers at one time. Additional trays can be ordered separately, and up to 30 trays can be stacked on this unit's metal base at once. A fruit-roll sheet inserts into a tray so that applesauce or other fruit sauces can be dried into healthful snacks, and soups and sauces can be dehydrated for camping trips. Beef-jerky spices and a detailed 64-page recipe and instruction booklet are included. The dehydrator measures 15-1/2 inches in diameter and 10 inches high, cleans easily, and carries a one-year warranty against defects. --Fred Brack Features
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