We enjoy eating fruitcake during the holiday season and I'd like to share my favourite non-alcoholic fruitcake recipe which was published years ago in a Robin Hood Flour booklet. The recipe for Fabulous Fruitcake is now available as an interactive recipe guide on the Robin Hood Flour website. This is a neat tool where you check off eat step as you go. The recipe can also be printed off. 

Don't worry if you don't have or don't like all of the fruit and nuts that the recipe calls for because they are interchangeable. The main thing to remember is to keep the same amounts. For example, instead of dried apricots, we'll either use dried cranberries, or increase the amount of candied cherries. We also don't use candied peel, so will use mixed glace fruits instead. For the raisins, we use some Sultana, and some golden. As long as we keep the same amounts, the fruitcake will be great.
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Ingredients: FRUIT & NUTS

1 cup (250 mL) chopped dried apricots
3 cups (750 mL) raisins
2 cups (500 mL) candied pineapple, coarsely chopped
2 cups (500 mL) candied cherries, halved
2 cups (500 mL) mixed candied peel
2 cups (500 mL) coarsely chopped pecans
1 cup (250 mL) slivered almonds
1 cup (250 mL) ROBIN HOOD® All Purpose Flour

BATTER
1 1/2 cups (375 mL) ROBIN HOOD® All Purpose Flour
1 tsp (5 mL) baking powder
1/2 tsp (2 mL) salt
1 tsp (5 mL) cinnamon
1/2 tsp (2 mL) ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp (1 mL) ground cloves
1 1/4 cups (300 mL) butter, softened
1 1/2 cups (375 mL) liquid honey
1 tbsp (15 mL) vanilla
6 (6) eggs

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 275°F (140°C). Prepare three 9x5" (2 L) loaf pans*, greased, lined with aluminum foil and greased again.

FRUIT & NUTS
2. Combine all ingredients. Mix well to thoroughly coat fruits with flour.
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BATTER
3. Combine flour, baking powder, salt and spices. Mix well. Cream butter, honey and vanilla on medium speed of electric mixer. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add dry ingredients on low speed, mixing just until blended. Stir in fruit and nut mixture. Mix well.

5. Place pan of hot water in oven to provide steam for moisture and bake loaves for 2 to 2 1/2 hours or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans. Remove foil. Wrap well and store in cool, dry place.
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This fruitcake will keep a few months in the fridge, but not as long as one made with, and wrapped with, cheesecloth soaked in alcohol, followed by an airtight wrap.

Combine the butter, sugar, milk and vanilla in a large saucepan. 
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I use a flat, straight-edge spoon/spatula for easy spreading. 
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A friend gave us a box of squash of an unknown variety. It sat there for about a month while the thought of chopping it apart to get to the meat and the mess of cleaning out the seeds and stuff balanced with my craving for something to use in recipes calling for pumpkin, winter squash, and sweet potatoes for baking cookies, muffins, quick breads, cakes, and pies.

A bit of research turned up the foodiewithfamily.com website which shows the easiest way ever to cook squash and pie pumpkin in a slow cooker. I was skeptical until I read the numerous comments attached to her post. And then I tried it for myself.

The post says there's no need to take the stems off before placing in the slow cooker, but the stems were prickly and took up too much room, especially in my smaller 6 quart crock pot, so I removed them while washing them clean as they still had some gritty garden dirt. 

Before I put them in though, I lined the crock pot with aluminum foil and then added the biggest squash I had. Since it was too big, I switched to 2 smaller ones instead.

And then I got out my big 18 qt roaster and since it has a higher lid, the biggest squash fit nicely inside - as you can see on the right side of this photo:
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With the biggest one place, I added the other squash. I wasn't sure about the smallest one sitting on top, but the roaster's high lid had plenty of extra space and I knew the steamy heat would fill the spot.

I set the crock pot on low, and the roaster on 260 F which it says is the proper temp for slow cooking. 

And then I left them alone all day long.

​After supper that evening, I used my thumb to check the skins for tenderness. The small ones were soft. In the photo below, they have a darker yellow coloring. I took those out and left the rest to continue cooking.
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Still using the ice cream scoop, I cleaned out the rest of the skin. There wasn't much difference between cleaning out the cooked squash while it was hot or cooling, although the job was easier when the skin wasn't hot to touch with my bare hand. The skin hardened as it cooled which allowed scooping to the maximum whereas it ripped if I tried to get too close when it was warm.

This montage shows different views of one squash. Remember, the bottom was sitting on a layer of aluminum foil so it didn't stick. Parts that were overcooked show as dark brown. I didn't save them because I wanted to keep a bright yellow color, but I tasted the brown parts and they exhibited a somewhat nutty flavor. 

The top left and middle back of the next photo show the discarded seeds and stringy stuff which went to the compost pile along with the shells which hard hardened as they cooled. 

The two white bins contained the good stuff.

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The next day, we heated some of the cooked squash, added some butter, and ate it as a side dish. I also used some of the squash instead of pumpkin and sweet potatoes to make:

• Pumpkin Raisin Cookies 
• Sweet Potato Pinwheels 

I froze the rest in ziploc bags:

• 5 bags of 3 cups
• 2 bags of 2 cups
• 1 bag of 2 1/2 cups

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As you can see in the next montage, when we took out the foil lining, the 6 qt roaster looked great after a full day of cooking. The large 18 qt roaster however contained the white scale often found in a crock pot when used in this way.
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I'll do some research to see if I can coat the bottom with grease or something before my next batch of squash. And yes, I will be using this technique again because it was so very easy to do. 

I'd love to hear if you've tried this method and the type of squash you've cooked, regardless of whether it was a success or not. 

Chili Egg Breakfast Burrito

3            egg whites, scrambled       (or 1-2 eggs)
2 tbsp  leftover chili                          (or other beans)
1             whole wheat tortilla           (or other flour tortilla)

Mix the scrambled eggs with the chili.

Warm a tortilla in the microwave. (about 18 secs in my 1100 watt microwave)

Spread egg and chili mixture in middle of warm tortilla. Wrap and eat. 

As you can see, there are many variations depending on what you have on hand.

I usually add green onions when I'm scrambling eggs, for the color as well as the taste, but in this case, I didn't have any left, and there were plenty onions in the chili already. 

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First we made Jeremiah's Turkey Chili, then I used some to make a Chili Egg Breakfast Burrito, and then we had enough for two people. Except there were 3 of us eating supper that night.

I decided it would be a good time to show Jeremiah how a dish could be expanded with the addition of a few simple ingredients. So, to Jeremiah's original Turkey Chili recipe, we added:

3 thick slices of a salami stick we had in the fridge
2/3 cup corn kernels because we wanted a colorful vegetable

The expanded chili leftovers filled us without leaving more food to go back into the fridge. 

This turkey chili didn't really taste any different than beef chili, except that it was a bit different to brown.

I will definitely use ground turkey again if I can find it locally.

Note: we found Lilydale ground turkey multi-paks at our local Costco store