Apples!

I went to visit some old friends in Campbell River recently and part of the weekends adventures included picking apples. Fast forward to this past weekend, I finally had some time to deal with them! I have not played with apples before so this was quite exciting. As usual I made some pretty big mistakes, but had fun an have learned for next time!

A sample...

I had quite a few apples to deal with. I wasn't sure what I should do with them and asked around for some ideas or recipes. In the end I decided upon Apple Sauce, Apple Butter, and Apple Pie Filling... one of these REALLY didn't work...

To start all of them, I had to prepare the apples:

apple-peeler-corer-slicer!! 

Apple Butter

This recipe came from the friend in Campbell River. Not sure where she found it; if I ever find out I'll post it. I modified by halving the recipe. 

Ingredients
5 1/2 lbs of Apples, peeled, cored and chopped
4 cups Sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cloves

 Method
Very simple: mix all ingredients together, put in slow cooker. Cook on high for 1 hour, then on low for 9 - 11 hours. Remove the lid for the last hour. 

I suspect my slow cooker, being so tiny, isn't as powerful as others are, so mine took a bit longer. I also didn't have the full disintegration of apples like I saw in some recipes online, so I used an immersion blender to make it all smooth.  FYI, for all that this is called 'butter', it has nothing to do with butter... it's better described as 'apple jam'.  

Apple Butter in progress

Apple Sauce

Ingredients:
6 Apples, peeled, cored, sliced
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar

Method:
Simmer apples in the water until soft. Mash up apples, add in sugar, reduce until thick and 'saucy'.

I wasn't paying attention to the recipe. This was bad. When I was preparing the apples I just plunked them in a bunch of water (about 6 cups) to try prevent the quick browning of the apples. I then simply poured the whole lot into a pan to boil, not realizing the fine points of the apple-to-water ratio. DOH!!

No harm though, as I simply reduced the heat, removed the lid, and allowed the water to slowly boil off.  The little taste test I did said tells me that its going to be delicous! Now to figure out what to do with it...

Apple Pie Filling

Ingredients:
A bunch of apples
water

Method:
Can't really say, as I screwed it up so badly!

So while making the apple sauce, I also decided to prepare some apples to be frozen and available for apple pie.. unfortunately I again didn't think through the water ratios, and, to make matters worse, I left the kitchen.  Turns out apples stay solid for a long time, then suddenly disintegrate...  In my frezer I currently have 2 large zip-lock bags full of what I am now calling 'Apple Water'..  I'll try use it in baking.. I may try remove one of the bags and 'boil down' the liquid a la the apple sauce, but we'll see..  I need to research this one a bit more!

Before everything went horribly wrong!!