Apple Fritters

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Home Made Apple FrittersI first tasted an apple fritter as a young man in my hometown of Decatur, Illinois, at the Van Zetti Bakery. It’s been my favorite donut-adjacent food for fifty years since.

Recently, we ran across Kent Rollins’ YouTube channel, and I was delighted to find that he has a recipe. Despite my trepidation toward deep frying, I decided to try it out. We picked up a bag of Granny Smith apples and a bottle of Fireball Whiskey on Saturday, and made these on Sunday Morning.

The first step was to dice the apples and sauté them in a little butter. Once they start to get soft and a little golden, I added a couple tablespoons of Turbinado Sugar and a tablespoon of dark brown. Then came a teaspoon of ground cinnamon, and finally a good splash of Fireball to deglaze the iron skillet. This all got set aside to cool while making the batter.

I beat two medium eggs well to start the batter, incorporating 3/4 cup of sugar and a tablespoon of melted butter. The dry mixture (1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt and a little grated nutmeg) went in next, along with 3/4 cup of Ginger Ale, as we didn’t have Mountain Dew on hand. By then the apples were cool enough to add, and the dough was ready for frying.

I used a little over an inch of vegetable oil in the bottom of a Dutch Over for frying, dropping in four large spoonfuls at a time once the oil was hot. The recipe made about a dozen and a half fritters, and they were just the right size for an individual serving – although everyone ate more than one.

The glaze was a cup of powdered sugar and a few teaspoons of Fireball, with a little more of the Ginger Ale to get the right consistency.

You can watch the whole process on Kent’s YouTube video. The recipe is here.

These were as delicious as I had imagined and hoped, and the frying was a lot less daunting and messy than I had feared. It’s the cowboy way. 🙂

 

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Summer on a Plate

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Vegan Dog and SidesThe first Sunday of Summer 2025 was HOT. Here in the South Suburbs of Chicago, we had temperatures in the 90s Fahrenheit all weekend.

Claudia had prepared a potato and green bean salad for a Midsummer party that we attended on Saturday Evening, and par cooked enough extra to grill on Sunday. She also made a nice green salad, and I grilled some Tofurkey Vegan Polish Sausages that we served with sauerkraut and mustard.

Claudia described it as “Summer on a Plate.”

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Making Violet Syrup

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I walked out back of the house to mow yesterday, and the violets and dandelions were so beautiful that I decided to wait a few days. 🙂

So I picked 108 violets to try Annabel Margaret’s violet syrup. Here’s a video with the recipe if you’d like to try it.

Let equal parts of violet petals and water (heated to boiling then left to cool for 5 minutes) steep overnight. Then add an equal part of sugar and heat very gently, stirring constantly until the sugar dissolves. Finally, add a squeeze of lemon juice.

I had about 3/4 cup of petals, and it made a little over half a bottle. Super fun to harvest and remove the petals with intentions for our happy, loving home. Also, watching the syrup go from blue to violet with the addition of a little lemon juice was just beautiful.

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Tofu Tikka Masala

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Tofu Tikka MasalaThis recipe came from Rainbow Plant Life. I cheated a bit with the spices, opting for some pre-ground things instead of toasting them all from scratch. The meal still took a couple hours altogether to prepare, but it was well worth it.

I think I’ll try a double batch of the full fledged version one of these weekends.

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Corned Jackfruit for St. Paddy’s

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Corned Jackfruit, Cabbage, Potatoes, Carrots, Etc.For Sunday Dinner the day before St. Patrick’s Day this year, in addition to the traditional corned beef and cabbage I decided to try making a Jackfruit version. It was my very first experience preparing, cooking or eating it, and it exceeded my expectations in every way.

I had intended to pick up some prepared Jackfruit, but when I asked if they had it at our neighborhood Jewel, the produce guy said “sure – right over on that table.” Turns out there were two (humongous) whole Jackfruit at a decent markdown. So I grabbed the smaller of the two and headed to check out.

When I got back home, I checked YouTube for tutorials on how to prepare it, and was a little daunted but decided to give it a try anyway.

The first step was to cut the thing up into pieces, just about like you would when you’re slicing up a watermelon to serve. Except Jackfruit contains this white sticky substance inside that looks and behaves for all the world like latex. So I put some newspapers down on a table on the back patio, sprayed my knife with cooking spray, and went to work. It was messy, but not as bad as I had expected.

I boiled the pieces in a large stock pot for about twenty minutes, and once they had cooled a bit I removed the husks with a paring knife, and picked through the sections for the seed pods. They say that the seeds can be used to make Hummus, but this time around I just discarded them.

Once the sections were all picked clean, I put them back in the stock pot with pickling spices and some beet powder to marinate overnight. On Sunday Morning, I drained them, spread them out on a baking sheet, hit them with a little more seasoning, and baked them for an hour at 375 °F.

Finally, I pan fried enough portions for the three Vegetarians at our table just before serving to warm them up.

Even though it was quite a lengthy and involved process to prepare and cook the Jackfruit, I would definitely do it again. The texture was very much like corned beef, and the taste was marvelous and savory. I think that doing a long cook with it on a smoker and topping with Carolina Barbecue Sauce would be most excellent.

 

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