APPLE BUTTER THE EASY WAY

Crock Pot Apple Butter

-By-

Neil Waring

Revered Wyoming Chef, an outdoor cooking expert, admired woodsmen, author, and honored citizen.

At one time I was more active on this blog, hard to be less active than I am now at the rate of one post each year. What happened? I ran out of things I could cook. It seems I spent much more time on my Wyoming Fact and Fiction blog and my western writing blog. These days. For long-time followers, I also write, sporadically, on a gardening blog. But I’m back, today something new.

Late summer in Wyoming and many other parts of America it is apple picking time. It’s not hard to find free apples in any neighborhood. This year I made one of my favorite’s Apple Butter. On a cold winter morning, almost nothing tastes better than Apple Butter on Toast.

Pick them off the tree or pick them up from the ground

Ingredients

Apples :-)

Sugar – brown or white granulated, I prefer brown

Cinnamon, ground allspice, ground clove

That’s it, my friends

Crock Pot Apple Butter

1.  Get some apples, if you are lucky someone might bring you a sack or basket full.

2.  Peel apples. I like to see how many I can peel in one long peel like my dad used to do. Answer 2, not bad. Don’t remember how many apples I had eight or ten I guess.

3.  Cut apples into chunks, small ones. How small? Approximately ½ inch pieces.

4.  Keep peeling and chunking until the crock pot is full. I use a small 2-quart cooker for this.

Ready to cook

5.  I do not believe extra water is needed, but I put in one tablespoon in the bottom to start. I like to cook everything high and fast, pretty hard with a slow cooker, but add the water to make sure the bottom pieces do not stick and burn. Not sure how they could with me checking and stirring ever hour – but, you never know.

6.  After one hour on high, add one cup of brown sugar, two teaspoons of cinnamon, one teaspoon of allspice, and ½ teaspoon of ground clove.

One hour after adding seasonings

7.  Turn to low and let it cook. I check every hour or two and mash any large chunks I see with a fork.

8.  After six hours I turn the pot to warm – the lowest setting and leave it alone overnight.

9.  Spread on toast and enjoy. Keep refrigerated after opening. If you are not hot water sealing the jars, refrigerate all of the butter. Don’t worry it won't last long.

Yum - Ready to eat

Apple Butter Notes – adjust the sugar, cinnamon, clove and allspice to your taste. Many recipes call for twice this amount of sugar, but it seems over the top sweet to me with this much sugar. I love the flavor of clove, but if the butter has too much it will make your mouth feel a bit numb, not sure it that is good or not. How do I know this? Let's just say through experimentation.

Good Luck – My wife uses this in various baked goods, and it makes everything taste better, try it on hot dogs, delicious. Maybe!

Final Note – Do people still call them crock pots? I think in the past twenty years, or so they have become slow cookers. No matter still makes great apple butter and don’t call it jelly.

Nice to be back

Here is a link to my books - Note - gardening book coming soon!

Western Breakfast Bake

Western  Breakfast Bake

By

Neil Waring

Revered Wyoming Chef, outdoor cooking expert, admired woodsmen, writer, and honored citizen.

Well, no excuses it had been 11 months since I have posted here. I hope you are following my other blogs and keeping in touch. I have been busy writing and publishing, you can find all five of my books here. Someday soon, I hope to put together a book of my recipes, who knows?

But enough of that – I have a new breakfast dish for you to try.

Like all of my other’s it is easy and doesn’t dirty too many dishes.

Western Breakfast Bake

Stuff you need – Ingredients

1.     6 eggs or a half dozen, whatever you have

2.     ¼ cup milk or a touch less

3.     Pepper – to taste

4.     Bacon, 6 strips or a bunch of bits (I love bacon bits, taste good with just about anything, not so good with cereal, trust me on that one).

5.     5 English Muffins or biscuits   (I have tried both, muffins are easier)

6.     4 slices of cheese, whatever you like – Please don’t use mozzarella, this is not Pizza – I prefer a medium cheddar

7.     ½ teaspoon of baking powder

~That’s it, seven ingredients~

Spray or butter a cooking dish or pan – I use a glass pie plate. They are cool because they are excellent for cooking and you can see through them – sweet.

Split, and toast, 3 English muffins and place the six pieces around the bottom of the dish (Note – these need to be toasted first, or they will get mushy in the finished dish)

Put a bunch of butter on each one – yum! Not kidding

Sprinkle with a generous dose of bacon bits (I cover them) or put your 6 strips of bacon across the muffins. (Don’t forget to pre-cook the bacon, if you have them the bits are much better)

Scramble 6 eggs with the ¼ cup milk, baking powder, and pepper – I use a fork.      Fun here to put on some music and dance around the kitchen while scrambling, fun and funny until the music picks up then it can cause a mess, I stick to a good version of some country swing

Pour mix over the muffins and bacon.

Cover with your four squares of cheese, I rip each into two or three pieces to make it all fit nicely

Bake in pre-heated 350-degree oven for 25-30 minutes, make sure the middle of the pan is solid – this will be the last bit to cook through.

The Muffins will float to the top and the eggs will find a way to get to the bottom of the pan, giving you a terrific looking breakfast casserole and easy too.

These are one of our favorite breakfasts. Did you notice, no salt? I figure the bacon will take care of that.

Remember eggs are serious – they used to be quite the jokers, but they were always cracking each other up!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving

My Kitchen Disaster

Kitchen disaster, I completely ruined an apple crisp yesterday, I really miss that crisp. I was so hungry for apple crisp topped with vanilla ice cream. The problem? It was too sweet, I put the sugar in twice, at least. My wife, who is a wonderful baker, saved the day. She made coffee cake with my crisp-like-stuff in the middle. It was terrific!

Think I will stick to cooking and forget the baking!

Well, as we used to say - A good baker will rise to the occasion, it's the yeast he can do.