Here’s a neat little lifehack that I thought of while wanting a snack while in the home office. I don’t keep cookies or sugar type snacks in the house, because I will eat them!
But I do keep fresh fruit, dried fruits, and nuts in the house to snack on, because I eat constantly.
Back from a morning meeting, I had rode my bike to and from the meeting, so that was about a 40 minute workout, but I wanted something to take up to the home office, and I saw the bowl of apples.
But here’s the issue I have with apples at the desk. The apple core. Yes, you could put it in the trash, but we compost our food waste, so the core will have to lie around the desk while I work. Then I had the eureka lifehack moment: Core the apple.
I had just cored a bunch of apples for an upcoming apple recipe video, and this might have put the idea in my head. So I cored my apple with my neat OXO apple corer gizmo tool, and I was on my way.
Of course, I do have my intrepid bio-composter at the ready here, who loves apple:
This hasn’t ever happened before, but all our apple trees are blooming this spring. Usually there are a few that don’t bloom. At least two of our trees bloom biennially. Here is the oldest tree in a view from our house. Last weekend was rainy with fog, so it looks great in the yard.
Call our listener line: 860-740-6938 This time the Mike & Eric fishing show, Preparing for thanksgiving, Mike’s domestic car problem, using Guidestar.org to find out about nonprofits, James Lipton, and Roxbury Russet apples
All our apple trees are done for the year. No more fruit to pick or pick up from the ground.
But I was by my neighbor’s house this weekend, and I saw he had one tree that was full of apples, and its the middle of November. I called him and asked if we could take some apples to make sauce. “Knock yourself out” was his answer. click here to watch our How to Make Applesauce video
In less than 30 minutes, I had 3 bushels of apples in my cart. There were a ton of apples on the ground, and most had little insect or fungal damage. Not bad for a tree that is not sprayed.
I started making sauce, and wanted to find out the name of this hardy apple. I took a ride down to see Priscilla, my neighbor who is a true homesteader: chickens, horses, guinea hens, steam engines and a cider press. She knew what is was immediately. Its a Roxbury Russet, a very old apple from Roxbury, Mass. The Roxbury Russet has good disease resistance, and ripens late in the year. Priscilla says the best tasting apples ripen last.
I thought it cool that we had an antique apple tree nearby, and that we even knew what kind of apple it is. Next year I’m bringing Priscilla samples from our other apple trees to see if she can identify those apples.
Learn How to Make Applesauce as fall starts and apples ripen. We get apples from our local pick your own orchard or from our neighbors who have a very nice apple orchard. After you’ve made applesauce, you can can it, watch our hot water bath canning video.
How to make applesauce the GardenFork way
Making applesauce is not rocket science. It does take some attention, making sure you don’t burn the bottom of the pan, but is easy to do. This is something you can do with your children, get them involved in cooking.
Your first choice is are you a skin on or off kind of person. I leave the skins on when cooking down apples to make applesauce. The skins add the red-pink color to the sauce and also thickens it a bit more. I think there’s also a nutritional benefit to the fruit skins.
Next up is do you want to remove the seeds and core before or after cooking down the apples. You can core the apples before adding them into the pot, or just put whole apples in to the pot and deal with the cores later. You can also just quarter the apples and remove the seeds later.
If you are leaving the skins on, you’ll need a food mill. These are great tools to have around anyway for other projects. You can use it to make tomato sauce and de-seed other fruit pulp.
Also important when making applesauce is a pot with a thick bottom so the sauce does not scorch, or you can use a heat diffuser. The key here is to cook down the apples, but not burn them, low and slow works well.
So there you go, some pointers on how to make applesauce, below is the recipe.
How to Make Applesauce Recipe : GardenFork.TV
Recipe Type: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Author: Eric Rochow
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 32 ounces
This recipe makes it easy to make your own applesauce.
Ingredients
3 lbs ripe apples
1/2 cup water
1 tablespon Cinnamon
Instructions
Core and cut the apples into quarters.
Add cored – cut apples and water to the pot, put pot on high heat.
When the water and apples start to sizzle, turn down the heat to low, cover, and let the apples cook down.
Add the cinnamon.
Mash the apples down occasionally, until the apples become sauce.
If you like a smoother sauce, cook the apples down longer, taking care not to burn the apples.
I am a huge consumer of grilled cheese sandwiches. ok? That said, I always make variations to the basic grilled cheese recipe, and this time I had some roast chicken left over. The lightbulb went off in my head to make this a Grilled Chicken and Cheese sandwich recipe. Not much rocket science here, but it tastes great.
Grilled Cheese yum. cast iron or a thick bottomed pan work best for this, i think.
I like to use Cabot Sharp Cheddar, as its owned by a dairy cooperative, you could be decadent here and drop in some blue cheese as well.
flipping a large grilled cheese sandwich can be tricky. careful.
I usually use olive oil in the pan, and swirl the bread around in the small pool of olive oil. Or you can get one of those Misto oil sprayers, which is more economical with the use of oil. I like my grilled cheese grilled well, as you can see.
use what you've got to make a salad, i do.
I’m all about simple salad. I kinda don’t get most salad recipes, I just use what I have in the fridge. I had some Macoun apples, so i sliced them up and in they go. Apples taste great with cheese, so blue cheese or goat cheese would be great here.
So there you go, a great lunch that probably cost $2 sandwich. Do you have a fun simple lunch, or your version of grilled cheese? Let us know below in the comments:
