Using Up the Apples

[KarenDW]

anyone with a lot of apples needs one of these

http://www.leevalley.com/garden/page.aspx?...t=2,40733,44734

then you can freeze them and decide later

[Fat Guy]

As fall progresses into winter and I start eating oranges instead of apples (not that they should be compared), I usually find myself with an apple surplus. Sometimes we pick apples in the fall and, as they deteriorate, we stop eating them. Sometimes we get a bag of end-of-season apples really cheap. Sometimes red delicious apples come with gift baskets, and there's no way I'm going to eat those as whole fruit. This morning I realized I had about 35 apples filling up an entire fruit bin in the refrigerator and overflowing to the bottom shelf.

So, I peeled, cored and quartered them and went to work. My wife, Ellen, made several loaves of apple-pear-banana bread (we had some pears mixed in with the apples, and some rotting bananas on the counter). The remaining apples, I cut up into smaller chunks and made apple sauce: just apples, a little water, and ground cinnamon, cooked so as to preserve a lot of chunkiness. Here's some of the work product for the day (there are more loaves in the oven, and some apple sauce has been eaten at the time this photo was taken):

So . . . if you live in the northern hemisphere, what are you doing with your apples right about now?

[Magictofu]

So . . . if you live in the northern hemisphere, what are you doing with your apples right about now?

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I do not bake very often but two of my favourite deserts are apple crusts and tarte tatin... both extremely easy and no recipe needed once you've done it a couple of time.

Sometimes I also use apple peelings from the apples used in other recipes to make jelly or granita.

Otherwise you can also cook them with pork or sausage if you have apple that can withstand high temperature without turning into mush. They also make great stuffings for the holliday bird...

A bit off topic but still somewhat related, I recently saw on TV a trick to make apple sauce in a flash:

- cut your apple in quarters (do not peel, do not core)

- zap them in the microwave (only adding sugar when using older apples)

- pass them in a food mill and discard the skin and hard bits

This allows some color from the skin of the apples to come through in the sauce (green or red depending on varieties).

[Peter the eater]

We have a Ronco Dehydrator which looks like this. It doesn't work very well but still it gets hauled out every September since 2001. Last year we made some decent dried apple slices from Jonah Golds. We always manage to make apple sauce through the food mill for freezing before the end of November.

So, to answer your question, I'm thinking more about the snow shoveling I'll have to do tomorrow than the apples in the kitchen.

[snowangel]

If you have the new Gourmet Cookbook, there is a terrific recipe for apple muffins (which also works well as a quick bread.

Or, slice and saute some with a tidge of sugar and cinnamon in a cast iron skillet, and make a Dutch Baby! Add the batter after the apples have had a couple of minutes to start cooking.

[Terrasanct]

I use my handy apple peeler/corer/slicer and make dried apples, or just cut them up to make apple butter, which I stick in the freezer--easier than canning.

A few weeks ago I processed a bunch of apples, ending up with two or three with bruises or otherwise. I cut those up, took all the apple peels along with the cores and made a very nice batch of apple butter. Who'd have thought the scraps would turn out so well?

[Doodad]

I am going through them practicing tatins using Gordon Ramsay's recipe. He showed how to make them on the F word and it is ridiculously easy and delicious. The hard part is shingling the apples and getting them out of the skillet. Practice makes perfect; and in this case probably fat!

[Fat Guy]

Those of you who don't have a dedicated apple processing device, what's your strategy for peeling and coring? I'm sure I could increase my efficiency several fold if I had a good strategy.

[slkinsey]

Steven: Do you want the apples whole after peeling and coring? If pieces are okay for your use, I find that peeling around in a spiral (a good, sharp peeler is very important) and then quartering the apple and cutting out the inner point of each wedge (removing the core as well as the stem end and any tiny bits of peel remaining at the top and bottom of the apple all in one cut) is easy and efficient. I assume this is similar to your technique?

[Fat Guy]

I do a spiral from the equatorial region up to the arctic and antarctic circles depending on the shape of the apple, then cut off the ends, then quarter, then core each quarter.

[foodie52]

I cheat when I core apples. I make four square cuts, avoiding the center completely. I end up with a square center core which is just perfect for nibbling, or for tossing to the birds.

[Fat Guy]

I was doing that the other night with a couple of pears, and it definitely saves four knifestrokes over the quarter-and-core approach. But it's only an acceptable method if you don't care about the size of your pieces, because you end up with one big piece, two medium pieces and one small piece.

[Pam R]

I cut in 1/4s then peel and core. Peeling one 1/4 is a few, straight cuts. Much easier for me than spiral.

[slkinsey]

I peel beginning at the arctic circle and proceeding in more or less one spiral down to the anarctic circle. Then I cut off the bottom to make a level base. Then, balancing it on the base, cut down across the center once, turn the entire apple one quarter-turn (keeping the two halves together) and cut down across the center once again. Then I cut off the pointy axis of each quarter to remove the core in a straight cut (which also gets the stem and any residual arctic peel).

"Cutting around the center" only saves two knife-strokes on that method (unless you decide to forego making a flat base, which you could always do with my method as well so long as you don't mind maybe losing a finger) and, as Steven observes, results in unevenly sized pieces of apple -- fine for applesauce, but not so much for tarte tatin.

[snowangel]

I peel, cut and core just like Sam does. One of the problems with those peeler/corer/slicer gizmo's is that I find that depending on the size of the apple, they often remove more of the apple with the peel than I like, and the slices are thinner than I like for many applications -- the thickness of the slice is not adjustable (at least on my gizmo).

[Chris Amirault]

I find apple peeling and coring therapeutic, so it's a peeler and corer for me -- though the dohickey in Michel Richard's Happy in the Kitchen is way cool.

I have a batch of Edna Lewis's apple chutney from In Pursuit of Flavor in the fridge, a combination of Mutsus and Cortlands.

[plk]

I core first with the Oxo corer, then peel with a paring knife starting at the top and going to the bottom in a big spiral. It's easier for me to get started on the peel if the core is gone first. Then, I can slice up the nude apple any way I want pretty easily. I do have an apple peeler/corer device where you stick the apple on the end and it peels, cores, and/or slices when you crank the handle, but adjusting it has proven to be a pain, so it sits in the cupboard until I have more time to figure it out.

Oh, and I also have about 20 lbs of Oregon red delicious apples sitting here, waiting to be processed. They were a gift, but they turned out to be mealy, so they'll either become applesauce or compost.

Edited December 17, 2007 by plk (log)

[suzilightning]

lately i have made sweet potato soup with apples in them and a dish of roasted sauerkraut, apples, onions and bratwurst.

i also found a very good recipe for an apple dish that is part yeast dough and part pastry where the cooked apples are layered on crushed cookie crumbs(i use italian ladyfingers) on the pastry then it is cut and braided over the apples.

what about cooking the apples as you would to fill a pie then freeze it?

[Shelby]

A friend of mine gave me a bushel of apples. I have no idea what kind they are. They are bigger than a Jonathan.....I'm thinking maybe a McIntosh?

Anyway, HELP!

Apple butter?

Apple pie filling?

I think I could can both of those.....

They won't last past the weekend, so any ideas are greatly appreciated!

[Magictofu]

A friend of mine gave me a bushel of apples.  I have no idea what kind they are.  They are bigger than a Jonathan.....I'm thinking maybe a McIntosh? 

Anyway, HELP!

Apple butter?

Apple pie filling?

I think I could can both of those.....

They won't last past the weekend, so any ideas are greatly appreciated!

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If they are mckintosh apples, they will turn to mush when cooked... apple sauce is therefore a good option. However, they can be kept in relatively good shape if you wrap them individually in newspaper and place in a cool place, ideally a place with a high level of humidity.

[Peter the eater]

I love apples a bushel and a peck . . . make applesauce! Core, simmer, foodmill, cinnamon and sugar, freeze. Eat with pork all winter, and live to a hundred!

[pastrygirl]

Growing up, we had an apple tree in the backyard whose fruit was not great for eating out of hand, but fine for pies. Every fall, Mom would prepare several pies and freeze them unbaked. Then fresh apple pie all winter was as easy as an hour or so in the oven.

If you're a canner, how about some apple chutney for something a little different?

[Tri2Cook]

My vote would be for apple butter... but that's mainly because I really like apple butter.

[Lior]

hmmm baked apples with cinnamon and sugar, wine and walnuts- great dessert!

Do an apple themed weekend- add them to each mealin a different way! And of course, serve apple juice!

[Shelby]

Thanks for each and every idea! I am the world's WORST maker of pie crust. I would love to make pies and freeze them. Anyone want to mail me some crust

I have a juicer.....great idea about making juice. Maybe a hot cider drink on Halloween??

Apple chutney--I'll have to google and find some recipes.

Does anyone make apple butter in a slow cooker?