Friday, September 11, 2009

Transparent Apples & Magazine Monday Reminder

First, the reminder: Monday is once again Magazine Monday, and this will be the last time I host, as our usual host, Ivonne of Creampuffs in Venice, will be back from her travels and will return to her MM hosting duties for the Sept. 21 edition of MM. So, if you've made a magazine recipe recently and would like me to feature it in my own MM post on Monday, send me an email at wandering_coyoteATyahooDOTca with the link to your post and I'll include it.

Onto apples. It's apple season here, and the other day my roommate said she'd spoken to the neighbour, who owns the house right next to ours, and the neighbour said we were welcome to the apples on the tree there. I didn't realize they were ripe as they were still a pale green colour, but apparently, that's just the variety. My roommate, J, said that she & her family call this particular type of apple "transparents" and some of her family members say that these transparents are excellent for apple sauce and apple pie. So, off I went to pick a bag full and bring them home.

The tree was absolutely laden with apples, and there were lots of the fruit on the ground, too. The apples on the tree were in generally good condition, not very wormy-looking. But it appeared that I'd gotten there a tad bit too late, because some of the fruit were rotting on the tree and the apples left were very soft. I picked a cloth grocery bag full and took them off home, where I planned on turning most of my booty into apple pie filling. I'm not a huge user of apple sauce, and I thought it would be cool to have some pre-made, homemade apple pie filling around over the winter for pies & crumbles.

Well...I had good intentions, for sure. But the apples wouldn't co-operate. After peeling & corning for what seemed like ages - and soaking the peelless apples in a lemony water bath to keep the browning at bay - and then slicing, I had two pots full of apples.

I added a bit of water, and a cup or so of sugar and brought the apples to a boil. I didn't think they'd disintegrate into much so quickly or easily. I added ginger, cinnamon, all spice, and nutmeg, and let them simmer. I then made a slurry with some flour (cornstarch thickened stuff sometimes doesn't freeze well) and added it to the bubbling apples. The mixture tightened up right away, so I put the whole sha-bang out on the porch to cool down as quickly as possible. This attracted some wasps, even though the lid was firmly on the pot.

Here is what the end result looked like:
And here is the pie filling ready to freeze. I got 14 cups plus a little left over for snacking on.
Yes, it's mushy & doesn't look like the greatest pie filling in the world, but it'll do, and I was grateful for the free apples!

I also made a tart with the apples, but that is for an upcoming post, so you'll have to wait & see the results (hint: excellent)!

12 comments:

Heather S-G said...

I'm thinking it looks like some yummy, chunky applesauce! Although, I'd take it as a pie filling anyday ;)

Inspired by eRecipeCards said...

Easy as pie... Thanks for all the support, you are entered in the contest as much as possible, I am rooting for you

Rosa's Yummy Yums said...

That's always very useful and delicious!

Cheers,

Rosa

Palidor said...

It may be mushy but it still looks really tasty! Once it's all baked in the pie, it won't make a difference. I once bought the wrong kind of apples when I made apple crisp. I usually like Royal Galas because they are firm and hold their shape. I can't remember what I bought instead (Paula Reds, maybe), but they turned to mush in the dish.

Dewi said...

I never heard of this transparent apple, but free apple sound good to me.

Tina said...

How kind of your neighbor to allow you access to the apples. that's cool. Your roommates must be in heaven with you cooking so many cool recipes!

Donna-FFW said...

I adore homemade applesauce and cant wait to make some of my own. I can almost smell it.. MMMMMM

Anonymous said...

Yum! It's great to have stuff like that on hand. I love getting free produce. I got a crapload of apples last year, too, and made apple butter.

Reeni said...

That's so cool! I bet the filling is delicious, it's got to be better than canned.

Wandering Coyote said...

Thanks everyone, for all your positive comments! I'm sure this filling will be fine once I cook it up under some nice crumble topping...I can even add some fresh apple slices to it to make it a bit chunkier.

NKP said...

What a great idea to freeze it.
I would just warm up a little bowl of it and throw in some vanilla ice cream!
The filling would be great for some quickie danishes with frozen puff pastry.

La Cuisine d'Helene said...

This is so great to eat fresh apples from the tree. There is nothing like it. I love making applesauce at this time of the year.

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