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Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Daring Cooks Challenge - Canning & Preserving

The September 2010 Daring Cooks’ challenge was hosted by John of Eat4Fun. John chose to challenge The Daring Cooks to learn about food preservation, mainly in the form of canning and freezing. He challenged everyone to make a recipe and preserve it. John’s source for food preservation information was from The National Center for Home Food Preservation.
In case you didn't know, I've been super-busy this month, with travel every weekend in addition to the start of the school year & teaching responsibilities.  Whew!  
At least I was able to complete my Daring Cooks Challenge this month, using fresh apples from my CSA (great timing!)



Apple Butter
2 lbs peeled and cored apples, roughly chopped
2 tbsps honey
1/4 C apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
a pinch of nutmeg

Add the apples, honey (or sugar) and vinegar to a saucepan over medium heat.  I didn't use as much sweetner as the recipes called for because my super-fresh apples were already pretty sweet (thanks Stillmans!).  I let that cook for 20 minutes or so until the apples looked more like apple sauce than individual apples.  I then added the spices and used a stick-blender to incorporate everything and smooth out my sauce.  

Let that cook for another 30min or so until you have a thick, dark brown, tasty apple butter.  The trick is to plop a spoonful of the apple butter onto a cold plate and see if it releases any juices.  If it holds its shape and doesn't ooze everywhere, you have yourself some fruit butter!

I will start posting more often as soon as my schedule calms down (and I get a new computer... my personal one died... sad).  Enjoy!

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