Smooth apple sauce

Hi All!
Tonight we made apple sauce from scratch. After spending some time with the ponies yesterday we realized they were nearly out of horse food so we had to travel to the nearest Tractor Supply which is about 45 minutes from home. On our way home we stopped at a local U-pick place and picked up nearly 42 lbs of Honeycrisp apples. This has become a yearly trek for myself and sous chef Matt and I usually make a couple different batches of Applesauce for different purposes. The first batch is very low or no sugar and blended into a smooth puree. These jars are perfect for cooking with. I routinely substitute apple sauce for oil in baked goods and this makes the best apple sauce. It also works for pancakes, and anything else that you can use apple sauce for. The next batch is usually a chunky spiced apple sauce which I have been known to eat straight from the jar... The whole jar. Matt likes to put it on pancakes.

 Tonight's installment will be smooth low-sugar apple sauce.

Here are a few pictures from the pre-apple sauce part, aka apple picking. I had a picture of sous chef Matt tasting an apple, but it was really unflattering so I decided to just stick with apple pictures.

Little bitty apple trees! They were barely 6 feet tall, but FULL of apples

Look at those nice Honeycrisp apples! These seemed to grow in pairs, so picking was a two for.

But some of them were really big!

To keep the apples from browning while you're peeling, slicing and coring them, you put them in a "De-browning solution" made of lemon juice and water.

De-browning liquid ingredients:

3/4 c. Lemon Juice

 12 c. water

As you peel, core and slice the apples, toss them in this solution to keep them from browning

Apple Sauce Ingredients:

12 lbs of apples, peeled, cored and sliced

1/2 c. sugar (up to 3 c. if you like sweeter apple sauce)

4 Tbs. Lemon Juice

We have a lovely peeler/corer and I highly recommend getting one if you're going to be doing this often because it takes a LOT of apples to make 12 lbs after coring and peeling (i.e. ~20 lbs whole=12 lbs peeled and cored).

This is all of the apples peeled, cored, and sliced ready to boil!

Combine apples with just enough water to prevent sticking. Boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat and boil gently, stirring occasionally, for 10-20 minutes until apples are tender. To test this I pull out an apple and try to break it in half  (after it cools, otherwise you burn your fingers. Not that I'd know that from personal experience...). If it crunches when you bend it it is not done, if it doesn't seem crispy anymore they are ready. Remove from heat and let cool for ~5 minutes.

Working in batches, transfer apples to a food processor fitted with a metal blade and puree until smooth.

3 lbs fit nicely into my food processor

Apples in the processor

Vroooommmmm! Blending away!

Nice and smooth! Ready to go.

 Return apple puree to saucepan. Add sugar and lemon juce; bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring frequently to prevent sticking. Maintain a gentle boiling over low heat while filling jars.

Pouring from a greater height gives it a nice dramatic effect. It really wows your 4 legged captive audience in the kitchen

Stirring in the sugar and lemon juice

Pretend you can see the bubbles. It made big belching, plopping bubbles like the Degobah swamp in Starwars

 Ladle hot applesauce into hot jars leaving 1/2 inch head space. Remove air bubbles by tamping the jars on the counter. WARNING: if you do it too hard you end up wearing hot apple sauce. This is really not a happy feeling, so try not to do this. Wipe rim. Center lid on jar. Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip-tight.

Place jars in canner ensuring they are completely covered with water. Bring to a boil and process for 20 minutes.

Ok, confession time. I only had 10 lbs of apples and it made 10 jars of applesauce, so if you follow the recipe above you should get 12 pints of apple sauce.

This is so easy its not even funny. If you can make mashed potatoes, you can do this! Best yet, there are only 3 ingredients! This is as close to wholesome and perfect apples as you can get without having them fresh off the tree. The way I made it here is perfect for baking and with 10 jars, you should have enough for a bunch of cakes and breads, etc. It is also good for eating, but I prefer the chunky spiced variety for eating. That recipe will come later, promise!
Happy Eating and after this, Happy baking too!

Crock-pot BBQ Pulled Pork

Hi All!
Since we've moved to Maryland we've been on a quest for great BBQ and although we've found some pretty good places, still nothing is as good as KC style BBQ with pulled pork being a big one on the list. So to quench my insatiable thirst for good BBQ I thought I'd give this really easy recipe a try and it was a good bet! As always I changed a few things in the recipe to make it more my own but stuck to the general idea. One thing I changed was that instead of adding water to the BBQ sauce I added beer. My grandfather used to boil his ribs in beer before slow cooking them on the grill for 12 hours and it was AMAZING, so I figured the same might hold true for pulled pork. I wasn't exactly right, but it still tasted really good. Probably should have used a cheaper lager instead of an IPA, but I went with what was in the fridge and let Matt dictate which one we used (he chose his least favorite, lol!). One thing I want to try next time is to add 1/4 c. Whiskey or burbon and 1/4 c. water. That could be really good...
Until then you'll just have to try this the way it is which was still very good! And it also made LOTS of BBQ. I'll probably have to freeze some or else Matt and I will be eating pulled pork for days. So if you don't want lots of leftovers, you can halve the recipe.

Here is the original link just in case you want another perspective:
http://southwinstonlane.blogspot.com/2012/03/easy-bbq-pork.html

Crock-pot BBQ Pulled Pork

Ingredients:

8 boneless center cut chops
3/4 c. beer
Spices-I used Arthur Bryant's BBQ spice, Applewood Smoke, and Seasoned Pepper

Chopped onions
~Half bottle BBQ sauce of choice 

All the ingredients. The chops are still frozen which worked out OK, and the bag on top of the chops is full of the chopped onions from yesterday's German Potato Salad (told you you'd see them again!)

Close up of the spices I used. The two on the left are from Soulard Spice shop. You can find the link to them on the blog for German Potato Salad.

Pour Beer and BBQ sauce into a bowl, whisk, and pour 1/3 into the crock-pot. Sprinkle some onions into the sauce so the chops don't touch the bottom of the pot

Place one layer of chops inside slow cooker. Sprinkle with seasonings and onions

Add another layer of chops followed by more onions, spice and sauce. Cook on low for 7 hours.

At the end of the 7 hours  transfer the cooked chops into a bowl and shred with a fork. The end result will need more sauce.

This actually works great because while the shredded pork has some flavor without adding sauce, it gives everyone the option of adding the kind of sauce they prefer. Or if you're a kitchen dictator like me, you just mix some of the cooking juices with the other 1/2 a bottle of sauce that you used earlier and pour that over the shredded pork.

I like mine served on a flat-bread roll with Dill pickles, but you can dress your sandwhich however you like.

This was amazingly easy, and a nice reminder of home BBQ. I probably should have added a bit more BBQ sauce, but that's because I like really saucy BBQ but other than that it was great. One of the first things in the crock-pot that had the perfect mouth-feel/consistency for the meat I cooked. Also I'd say I probably only had 20 minutes of hands on time with this recipe. It was so easy!
Happy Eating!

Hot German Potato Salad

Hello all!
Close your eyes... Wait! Don't do that, you can't read with your eyes closed! Ok, lets try again... Image if you will, bacony, slightly sweet, yet sour and tangy hot potatoes with a hint of onion and celery seed. YUM! Best yet, if you don't like some of the ingredients, they are optional! If you can't do onions, chop up some celery and saute that instead then leave out the celery seed. If you don't like celery, leave it out completely! You can do lots of variations on this recipe. In fact even though I used the food network's recipe as an outline, I added elements from my dear friend Curtis' recipe and my grandfather's recipe to make it my own. I feel a bit of ethnic obligation towards this dish, because I'm pretty sure I'm one of the few people of German dissent that does not like Sour Kraut, but I LOVE this stuff! And as my high school voice teacher put, "With your broad shoulders, blonde hair, and blue eyes, you just LOOK German so you will sing German songs!" Never mind I have green eyes, and sadly that isn't the first time a guy has mentioned my broad shoulders to me...

  Here is the problem with this recipe, I WILL EAT THE WHOLE PAN. It has half a pound of bacon in it for crying out loud! It is so addictive, that when Curtis would make this, he'd leave me with a big tupperware of it and I'd eat it everyday until it was gone. This is worse than my dumpling obsession. Which by the way, I'm still looking for a great Steamed Dumping place near Baltimore, so if you know of any... please let me know! In my book, all Chinese restaurants are judged by their dumplings and although I love to cook, usually when Matt goes out of town I buy 2 orders of dumplings and live off those and cereal until he gets home. I just don't like cooking for myself and the amount of left overs is usually pretty overwhelming, so its better if I have a party of 2 or more to cook for. Ok, now that I've gone off on a dumpling tangent, I can get down to my other ethnic obsession:

Hot German Potato Salad

Here is the original link I got my recipe from:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/chic-easy/german-potato-salad-recipe/index.html

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds Yukon gold potatoes
• 1/2 pound thick-cut bacon
• 3/4 c. chopped onion
• 2/3 c. cider vinegar
• 1/4 c. sugar
• 1 Tbs Dijon mustard
• 1/2 tsp celery seed (optional)
• 1 tsp salt

Scrub the potatoes thoroughly removing any residual dirt, eyes, and cutting out any yucky parts

 Place the potatoes in a medium-size pot and cover them with enough water to extend 2 inches above the surface of the potatoes. Salt the water and bring to boil over medium-high heat. Continue cooking until potatoes are tender when pierced with a fork, about 15 to 20 minutes. You can do the rest of the steps below until it is time to drain and slice the potatoes into 1/4-inch rounds. But just for visual continuity I put all the potato steps below. Sorry if you have to jump back and forth!

 

If your potatoes are like mine, they are not all uniform size, so check the potatoes periodically. You may have to pull out smaller potatoes first

Cutting potatoes!- Thank you Sous Chef Matt!!!

Matt's chopped potatoes

 

While waiting for the potatoes to boil, chop the onion and set aside

I slice in half first, then make horizontal cuts on the onion. I am sure everyone knows how to cut up an onion, but I've found doing it this way helps to make my chopped onions a more uniform size

Then I chop the sloped ends off one side

Rotate the onion and chop the sloped end off the other side, this will leave you with a rectangle of onion which is more stable than trying to go all the way across right to left.  Sounds weird, but you'll get a more uniform chop from your onions

I accidentally chopped up too much onion, so I took the "left overs" and put them in a freezer bag and will stash them in the .freezer. This is a great time saver for future recipes (like BBQ pulled pork..)

Cut the bacon up into small pieces. This will cut off time since you won't have to crumble it. I find that this also keeps you from over cooking to make sure it crumbles. i.e I usually burn it when I try to cook bacon to crumbly consistency...

Most bacon comes in 1lb packages, so just cut the package in half and then chop. This also helps when you cook the rest of the bacon for breakfast. You mind sees 4 slices of bacon, but you're really only eating 2 whole slices.

Slicing the bacon

Thin slices

1/2 lb of sliced bacon- MMMMMMM

Cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium-high heat.

Once crisp, place on a paper towel-lined bowl. Save 1/4 c. of the bacon grease and set aside

Bacon grease! This goes back in the pan after you've removed the bacon

Put the reserved bacon grease back into the pan, turn the heat to medium, and add the onion. Cook until translucent and just beginning to brown, about 4 to 5 minutes.

 
Whisk in the vinegar, sugar, mustard, celery seed, and salt and stir until thick and bubbly.

I know this looks like specific apple cider vinegar, but I've used Heinz brand, and store brand and they've all been fine, so use what you've got!

Here is my plug for the Soulard spice shop. LOVE LOVE LOVE them in St.Louis. Since I don't live there anymore, they are amazing and ship their spices. They have the BEST grilling blend called "Soulard Grill." I will put the link to their shop below, so if you want to give some of the blends a whorl you can order and have them shipped.

Everything whisked together

Add the sliced, cooked potatoes and toss to coat. Toss in the crumbled bacon. Serve warm.

And here is the finished product! 

As promised, here is the link to the Soulard Spice shop:
http://stores.homestead.com/hstrial-LSokolikDoran/StoreFront.bok

They have EVERYTHING, and will ship, so you don't even have to leave the comfort of your home to get some fantastic spices headed your way! I highly recommend:
- Seasoning for greens - Smoky, slightly sweet and a bit spicy. GREAT on Asparagus and Green Beans
- Beef Rub - Just as it says, nice rub or you can add a Tbs to 1 lb of ground beef for seasoned hamburgers
- Soulard Grill - Good on EVERYTHING
- Applewood Smoke - Its great on meats you would normally grill but don't want to go out in the rain, sleet, snow or dark of night ;-)

There are many more delicious spices as well, but these are the main ones I can think of off the top of my head.

 Happy Eating!