Adventures in Lynsieland: Apples, Apples, Apples!

It's that time of year again. The evenings starts to cool off a bit, sometimes we need a light jacket, the hint of color changing in the leaves, kids are back in school, and even football.

My parents live in my grandparents old home in a very small community in northern Utah. My grandpa was a dentist by occupation and a farmer by hobby. He raised a couple hundred chickens every year. I remember helping him gather eggs. One time I went without him and got pecked by a chicken, I still carry the scar, suburb girl wanna be country girl. My grandpa had about an acre of land and he was always working in his garden. He had raspberries and potatoes (I have never eaten as good of red potatoes as the ones that grew in grandpa's yard), corn, tomatoes and of course, lots and lots of apple trees.

After my grandparents passed, my parents decided to leave Southern California and buy my grandparents home. My parents do not have the same love of gardening. In fact, they hate it. We often joke that Grandpa is probably rolling over in his grave at the condition of his garden. The apple trees are still there though. They haven't been pruned in over 15 years, but they are still going strong. The last several years I have been driving north to relieve the poor trees of their burden. I am not sure of the varieties of apples that are growing, one for sure is a macintosh. Maybe someday I will bring the apples to my local extention office and find out for sure. Some of the trees have just grown on their own, maybe a mixture of types of trees. Their location suggests Grandpa didn't plant them. Anyway, as such, I get a nice variety of apples every year! Red and green and yellow and speckled and everything in between. I love it! So every fall I bring a car load of apples home and process them to my hearts content!

Applesauce is the basic stand-by for bushels of apples. It is pretty easy to make. But I discovered something even more fun to do with the apples. I call it liquid gold! Apple cider. My friend corrected me and told me I was not making cider. I don't know, I am self taught on canning and gardening and the like. Regardless, this is how I do it:

Since I have access to lots of different varieties of apples, I like to use this variety to hopefully give my cider/applesauce a unique taste.

I fill a large stock pot about 1/3 full of water and start the heat. While the water is heating up I start adding apples. If you have made applesauce before, this is familiar to you. Cut up your apples, stems, seeds, skin and all and dump them in the pot. If there are flaws, bug holes, etc, be sure and cut the bad part away until the flesh is totally free of imperfections. I usually sort through and get the worst looking apples and use them first so they don't spoil the good apples. I am mostly careful when I pick, but in trees that are left to their own devises, there are going to be imperfections. Sometimes I will cut open an apple and find the entire inside rotted out. Dump the whole apple, its not worth it.

So get your pot full to the top of apples and water. At this point I add sugar and sometimes cinnamon to my pot. By the way, this is a mess and really wrecks havoc on your stove. Be prepared to spend significant time cleaning your stovetop when you are done. Once the apples start to soften start tasting the liquid to see if it needs more sugar or cinnamon if you choose. Simmer the apples until they are nice and soft.

Once the apples are nice and soft, strain the apples from the juice. I scoop, then set them in a pasta strainer. I dump the liquid back in the pot and put the soft apples through the food mill. To make the apple sauce you need to use some sort of food mill. I use a Norpro Sauce Master. They cost around $65. Dump the apples into the top, crank the handle and the sauce comes out the bottom. Oh, be sure and put a large bowl under it to catch the applesauce. You also need a second bowl to catch all the apple waste. That's the stem and skin and seeds, etc. Sometimes I will take that bowl and run it through a second time to squeeze the last bit of pulp out of the apples.

So now you have a large bowl of applesauce and a pot of liquid leftover from making the applesauce.

I either can the applesauce or make it into apple butter. I'm not going to get into the specifics of canning applesauce, that can be found anywhere.

To get the cider, strain the leftover liquid from simmering the apples. I strain it twice, once through a wide strainer, then a second time through a more fine strainer. I like bit of pulp in the cider, to me that is one of the differences between apple cider and apple juice. But there will be seeds and bits of this and that in the liquid, you want those out. Go ahead and taste the cider. See if you would like it sweeter or not. One year I added too much sugar and I needed to add a little water to cut down the sweet. Of course, that dilutes the apple flavor, so try to not make that mistake. Here I usually like to pour a little in a tea cup and sit down and relax for a few minutes. Taste the cider, enjoy fall.

I think its a bit of heaven on earth. Now I have several dozen jars of cider that I will bring up in the cold months and sip on to warm up after running errand in the snow. I'm a Southern California girl and I think I have been forever softened and ill equipped for cold weather. One of my favorite things to do though is to sit and look out my large windows, sipping hot cider and watching the snow fall. Just don't make me go in it.

With my apples, I also make apple butter. For that one I prefer the crockpot method. I don't really use a recipe. I fill my largest crockpot up with fresh applesauce. I add cinnamon and nutmeg, cloves, and ginger. And of course sugar. Just taste it. Then turn the crockpot on low and stir it every couple of hours. I set chopsticks across the top so the lid isnt on all the way. That wasy the fluid can boil off. Last year I let it simmer for 2 days, but 24 hours should be fine too. Just stir it, taste it, adjust the seasonings, etc. It is done when it has developed pectin. You can tell this if it sticks to a spoon and holds its shape. There are several recipes for apple butter. I just like this one because it can do its things without me sitting next to a stove stirring it for an hour or more. It should also be fairly dark. I call it fall in a bottle.