Kids Make Apple Butter

Apple butter is just a hop, skip and jump from applesauce. So if you already know how to make applesauce, you are just a couple of steps from having apple butter.

There's no dairy in apple "butter." But it is thicker and darker than apple sauce--another of the thousand or so uses for apples our forebears came up with when apples were such an important part of the diet.

If you are looking for ways to store from the fall harvest, apple butter is a genius stroke as it can easily be canned and stashed in the pantry.

Use a flavorful, cooking-type apple such as Winesap or Jonathan. We chose Mountaineers from nearby West Virginia and Macintosh. For this recipe, you do not remove the skin of the apple (lending some pectin to help thicken the final product) but you do remove the stems and cores. A couple of helpful pieces of equipment are a food mill, as shown in the picture above, and a splatter screen for covering your cook pot.

To make four pints apple butter:

5 pounds apples, cored and cut into eight wedges each (skin on)

1 cup apple cider

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

1 1/4 cups brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Place apples and cider in a heavy pot, cover and bring to a boil over moderately high heat. Reduce heat and simmer until apples are soft, about 10 minutes.

Process the cooked apples finely through a food mill. Pour the apple puree back into the cook pot and mix with sugars and spices. (Note: use 1/4 cup sugar for each cup of puree). Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and continue cooking uncovered, stirring frequently and scraping the bottom of the pot so that the puree does not scorch. Keep in mind that the thick puree, rather than quietly bubbling, tends to burp and burst and send hot material flying into the air. This is where a splatter screen over your pot comes in handy. You don't want a big mess, but you do want the moisture to evaporate so the puree can thicken.

Continue cooking for an hour or more, until the apple puree has thickened and caramelized to a nutty brown. It should mound up in a spoon.

Now you can ladle the hot apple butter into sterile pint jars. Seal the jars and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

The kids in our "food appreciation" classes had great fun cutting the apples and grinding away at the food mill. Our treat was spreading the finished apple butter on slices sweet potato bread, freshly baked from some of the sweet potatoes recently harvested from our garden. Talk about a tasty snack for fall....

Kids Make Apple Crisp

This week we started a culinary world food tour in our "food appreciation" classes and our first stop outside the District of Columbia is the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia where fall means apples. Kids love using a mechanical apple peeler. It used to be every family had one, apples were such an important food. We are using ours to make a simple apple crisp, a traditional dessert that takes only a few minutes to prepare.

First, we peel and core 6 medium apples. We used Golden Delicious. Cut the apples into bit-size pieces, a job made easy by our peeling device, which turns the apple into a spiral while it is coring.


Squeeze the juice from 1 lemon.

Toss the apples with the lemon juice in a pie plate or tin. We used a standard, round Pyrex pie plate.

Meanwhile, mix the "crisp," first whisking together 1/2 cup all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Next, cut 1/4 cup chilled, unsalted butter into the dry ingredients using quick, pinching movements of your fingers to squeeze everything together.

Sprinkle the crisp mixture over the apples, then slide into a 375-degree oven and bake for 35 minutes, or until the crisp is beginning to brown and the apples are starting to bubble.

Serve warm or room temperature. This crisp is delicious as is, the cooked apples all muddled together with the cinnamony topping. But you could also serve it with vanilla ice cream, sour cream or--my favorite--fresh, tangy, homemade yogurt.

We're In Martha Stewart Living

At the time of the Civil War, there were around 800 commercially viable varieties of apples in this country. Now there are perhaps 30, although you will find even fewer at the market at any given time. What a come-down for a noble fruit that arrived here with the colonists and once was considered essential food.

What we are left with are industrial apples that look good and travel well but in many cases are lacking the flavor and individuality of heritage apples. My assignment for the October installment of Martha Stewart Living was to profile one apple grower--Tree-Mendus Fruit Farm in Eau Claire, Michigan--that has managed to survive with a large collection of antique apples.

Like many family farms, this one had to adapt to a rapidly changing economic environment to stay in business. They still sell apples wholesale--mostly to Whole Foods in the Detroit and Chicago areas. But their main source of income now is attracting visitors from urban areas out to the farm to pick fruit (Tree-Mendus also raises peaches, cherries and other seasonal items) and just enjoy the wide-open spaces. Here's an income producer I hadn't heard of before: you can rent your own tree. Apparently, some families have been doing just that for years and years.

Tree-Mendus fruit farm now hosts more than 200 varieties of heirloom apples. Many are for sale in the farm store. If you really want to learn more about how apples have morphed in this country and around the world, read "Apples" by Frank Browning.

Oh, and they will ship many of their products, including frozen blueberries.

Dark Days: ISO Apple Dishes

Here's a case of things not turning out quite as planned.

Last weekend on our trip to the farmers market I bought three pounds of apples. Apples are in plentiful supply, even with most of the farmers markets closed for the season.

My plan was to make the kind of apple torte we used to have for dinner when I was an exchange student in Switzerland. This was centuries ago, of course. But I still have vivid memories of my host mother--Tante Marie--rolling dough onto a sheet pan and covering it with whatever fruit was in season at the moment--apricots, plums, peaches, apples--adding some kind of custard and baking it in the oven.

The torte--if that's what you want to call it--seemed a little like dessert for dinner: not too sugary, with the fruit, the eggs and the soft crust postitioned somewhere between sweet and savory and bringing plenty of wholesome nutrition to the table. It was a perfect meal as far as I was concerned, simple yet satisfying. So I had a vision of recreating that torte with apples, serving it with our homegrown salad and calling that our Dark Days meal for the week.

Except I was not able to find the recipe. Okay, I didn't spend that much time looking. My sister, who lived many years in the German-speaking part of Europe, brought over a couple of her German pastry cookbooks. There were all kinds of cakes and tortes, but nothing hitting the mark. By the end of the day, I was desperate for something to make with apples and landed on this simple recipe in Joy of Cooking.

It calls for layering sliced apples with almost-cooked sweet potatoes (from our CSA box), along with brown sugar, raisins and pecans. Add some apple cider and bake in the oven at 350 degree for about 30 minutes. It didn't sound like much, and it turned out to be about how it sounded. That's what you see in the picture, along with a homegrown salad and a biscuit made with fresh buttermilk and smeared with the tomato jelly we made from our garden.

It occurs to me now that although I like very much the idea of making dinner out of apples, I am woefully short on apple know-how. So I am broadcasting this appeal: If you know of any great ideas for apples entrees--especially if you know how to make the torte I described above--please do send along your suggestions.

Kids Make Applesauce

Applesauce may be one of the culinary world's best-kept secrets. Fresh applesauce is incredibly easy and so quick, it's a wonder (or maybe just a shame) anyone buys it in a jar at the store.


My "food appreciation" classes resumed after the Thanksgiving break to take up seasonal fruits and I've been wanting to focus on apples. Applesauce turns out to be an ideal subject because in addition to taking hardly any time at all, it involves some of the kids' favorite equipment, including the mechanical apple peeler and the food mill. So there was plenty for everyone to do. (I now have the kids trained to save the peels and cores from the apples for my compost pile.)


This is hardly a recipe, more a formula. Take three pounds sweet apples (I used gala, but I've seen Macintosh frequently mentioned). Peel and core the apples, then chop them into 1/2-inch pieces. Place these in a pot with 1/2 cup water, bring to a boil on the stove top, then reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the apples are cooked through and tender.


Run the cooked apple through a food mill over a bowl (or pulse in a food processor--it should be a bit chunky, not perfectly smooth). Season with approximately 1/4 cup light brown sugar and about 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, or to taste. Mix well and serve warm.


That's all there is to it. And kids couldn't have been happier with the results. They wolfed it down and begged for seconds.

While the apples were cooking, we read a storybook that sort of jumped out at me while I was visiting the children's section at our main library branch here in the District of Columbia. Called Latkes and Applesauce, it's about a snowbound, starving Jewish peasant family outside Minsk whose yearning for their traditional Hanukkah meal is miraculously resolved by a homeless kitten and a stray dog.

Hmmmmm. I'm trying to think who might play the lead in the film version.

Kids Make Apple Brown Betty

There are some dishes you know are going to be an instant hit with the kids in my "food appreciation" classes. Usually they would have something to do with dessert.


The kids are always begging to make cakes or something sweet, and I'm just as stubborn trying to steer them away from sugars and fats and refined flours.



But this week I wanted to do something with apples--something relatively simple and old-fashioined--so I started cruising through my regional and more obscure cookbooks, searching for a seasonal apple dish that we could make in less than an hour.

I had a vision of an apple crisp, or something like it, and landed on the idea of an apple pan dowdy. I've never made apple pan dowdy before, and discovered it is relatively labor intensive and not so quick to make, requiring a crust, an initial baking, then breaking up the crust with the fruit filling and baking it again.


No, I wanted something much more simple. In one of my collection of cookbooks from Maine, Good Maine Food, by Marjorie Mosser, I found this recipe for Brown Betty and was immediately sold.


This is a bit like a crisp but what I like most of all about it are the incredibly simple ingredients: apples, bread crumbs, brown sugar, butter, cinnamon and lemon. The process is one of first peeling and chopping the apples, then assembling them in layers with the bread crumbs and the other ingredients.


I can just see the farmer's wife, racking her brain for an idea for dinner with only a few apples in a bowl on the countertop, a piece of yesterday's bread, some staples from the pantry. The idea of bulking out the pudding with bread crumbs is pure genius--you would never know they were there, tasting the finished dessert. Brown Betty easily passes for poverty fare, but just as surely deserves a place in our lexicon of great comfort foods.


The kids have great fun with this because they get to peel the apples on a mechanical peeler that I bring to school, the kind of peeler you would use to make a big batch of apple sauce or a dozen pies. I let the older kids cut the peeled apples, then assemble the ingredients in the pan. Very soon they are fighting for a turn at the action.


We baked the mix in a deep (3 inches) but small (6 inches across) cake pan, then removed the cover so the top layer of bread crumbs could brown. The mix sinks into the pan, forming the most delicious near-pudding that we served with whipped cream (it is wonderful with ice cream as well).


To make enough Brown Betty for four persons, have ready 2 cups peeled and chopped apples (such a Macintosh), 1 cup fresh bread crumbs (we processed a rustic loaf from Whole Foods, but whole wheat would work well, I think), 1/4 chilled butter, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, zest (chopped fine) and juice from 1/2 lemon, 1/4 cup hot water.


Grease a small, deep cake pan or souffle dish and lay a layer of chopped apple on the bottom. Dust with some bread crumbs, dot with some butter, sprinkle on some brown sugar, cinnamon and lemon zest, and add some of the lemon juice. Repeat this process in three layers, or until all the ingredients are used up. Pour the water over the top.


Place in a 350-degree oven, covered, for 40 minutes. Remove the cover and bake another 10 or 15 minutes to brown the top layer of bread crumbs. The mix will probably have sunk one third in volume and turned a golden brown. Allow to cool for 15 minutes before spooning it into individual bowls and serving with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Note: I don't think this dish would be nearly as good with canned bread crumbs. For fresh bread crumbs, remove the crust from thick slices of bread, break the bread into pieces and pulse it in a food processor. If you don't have a food processor, you could just tear the bread into small pieces with your fingers.

Kids Make Butternut Squash Soup

Do you take your squash perfectly smooth, or a bit lumpy?

That was the dilemma I wrestled with in my "food appreciation" classes this week. I wanted the kids to experience the old-fashioned method of turning vegetables through a food mill into soup, but I wasn't sure how they would react to the texture.

As much as possible, I try to make these sessions a hands-on tutorial. For the most part, we do without modern kitchen gadgets and especially electrical appliances. I want the kids to learn original techniques, and to appreciate the difference

between making food by hand and zapping it with electricity.

Turns out texture was a major issue for the smaller children. So on the second day of classes, we tried something different. All the kids got a turn cranking the food mill to see how the old-fashioned device turned sauteed onions, carrots and apples into a puree. Then, to get rid of the bumps, we processed the soup in a blender.

This makes me a pack mule, hauling all my equipment to school, and it does create a bit of extra work. But I think the final results are worth the effort.

This is a classic soup. The apple and winter squash harvests overlap, which leads to this fortunate blend of flavors, the sweetness of the apples giving just the right lift to the savory squash. I adapted this recipe from the many I looked at in my research. There is a startling number of variations, with ingredients including cream, sour cream, half-and-half, chicken broth, maple syrup, honey, brown sugar, curry powder, brandy, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg--and on and on.

Anything that goes with apples or butternut squash, it seems, is fair game for this soup, so don't be afraid to improvise.

In the end, the soup was a huge hit with the older kids--even the lumpy version. The younger children, however, were immediately put off by the rough texture of the soup using only the food mill mill. But they were eager to try it once it had been smoothed out in the blender. Still, many of them found the brownish color of the finished soup a bit intimidating. Some of them, on the other hand, absolutely loved it. And what's not to love about a soup that's practically half dessert?

I tried to keep my final recipe as American as possible, with the accent on maple syrup and brown sugar. Making it is surprisingly easy, really just a matter of combining the cooked squash with the other ingredients, hardly any cooking at all.

For 6 servings

1 medium butternut squash (about 2 pounds)
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, peeled and cut into small dice
2 carrots, peeled and grated
1 semi-sweet, crispy apple, peeled and grated
Coarse salt
1 cup half-and-half

1 cup chicken broth (or water)
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
Sour cream or crème fraiche for garnish (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Cut the squash in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Place squash in an oven-proof casserole cut-side down and add water to a depth of about ½ inch. Place in oven and bake until completely tender, about 1 hour. Remove from oven and set aside to cool.

Meanwhile, in a heavy pot over moderate heat, heat the olive oil and add the onion, carrot and apple. Cook until the onion is completely soft, about eight minutes. Remove from heat. When the vegetables are cool enough to handle, process through a food mill (or in a blender or food processor with the addition of some broth or water).

Return pureed vegetables to cook pot. Scoop flesh from squash and add to cook pot. Add remaining ingredients and use a potato masher to thoroughly blend squash into the mix. (For a very smooth soup, process the mix in a blender or food processor.) Return pot to moderate heat on the stove and bring to a simmer. Adjust seasonings.

To serve, ladle soup into bowls and garnish with a swirl of sour cream or crème fraiche.

Note: if the soup is too thick, add half-and-half, chicken stock or water.