Stewed Apples

This morning I made stewed apples for breakfast. Oooh, oooh, was it yummy. This is a very versatile dish. You can eat it alone, like we did, or do any number of things:

• mix into hot cereal
• serve over ice cream
• spoon into precooked pie or tart crusts
• serve over shortbread, shortcake, or bread pudding
• mix with saurkraut and cook a pork roast in it (which is super good, tangy, tart, and sweet)
• serve with cream or whipped cream (hot or cold)
• you could probably also mix it into bread for stuffing or dressing, but I've not tried it yet.

Here is the recipe:

8-12 apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
1/2 cup water
1/2-1 cup brown sugar, sucanat, turbinado, etc. (honey may be used, but gives a different taste use no more than 1/2 cup, unless you like it really sweet)
1/2-1 cup raisins
1/2-1 cup walnuts
1 TBSP Cinnamon

You simply chuck it all together into a pot and cook it until the apples are slightly mushy and the liquid is thickened. If necessary you can add a pinch of cornstarch, arrowroot powder, etc to thicken, but don't use much. You could also put it into a crockpot and cook on low for 6-8 hours, or overnight.

I used Jonathans in mine; they are especially tart, so if you use a sweeter apple you may find you can use less sugar (or none at all). If you like it a little tart, but don't have any tart apples on hand, you can add 1 TBSP apple cider vinegar. Also, if you use sucanat you may find you have to add more water, as it is dryer than other sugars.

This will make 1-2 quarts of stewed apples, so you can freeze it to use later.

A tip for keeping the apples from browning-submerge them in a bowl of cold water. They will float to the top, but if you give them a dunking every time you add apples, they will stay fresh.

Apple Picking (or the lost art of creating)

Yesterday Mary and I went apple picking. We picked 1/2 bushel that I am getting ready to turn into jelly and apple butter. I was shocked by the number of people who paid for 1/2 peck bags for each person in their family and then only filled each half way.

I can remember going apple picking with my mother. It was a big day that we looked forward to all September. We'd go to the orchard and pick 2 bushels. It would take us most of a Saturday. Then over the next week I would help mom create all the wonderful pies, dumplings, apple butter, apple sauce and so on. It felt so good to know that the food going to my table was mine. I had seen those apples go from tree to finished product. I had pride in our food, because I had worked so hard on it. It reminds me of a commercial I used to see on Nick at Nite. "It's Shake and Bake and I helped!"

That's something I want to pass on to my children, their connection to the things in our life. I want them to be intimately involved in the process of creating. I want them to have that pride of a job well done. I want them to understand the work that goes into making something, and the spiritual nourishment that is derived from the creative process.

Mary and I were talking about how man is created in God's image the other day. One of the ways we are like God is in our capacity for reason. We are more than the sum of our chemical processes. But, another and equally important aspect of the Divine in our nature is the desire to create. To look at something we have made and say, "It is good."

I hadn't put all this together until I started listening to those half-bag families. They were there not to create, but simply to get in touch with Creation. For them, the $7 a person they were spending was worth it just for that. So many of the children didn't know where apples came from until that day. And one of the moms came up to me and said, "Wow, you must have something special in mind with all those apples." I told her what I was going to do with them and she was amazed.

I couldn't help thinking how few apples I was bringing home than in those by-gone days with Mom.

30 Days of Nothing

Today is the first day of 30 Days of Nothing. We will not be participating, but it is a wonderful idea and I wanted to put it forward for general "consumption."