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A Week of Apples

October 16, 2011 by Laura 50 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

I have a grand total of 110 pounds of apples in my kitchen right now. You know what this means don’t you? Yes, it means that by the end of this week my fingers are going to look brown and dirty. And they’ll stay that way for about two weeks until the brown wears off. It’ll be really cute and not at all embarrassing (as long as I keep my hands stuffed into my pockets while out in public).

Oh, and if I don’t wear an apron while I’m working with all of these apples, the front of my shirt will also be covered in brown splatter stains, which will never come out. I learned this the hard way a few years ago when I made applesauce all day, while wearing a cute Disney shirt, before going to a soccer game. I completed the task of making applesauce, ran it through the water bath process to can it and put the jars away in my pantry. I didn’t look down at my shirt until I was at the soccer game that night cheering for my boys. It was then that I noticed that Eeyore was completely covered in ugly brown specks. (Of course, it had to be Eeyore.)  I was by far the most pitiful looking mother out at the soccer field that day. Of all days to leave my jacket at home.

So now you know:  While you peel, core, slice and chop apples – the juice will spit and splatter everywhere. If you work on 110 pounds of apples, everything around you, including every crevice on your hands, will turn brown for days. There’s not much you can do about this, so just embrace the fact that you’ll look like you’ve been working under the hood of your car. To avoid answering any difficult-to-answer questions from the powers that be, remove all school papers, bills, library books, and photos before proceeding. And for the love of Eeyore, please wear an apron.

My 110 pounds of apples await, and I guess it goes without saying that my apron is ready for action. Here’s what I’m looking at doing this week:

I’ll start by making and canning as many jars of Applesauce as I can make before I get sick of making applesauce. I will probably be using a slightly different method than the one described here, so I’ll give an update on that sometime during the week.

applesauce11sm.JPG

If, in fact, I still have a few pounds of apples left after making applesauce, I hope to then make a few Mini Apple Pies. These are great to have in the freezer for a quick breakfast or dessert.

miniapplepies7sm

I may also can a few jars of Apple Pie Filling. This is great to have on hand to when throwing together a quick apple crisp or of course, to make a big apple pie. Here’s my Whole Wheat Pie Crust recipe if you’re interested.

Malachi_apple_pie_1

I may also use my Excalibur Food Dehydrator and make Apple Fruit Leather and/or dried apple rings. When you have 110 pounds of apples, you can just keep going with the apple preserving until you’ve got a wide variety of apple goodies, or until you faint onto the floor of your kitchen – whichever comes first. Don’t worry – I plan to get my boys busy helping me with these projects this week. They are great applesauce makers.

We also plan to simply eat a bunch of these apples. I love having so many apples on hand for snacks. If you haven’t tried making Caramel Apple Dip, I highly recommend it. It’s one of my favorite ways to eat apples.

Throughout the week, I’ll be snapping pictures and sharing my apple preserving progress. Prepare to get sticky around here. I might even experiment with Apple Butter like several of you requested last week!

What is your favorite way to eat apples? Ever ruined an Eeyore shirt with apple spatters? This is why aprons were invented.

 

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Aa is for Apple Pie

August 13, 2010 by Laura 16 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

Malachi, our kindergartner, is working through parts of Learn Your Letters, Learn to Serve this year. We began this week with the letter Aa and I couldn’t resist taking pictures to share. 

Monday morning we all sat around the table brainstorming about people we knew whose name began with the letter Aa…then we talked about what we might like to do for the family we chose. I loved that even our older boys were having fun brainstorming with us.

It was decided that we would make an apple pie for the A_________ family. (Yes, we realize the apple pie recipe isn’t mentioned in the kit, but the point of doing these acts of service is brainstorming as a family and figuring out together what you’d like to do!)

And so, this morning while the big boys were working on math and handwriting, Malachi and I worked together to make a big apple pie. He especially loved cutting little tiny apples out of the pie crust and arranging them (throwing them haphazardly) on top of the pie. It’s pretty rare that Malachi gets alone time with Mommy these days now that school is in full force and the bigger boys’ work is more intense. It was a pretty sweet half hour. :)

Malachi_apple_pie_1

I thought his pie turned out SO cute!!

malachi_apple_pie_2

Tonight after dinner we all loaded up so that Malachi could make his special delivery. 

malachi_apple_pie_344

It was a sweet moment. Malachi was so proud.

(I was pretty excited that the pie made it all the way to the door without being dropped. Not that I was worried.)

Now we’re already thinking of what we’ll do for Bb week…hmmm…..

(By the way, you can see a sample of what Lesson Bb looks like here.)

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Mini Apple Pies (A Part of This Complete Breakfast)

February 25, 2010 by Laura 169 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

Who decided that sugar coated sugar dobbers and frosted sprinked poptarts were the best way to start the day? I also want to know why the aforementioned choices…or a pancake drenched in syrup is considered a great breakfast food…yet an apple pie is considered to be a dessert.

Remember, I like to think outside the box when it comes to breakfast. I’m all about Giant Breakfast Cookies, Breakfast Cake, Funnel Cake, Whole Wheat Donuts…and if you recall…even Homemade Ice Cream for breakfast. And what about our Valentine’s day Peach Cobbler? Yes, I think breakfast should be enticing, delicious, nutritious and sometimes even fun. And I think Apple Pie should be okay to eat for breakfast.

This Mini Apple Pie recipe is a new one I’ve come up with as I work on creating more Healthy Make-Ahead Meals. These freeze well (unbaked) – then you can just pull out a little pie (or 3) per person and bake.

Make them for breakfast…and your family will smell them baking, jump out of bed and come running into the kitchen and plow you over onto the kitchen floor (out of joy and love of course).

You can make these a couple of different ways:  Mini Apple Pies, or Apple Pie Pockets…depending on what works best for you. I use the same crust recipe I use for my Homemade Pizza Pockets. Follow the same instructions for the pizza pockets to create an Apple Pie Pocket…

applepiepockets2sm

Yum

The following directions are for Mini Apple Pies:

Crust:

3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 t. sea salt
1 cup melted butter
1 cup plain yogurt

Stir ingredients together until thoroughly mixed. Use the dough right away to create pockets or pies…or let the dough sit overnight on the countertop to break down the phytates and make the grains more digestable. This dough is MUCH easier to work with if you work it like playdough in your hands a while before you try to roll it out.

Filling:

3 pounds of apples – about 11-12 smallish apples (any kind you like)
1/4 – 3/4 cup sucanat (your preference)
1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon

Topping:

1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
2-4 Tablespoons sucanat
3 Tablespoons melted butter

To make Mini Apple Pies:

miniapplepies1smPeel apples and cut them into bite sized chunks.

miniapplepies2smAdd sucanat and cinnamon.

miniapplepies3smStir well and cook over medium heat until apples are
tender and a syrup has formed (about 10 minutes).

miniapplepies5smIn the meantime, separate dough into 21-24 pieces.
Roll each piece into a little circle with a rolling pen.
As you can see, I am NOT a perfectionist. If I was making these for a
ladies’ brunch or something…I might take the time to make them pretty.
But for my family of boys?
Do you think they really care if their pies are pretty?
They eat them in three minutes flat. Thus my sloppy dough squishing.

Squish (or place nicely) your dough circles into well buttered MUFFIN PANS. Using a muffin pan for these Mini Apple Pies eliminates the need to go buy 24 little mini pie pans.

miniapplepies4smFill each (unbaked) crust with apple pie filling.

miniapplepies6smIn a bowl, stir together topping ingredients until the dry ingredients are moistened.
I find that melting the butter and stirring it into the flour, oats and sucanat makes a great crumb topping…much less effort than “cutting in the butter”.

miniapplepies7smSprinkle topping all over the top of your little pies.
Try if you can to be as messy about this process as I am. Sheesh.

Freeze your pies in your buttered muffin pans for a couple of hours.

miniapplepies8smRemove your muffin pans from the freezer and allow them to sit on the counter for 10-15 minutes.  Use a fork to gently pry the pies out of the pan. Place them carefully into freezer bags and put them bag into the freezer.

To bake your Mini Apple Pies:

Take desired number of pies out of the freezer and place them on a baking pan. Bake in a 375° oven for 35-45 minutes. You can let them thaw first if you want…but I find that the frozen pies bake just fine!

Mini_Apple_Pies

And now I’d like to point out that (depending on how much you use) there is about 1/2 cup of sucanat divided by 24 little pies…making this a very healthy, very low in sugar breakfast. Much less even than my Applesauce Bread or something otherwise considered a breakfast food.

Bring on the Breakfast Pie! Shucks…maybe we should even serve it with Ice Cream!

What’s your opinion about serving cobbler or pie for breakfast? Do I sound like a weirdo?  (Wait, don’t answer that.)
——————————————-

Need more healthy and family friendly breakfast recipes? I’ve got a whole page of ’em here! And yes, would you believe…you can easily make Homemade Poptarts!!

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