It's Apple Butter Time!

Actually, anytime you can buy apples is apple butter time. Which is the same as saying that anytime is apple butter time. But this weekend I decided it was apple butter time for me. I've never made apple butter before, but had read so much about making it in the slow cooker that I wanted to give it a try.

I bought just over 3 pounds of honeycrisp apples as the local farmer's market. To that I added four apples that had been in our refrigerator's crisper a little longer than optimum. They hadn't gone bad, but they weren't crisp anymore, which is how I like my apples. I'm guessing it all added up to about 4 1/2 pounds (a couple of those crisper apples were pretty big).

After washing them and removing all those silly little labels, I cut them up and tossed them in my biggest pot - cores, skins and all.

I added two cups of apple juice. The juice I used was unfiltered, so it was more like apple cider.

I brought everything to a boil and boiled for about half an hour, stirring occasionally, until the apples were soft.

This is why I didn't have to peel or core; my Victorio strainer. I just recently bought this thing, and I love it already. All the cooked apple glop went into the strainer, and I started cranking.

Applesauce came out of the strainer part.

The parts that weren't applesauce plopped into another bowl. This stuff went into the compost.

I measured the applesauce into my slow cooker; I got 8 cups. I added brown sugar, cinnamon and cloves and started it on low. I think my slow cooker must be slower than most, because after 12 hours on low (with the lid propped open a little for 10 of those hours), it still wasn't cooked down enough. So I cranked it up to high for about 4 hours or so. Even then, I was getting a little bit of liquid separation when I put a spoonful on a chilled plate (like they show here), but it was really thick and held its shape well, so I decided it was done enough. Also, I was pretty much out of time if I still wanted to can it. (I just noticed that site says nothing about a chilled plate; I was sure I saw that somewhere. But maybe I was testing wrong. Oops.)

Doesn't that look dark and rich?

I ladled the finished apple butter into pint jars. I forgot to take pics at this point, but I did remember to taste a little bit of the butter remaining in the pot after filling the jars. It was super yummy; very pronounced apple flavor. Much better than any apple butter I have bought!

After processing in a water bath for 15 minutes, I had three lovely jars of apple butter. I figure there is about a pound and a half of apples in each jar. Two of those jars will be gifts, but I am definitely keeping one for me!

Here's the recipe in a more useable form:

Apple Butter
makes 3 pints

4-5 lbs apples, cut up (Peel and core if you don't have a strainer designed to remove peels, etc.)
2 cups apple juice or cider

Combine in large pot and boil for about 30 minutes, until apples are soft. Process through strainer or food mill to make applesauce.

8 cups applesauce
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves

Stir together in slow cooker. Cook for a couple of hours with lid closed, then prop open lid with a chopstick or wooden spoon. Amount of time is going to vary depending on your slow cooker. I recommend trying 8 hours on low. If that isn't doing the job, set it on high, but keep an eye on it.

Once apple butter is done, you can freeze it, or can it. To can, process for 15 minutes in a water bath canner. These folks have some good instructions on water bath canning if you aren't familiar with it.

Reluctant meal planning

So, I've been doing a lot of reading of food blogs lately, especially since I don't cook, and don't much like bothering with thinking about cooking. Lucky for me, the b/f is quite willing to do all the cooking, but he does like some help in meal planning. So I've been trying to do my bit by coming up with suggestions for meals that are tasty, healthy, and can be prepared in a reasonable amount of time. I'm here to tell you, that is not easy.

At the same time, I've also been looking for ideas on what to take for lunch during the week. Which is more of a challenge than the dinner thing, because if you Google "lunch ideas" or something similar, everything seems to be about what to prepare for your kid's lunch. Apparently, adults never get bored with whatever it is that they're brown bagging. Or maybe they just go out for lunch when they can't face another sandwich. Personally, I'm at least as tired of my restaurant options around work as I am with the sandwiches I've been taking. And it really adds insult to injury to drop ten bucks for a lunch that you didn't particularly enjoy.

Today I made some waldorf salad as something a little different to go along with my sandwich. I've never made this before, so I based it off this recipe. I started with that recipe because the calories per serving were more reasonable than others (some of them were quite high). I dropped the cabbage and reduced the amounts to give me just enough for lunch for a couple of days. Here's what I came up with:

Waldorf Salad

1 Tbl. mayonnaise
1 tsp. sugar
1 pinch salt
1 apple, cored and chopped
1 stalk celery, thinly sliced
1 Tbl. chopped walnuts

Stir together mayo, sugar, and salt. Mix in remaining ingredients. Chill.

Pretty easy, huh? It tastes pretty good, and gave me two servings, about a cup each. I figure each serving is around 120 calories, which is quite reasonable. This, plus a sandwich and one of the bran muffins I found in the freezer today should make a nice lunch.

Success!

I decided to try making sourdough bread in the Crock Pot again, this time making the loaf a little smaller to avoid the problems I encountered last time. I used the same recipe, reducing it by one-third:

2/3 c sourdough starter
2 c bread flour
2/3 c water
1 tsp salt

Except I substituted 1/4 c multigrain cereal for 1/4 c of the flour, so it was really 1/4 c cereal and 1 3/4 c bread flour. Stirred it all together and let it rise until double, then dumped it out on a floured surface (my trusty Silpat), formed a loaf, the plopped it into my buttered Bread n Cake Bake pan (really is a pity that Rival quit making those, but you can score one on eBay without parting with any more money than I did when I bought mine new).

I let the loaf rise about an hour and a half, until it was a little more than double, then put it in the Crock Pot on high for 3 hours. And out came this:

Isn't it cute? Here it is sliced:


I meant to add some sugar to aid browning, but I forgot. I'll try that next time. But it tastes delicious, and I didn't have to heat up the kitchen! I'm so pleased to be able to continue to make sourdough bread through the summer.

Playin' hooky

Well, not exactly. I have to work Saturday night, so I'm taking a half-day off today. It wasn't supposed to rain until this afternoon, so I was planning on doing some planting in the garden. However, it's been drizzling all morning, so I decided to bake instead.


Today I made oatmeal muffins. These are a slightly sweet, wholegrain muffin that I like to take in my lunch. They are very tasty with cottage cheese and some fruit. Very easy to make, too:


Whole Wheat Oatmeal Muffins
(makes 12)

1 egg
3/4 c buttermilk
1/3 c brown sugar
1/4 c oil
1 c whole wheat flour (I used freshly ground white wheat)
1 c quick cooking oats
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda

Heat oven to 400F. Beat together the egg, brown sugar, buttermilk and oil. Stir in remaining ingredients, just until moistened.

Pour into lined muffin tin or silicone muffin cups; fill about 2/3 full. Bake about 20 minutes, until slightly browned. Cool on rack; remove muffins from tin (if you used one) when you can without burning yourself; finish cooling on rack.

Makes a nice mid-morning snack, too.

Delish

Tried out the Retsel mill today; big improvement over the old one! With my old mill, I struggled to grind a cup of flour. With the Retsel, I ground about 3 cups and, while it was a bit of a workout, it still wasn't as much effort as 1 cup with the old one. I'm sold!

I used some of the flour to make muffins. I've made this recipe before (the whole wheat variation), and they're quite tasty. But in rummaging around in the frig I came across some applesauce I really should use up, so this is what I made:

Whole Wheat Applesauce Muffins
(makes 12 muffins)

2 Tbl oil
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup applesauce
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbl baking powder
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour

Beat the egg, then mix in oil, milk, applesauce, and brown sugar. Add the remaining ingredients and stir just until everything is moistened and well mixed (you don't want to overbeat muffins; they'll toughen up).

Pour into muffin tin (greased or lined with paper cups) or silicone muffin cups (as I did). Bake at 400 F for about 20 minutes.

I tried one as soon as they were cool enough (that's why there are only 11 in the pic), and boy, are they yummy! For the whole wheat flour, I used hard white wheat. I'd like to try soft wheat, if I can find it, and see how these would be with all whole wheat flour (instead half whole wheat, half white). I used chunky applesauce, so there are nice moist little bits of apple here and there. I meant to add cinnamon, but I forgot. Maybe I'll try that next time.

Yesterday I turned the heel on the CIC sock, but didn't do much more, because I was engrossed in a book. A while back, I was poking around Amazon.com, and saw a mention of a TV movie coming out soon with Tom Selleck playing a police chief named Jesse Stone. And, what's this? This isn't the first such movie? Tom Selleck has played this character before? How did I miss this? Who is this Jesse Stone character, anyway?

So, I learned there are several books featuring Jesse Stone, police chief of Paradise, Massachusetts. Sounded interesting, so I hit paperbackswap.com and snagged the first book in the series, Night Passage by Robert B. Parker. I am loving this book! Strong but flawed protagonist (as the best heroes are), suspense, intrigue...I'm really hooked. And the character seems tailor-made for Tom Selleck; before I was a quarter of the way into the book, I put Stone Cold (Tom's first Jesse Stone movie) on my NetFlix list. Can hardly wait to get it.

Can you guess whodunit, Hilfy? No, don't tell me, I want to find out on my own.