Got Apples?

I had a blast making apple sauce and apple butter with some 4-Hers today at our humble abode. I love homemade apple butter for their PBJs because we know what's in it and, just as importantly, we know what's not. This is a simple recipe that can be tweaked according to your tastes regarding sweetness and texture.

Apple Sauce and Apple Butter

Ingredients:
- 6 apples (2 red delicious, 2 granny smith, 2 gala)
- 1/4 C demerara or rapadura
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Directions:
1. Peel and dice the apples.
2. Put about 1/2 inch water in a 1-quart pot.
3. Add the diced apples, sugar, and cinnamon to the pot. Cover.
4. Cook on medium heat until the apples are soft; stirring occassionally, approximately 20 minutes.
5. Mash the apples in the pot with a potato masher (it will be a bit chunky but we like chunky apple sauce/butter).
** Now it's apple sauce! Enjoy some in a bowl while you continue on and make apple butter :)
6. Cook with the lid off until all of the water is cooked off and you reach your desired consistency, stirring constantly, approximately 10 minutes.

This recipe made about a quart - it's hard to say exactly because we tasted it at the apple sauce stage and the apple butter stage. For tasting the apple butter I spread it on the crackers from the previous post.

Kelly is hosting this week's Real Food Wednesday Blog Carnival. http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2009/10/real-food-wednesday-blog-carnival-for-102809.html
Visit her link for lots of real food recipe links as part of the carnival.

Killer Pancakes

Here is the original recipe that came in my inbox this morning (ECPR crockpot forum) as I was trying to figure out what to make for breakfast. I was letting the dc sleep in (which meant 7:15 for youngest dd (!) and 9:00 for the olders) because we had a v-e-r-y early and long wonderful 4-H day yesterday.

Killer Pancakes (source cited was Family/Time Community Cookbook)

-2 C all-purpose flour

-1 C sugar

-1 tsp baking soda

- 1/2 tsp salt

- 2 egg whites

- 1 (16 oz) can juice-packed fruit cocktail, drained and juice reserved

- maple syrup, or chopped fresh strawberries, macerated with a little sugar

Preheat oven to 350 F, spray 2 non-stick cookie sheets with vegetable oil and set aside. Sift the dry ingredients together and set aside. Beat the egg whites until frothy. Beat in the juice. Gradually add the dry mixture, stirring until well blended. Fold in the fruit cocktail. Using 1/8 cup (2 TBL measure) scoop dollops of pancake batter onto the sprayed pans, leaving at least 2 inches between the pancakes. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until puffed and golden. Serve hot with maple syrup, fresh strawberries, peaches, or other fruit.

Serves 4

___

Okay... Here's what actually happened at my house this morning with the recipe.... We're a family of 5 so I wanted 1-1/2x the original recipe...

- 3 C flour (used 2 white, 1 wheat)

- 3/4 C demerara

- 2 teaspoons baking powder (yes, you read that right - I accidentally put baking POWDER instead of baking SODA and even put extra!!!)

- 2 pinches of Real Salt

- 2 egg whites + 1 egg because I couldn't bear to not include a whole egg :)

- 3/4 C organic orange-mango juice that we had in the fridge (I get it when it's on sale to make jello, etc)

I'm too lazy to actually dig out the handmixer so I sort of mixed the egg/egg whites with a fork but they weren't even close to frothy. I poured in the juice, mixed a bit more. It says to gradually put in the dry... the bowl with the dry ingredients was my biggest bowl so I just dumped the liquid in to the bowl with the dry ingredients [many are probably cringing by this point about my cooking ability!]. It seemed a little dry so I added maybe 1/8 whey 'cuz I didn't want to use dc's good milk in this and have extra whey right now-otherwise I would have used water. Fortunately at that point I re-read the directions and it says to dollop spoonfuls so I realized that it is not suppose to look like pancake batter and stopped. It had the consistency of a pourable bread batter or super thick pancake batter.

Instead of cookie sheets I used palm oil to grease my casserole dishes; dolloped batter in them and baked. Our oven cooks hot on the bottom so I flipped them after 15 minutes and kept them in the oven 5 more minutes.

They were absolutely delicious! I can't eat carbs for breakfast but I couldn't resist the smell and had the smallest one with butter (which I paid for a little later - sugar crash!)

Middle dd had the idea to poke a hole in it and pour honey in like a sopapilla. Oldest dd followed but youngest dd liked them just plain. We have 3 extras - just perfect for dc to have for an afternoon snack or to put in their lunchboxes.

If I think about it during a home day (even better: if I think about it the night before and soak the flour!) it would be an easy snack to make, freeze, and pull out whenever we need something for on-the-go snacks/lunches. Sort of like muffins only...not. I can see using cherry juice or other flavors also. I'll just skip the added canned fruit and keep the recipe the way I did it - accidental baking powder and all!

Here is a picture of the 3 leftover 'pancakes.'