Hats...& Fruit Leather!

Okay,

First off, I don't know about you, but I have been feeling very overwhelmed, by the MANY different hats that a mom has to wear.

First there's the wife, mom, daughter, sister, aunt and friend HATS.

Then, the clean the house, bake, decorate the house in Christmas cheer, make holiday goodies, attend Christmas programs, etc...HATS,

then that of church callings, plan the Sacrament Meeting Christmas program, visiting teacher, remember everyone's birthdays, write thoughtful thank you notes HATS

and then trying to capture the joy of your kids through photographs, put your house back together, help your hubby with home improvement projects, blogging and email correspondence HATS...and well, the list just keeps going on and on.
(In fact, the joke at Tracy's work has been, when people ask them if they're ready for Christmas..."Yeah, the wife's got that taken care of"! (smile)

Most days lately, when it comes to what hat I'm wearing it is my most favorite thing in the world....

that HAT of being wife and mom!

SO, if you find me not wearing a HAT that you would like me to be wearing, I apologize, but January soon will be here and with that comes

10 days off from work in a row...

life will be organized and my normal routines of what people are used to will be returning in full force!!

Yay... I can honestly say

I miss Kimmie & all of her many hats..can't wait to be wearing them all again!!

HOWEVER, during the busy holiday season, I thought I would take a quick moment to respond to many responses I have had about my Super Saturday Presentation I did last month. My current ward calling (local congregation) is that of
"Emergency Preparedness and Food Storage Specialist".
I am responsible for giving monthly info/recipes on anything that goes along with these two topics to the sister's in our ward.

My biggest project this year
for my calling was gathering recipes from the sisters in our ward and typing them and organizing them into a binder. Even though it was more work than I intended it to be, it was such a success and I had many thankful women who are thrilled to have new tried and true recipes to try this next coming year.

I am also required to do a presentation/demonstration at our yearly Super Saturday Relief Society event.

This year, I struggled with what I could share, so I reflected on three of the big things that I learned this summer from our three months of no shopping.

First, I shared that no matter how prepared you are with your food storage, you never have three months worth of Tortillas and so I had dough there to show them how easy it was to roll out and make your own homemade tortillas.

Second, I shared that you never have three months worth of hoagie sandwich or hot dog buns and shared how I made these and even had samples for them to see and taste.

Third....(Finally to the title of this post), I shared that most people don't have a three month supply of fruit snacks or chewy treats for their kids.

SO, I shared one of the favorite things I learned from this experience...how to take a jar of applesauce from your food storage and turn it into delicious fruit leather.
I had made a batch
and brought it still on the cookie sheets. I then showed them how it looked after it was done cooking...pulled it off the plastic wrap, put it on a cutting board and put the cornstarch/powdered sugar mixture on it, cut it with a pizza cutter into squares, showed how I store it in mason jars lined in waxed paper and they got to enjoy some as well.

You don’t need to have a fancy dehydrator to make fruit leather.

(instructions)

Take 1 quart of applesauce
--Heat on stove until warm (if your applesauce doesn’t have cinnamon in it, you may want to sprinkle on a little when you are heating it up and stir it in)
--Line cookie sheets with plastic wrap making sure to tuck it well around the edges so it doesn’t fold over on to the fruit puree
--pour fruit puree on plastic lined cookie sheet and spread out until it is really thin but make sure pan is evenly coated…about an 1/8 to 1/4 inch thickness.
--Place the baking sheet in the oven and try to keep any plastic wrap from touch the sides of the oven or the oven racks. Also try to make sure that the plastic wrap hasn't folded back over on top of the purée. If this happens, the purée won't dry out. Heat the oven as low as it will go. My oven only goes as low as 170 degrees. Let dry in the oven (with door slightly propped) for as long as it takes for the purée to dry out and form fruit leather. I usually do this in the afternoon right after work and it is done before we go to bed, OR, I put in the oven around 6:00 in the evening and let it go all night and it is done by the time we are up in the morning (about 8-12 hours). The fruit leather is ready when it is no longer sticky, but has a smooth surface.
--When the fruit leather is ready, cool completely and then you can easily peel it up from the plastic wrap.
Pull off plastic wrap, spread a cutting board generously with a mixture of part corn starch and part powdered sugar. Coat both sides of the fruit leather well with this mixture…you can’t have too much of this coating on the fruit leather. This preserves it and helps to keep it from sticking together.
--Cut into squares with a pizza cutter. Store in a mason jar lined with waxed paper and seal tightly.

Kids and adults LOVE this chewy, healthy treat!

Great way to have a treat when you are living on your food storage. My kids think this is better than any “Fruit snacks” you can buy at the store.

Enjoy...

'Tis the Season to be Jolly!

(AND a little frugal as well)