Delicious Made from Scratch Recipes at Common Sense Homesteading

Cranberry-Apple Pie to Brighten Your Holiday Table

November 20, 2018 by Laurie Neverman 8 Comments

This easy cranberry-apple pie recipe is perfect for the holidays with bright pops of color and tartness from the cranberries paired with sweet apples.

There was a bumper harvest of apples this year at my favorite local orchard, and fresh cranberries are shining like rubies in the produce section. Wisconsin is the top cranberry producing state in the U.S., producing millions of barrels of cranberries. I also have a nice stash of local maple syrup, so I figured I'd take a shot at combining all three into a tasty cranberry-apple pie. It turned out quite pretty and pairs nicely with some ice cream or whipping cream.

Note – If you don't want to take the time to make pie crust, you can swap this filling into the apple crisp recipe.

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Easy Homemade Applesauce – How to Make It, How to Use It

November 17, 2018 by Laurie Neverman 2 Comments

Why bother making homemade applesauce when you can buy it cheaply? Flavor, my friend, flavor. In this article, we'll share a basic applesauce recipe, plus easy recipe modifications to make it just right for you. We'll also share the best apples for sauce, ways to use applesauce in recipes and storage tips.

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Hungarian Nut Rolls – Sweet, Nut Filled Pastries – A Family Holiday Treat

November 17, 2018 by Laurie Neverman 11 Comments

These sweet little nut filled pastries are another recipe that my mom used to make for the holidays. My uncle Joe called them Hungarian nut rolls. They are made with a yeast dough, but the method is a little different than other dough I've worked with in the past. The keys to success are keeping everything cold (the dough gets sticky when it gets warm) and working gently with the dough. Blend only until mixed, bake only until lightly browned.

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Easy Cranberry Walnut Pie – Part Pie, Part Bar Cookie, All Tasty!

November 10, 2018 by Laurie Neverman 320 Comments

I had a vision. When I started brainstorming about this post, I thought, “What would make a better Thanksgiving dessert than combining some of my favorite flavors into a cranberry walnut pie?”

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Chocolate Chestnut Brownies – Gluten Free and No Refined Sugar

November 8, 2018 by Laurie Neverman 4 Comments

This one bowl chocolate chestnut brownies recipe makes rich, cake-like gluten free brownies made with chestnuts or chestnut flour and sweetened with honey. Chestnuts start showing up in grocery stores around the holiday season, so I'm experimenting with more chestnut recipes. Three out of our four baby chestnut trees are still alive, so hopefully one day we'll be able to use our own chestnuts. My last experiment was Cranberry Chestnut Bars. This time around I made chocolate chestnut brownies, which for some reason were more popular with the boys. (Can you say, “brownies”?) I skipped adding extra nuts, but you could easily stir in a half cup for some crunch.

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