Apple Recipes

Curried Apple Chutney

2 qts (about 16 medium) apples- peeled, cored and chopped

2 lbs seedless raisin

4 cups brown sugar

1 cup chopped onion

1 cup chopped sweet red pepper

3 Tbl mustard seed

2 Tbl ginger

2 tsp allspice

2 tsp curry powder

2 tsp salt

2 hot red peppers, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

4 cups vinegar

Combine all ingredients in a large pot. Simmer until thick, stirring frequently to prevent sticking. Ladle hot chutney into hot jars, leaving ¼ inch head space. Remove air bubbles. Adjust two-piece caps. Process 10 minutes in a boiling-water canner. Adjust time for altitude.

Applesauce

2 1/2-31/2 pounds of apples per quart

water

sugar, if desired

Wash apple, core, peel and slice or quarter apples. Cook apples until soft in a large covered saucepan with just enough water to prevent sticking. Puree using a food processor or food mill. Return apple pulp to saucepan. Add sugar to taste, if desired. Feel free to add spices as desired such as cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg or cloves. Bring applesauce to a boil (212 F) stirring to prevent sticking. Maintain temperature at a boil while filling jars. Ladle hot sauce into hot jars, leaving ½ inch head space. Remove air bubbles. Adjust caps. Process pints and quarts for 20 minutes in a boiling-water canner. Adjust time for altitude. (Denver add 10 minutes.)

I bought another 80 pounds of apples for about 120 lbs total. I'm working away and thought I'd share a few recipes for you all. I did run all the cores through the cider press and made a pint of cider. Not a lot of yield for so much stuff. Be back in a few days!
Recipes from the Ball Blue Book of Canning. Can't recommend this book enough! It has everything you need to learning canning. Remember-last year was the first time I had ever canned anything. I never learned and no one I knew canned. So if I can, can, you can.

Dreaming of Tuscany

Having completely thrown over my plans to spend the day with the apples, I've instead been pouring through A Thousand Days in Tuscany, a book my Mom brought over last night. I've taken a brief break from reading to start a loaf of Schiacciata Toscana, or Tuscan Flat Bread. I love books with related recipes written in them. I'm guessing it will be like a fochacia bread with fresh rosemary, sea salt, and olive oil as focal ingredients. It contains a fair amount of cornmeal so that will add a bit of a different texture, I think.


I dashed out back and picked some rosemary and basil. I have a bowl full of fresh tomatoes and am trying to figure out what all I want to make. Maybe some pasta with grilled chicken? Shall I pick some beans to add to the mix? A bit of zucchini is always good with the abundance we have right now. Decisions, decisions. How blessed we are to have all that we do!

The bread is on its second rising and I've just minced the rosemary so my hands are fragrant with that delicious piney scent.

We've just tucked the boys in for naps and I need to spend more time outside cleaning up the garden spaces. I pulled the sunflowers out over several days this week and discovered all sorts of things still growing, hiding and seeking out a bit of sunshine. We'll see how they do know that the crazy canopy of sunflowers is gone. I've been collecting seeds from the various flower heads for planting next year.

I am planning on not having the sunflowers in that garden area next year. I also think the mallows and cosmos were a bit much. They simply all engulfed the smaller plants and groundcovers I put in. Right now there are purple mums blooming away, a purple delphinium, and one purple anenome. The gladiolus came in purple as did a mystery bulb. There are a lot of different greens from the rosemary and basil plants to the lemon balm and baby tears.

Besides all the glorious shades of purple, there are bright spots from the nasturtiums and a few forget-me-nots. The forget-me-not seeds are easy to save as they are little burrs and I am forever picking them off of whatever I've worn into the garden. They also love to attach themselves to my hair where I seem to find them hours later.

As the days cool we're spending as much time out back as we can. The boys played out back as I pulled and cut and tended the gardens yesterday. They love their sandbox and running through the grass. Pumpkin loves to see all that's still growing and is happily counting watermelons and cantaloupes. I'm amazed by the tomatoes and beans! Some of the tomatoes are enormous and I hope they ripen up this week.

This is so wonderful to be enjoying the bounty. Worth all the endless hours of work this spring and summer to make it all happen. I will be even happier next year when all I have to do is plant and not do all the work we did to get this all going. We still have the old garden area to whip into shape and I am planning on doing more weed pulling as soon as I can put the bread in the oven.

Ciao!

PS- Here's the link to the Spice Pumpkin Waffles. The chutney recipe requires me typing more, so it'll be up another day.

Zippy!

That's the best way to describe the Curried Apple Chutney I made yesterday. It's the most amazing recipe of apples, raisin, brown sugar, curry and other spices. But to keep it from being basically a baked apple, it also has vinegar, onion, and sweet peppers. Oh my! I am so looking forward to trying more than just a sample spoon.

The original recipe called for hot pepper and garlic which I omitted due to personal preferences here. Oddly enough the yield should have been five pints, but I barely had two and a half pints. Canning recipes and yields can be so odd. I also put up another five and a half quarts of pickles from the garden cucumbers. Cause we needed more pickles. If they was ever an emergency situation, my family would be surviving on bread and jam and pickles. Of course, we'd be able to eat these for weeks on end!

I got a pot of applesauce simmering on the stove waiting to be finishing and put into the jars. I kept all the cores and peels I've been making and am planning on running them all through the press I have. It'll all probably only amount to one cup of juice and a big mess, but since I have everything on hand I might as well try and it will mean they'll be almost no waste. I suppose I could keep the leftovers from making cider for cider vinegar. Maybe next year.

I did try to run the peels and cores through the mill I was given so as to make apple butter from the leftovers. That was just an exercise in frustration and mess just like the peach experiment. Glad it was free. I'll probably try it again with tomatoes since they are soft, but if that doesn't work it will need to find a new home. Grumble.

It certainly feels like autumn around here! The spice applesauce simmering on the stove, the pumpkin spice waffles cooking in the waffles iron, & the pumpkin candle burning. Even my coffee tastes like autumn as I mixed together brown sugar, cinnamon and cloves and tucked them into a jar on the counter for oatmeal mornings.

I discovered the mix is delightful in my coffee as well. Much cheaper than a Pumpkin Spice Latte and easier to get around here. Though I do love those lattes! It must be a family thing as my sister in California mentioned having one the other day--over ice. By mixing the spices in the sugar I am able to stir it all evenly into the coffee without the spices just floating on the top as they do when I just sprinkle them in.

I've still got another twenty pounds of apples on hand. I'll probably make more of everything and some apple butter as well. So yummy! I do love all the foods that are in season this time of year, don't you?

I used up the rest of the pureed squash I had frozen last fall for the waffles this morning and I'm down to one Hubbard squash from last year's garden. It's a big one, but I think I'll need to try and find some more. They are such good keepers and I use them in any recipe that calls for pumpkins or squashes. I didn't get any planted this year, but will make it a priority for next year's garden.

Well, I need to go and stir the applesauce and scrub down the cider press as I've not used it before. I'll let you know how it goes!