Monday apples
It is late September and it is apple season! Two weeks ago I bought a couple peck bags of McIntosh apples from a local grower that sells at the farmer's market in town. Monday was my day off of work and my day to put the apples to good use. One of the things that Mike LOVES is home made applesauce. I usually use free apples from our own wild growing apple trees, but this year we had a late freeze that killed all the blossoms. Oh well. That just gives my business to a local farmer. Apple sauce is one of my favorite things to make because it is so easy. Normally the task is made so much simpler by the good ol' apple peeler/corer/slicer. It is a wonderful tool that no apple lover should be without. Unfortunately, I forgot how soft McIntosh apples are especially after they sit for two weeks in the house. They would not peel cleanly at all without gumming up the peeler. I even tried to put them in the freezer for a bit to firm them up. No luck. So I peeled them by hand and then ran them through the corer/slicer. It still was about twice as fast as doing everything by hand. I love that little contraption.
After slicing, I just load everything into my slow cooker which holds about 20 cups of sliced apples. Add 1 1/2 cups of sugar, 1 1/2 tsp of cinnamon and 1/2 cup of water. Cook on low all day long. Stir. Pack into pint freezer containers and off to the freezer so we can enjoy fresh apple sauce all winter long. That 20 cups of apples cooked down to 5 pint containers. Not a lot, but it is so easy to do that I don't mind doing a second batch when I get some more apples. I will probably pick a firmer variety next time so I can run them through the peeler too. I have used so many different varieties of apples to make apple sauce that I cannot remember them all. They all seem to work just fine. Maybe I'm just not picky.
With the slow cooker doing its job, I turned my focus to the chickens. I had enough whole chickens frozen from July's batch so this time around, I cut up 8 chickens and put them in packages. 4 packages of 4 boneless skinless breast halves, 4 packages of 4 thighs/4 drumsticks and 2 packages of 16 chicken wings. Our freezer is filling up and looking much more respectable. Yes I am still lamenting the loss of all our frozen food during the death of our last freezer in July. I'm getting better now. All I need is some venison and everything will feel normal again.
It is late September and it is apple season! Two weeks ago I bought a couple peck bags of McIntosh apples from a local grower that sells at the farmer's market in town. Monday was my day off of work and my day to put the apples to good use. One of the things that Mike LOVES is home made applesauce. I usually use free apples from our own wild growing apple trees, but this year we had a late freeze that killed all the blossoms. Oh well. That just gives my business to a local farmer. Apple sauce is one of my favorite things to make because it is so easy. Normally the task is made so much simpler by the good ol' apple peeler/corer/slicer. It is a wonderful tool that no apple lover should be without. Unfortunately, I forgot how soft McIntosh apples are especially after they sit for two weeks in the house. They would not peel cleanly at all without gumming up the peeler. I even tried to put them in the freezer for a bit to firm them up. No luck. So I peeled them by hand and then ran them through the corer/slicer. It still was about twice as fast as doing everything by hand. I love that little contraption.
After slicing, I just load everything into my slow cooker which holds about 20 cups of sliced apples. Add 1 1/2 cups of sugar, 1 1/2 tsp of cinnamon and 1/2 cup of water. Cook on low all day long. Stir. Pack into pint freezer containers and off to the freezer so we can enjoy fresh apple sauce all winter long. That 20 cups of apples cooked down to 5 pint containers. Not a lot, but it is so easy to do that I don't mind doing a second batch when I get some more apples. I will probably pick a firmer variety next time so I can run them through the peeler too. I have used so many different varieties of apples to make apple sauce that I cannot remember them all. They all seem to work just fine. Maybe I'm just not picky.
With the slow cooker doing its job, I turned my focus to the chickens. I had enough whole chickens frozen from July's batch so this time around, I cut up 8 chickens and put them in packages. 4 packages of 4 boneless skinless breast halves, 4 packages of 4 thighs/4 drumsticks and 2 packages of 16 chicken wings. Our freezer is filling up and looking much more respectable. Yes I am still lamenting the loss of all our frozen food during the death of our last freezer in July. I'm getting better now. All I need is some venison and everything will feel normal again.
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