I did NOT expect this to work out. It had been sitting in a crock on the kitchen floor for months, but last night Erik gave me the serious face and said “we’re decanting this now, young lady”. OK, he didn’t really say the “young lady” bit, but he should have. I had been studiously avoiding his less pointed . . . → Read More: Holy Cow! We Made Vinegar!]]> Apple cider vinegar! From cores we kept in the freezer that normal people throw away!!

I did NOT expect this to work out. It had been sitting in a crock on the kitchen floor for months, but last night Erik gave me the serious face and said “we’re decanting this now, young lady”. OK, he didn’t really say the “young lady” bit, but he should have. I had been studiously avoiding his less pointed hints for weeks, because I didn’t want to face a container of moldy apple juice. Yeah, this is standard 401(k) behavior…thinking about it too much makes me anxious, so I just pretend it doesn’t exist. Really adult of me, right? Luckily, Erik was the mature one and made me taste it. Success!!

We got almost 3 quarts of apple cider vinegar from apple cores and peels and very little work! I won’t repost Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking’s directions for homemade apple scrap vinegar here, but I will say that we ignored the apple scraps for at least two weeks (rather than the recommended one) before straining and then let the liquid ferment for a couple of months (instead of two to three weeks) before bottling. Just to give you an idea of our recklessness, we started the whole process on New Year’s Eve. It’s April 20th, people! That’s some forgiving fermentation.

Guideline 1: Commit. Get a . . . → Read More: Cooking for One: Inappropriately Large Salad]]> Here’s another attempt at avoiding delivery while Erik is out of town – a salad that is nearly the same size as my laptop. I’m a hungry girl, so normal salads don’t really do it for me. I need a thoughtfully composed bowl of tasty things or I don’t feel satisfied. Instead of giving a recipe, I’ll give you my little guiding principles for making a GIGANTIC, super-filling salad.

Guideline 1: Commit. Get a big bowl. Much bigger than you think you’ll need. Better to look silly and keep your salad together, than use a small bowl piled precariously high. The second part of committing is to use your hands to toss everything together. Maybe I’m not very coordinated, but I’ve never had good luck with salad tossing utensils. I either toss more on the floor than in the bowl or don’t adequately mix everything. My (clean) hands work great though!

Guideline 2: Only use things you like. I don’t like celery, so you won’t see it in any of my salads. I prefer dark leafy greens (kale, spinach, etc.) to lighter ones (romaine or iceberg). I also like some sweetness from fruit and a mixture of crisp and soft things. I don’t like a huge bowl of crunchy veggies, because I get bored of chewing them. You get the picture. It also helps to have some prepped stuff in the refrigerator. If you like beets on your salad, as I do, roast a few right away, so that they’re ready for a quick salad later in the week.

Guideline 3: Know a few good dressing recipes. I love the standard oil and vinegar, but it doesn’t always make the cut. We have found that raw food cookbooks and websites (like Choosing Raw) have great recipes for interesting dressings that can turn a pile of produce into a meal.

Guideline 4: Mega salads aren’t diet food! It’s a meal, so treat it like one and pay attention to what you’re putting in it. Like any meal, it should be substantial enough to keep you full, but not overloaded with calorie-rich ingredients. The salad I made today had a riff on this avocado-mustard dressing with a small avocado (about 200 calories) and a tablespoon of olive oil (120 calories). I also added about a tablespoon of toasted pine nuts (50 calories or so). As a meal, this is fine for me. It’s filling and delicious, but not a reason to reward myself with ice cream this afternoon. Even though it’s definitely ice cream weather…

Check out our salad posts for some ideas. As the weather warms up, it’s nice to have an arsenal of dinner ideas that don’t require the oven or stove.

I keep telling my friends that canning doesn’t really take that much time. Well, sometimes, it totally does. It takes all day and you end up sticky and with a sink full of dishes. BUT you can avoid that very easily by being smart about the recipes you make and how you make them. I made a canner full of applesauce yesterday, but I also managed to sleep in, do laundry, bake bread, finish . . . → Read More: How to Make Applesauce and Spend the Day Biking]]>

I keep telling my friends that canning doesn’t really take that much time. Well, sometimes, it totally does. It takes all day and you end up sticky and with a sink full of dishes. BUT you can avoid that very easily by being smart about the recipes you make and how you make them. I made a canner full of applesauce yesterday, but I also managed to sleep in, do laundry, bake bread, finish a knitting project, watch a little How I Met Your Mother, and go for a 20-mile bike ride. Your day might be full of family events, work responsibilities, reading a book, watching the news, whatever, but you can still fit in canning if you want to.

This recipe relies on two appliances to make life easier – the slow cooker and food mill. We actually used two slow cookers to speed things up. If you don’t have two slow cookers or can’t borrow one from your nice friend, Ben, you can cook in two batches. Just stick the cooked apples in another container in the refrigerator, load up the slow cooker again, and then mill everything when the second (or third or fourth) batch is done. The slow cooker is brilliant, because it eliminates all the time you’d otherwise spend standing over the stove. Plug it in and go play outside.

If you don’t have a food mill, then check out our original applesauce post. We posted a little tutorial on how to set up a KitchenAid food mill attachment, because I get buffaloed every time I open the boxes, but it really is a worthwhile tool.

Easy Peasy Applesauce

1 peck of apples will yield about 4 quarts of applesauce.

1. Wash as many apples as you want, using the yield above as a guide. A peck weighs somewhere between 10 and 14 pounds.
2. Quarter the washed apples and toss them into the slow cooker(s). Don’t worry about peels and seeds, because we’ll remove these later. You might want to cut the bigger apples into sixths, just so that they nestle better into the slow cooker.
3. Cook on high for 6 hours. This part is pretty flexible as long as the apples are really really soft at the end. You could cook one batch on low overnight and then start the second batch on high in the morning. I started right before lunch, then went on a nice long bike ride. When I got home for dinner, they were ready to go.
4. When the apples are cooked, get your canning gear ready. (Steps 3 and 4)
5. Pass the cooked apples through a food mill directly into a pot. The food mill will remove the peels and seeds and smash everything into a nice consistency.
6. If you want, you can spice up your applesauce at this point. You can add any herb, spice, or sweetener you want. We did maple syrup and cinnamon last year, which was a big hit. I think brown sugar and crumbled dried chiles would be good. Maybe smoked paprika? That stuff makes everything awesomer. Do not add nuts, dried fruit, dairy, or oil, however. Those ingredients change the pH of the sauce, potentially rendering it unsafe for canning. (Read this post for more science-y stuff.)
7. Regardless of whether you add extra ingredients, put the pot of sauce on the stove and heat to boiling. If you want your sauce thicker, keep it at a simmer until it reaches the consistency you’re looking for.
8. Fill quart, pint, or half pint jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace, and process for 20 minutes. (Steps 6 through 22)

The “creaminess” in this recipe comes from the avocado, mustard, and walnuts. It offsets the firm bitterness of the raw kale. The apple gives it some sweetness. All in all it’s very well balanced, very nutritious, and a cinch to make.

Creamy Kale Salad with Apple and Beets

Makes 2-4 servings

Who’s with me?

Applesauce is shockingly easy to make. Some of our local orchards . . . → Read More: How to Make Applesauce and Apple Butter]]> With so many great-looking apples at the market this weekend, my mind has gone totally apple-centric. I can’t stop thinking about all the great apple desserts – pie, crisp, crunch, cobbler, turnovers…mmmmm. To keep myself from gaining 30 pounds on an all apple and butter diet, I decided to make apple butter this weekend. Hopefully it will help me hold off until Thanksgiving.

Applesauce is shockingly easy to make. Some of our local orchards sell their own sauce that made of just apples and citric acid (a preservative), but it’s fun to DIY. Making your own also allows you to season it however you’d like – sweet or savory.

It’s best to use a few different varieties of apples to keep your tastebuds guessing. This website has a great apple dictionary to help you pick the best types. I used Fuji, Mutsu, and Winesap.

Applesauce
Makes about 2 quarts (8 cups), but you can easily scale it up or down

Ingredients:

5 pounds of apples
1 1/2 cups water (could be replaced by one of the add-ins below; if you use other than 5 pounds, use about 1/3 cup water per pound of apples)

A few good combinations of optional add-ins (pick any one):

• 2 tablespoons maple syrup, 1-2 teaspoons cinnamon, pinch ground allspice, 1/2 to 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• 4-5 sprigs of rosemary, 2-3 cinnamon sticks (pull the rosemary and cinnamon out of the sauce after cooking)
• 1 cup sugar, 3/4 cup lemon juice, 2 inches of fresh ginger (grated), 3 whole cloves
• 1.5 to 2 cups sugar, 9 allspice berries, 1 to 2 teaspoons ground ancho chiles (from Tigress in a Jam)
• 1 cup honey, 1.5 cups cider, 1 tablespoon ground caradmom
• Note: If you’re unsure, start with a small amount. You can always add more, but you can’t take it out!

Directions:

1. Peel the apples if you (a) want to or (b) don’t have a food mill.

   

2. Slice the apples into quarters and remove the core. Drop the quarters into a large, preferably heavy-bottomed, pot as you go.

   

3. Add the water and any optional extra ingredients.
4. Simmer uncovered for 25-30 minutes or until the apples are very soft. Stir occasionally to prevent burning and add water by the tablespoon if things look dry or begin to stick to the bottom of the pan. The apples may hold their shape or they may totally distintegrate, depending on the type. They’re done when they’re easily mashable. If you didn’t peel the apples, you can fish out the peels now, if you want.

   
   I used my awesome peeler-corer-slicer machine for this batch, so the apple slices in this photo are much thinner than they would normally be.

5. There are a few options once the apples have become sauce. You could leave it as is, you could mash it up with a fork or potato masher for a smoother consistency, or you could use a blender, immersion blender, food processor, or food mill for even smoother sauce. Finally, you could proceed to the next recipe to make apple butter, which is essentially a reduced, thicker, and sweeter version of apple sauce.
6. This will keep for about a week in the refrigerator and freezes wonderfully.

Apple Butter
Makes 3 pints (6 cups)

Ingredients:
1 batch of Applesauce

Directions:

1. Cool the applesauce slightly, remove any inedible herbs or spices (e.g. rosemary sprigs and cinnamon sticks), and blend it with a blender, immersion blender, food processor, or food mill. Aim for a totally smooth, but not runny, sauce. An immersion blender is my favorite tool for this, because you can blend right in the pot.

   

2. Bring the sauce to a boil over medium heat and then simmer uncovered for another 25-30 minutes until it is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Stir often to prevent burning. It tends to spit, so a splatter guard is helpful.

   

3. Like applesauce, this will keep for about a week in the refrigerator and freezes wonderfully.
4. Eat on buttered bread or muffins. Use it to replace the oil in baked goods. Stir it into oatmeal or yogurt. Make a PBAB (peanut butter and apple butter) sandwich. Grab a spoon and dig in.