Homemade Apple Butter

Iiiiiiiiiitttts apple season! One of my favorite times of year. When apples are in season, I think I could honestly eat two a day. They are beautiful colors with anything from a sweet to sour flavor. This last week when my roommate and I both had a night to relax together and make something, we decided to make apple butter. The day before she had gone apple picking with her family and brought back a big bag of Gravenstein apples and some half pint mason jars.

Here's what you can do at home to get the same chunky spicy spread:

You Will Need:

At least 4-5 lbs fresh apples

2 C. water

2 C. apple cider vinegar

4 C. sugar

4 Tsp. cinnamon

1 Tsp. allspice

1/2 Tsp. ground cloves

Sterilized glass jars with lids

A friend to help you

PROCESS

-Wash and quarter apples

-Add to a large pot and bring to a boil, along water and apple cider vinegar

-Reduce heat and simmer for about 40-45 minutes

-Remove from heat and pass through a food mill or some sort of strainer to separate out the seeds and stems :)

-Add sugar and spices

-Simmer on low heat for about 2 hours, stirring constantly. You will want to have a friend around to help you for this part.

-In the mean time as you and your partner are taking turns stirring, prepare the jars for sterilization. There are two general methods, wet and dry sterilization. You can boil your jars to sterilize them, but I find this is too much hassle in my small kitchen. Instead, we washed our jars with soap and warm water and allowed them to dry. Then we put them in the oven on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, and allowed the jars to sterilize in the oven for about 30 minutes on 425F.

-As the apple butter mixture thickens, make sure to keep stirring and scraping the bottom of the pot so that nothing sticks and no layer of burned butter at the bottom forms. What you end up with is a very fragrant chunky syrup mix that can be ladled carefully into the jars. It will be mostly a matter of preference, but you will want to get a thick consistency. To test, spoon a small amount on a plate that has been sitting in your freezer. The apple butter should set up and not be too runny or think on a cold plate if it has cooked and reduced down enough.

-H.BOMB

Sweet and Savory Baked Pumpkin Seeds

Taste the Fall! Sweet and Savory Baked Pumpkin Seeds!

Nothing else quite makes you feel like fall has arrived until the leaves begin to turn color, and you find yourself surrounded by perfect, big, round, hard, pumpkins! I found myself in the presence of many pumpkins recently, and after carving mine up in good company, I knew I didn’t want the seeds to go to waste so I decided to set my mind to developing a baked pumpkin seed recipe. There were so many seeds, that I decided that making both a sweet and a savory recipe would be a good idea. I had about two cups of seeds to work with, so I divided up the seeds and here’s what I came up with!

Honey Brown Sugar Baked Pumpkin Seeds:

1 cup pumpkin seeds

About 4 tbsp honey

Brown sugar

-Preheat oven to 300 degrees F

-Rinse seeds of all the gooey orange fibers, and lay out to dry

-Once dry, mix the seeds and honey in a bowl

-Spread over a baking sheet – do not spread on tinfoil etc., honey will stick!

-Place in oven, and after 30 minutes remove to sprinkle desired amount of brown sugar – overcooking brown sugar can result in bitterness!

-Place back in oven, and bake for about anther 30 minutes

I recommend taste-testing seeds sporadically, because everyone prefers a different level of crunch to their seeds.

Sriracha Baked Pumpkin Seeds:

3 tbsp olive oil

Sriracha – amount depends on spice level desired

1 tbsp seasoned salt

½ tsp pepper

1 tsp cayenne

-Preheat oven to 300 degrees F

-Rinse seeds of all the gooey orange fibers, and lay out to dry

-Once dry, mix the seeds and olive oil in a bowl

-Mix in seasoned salt, pepper, and cayenne, and I also added a couple generous squirts of Sriracha

-Spread over a baking sheet

-Bake for about 1 hour – Again, I recommend taste-testing seeds on occasion to reach desired level of crunch

These recipes are just meant to inspire different ways of flavoring pumpkin seeds, and don’t need to be strictly followed. Have fun with it and enjoy!

-Ianna