Blogging for Apples

As you can probably guess from my recent posts to the Living Simply, Matters Facebook group page, I'm a fan of all things autumn! Picking apples is one of my favorite pastimes. Nostalgia creeps in every fall when I see the colors of the leaves changing, farms fields abundant with pumpkins, gourds and squash, and our local orchards brimming with apples. 

For the past several years, I've stocked our pantry with apple sauce, apple jelly and apple butter, baked a few pies, and eaten apples well past Thanksgiving. 

This year, I'm determined to try a few new things with our several bushels of apples.

As I was looking into some new ideas, I thought that I would pass along a few practical uses for apples that I already knew and some new ones that I've learned. 

Apples have many practical uses in the kitchen. For instance, a chunk of apple is helpful in keeping brown sugar soft, and works in the same way as a piece of bread does. A halved apple will also keep a cake from going stale. Cake is never around long enough in our household to go stale, so we haven't had to test this yet. To remove stains in aluminum cookware, bring peels and water up to a boil and simmer for thirty minutes, and let the acid do the work. Truly, apples are amazing!

There's no shortage of apple recipes out there: apple pies, crisps, cakes, cobblers, pancakes, doughnuts...Have you ever stuffed an apple into the cavity of a chicken before roasting it? Delicious! 

If you've been heavy handed with the salt, toss a few slices of apple into your over-salted soup or gravy, and they will absorb the sodium. Apples can also speed up the ripening of green tomatoes if placed in a brown paper bag, due to giving off ethylene.

All from a $5 box of apples!

Aside from tons of practical uses, apples have dietary benefits. They contain pectin, a soluble fiber, which is known to slow digestion by attracting water and creating a sense of fullness. They also possess antibacterial properties and help to ward off bad breath.

So far this fall, we've canned six quarts of apple sauce, made apple scrap jelly, apple butter from leftover apple pulp, produced apple cider, started apple scrap vinegar, began a small batch of apple cider vinegar, dehydrated apples for granola and snacks, and still, as I write this, we have apples which may find themselves in pie, crisp, or jelly. 

Straining the cores and peels for
apple scrap jelly

Before you toss those apple peels, consider making vinegar or a delicious jelly that will transport you back to fall when the cold really hits. For apple scrap jelly, I used a recipe from the Farmers' Almanac https://www.farmersalmanac.com/apple-scrap-jelly-25696. I caramelized the apples a bit before adding the water because I wanted to achieve a cider-like color. There are many recipes out there and they are equally easy to make. Since apples contain natural pectin, there is no need to add boxed pectin. Tart apples have a higher amount of pectin than sweet ones, and will reach the gel stage sooner. Apple jelly is one of our pantry staples as we make a lot of PBJs for lunches. Apple jelly is also excellent on top of a sharp cheddar or even goat cheese with your favorite cracker.

After making cider, I ended up with about eight quarts of mash or pulp. Our hens were ecstatic to receive some of the leftovers. I'm still looking into possibilities for the mash, and aside from apple butter, and adding it to quick breads, smoothies, granola bars, or starting more vinegar, I may try to infuse rum or vodka with apples to make a festive cocktail for our table during the holidays.