How Do You Like Them Apples?

After ordering a case of Honeycrisp apples with my Bountiful Basket, I spent significant time on Sunday processing the apples. The case was 40 pounds of apples for $32, which makes them about eighty cents a pound. Pretty good deal, if you ask me!

Opening up the case of apples. Product of Washington!
I have never been disappointed with the quality of Bountiful Baskets fruit.

See, I had ordered a case of apples in the past and never went through them all. This year, I am determined to make sure no apple goes to waste! To that end, Sunday was Apple Day in my house, as I spent time in the kitchen putting up apples. So far, I have dehydrated a few batches of apple rings, baked an apple pie, and also canned some apple butter. I also made pumpkin soup over the weekend that used apples in it! Not to mention, Honeycrisps are DELICIOUS as snacking apples!

BIG, shiny, and delicious!

Right away upon opening the box, it was hard to miss how HUGE the apples are! They are bigger than grapefruit, and range in weight from .75-1.1 pounds! Holy cow! For me, to eat one whole apple was a bit much as a snack. In terms of canning and processing, however, the large size is welcome because it means less effort in peeling. Peeling, slicing, and coring is what takes the most time when working with apples. Furthermore, often with small apples, by the time you get them peeled and cored, there's not much left to work with and, well, it's more challenging to peel a small apple.

Not so with these behemoths.

The apples were actually too big to fit through my slicer. 

Apples washed and ready for use!

Let's take dehydrating as an example. With small or average sized apples, I'd fit 5 or 6 apples in the dehydrator, once they've been cored and sliced. With these, I fit exactly two apples, and spent MUCH less time washing, coring, and slicing the apples. Perfect!

I started a batch of apples in the dehydrator right away, since that was pretty hands-off after the initial prep. If anyone is looking for a gift idea for me, a food mandolin would be GREAT during apple season. I'm often *this close* to chopping off finger tips with my knife when I make apple rings!

Do you prefer skin-on or skin-off for your apple rings? I like to leave the skin on because I like the texture and color the skin adds in the finished product. Plus, it saves the step of peeling the apples. Not to mention, the skin adds extra good-for-you fiber, which I love! Then, it's just a dusting of cinnamon and into the dehydrator for about 5 hours.

Before entering the dehydrator.

Next, I started on the canning process for the apple butter. The recipe I was using called for four pounds of apples. I ended up using almost 5 pounds because of the weights of the apples, and not wanting to use partial apples. Four apples was like 3.75 pounds and 5 ended up at 4.6. (Sidenote: I LOVE my food scale and use it all the time!) Plus, I figured a little extra apple butter wouldn't hurt anyone, would it? If I'm going to go through the effort of canning, might as well make a little more!

Apple butter is so easy to make. It's a great beginner canning recipe to try because it calls for only a few ingredients, and usually they're readily available or things you have on hand already. Basically, you just peel and core the apples, then give them a rough chop and toss into a large pot. I love my dutch ovens for preparing canning recipes because they cook so evenly. Then, most recipes call for use of apple cider or apple juice to simmer the apples in for a while. This was the one ingredient I did not have on hand and had neglected to pick up on a recent trip to the store. Instead, I just used plain old water and threw in a few cinnamon sticks. I decided the only thing I'd really be missing was extra sugar from the cider.

This is the apple butter--after blending but before it had cooked down much.
As it cooked down, it became thicker and more brown in color. 

After simmering the apple chunks for about 40 minutes, I removed the cinnamon sticks and processed the apples and water in batches through the blender. If you had an immersion blender, this is where you would use it. (Again, another great gift idea!!!) You could also use a food mill.

After blending the apples, it's just a matter of returning the puree to the pot, adding some lemon juice, sugar and spices (I like cinnamon and nutmeg) and letting it cook down for a long time. The recipe called for about an hour and a half, but I think I let mine simmer for at least 2 hours. You'll know it's ready when it doesn't leach liquid out when you dab a bit on a plate or spoon. Then, you just hot water bath can. I processed mine in the canner for 10 minutes, due to being at a slightly higher altitude than sea level-- at about 3500 feet.

Now let's talk about pie. Who doesn't want to talk about pie!? Who doesn't LOVE pie?! And what could be more classic in the fall than a delicious apple pie!

Thanks to some efficient baking and fun time spent together in the kitchen when Stennie was here, I actually had two pie crust discs waiting and ready in the freezer. Since I knew I had apples coming, I pulled them down into the fridge to thaw on Friday morning. By Sunday, they were ready to roll. (har har har! Pun intended!)

While the apple butter was in it's long stages of waiting and simmering, I rolled out the pie crusts and prepped the filling. For the filling, I used a mixture of apples. I had one Granny Smith left in the fridge, three Galas that also came in this week's Bountiful Basket, and to round it out, I used one Honeycrisp.

From left to right: Granny Smith, Gala, Honeycrisp, Gala, Gala

For the filling recipe, I consulted my favorite all-knowing book for cooking and baking, The Best New Recipe, from the makers of Cooks Illustrated Magazine, or as I like to call it, The Cooking Bible. It's thick, filled with all the classic recipes, and some good twists. It also explains in great detail why each cooking decision was made and makes good, thoroughly researched suggestions as to what ingredients to use and which to skip.

Stennie and I also got a big kick out of some of the creative writing that went into the Cooking Bible as well. The apple pie recipe included this gem, referring to the recipe author's preferred thickness of apple pie filling:

"A bit of tart, thin juice gives the pie a breath of the orchard, whereas a thick, syrupy texture is dull." - The New Best Recipe cookbook, from the makers of Cooks Illustrated.  A breath of the orchard? Seriously!?

Don't those apples look like they have "a breath of the orchard?!" haha

Awaiting the top crust.

Anyway, just for fun, with the top crust, I decided to emulate a pie I had seen recently in a magazine that used cookie cutters to cut out shapes of leaves and layer them over the top, rather than a standard, vented pie crust or lattice-top. I don't have much selection for cookie cutters, but decided, in honor of our cows shipping in a few weeks, to use a cow-shaped cookie cutter. And because I thought as a non sequitur, it would be kind of funny. I did get a mild chuckle out of my husband, so it was worth it.

Top crust all rolled out...

Cows! 

The pie baked away and the canning process complete, I still had time to watch most of the Bears game on TV, and start a second round of dehydrated apples during half-time. Jeff and I sampled each of the creations as the day went on. Overall, I was really satisfied with each project and felt good about the work I'd put in.

Can't really tell their cows unless you look closely.

The only problem now is... I still have about 30 pounds of apples to go through!

So what's next? Probably more apple rings, since they're so easy and delicious. I'm thinking about another batch of apple butter, and maybe just some plain old applesauce, since that's even easier than apple butter. Maybe some apple muffins or apple cake... Sauteed apples and brats? Caramel apples? DEFINITELY some Apple Brandy!

All in a day's work! 

Do you have a favorite apple recipe? If so, I'd love to hear all about it!