More apples from Alaska

Using your apples from Alaska bounty is easy with many recipes that are simple to do using a crock pot.  This recipe works well for spiced apples and can be used for ice cream topping, as applesauce, in other recipes, and as pie filling!  Yum!

 

If you are out of Alaska apples, you can use the ones from the store as well.  When I run out of my own product I get the apples from the sale cart and they work wonderfully, and you are probably keeping them out of the land fill!

 

Start with your fresh Alaska apples, I used Carroll apples for this recipe as we had a lot of those.  Peel and core the apples (save the peels and cores for the worms - see next blog post for more about that)!

 

Place all of the apple product in your largest crock pot - this is an 8 - 10 quart pot.  The product will cook down so if you have some that wont fit you can add it as it cooks down.

 

Sprinkle the whole lot with cinnamon, nutmeg and brown sugar.  For this size pot I use about 1 cup of brown sugar to start and about a tablespoon of each of the spices.  Add in about 1 cup of water and let it cook on low for about 8 hours.  Sometimes I stir it but sometimes I'm not home and that doesn't happen and it doesn't seem to matter much.  If you have extra product, just add it in as it shrinks - about every two hours.  Add a little more spice and sugar as well when you add apple product.

When the apples are soft it is done!  You can can it as applesauce if you puree the mix.  I also like to put about 3 cups in a gallon Ziplock bag and place it flat into a pie pan and freeze it!  When you are ready to use it you just put the lot into a pie crust, sprinkle with flour, add a little water and bake for the required amount of time.  Easy holiday rescue plan - especially if you are doing potluck.   You can stack them in the freezer easily too!

 

I have used this as an add in to cake and muffins as well as a cookie called "Fresh apple cookies".  This makes it fast if you already have a jar or a frozen batch of spiced Alaska apples.

 

Fresh Apple Cookies

 

1 1/3 C. Brown Sugar

1/2 C. Butter

1 egg

1/4 C. milk

2 C. Flour (you can use rice flour as well - just cut the Brown sugar to 3/4 C.)

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp cloves

1/2 tsp Nutmeg

1 C. Spiced Apples or 1 Cup diced apples

1 C. nuts ( I have also used sunflower seeds and it is lovely)

1 C Raisens chopped small - optional but you'll miss them

 

Cream first three ingredients and add the rest.  Drop by large spoonfuls onto a baking sheet. bake in pre heated 350 degree oven for 10 to 15 minutes.  This is a soft cookie so don't over cook.

 

Serve with fresh hot coffee or black tea!

 

 

 

Happy Holidays and Festive Baking!

 

The hardest thing...

I know I said I was going to talk about apples again but this has been weighing on me this week and I just need to get it out - we'll do apples again next time!

I have a friend right now who feels like she is going through the hardest thing she will ever have to do, a bad break up with a long term lover, her only car key broke off in the car lock, and she has been displaced from her home.  All of these are hard things, but she is a teenager, and they all happened to her in the space of about a month.  And she lost her father a few years ago.  She is feeling like she would not like to be part of the planet any longer since it is too hard right now.  That got me really thinking about what is too hard?  What have I done that I thought was the hardest thing I would ever do and then learned that it WAS NOT the hardest thing by a long stretch!

What do I say to someone who thinks this is the hardest thing she will ever have to live through and she doesn't think she will make it?  What would you say?

I had to stay at a college I hated as a teen and finish out the school year (thought that was hard but I was young and dumb remember).  Another time, I gave birth to an early baby and thought childbirth and parenting was the hardest thing I would ever have to do (it is hard but worth it), but my two biggest, hardest things so far have been the time that I lost a child (as in death), and the time that I had to hand my child to a surgeons hands and say to him "I trust you with my childs life"!  And I signed a paper saying that I trust him!  I also have seen a friend lose their child and I am sure that it was the hardest thing she has ever done to get up every morning and go forward with faith.

I have another friend who lost their child to death today, but the child was lost to drugs long ago.  Is that the hardest thing to watch your child slip away to that world and you can't pull them back?  I don't know but I hope she is able to go forward with faith anyway and survive that.

My best friend lost her husband this year to cancer and I know that I have never done anything that hard.  My heart breaks for her every day when I think of the faith she carries every day when I know she doesn't want to.

I have more than one job, and that is not too hard when I think of the things I have done that I really thought I would not survive, or that my child would not survive.  Or of all of the things that my friends have survived that are harder than anything I do any time.

But what do I say to the girl who sees no light at the end of her tunnel and grease at the end of her rope with a flaming pool under it?  She has no comprehension that this might not be the hardest thing she will ever have to do and I'm not going to be the one to break that news to her.

She is getting help, don't worry - I'm not letting her flail about and figure it out.  She has a good support system in place and she will make it!  I have faith!

I want you to think about the hardest thing you have ever had to do, and then look around you and see if it's not a lot easier than what someone else has had to do.  If it's not - I am sorry.  If it is - go out and do something nice for the person who's got it harder than you! 

Blessed Samhain!