Yesterday I spent most of the day in the kitchen, working my way through the 2 boxes of apples that we got last week. I decided to make applesauce and spiced apples with most of them. For the applesauce I mixed the Jonagold and Melrose apples together, peeled, sliced, cored, cooked, mashed and canned. The apple peeler was my best friend - it sure makes the work go faster!
Yummy sauce cooking!
I commandeered Matthews stainless steel beer making pot, because its so much bigger than any other pot I had. To half a pot of smashed apples I added 2 cups of sugar and 2 cups of apple juice. It made a perfect chunky applesauce. I canned 10 quarts, and 2 pints and I still have about half a box of apples left to make more sauce with. I hope to get at least 10 more pints and a few more quarts.
The spiced apples are a recipe I found in my Ball Blue book - we haven't had them before but they sounded good so I figured I would try them. They were fun to make! They didn't need to be peeled, just cored and sliced. My handy dandy apple peeler can do both those things, so again the prep was easy, just time consuming. I dunked the apples in a mixture of vitamin c and water, and set them aside while I prepared the syrup.
While I was boiling the sugar and water I dropped in a cheesecloth bag with 10 cinnamon sticks and 3 tablespoons of cloves. After the syrup was ready, I simmered the apples for about 30 minutes on the stove. It looked (and smelled) really good:
When they were done cooking, I piled them loosely in pints and covered with syrup. The finished product:
I think these would taste really good on pancakes or waffles, or as a topping on pork chops. Yum!
I am hoping to finish the rest of the apples today, I have a long list of stuff that I want to get done before next week when Mike and Kami come. Last week life did its best to keep me from getting anything crossed off the list though! We had friends over for dinner twice - Jessica and Wayde on Tuesday and Tanya and Steve on Thursday. I had lunch with Sarah, shopped for stuff for our upcoming Halloween party, and we got our pictures taken on Friday. Saturday we had plans for a birthday party and a football game, but the kids and Matthew got some yucky stomach bug instead. This week "should" be a little slower. Killian is off school for the last 3 days of the week and we had plans to go to the Zoo with Jessica, but we are rescheduling due to the coming rains. So I have at least a couple days without plans that I can work on my list - I want to get Killians room painted, and the hall bathroom painted. The garage needs to be cleaned and organized, the apples finished and errands and cleaning done. I guess blogging isn't on the list, so I better be on my way!
Yummy sauce cooking!
I commandeered Matthews stainless steel beer making pot, because its so much bigger than any other pot I had. To half a pot of smashed apples I added 2 cups of sugar and 2 cups of apple juice. It made a perfect chunky applesauce. I canned 10 quarts, and 2 pints and I still have about half a box of apples left to make more sauce with. I hope to get at least 10 more pints and a few more quarts.
The spiced apples are a recipe I found in my Ball Blue book - we haven't had them before but they sounded good so I figured I would try them. They were fun to make! They didn't need to be peeled, just cored and sliced. My handy dandy apple peeler can do both those things, so again the prep was easy, just time consuming. I dunked the apples in a mixture of vitamin c and water, and set them aside while I prepared the syrup.
While I was boiling the sugar and water I dropped in a cheesecloth bag with 10 cinnamon sticks and 3 tablespoons of cloves. After the syrup was ready, I simmered the apples for about 30 minutes on the stove. It looked (and smelled) really good:
When they were done cooking, I piled them loosely in pints and covered with syrup. The finished product:
I think these would taste really good on pancakes or waffles, or as a topping on pork chops. Yum!
I am hoping to finish the rest of the apples today, I have a long list of stuff that I want to get done before next week when Mike and Kami come. Last week life did its best to keep me from getting anything crossed off the list though! We had friends over for dinner twice - Jessica and Wayde on Tuesday and Tanya and Steve on Thursday. I had lunch with Sarah, shopped for stuff for our upcoming Halloween party, and we got our pictures taken on Friday. Saturday we had plans for a birthday party and a football game, but the kids and Matthew got some yucky stomach bug instead. This week "should" be a little slower. Killian is off school for the last 3 days of the week and we had plans to go to the Zoo with Jessica, but we are rescheduling due to the coming rains. So I have at least a couple days without plans that I can work on my list - I want to get Killians room painted, and the hall bathroom painted. The garage needs to be cleaned and organized, the apples finished and errands and cleaning done. I guess blogging isn't on the list, so I better be on my way!