Warm Applesauce for a Chilly Day

Thankfully, the cloud cover once again kept the temperature from going low enough to frost. But it has been chilly and rainy off and on today, a dreary fall day.

Which made it a good day to take the Gala and Golden Supreme apples I got from Country Mist Orchard and turn them into applesauce. I started the endeavor a bit late, and finished up about midnight.

I made two batches: one with the Gala apples, using brown sugar; the other with the Golden Supreme, using granulated sugar. They both have a very nice flavor, with the Golden Supreme being slightly sweeter, yet mild. I made triple batches of the recipe for each of the two varieties, and ended up with 4 1/2 pints of each sauce. The recipe comes from the Betty Crocker Cookbook. I leave the skins on my apples for extra fiber and leave the apples somewhat chunky. I don't care for the completely smooth applesauce; it reminds me too much of baby food.

APPLESAUCE

4 med. apples
1/2 c. water
1/2 c. packed brown sugar or 1/3 to 1/2 c. granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg

Heat apples and water to boiling over medium heat; reduce heat. Simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally to break up apples, until tender, 5 to 10 minutes. Stir in remaining ingredients. Heat to boiling; boil and stir one minute. About 3 cups.

In addition to the two batches of applesauce, I sliced up most of the recently picked okra and started the dehydrator. By tomorrow, I'll have lots of dehydrated okra slices for soups and stews this winter. I already have half a jar full (shown on top of the dehydrator). And no, I don't run my dehydrator with the jar sitting on top.

I'm also baking a loaf of 9-grain bread, which should be done by 2 a.m., about the time hubby gets home from his rock band gig. The kitchen is fully of that wonderful yeasty bread smell right now and is making me quite hungry!

I Hope There's Chili Sauce in Heaven

Tonight I cleaned the now-ripe tomatoes from the window sill, took the previously washed tomatoes out of the refrigerator, and cored, peeled, and diced them for--you guessed it--another batch of freezer chili sauce! (The recipe for this scrumptious sauce is provided in my previous chili sauce post.)

I took a picture of the diced tomatoes before I added any of the other ingredients. I wanted to show the variations in the coloring from the different heirloom varieties that combine to make this sauce. I like knowing that my chili sauce is special, created from tomatoes that have been grown for years, perhaps even centuries, the seeds passed from one farmer to another. Who knows how old some of these varieties are! The combined flavors make the chili sauce different every time, which adds to its specialness.

After adding the remaining ingredients, I brought the mixture to a boil at about 8:30 p.m., which means I'll be periodically stirring to keep the sauce from burning on the bottom (although the nonstick surface of the pan is a tremendous boon in that regard). That means I'll be up until about 11:30 this evening stirring chili sauce, but oh my, it is definitely worth it! I did take a nap today, so I'm good to go.

The pungent smell, a mixture of cider vinegar, tomatoes, and the sweet odors of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, and more, are already wafting in from the kitchen as I write this, and I think Heaven can only be heaven if there's chili sauce.

Peaches, Salsa, and Chili Sauce...Oh, My!

I've been trying to get peaches for about a month of farmer's markets, but every time I get in line, they run out of peaches before I can get any! The farmer only has apples left.

Of course, last Saturday when I went to the farmer's market for Gala apples, they were out of apples and only had peaches! Mildly disappointed that apparently Gala season is over, I bought a bag of peaches and let them ripen for a few days on the counter. Then I peeled and sliced them, added a small amount of sugar, and froze them. Hubby and I ate some of them tonight over pound cake, and they were delicious! Canned peaches (from the store) have nothing on these peaches...a little bit of heaven!

I also made another batch of salsa, ending up with 5 1/2 pints. I have enough salsa now, so I'll have to turn my tomatoes to other endeavors. Like tonight's chili sauce.

I don't know why I thought of making chili sauce, but when it crossed my mind, I knew I was going to make it, no matter how much trouble it was.

For a while--I don't know whether it was one season or more than that--Mom was into canning. I remember her making dill pickles, canned green beans, maybe some other things. Mostly, though, I remember the delicious chili sauce she canned from our garden tomatoes. We used to eat the chili sauce on hot dogs primarily, and I would always spoon it on the hot dog liberally. I don't eat hot dogs today, but I bet it would taste good with bratwurst!

Unfortunately, I don't have her recipe, so I went hunting online for a freezer recipe. I found one on a site that claimed to be from The Joy of Cooking. I own that recipe book, but never looked to see if it is indeed the same recipe. I followed the online recipe, but cut it down to a more manageable size. The original recipe called for 20 pounds of tomatoes, but since I do not yet have a food scale, that wasn't going to work. Plus, I was pretty sure I didn't have 20 pounds of tomatoes. I cut it down to 8 cups of tomatoes (that's after they are cored, skinned, and diced, mind you), and it made a reasonable amount: 4 pints.

As I was reading through the recipe, alarm bells went off. When I think of chili sauce, I think of a slightly warm, tomato-y mixture with perhaps some onions and green peppers in it. This recipe called for those ingredients and other ingredients one would expect. But then it called for a whole host of weird ingredients--at least they seemed weird to put into chili sauce: brown sugar, allspice, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg. I looked at a couple of other chili sauce recipes, and these ingredients showed up there, too. So I thought what the heck, I'll give it a try. The worst that could happen is the batch turns out nasty and I dump it out and have wasted some produce and 4 hours of my time.

Once the concoction started cooking, though, I was back in my childhood, savoring those chili-sauce smothered hot dogs. And when the batch was finished, it was delicious! So, I share that recipe with you here.

CHILI SAUCE

8 cups tomatoes (after coring, skinning, and dicing)
1 1/2 green peppers, seeded
3/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1 1/2 large white onions (I used sweet walla walla onions I had previously chopped and frozen)
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup cider vinegar
2 1/4 tsp. coarse salt (I don't know what this means, so I used my salt grinder salt)
3/4 tsp. black pepper (ground that, too, since I was using grinder salt-lol)
3/4 tsp. ground allspice
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. ginger
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. celery seed
1 1/2 tsp. dry mustard

1. Core, peel, and dice tomatoes.
2. Dump tomatoes into a nonstick or enamel-coated pan (you don't want the tomatoes to react with metal).
3. Add the remaining ingredients.
4. Bring the mixture to a boil and then simmer on low, stirring occasionally to keep from burning on the bottom.
5. Continue simmering until mixture is thick, about 3 hours.
6. Place the pan in a bowl of ice water to cool the mixture quickly.
7. When cool, transfer to freezer-safe containers (I prefer freezer-safe canning jars) and freeze.

Superwoman I Am Not

I'm not sure why I thought I could even begin to get all 14 items on my food list done. Here's what I managed by 1:30 a.m.:

1. Make a new batch of bread-and-butter pickles to begin curing.
2. Eat the yellow doll melon (okay, only half--hubby gets the other half) I cracked when I dropped it this morning on my way into the house with it.
3. Make dinner--venison stuffed green peppers with a side of fresh broccoli (although I didn't make the broccoli)
4. Make a batch of whole wheat bread--unfortunately, not with my own freshly ground flour. Still working on the flour mill.
5. Make a batch of freezer tomato sauce.
6. Test the previously made freezer dill pickles to see if they're any good before giving some to others. Meh, I'm not thrilled by these. I'll make hubby try them and see what he thinks.
7. Make homemade applesauce.
8. Make homemade freezer slaw.
9. Make homemade cashew butter (like peanut butter, but from roasted, salted cashews).
10. Make raspberry-almond muffins for tomorrow's breakfast. Skipped the almonds; need those for beet salad with goat cheese for tomorrow's lunch.
11. Chop and shred a LOT of zucchini. I got a FEW chopped. The zucchini remind me of the clown car--you know, the one that is so small that every time you think no more clowns can come out, several more do. Every time I chop a zucchini or shred one, it seems that at least 5 more appear out of nowhere.
12. Make honeyed carrots.
13. Eat leftovers for lunch to make room in the refrigerator.
14. Sautee 4 lbs. of button mushrooms for freezing.

Well, I got about half done. I'll have to work on the rest tomorrow because I am exhausted and am going to bed!

They're Purple...No, They're Green...

I was told that these purple beans I bought at the Farmer's Market would turn dark green when I cooked them. I popped them in a skillet with a bit of butter to sautee them. You'll see at left what they looked like when I started, and the pictures are sequenced from beginning until they are on the dinner plate.