EASY DIY Christmas Basket Add-Ins: Dried Fruit and Spice Simmer Pot Pouches

One of the easiest DIY add-ins to any Christmas basket is a fun and festive Christmas Simmer Pot filled with dried fruit and spice.

Here's the recipe I used to make mine this year that has all the same ingredients I use in my Hot Wassail that simmers in the crockpot all day on Christmas eve.

3 orange slices, dried

6 apple slices, dried

6 whole cloves

2 cinnamon sticks

1 T cranberries, chopped & dried

1 sprig dried pine or rosemary (optional)

Pour the entire contents into a small pot with 3 cups of hot water. Let simmer over low heat. Add more water as needed.

This recipe is kitchen tested, and it works really well for a 6+ hour stove top simmer.  You can also remove from heat at the end of a day's use, let cool and use the next day.  2 days is the longest recommended use for optimum scent infusion. 

The Family Table: Keep a Running Jar of Onions

When I was a little girl and heard the phrase "running jar of onions" I was pretty sure I had no idea what it meant, it was just something the older folks said. In my imagination of course I pictured a jar of onions running away from someone chasing it. 😂  

In thinking about it now, it's probably what inspired me later in life to turn fruits and vegetables into cartoons.

I grew up in the 1960's with grand parents in my daily life that used language that many of us don't use today.  Their language developed out of how they did things in their day. Long before the days of rushing off to the grocery store for this or that, and even into the days of the Great Depression when you had to learn to "make do", if you hadn't already been making do.

As it turns out, keeping a running jar of onions means exactly what it sounds like.  It means saving every little scrap of onion, green onion tops, onion skins & onion ends, and letting them dry out either naturally, in a warm oven or with a dehydrator. Doing this every time you use fresh onions & sticking the odds & ends pieces into a jar until it's full.  Once it's full, they're ground down to powder either using a mortar and pestle or any type of modern appliance like a little Bullet blender. 

Voila - fresh, home dried onion powder to be used in all sorts of recipes to add a savory, deep level of umami flavor to any dish without having access to fresh onions. I use one single jar for all onion scraps (red, yellow, sweet, etc.) so my onion powder has an amazing flavor that store bought onion powder can't even come close to. I discovered the joy of making my own seasoning blends several years ago and onion powder is a staple ingredient so I make my own quite often. I've even been known to buy extra onions at the local market, just to make my own onion powder. 

It's not lost on me that if I were writing this 100 years ago in 1925, most folks would think I'd lost my marbles since this was a completely normal, every day thing many wives and mothers and grandmothers were doing already. It would be along the same lines as writing a step by step article telling folks how to brush their hair, or tie their shoes.  

Over the years society has traded "making do" with convenience and simple things like drying your own veggies and herbs became a thing of the past for most people.   

I have a lot of little things like this I do these days that started out as a simple challenge for me to try, to see if I could actually make do & save on the grocery budget the way they used to.  Some of those things became so enjoyable to me that they're just now a part of the way my kitchen is run. 

Thanks for stopping by. I sure hope this has blessed you in some way. 😊 Please feel welcome to leave a comment or question. 

The Family Table: Orange Citrus Fruit Powders

In my household I'm all about thrifting, saving, stretching and getting as many uses as I can with everything I have, and that's where this simple little recipe comes from. 

I really hope you find it useful.  

At Christmas time I like to include in my dessert menu and gift baskets, a batch of homemade orange fudge. It's very similar to the flavor of the popular Terry's Chocolate Orange, but even better! 

The way I pull that off, is with fresh, organic orange peels I've dried & powdered (intead of artificial orange extract you can purchase at the grocery store). 

The deep citrus orange flavor profile with real orange compared to artificial orange extract is like night and day. 

The added bonus is, you can use this same orange powder in a wide variety of dishes and recipes from breakfast muffins, cookies, candies, pastries and various stir fry dishes. There are countless different ways to use citrus orange peel powder.

Take 2, medium sized, organic Navel oranges & wash with cold water, thoroughly.  Peel oranges with as little of the white pith as possible.  Using a sharp knife or vegetable peeler, whatever works best.  Once the peels are removed, finely dice into pieces and place onto a dehydrator tray. (If you don't have a dehydrator - then just follow these directions for simple oven drying). 

In the dehydrator, run it at 135 degrees for 16 hours.  This is the maximum time suggested to make sure your peels are perfectly dry for powdering.  Once dried, transfer into the Magic Bullet small cup (or whatever blender you have), and blitz until they're the texture you like. 

I like mine a little more coarse but you can blitz them until they're a consistent, uniform powder.  You can use whatever appliance you have, whether it's a blender, coffee bean or spice grinder, or food processor as they all basically do the same thing. 

The texture I'm usually going for is that of a fine crumbly topping, but this is entirely preferential. You can blitz until it's a fine powder or you can leave even chunkier bits. The chunkier you leave it, the more bold orange flavor is present in whatever you're using it in. 

Generally, 2 oranges will produce 2 tablespoons of orange peel powder which is the perfect amount for add-ins to cookies, cakes, candies, muffins, and numerous other recipes.  It's a great solution to over-ripe oranges, nectarines, tangerines, clementines and most any other orange citrus. Instead of throwing it out, simply scrub up those peels and find new life in aging citrus fruits you never would have thought of. 

I hope you found this helpful, and if you have any questions or comments, please feel welcome to leave those below.