APPLE BUTTER TIME!

Tags

Apple Butter, Canning, Food, Fruit Butters, homemade, Roaster Oven

You know Autumn is here when the apples start coming in, and there are so many dishes to make from apples it boggles the mind!

Have you ever wished for good homemade apple butter, without the 40 gallon copper kettle, and the hours of stirring? Well I can tell you I love apple butter, and I don’t have a copper kettle! However, I do have an 18 quart Roaster Oven, like the ones that are on sale this time of year that will roast a 22 pound turkey!  These ovens can be set anywhere and free up oven space for other cooking/baking needs.

If you are a home canner, they are invaluable for making soups/stews, fruit butters, and other dishes to can. They also are great for baking pies, cakes and even baking up to 3 loaves of bread at a time, they are also great for baking hams, roast and chickens in.

Well I have gotten off track here,  the topic is Apple Butter, you can buy number 10 can’s of applesauce and add fresh apple cider to it in the roaster oven if you are not up to making your own apple sauce. However I do make my own apple sauce, I have a 25 quart Stainless Steel stock pot, that will hold 1 bushel of quartered apples, no need to peel and core the apples just cut up and place in the pot with several cups of water and over medium heat simmer the apples stirring  now and then to get them started. Once cooked, you place in small batches into a Foley Food Mill and puree the apples into sauce.

I then pour the apple sauce into the roaster oven, it is full, so you will have to let it reduce a bit to add cider (which will reduce and acts as part of the sugar) add the spices, reduce more, and taste, if too tart then add some white sugar, brown sugar, and continue to reduce. This sounds like a lot of work, but not really as with the roaster oven you don’t have to stir, however I do from time to time just to see how it is coming along and taste.

It will take about 24 hours to reduce to the consistency of apple butter, I start mine out at about 300 degrees, this gets it going good, then when I got to bed at night I reduce to about 200 degrees,

From one bushel of apples, made into applesauce I got 20 pints of apple butter.

Remember the following recipe is variable according to personal tastes, the recipe is given as a guide, some like more spices, some less, same goes for sugars, also this recipe can easily be reduced in volume to make a smaller amount in your crock pot, the same principals apply, just do no set the lid to cover the pot, it needs to be ajar to allow steam to escape and evaporation to occur.

For those of you wishing to make smaller amounts of apples butter or crock pot apple butter, my friend Karyn Bennett at Lizzy Lane Farm, has two good recipes one of which is sugar free.

Please visit her blog for these wonderful recipes.

Lizzy Lane Farm Crockpot Apple Butter

HOMEMADE BROWN SUGAR

APPLE BUTTER

1 Bushel Apples

Quarter, or eighth apples and place in stock pot, add several cups of water and allow to simmer stirring once in a while during cooking to bring cooked apples up and raw apples to the bottom, check often to see if you need to add more water, (some apples are dryer than others)

Once the apples are cooked, run through a food mill to extract seeds and peels.

Transfer to your roaster oven, turn heat to approx 300 degrees, if your roaster oven is really full then wait to add the sugars, spices, vinegar, or cider, this may be as much as 8 hours, then add

3+ Cups Brown Sugar

3+ Cups White Sugar

1+ Tablespoons Cinnamon

1/2+ Tablespoon Cloves

1/2 +Tablespoon Allspice

1 Teaspoon Salt (optional- seldom do I add salt)

2-3 Cups Apple Cider Vinegar

Stir in thoroughly and and leave the lid ajar (now I find with the roaster oven that it does not spatter like some have said happens in a crockpot) you have much better control of the heat on a roaster oven should it start to spatter just reduce the heat.

Also with the roaster oven you seldom have to stir, (I do because I have to taste and stir and if you think that it needs more sugar, you can add at anytime so it is better start out with less and add later. The same goes for spices.

TO CAN APPLE BUTTER

Sterilize your jars (I wash in the dish washer) fill jars and put lids on according to manufactures directions. Process in Boiling Water Bath for 15 minutes or according to elevation for your area.

BOILED SALAD DRESSING

Tags

Coleslaw, Food, homemade, Salad Dressing

Have you ever wanted a homemade salad dressing that would be good on a wide variety of dishes? We have used this “Boiled Salad Dressing” for decades. The best thing about this dressing is that you can double the recipe; which when doubled makes 1/2 gallon of dressing.

The dressing is easy to make, as well as being great on coleslaw, macaroni salad, potato salad, meat salads, even as a tangy sauce in place of mayo on sandwiches, if you like a good tomato sandwich, it tastes great on that as well.

You can buy a quart of mayonnaise and you know how that has increased in price, however you can make this ever ready dressing and keep in a contain in the refrigerator, also the most important thing here is that it will keep indefinitely in the refrigerator. I can tell you that we have kept it for 3-4 months or so, and is as good as the day it was made, it never gets to the point of indefinite!!

BOILED SALAD DRESSING

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup Boiling Water

1/2 cup Vinegar

1 Tablespoon Dry Mustard

2 Tablespoons Flour

2 Eggs

1 Tablespoon Butter

1 cup Sour Cream

1/4 cup Durkee’s  Famous Sandwich and Salad Sauce

3/4 cup Mayonnaise

Put vinegar in double boiler.

Mix dry ingredients together, beat eggs and add to dry mixture mixing to form a paste.

Add boiling water to paste and stir to mix well.

Slowly add this mixture to the hot vinegar

Cook until thick

Remove from stove and add butter, stir until blended.

Mix together the Sour Cream, Mayonnaise, and Durkee’s

Add this to the cooled mixture and stir until well blended.

Put into jar or jars and refrigerate, this dressing will keep indefinitely

Notes:

Durkee’s Famous Sandwich and Salad Sauce at times is hard to find. the dressing comes out great without, but the Durkee’s will give another  dimension of flavor if you can find it.

Regular Dry Mustard can be used, however we have always used Coleman’s Dry Mustard Flour (British)

The recipe is easily doubled

Also we never did use a double boiler to make this, if you watch and don’t walk away a regular pan will work just fine.

You will find many uses for this salad dressing.

Hot Fudge Sauce–Can Freeze

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butter, Can Freeze, Chocolate, Chocolate Sauce, cornstarch, Dark Chocolate, Desserts, Food, French Vanilla, homemade, Hot Fudge Sauce, Hot Fudge Sundae, Ice Cream, salt., Semi-Sweet Chocolate, sugar, Sundae, Unsweetened Chocolate, Vanilla, Vanilla Ice Cream, water

Do you ever get in the mood for things you should not have?, For instance a nice bowl of vanilla ice cream (my favorite is French Vanilla) with luscious Hot Fudge Sauce gracefully flowing down over the scoops of ice cream? What a treat on these hot days of summer!

Well I have to tell you I do, however over the years since all the fat free craze has simply ruined the ice cream topping that you can buy in the stores. I know my favorite of the past was Evans brand Butterscotch, that was back in the day when they actually used butter in their sauces, I do believe those days are gone forever now. I have not bought store bought in years.

Now this recipe my mother and grandmother made and it is their recipe, the wonderful thing about this is that it contains no milk, and you can make a large batch and freeze it if you wish. (we always made a large batch and froze it)

Also a note here, my mother loved it with semi-sweet  chocolate, I have made it that way, as well as 1/2 semi-sweet and 1/2 unsweetened, I have also made it with Dark chocolate, this is a recipe that you can experiment with the ingredients to find what you like.

HOT FUDGE SAUCE – CAN FREEZE

2 cups Sugar

6 Tablespoons Cornstarch

4  1 ounce  Squares Chocolate

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups Boiling Water

6 Tablespoons Butter

2 teaspoon Vanilla

In a medium size sauce pan,

Mix Sugar and Cornstarch together

Add Chocolate, Salt, and Boiling Water

Cook until it thickens.

Remove from heat and add Butter, and Vanilla

This can be frozen and when ready to use thaw and heat what you want in the microwave.

 

Homemade Brown Sugar

Tags

Brown Sugar, Easy, homemade, Molasses

Have you ever went to make a recipe and found that you did not have any brown sugar? Well never fear, making brown sugar at home is so easy you will wonder why you had not thought of it before.

Brown sugar is just white sugar that has molasses added to it. I find that often what you buy in the store is a slightly finer grind of sugar, however after a day you cannot tell the difference between store bought and homemade with granulated sugar.

You can make any amount you need, I usually start with:

4 cups white sugar

1-2 Tablespoons Molasses (to personal taste actually)

Place in your mixing bowl (I use a kitchen aid mixer) with the flat beater on

While it is mixing on the stir setting I drizzle in the molasses (can be black strap, or a lighter molasses, I have even used Sorghum Molasses)

At first you will think this does not look right it will look like very dirty white sugar, I usually keep it on stir setting or number 2 and walk away and let it mix at couple of minutes, then you start to see the transformation  to solid brown, if not dark enough drizzle in additional .

If you have found you got to much and sugar seems wet, then add additional white sugar and mix as above. It is more or less one of those things you get used to making by doing.

When done place in your brown sugar jar to store it.