Applesauce Recipe

Recipe from www.simlyrecipe.com

There is nothing better than homemade applesauce with hand-picked apples, and it is so easy to do! If you want chunky applesauce, use a potato masher to mash the cooked apples. If you prefer smooth apple sauce, run the cooked apples through a food mill. The key is adding a few strips of lemon peel to the apples while cooking. The lemon heightens the apple flavor.

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• Prep time: 10 minutes
• Cook time: 25 minutes
• Yield: Makes about 1 1/2 quarts.

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Ingredients

• 3 to 4 lbs of peeled, cored, and quartered apples. (Make sure you use fresh apples, like our Ginger Gold, Pioneer McIntosh, Royal Cortland, Honey Crisp and/or Jonagold Reds) MIX DIFFERENT VARIETIES OF APPLE, IT’S EVEN BETTER.
• 4 strips of lemon peel – use a vegetable peeler to strip 4 lengths
• Juice of one lemon, about 3-4 Tbsp
• 3 inches of cinnamon stick
• 1/4 cup of dark brown sugar
• up to 1/4 cup of white sugar
• 1 cup of water
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt

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Method

• Put all ingredients into a large pot. Cover. Bring to boil. Lower heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes.
• 2 Remove from heat. Remove cinnamon sticks and lemon peels. Mash with potato masher.

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Ready to serve, either hot or refrigerated. Delicious with vanilla ice cream or vanilla yogurt.

Freezes easily, lasts up to one year in a cold freezer.

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Apple Crisp Recipe

Recipe from www.simlyrecipe.com

Apples, cinnamon, brown sugar, butter and oats? Welcome to the essential ingredients of the apple crisp, one of the most simple and easy of apple desserts. To make an apple crisp one layers sliced peeled apples that have been tossed with lemon juice and vanilla in a baking pan, then tops the apples with a mixture of brown sugar, butter, cinnamon and oats. It’s the crunchy topping that makes the apple crisp “crisp”.

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• Yield: Serves 8.

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Ingredients

• 7 tart apples, peeled, cored and sliced (Cortland, Honey Crisp or Jonagold)
• 4 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup butter, room temperature

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Method

• Preheat oven to 375°F. In a mixing bowl, combine apples, lemon juice, and vanilla. Toss to combine.
• Layer sliced apples in a 9 x 12-inch (or approximately the same size) baking pan.
• Combine brown sugar, cinnamon, and oatmeal in a bowl. Cut in the butter. Sprinkle sugar mixture over apples.
• Bake 45 minutes or until topping looks crunchy and apples are tender.

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Serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

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Jalapeno Pepper Jelly Recipe

Recipe from www.simlyrecipe.com

Made from McIntosh, Cortland, Honey Crisp apples and PEI cranberries for color. Those apples and the cranberries have plenty of natural pectin, so no additional pectin is needed to make this jelly.

Tart green apples have more pectin in them than sweet apples, so use tart green apples for this recipe, earlier in the season the better. This is especially true if you are not also using cranberries, as cranberries have their own natural pectin as well.

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Ingredients

• 4 lbs of tart apples (e.g. Granny Smith), unpeeled, chopped into big pieces, including the cores
• 6 jalapeño chili peppers, sliced in half lengthwise, the seeds and ribs removed from 3 of them (for mildly hot jelly. If you want a hotter jelly leave the seeds and ribs in all of them.)
• 1 green bell pepper (or red if you want the color), seeds and ribs removed, chopped
• 1 cup cranberries (optional but recommended, will help with color and with setting)
• 3 cups water
• 3 cups white vinegar
• 3 1/2 cups sugar (7/8 cup for each cup of juice)

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Equipment Needed

• One 6-quart pan (Stainless steel or copper with stainless steel)
• A candy thermometer
• A large fine mesh sieve (or several layers of cheesecloth, or a muslin cloth jelly bag)
• 4-5 half-pint canning jars

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Method

• Combine the apple pieces, apple cores (needed for their pectin content), jalapenos, bell pepper, cranberries (if using), water and vinegar in a large pot. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to medium-low, simmering for about 20 minutes, or until the apples, cranberries, and peppers are soft. Stir occasionally to make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pan where it might burn. Use a potato masher to mash up the apple pieces to the consistency of slightly runny apple sauce. If the mash is too thick, add more water.
• Spoon the mash into a fine mesh sieve, muslin cloth, or a couple layers of cheesecloth, suspended over a large bowl. Leave to strain for several hours (even overnight). If you want a clear jelly, do not squeeze or force through the mesh. Just let it drip. If you want a fuller flavor jelly and don’t mind that the result won’t be clear, you can force some of the pulp through the mesh. If your pulp is too thick, and nothing is coming out, you can add an extra 1/2 cup or cup of water to it. You want to end up with about 4 cups of juice.
• Measure the juice, then pour into a large, wide, thick-bottomed pot. Add the sugar (7/8 a cup for each cup of juice). Heat gently, stirring to make sure the sugar gets dissolved and doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan and burn.
• Bring to a boil. Cook for 10-15 minutes, using a spoon to skim off the surface scum. Continue to boil until a candy thermometer shows that the temperature has reached 220-222°F (8-10°F above the boiling point at your altitude). Additional time needed for cooking can be anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour or longer, depending on the amount of water, sugar, and apple pectin in the mix.
• Left: Jelly is too runny. Right: Jelly is wrinkling when pushed, which means it’s ready.
• Candy thermometers aren’t always the most reliable indicators of whether or not a jelly is done. Another way to test is put a half teaspoonful of the jelly on a chilled (in the freezer) plate. Allow the jelly to cool a few seconds, then push it with your fingertip. If it wrinkles up, it’s ready.
• Pour jelly into sterilized jars* to within 1/4″ from the top and seal.

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Makes approx. 4 half-pint jars.

Serve with cream cheese on crackers.

*There are several ways to sterilize your jars for canning. You can run them through a short cycle on your dishwasher. You can place them in a large pot (12 quart) of water on top of a steaming rack (so they don’t touch the bottom of the pan), and bring the water to a boil for 10 minutes. Or you can rinse out the jars, dry them, and place them, without lids, in a 200°F oven for 10 minutes.

Note that jalapeno jelly can be pretty “hot” if you have included a lot of the seeds in your cooking. The fat molecules in the cream cheese absorb the hot capsaicin of the jalapenos, reducing the heat, but leaving the flavor of the chiles. This is also why sour cream tastes so good with spicy Mexican food.

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Apple Butter Recipe

Recipe from www.simlyrecipe.com

It’s hard to find any apple butter, let alone good apple butter in the grocery store these days. Making apple butter is a great way to preserve the fruits of an apple harvest. In contrast to what the name implies, there is no “butter” in apple butter. The name comes from its smooth and buttery texture. Apple butter is delicious on buttered toast. Although apple butter takes time to make (the sauce is slow cooked for at least an hour), the upfront part is easy. You do not have to peel or core the apples. The pectin for firming up the resulting jam resides mostly in the cores and there is a lot of flavor in the apple peels. After the first cooking, these parts get discarded as the pulp is run through a food mill.

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• Prep time: 20 minutes
• Cook time: 2 hours
• Yield: Makes a little more than 3 pint jars.

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Ingredients

• 4 lbs of good cooking apples (we use Granny Smith or Gravenstein)
• 1 cup apple cider vinegar
• 2 cups water
• Sugar (about 4 cups, see cooking instructions)
• Salt
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon allspice
• Grated rind and juice of 1 lemon

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Equipment

• 1 wide 8-quart pan (Stainless steel or copper with stainless steel lining)
• A food mill or a chinois sieve
• A large (8 cup) measuring cup pourer
• 6-8 8-ounce canning jars

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Method

• Cut the apples into quarters, without peeling or coring them (much of the pectin is in the cores and flavor in the peels), cut out damaged parts.
• First Stage of Cooking
• Put them into large pot, add the vinegar and water, cover, bring to a boil, reduce heat to simmer, cook until apples are soft, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat.
• Measure out the purée and add the sugar and spices
• Ladle apple mixture into a chinois sieve (or foodmill) and using a pestle force pulp from the chinois into a large bowl below. Measure resulting puree. Add 1/2 cup of sugar for each cup of apple pulp. Stir to dissolve sugar. Add a dash of salt, and the cinnamon, ground cloves, allspice, lemon rind and juice. Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary.
• Second Stage of Cooking
• Cook uncovered in a large, wide, thick-bottomed pot on medium low heat, stirring constantly to prevent burning. Scrape the bottom of the pot while you stir to make sure a crust is not forming at the bottom. Cook until thick and smooth (about 1 to 2 hours). A small bit spooned onto a chilled (in the freezer) plate will be thick, not runny. You can also cook the purée on low heat, stirring only occasionally, but this will take much longer as stirring encourages evaporation. (Note the wider the pan the better, as there is more surface for evaporation.)

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