Pumpkin, Pumpkin, Pumpkin!

Who likes pumpkin stuff? Meeeee!!! So, I am a mean, mean mom and my children are deprived because of my cheapness. Not really, they are far from deprived. In fact, I know that I indulge them way more than I should (Pete, I can feel you nodding your head!) but that's another story!

Every year, we get pumpkins like any other American family. Then we don't carve them. I make them paint them. Why, you ask? So that I can turn them into wonderful pumpkin puree for my vast number of recipes that require it! Isn't that a great idea? I will only charge you $10 for stealing my idea. You can just mail me a check.

This year was the first year that we actually carved a pumpkin. When we went to the patch, we bought 4 pumpkins, one for each kid, plus one to carve. I think you all read the carving post.

Um, well, I kind of forgot to buy paint. I was HOPING that Abby would forget, but, of course, I was not so lucky! On October 31st, yes, on Halloween, about 3:00 in the afternoon: "Mommy, when are we going to paint our pumpkins?" OOOPS. Not so lucky me. I explained that I had forgotten to buy paint and proceeded to hand her a pack of Crayola Markers. Well, I am happy to announce that I saved the day! Or, Crayola did. Even though the markers wiped right off, it still satisfied Abby and later on Tyler.

So the pumpkins were colored instead of painted. And one was carved. It is actually molding in the driveway as we speak, waiting for Pete to have his annual rotten pumpkin chucking contest off the back deck. The deer like them. I think.

I swear, he looks forward to this holiday only for that. I try to keep his anticipation under control year round by buying huge bags of carrots at Costco, using 2 and letting the rest get all limp and gross. Again, good reindeer food. Did I just say reindeer? I meant DEER. Reindeer is what the kids call them; I know they aren't reindeer. Oh, honey, I think this weekend should be chucking weekend. Bag of carrots in the garage + moldy rotten pumpkin in the driveway = fun for Pete!

ANYWAY, the point of this was to show you how to make pumpkin puree! Sorry for the tangent. Or is it tangeant?

So, take your pumpkin. Wash off the outside to remove all dirt and Crayola Marker. Cut it in half. I like to cut it through the middle so I don't have to worry about the stem (have you ever tried cutting a stem in half? Let me know how that goes). Put it cut side down on a foil lined, PAM sprayed cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes or till you can pierce the nice soft pumpkin with a fork.

See? Oh, I also cut the halves in half, leaving them side by side while cooking. It's easier to do the next step that way.

Ok. Now you have nice, soft, cooked pumpkin. Remember my Kitchen Aid friend? Well, I tried to use it's assistance but it does NOT work. I don't really know why but it basically spits everything out of the junk end. So, I ended up doing it the way I've always done!

Take a large spoon and scoop out the seeds and strings. If you want, you could separate the seeds and bake them. In this instance, I was too lazy, so into the trash they went!
Now you have a nice string and seed free 1/4 of a pumpkin. Take your spoon and start scooping out the flesh. It should be so nice and soft and easy! Discard the skin and put the flesh into a bowl or food processor.
Here is mine in my food processor. Turn it on and let 'er rip! I add water so that it purees nicely, you can get rid of that later. Keep reading. Just let it run till its nice and smoooooooth.
See? All nice and smooth.
Now you need to get rid of the water. Place a cheesecloth or in my case, a cloth diaper in a colander. Place the colander over a big bowl to catch the water. Now, pour your puree in the cloth and let it sit. I let mine sit overnight covered with the sides of the diaper. For those of you thinking "I am never touching any of Sarah's pumpkin recipes!" rest assured, I am a loyal Pampers Fan. You'll never catch me using a cloth diaper. No way. No how. Uh uh.
Go to sleep. Wake up. Find this wonderful, thick, creamy pumpkin puree! Oh, before you go to bed, you will probably have to dump the drain bowl a few times.
Doesn't that just look yummy?
Now, I get it ready to freeze. You cannot can pumpkin puree. Reason being, they (the USDA) have not established a safe processing time. Sorry girls. We're stuck with the freezer. I use Ziploc Freezer Quart size bags. I put 2 cups in each one, that is what 99% of my recipes use. You could also use Glad containers if you'd rather.

I like to squish mine flat and freeze them that way. Once they are frozen, they are super skinny and can hide between all the Coffee Mate, hot dogs and ice cream bars in your freezer. Or is that just mine? Hey they were cheap ($1 Coffee Mate big ones! 60 cent all beef hotdogs and $1 boxes of my dad's favorite Eskimo Pie Bars!)

Here they are all ready for the freezer!
I think that's enough about pumpkins for today. I have a little naked pumpkin out there that needs his mom to chase him down with a pair of pants.

Apple Pie Filling

Yesterday I made some Apple Pie Filling and canned it. I've made it before, but it was thick and clumpy in the jars. It turned out fine in pies but I couldn't use it for toppings for pancakes, etc. I had read last year about something called Clear Jel. My sister ordered us some and I gave it a whirl. It turned out FANTASTIC!

First, you need some apples. I used Granny Smith, which are great for pies.

Next, you need a child slave...er...helper :)

Then you need a mom with a double chin to cook. Really, its just the angle of the picture. The photographer is precisely 45 inches tall.

This is another fun gadget that is great for apple recipes. Mine is from Pampered Chef, but you can get the anywhere. It's an Apple Peeler/Corer/Slicer. You screw it on the table...

Spear on the apple...

Turn the handle and it will start peeling the apple. See the neat little strip of peel! So cool!

When it hits the end, it starts coring and slicing the apple.

After its done and you remove the apple, this is what is left.

A nice little pile of peel...

And here is your apple! Its basically a big spiral. And it does this in about 15 seconds. I don't know about you, but I can't peel/core/slice an apple in that time frame!

If you get tired, that is what your helper is for! Oh, PSA, don't forget to put the peeling bar back up...as you can see in the picture, I forgot on this one and it was coring and slicing but not peeling. Oops!

I take a knife and cut the apple lengthwise into 4 for smaller slices. You want to put the waiting apples into a solution of lemon juice and water. I use about 1/4c in a bowl. They might get a teensy bit brown but that will disappear in a bit.

Now you want to get a pot of water boiling to blanche the apples. I started it before I was done with the apples so it was ready. I add a cup of sugar for a very, very light syrup. You will put about 6 cups of apples in at a time. Bring back to a boil and boil for 1 minute. Put the warm apples into a different covered pot to keep warm. Repeat till apples are all blanched.

Here are the apples in the boiling water right after I added them. See they are slightly brown?

After blanching, much better!

Here is the Clear Jel. Its basically like cornstarch but it keeps the sauce clear instead of cloudy.
This mixture is sugar, Clear Jel, Pumpkin Pie spice with some extra cinnamon. This is now added to the apple cider and water.

Cook this mixture until it gets thick and starts to bubble. I stirred it pretty constantly with a wire whisk.When it starts to bubble, add the lemon juice.

Here it is all thick and bubbly. Boil it for 1 minute.

Take it off the heat, or turn off the burner if you have a gas stove like I do. Dump in the blanched apples. Fold them in gently.

Here is the pie filling, all ooey, gooey and yummy!

Use your canning funnel and a ladle to fill the jars with pie filling.

And the finished product! Jars should process in a boiling water bath for 30 minutes.

Now, for the fun part:

Now for the recipe:

6 quarts apples, sliced and blanched
5.5 cups Sugar
1.5 cups Clear Jel
1 TB Cinnamon
1 tsp Numeg
2.5 cups Water
5 cups Apple Cider or Apple Juice
3/4 cup Bottled Lemon Juice

I modified it slightly. I used different spices and decreased the amount of Clear Jel. The consistency in cutting back the Clear Jel made it similar to store bought pie filling. The recipe said it would make 7 quarts but I only got about 5.5 quarts. So, I'm thinking I needed 6 quarts of apples after they are blanched instead of before.

So, here's my recipe:

8 quarts raw apples (about 32 cups)
5.5 cups Sugar
1 cup Clear Jel
1 TB Pumpkin Pie Spice
1 tsp Cinnamon
2.5 cups Water
5 cups Apple Cider
3/4 cup Bottled Lemon Juice

I'm going to make more this week using that amount of apples. I'll let you know how it goes!

Making Applesauce and Apple Butter

So I've had a lot of people ask about how I make my applesauce so here is how I do it, out there for all to see!

First, you need apples. I like to use a variety, preferably 4-5 types, when I make applesauce. It just makes it taste better. I like to use Empires, Jonagold, Gala, Rome, etc. Try to pick apples that are sweet, so you only need to add minimal sugar. So don't go trying to make applesauce with Granny Smiths...save those for your pies. We get ours at a local orchard but you could use grocery store ones too.

Wash your apples. I just put mine in a colander in the sink and wash them that way.
Here is where your method might have to differ from mine. I have an attachment for my kitchen aid that separates the peel/core from the flesh. So all I have to do is quarter the apples and put them in a big pot. You could also use a food mill.

If you don't have either of those, or if you want a chunky sauce, then you would also need to peel and core the apples at this step. I have an apple/peeler/corer slicer thing from Pampered Chef that I use when I do chunky sauce.

After the apples are in the pot, pour in about an inch of apple cider or water. Cover the pot and let it simmer. I also like to put in a couple of cinnamon sticks.
Here is my bestest friend. You can buy this for about $90 and it is SO worth it. I just got mine about a month ago and I used it to make pear sauce and pear butter too. Like I said before though, you don't NEED this ;)
Here is the whole contraption. How it works, is you put the simmered apples in the top 'bowl' thingy. They go down and then in the housing thing on the right, the peel, core, seeds, stem, etc are separated and spit out the end. Since mine is over the sink, I just let it go in there. Then the sauce slides down and falls into the blue bowl.
Back to the sauce. Turn the burner on high and when it starts boiling, turn it down to low. Simmer the apples until they are nice and soft and mushy! Usually this only takes 20 minutes or so. Depends on how many apples you have.

This is a picture of my apples when they are ready to be sauced...is that a word? If you want to make chunky sauce, you would now mush the apples with a potato masher and skip down to the picture of the sweet little boy with peanut butter and jelly on his face.

Now, use a spoon to scoop the apple mush into the tray. If you don't have a neato gadget like I do, you can use a regular hand food mill, you know, the kind that you turn? It's hard work, but you might get big muscles. I can see it now..."Wow, Sarah, you are RIPPED!" "Thanks, I make a lot of applesauce." Okay, maybe not so realistic.
Use the included plunger stick thingy to push the apples down into the hole. Keep scooping and plunging until your pot has no more apples in it.

Isn't this gross? This is the hole where the yucky stuff comes out...peel, seeds, etc.Here is a picture of the whole thing. You can see the yucky stuff getting pooped out on the right and the sauce dripping down the bottom left, falling into the bowl.

Ew. This is what the sink looks like when I'm done. Good thing I have a garbage disposal.

After a while, you have a nice big bowl of sauce! My big pot actually fills 2 big bowls with sauce.

If you are contemplating buying a neato gadget like mine, I will tell you, it probably saves literally HOURS. I used about 20lbs of apples for this and it would have taken me probably 2+ hours to peel and core them. It probably took 30 minutes combined to quarter the apples and put them through the food grinder.Here is my helper. He had been eating his lunch, can you tell? MMMmmmm, PB&J.
So, now put your sauce back in your pot. It's pretty runny at this point. Now is the time to add spices and/or sugar. I use cinnamon, cloves, allspice and, if necessary, sugar. How much? I usually do it to taste.

I would guesstimate 2ish TB cinnamon, 1/2-1 tsp cloves and about 1/2 tsp allspice. Sugar just depends on how sweet your apples are and how sweet you like your sauce! I always do SOME unsweetened for recipes.

Then all you do is simmer the sauce until it gets to your desired thickness. You can then freeze it or can it. I prefer to can it...my freezer space is at a premium! I need to store 40 loaves of bread and 30 things of Coffee-Mate in there at all times. Canning it is daunting, but easy. Scroll to the bottom for how to do that.
Apple Butter...taking applesauce a step further! This is a delicacy that will make your tastebuds dance! So yummy! It is good on toast, biscuits, etc. My family also likes it in place of jelly/jam with PB sandwiches. It is very time intensive but thanks to the crockpot, SUPER duper easy.

Take some of the unsweetened applesauce you just made and dump it into your crockpot. Mine holds 7 quarts.
Add 2 TB Cinnamon, 1 tsp Cloves, 1/2 tsp Allspice and 2 cups of sugar.
Stir and cover. Cook on high for about an hour or two. Then turn to low and let it go for a long long long long time. I usually do mine overnight. It can take 12-16 hours. I TOLD you, a long long long long time. In the morning (after about 8-10 hours) I open it and vent it with a spoon so that the liquid can evaporate and it can get thick.
I also dump in 2 more cups of sugar. And top it off with more applesauce. When all is said and done, I use about 9 quarts of applesauce. You can obviously make a lot less too, don't be intimidated by my huge pot :)
Oh here it is, yummy!
I didn't take a picture of the actual process, but I use an immersion blender to make it smoooooth and creamy. You can even tell in the picture before and this one after that there is a consistency difference. At this point, the consistency is just a super thick applesauce.
Now I can it. You can freeze it too, but I prefer canning. If you've never done it, its easy!

Go buy some jars, I prefer wide-mouth quarts for sauce. They come with rims and lids. Sterilize the jars in boiling water. If you're lazy like me, run them through a sterilize (HOT water) dish cycle. This keeps them warm till you need them too. Put the lids and rims in a bowl of water and boil in the microwave for 5 minutes. Then just let them hang out in the hot water.

Use a canning funnel and ladle the hot sauce/butter into hot jars. Wipe the rim with a wet paper towel and put a lid on each one. Screw on the rim. Now you need to process them in a boiling water canner. For the 1/2 pints and pints I have pictured, I do them for 15 minutes. For quarts, 25 minutes.

Now, you can feel accomplished. At least you READ about it, and THOUGHT about it. Oh, and if you make any, I do accept samples.