Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Strainers? Strainers? We Dun Need No Stinkin' Strainers!

Excuse me while I pat myself on the back. I am a city gal who loves the thought of being a homesteader, but my husband seems to laugh and snort milk out of his nose in hysterics every time I mention anything about it.

Every year since we have moved to Pennsylvania I have wanted to do the magical "go-to-the-orchard-and-get-tons-of-apples-and-make-them-into-various-homey-recipes" thing. This year I actually bought the apples and they sat in a huge bag on the floor of my kitchen for a week and a half. I figured it was time to get on with it.

I decided that I would make a small batch of applesauce since I had no forethought to borrow more than my own one large pot. No matter, it was the first time I had made cooked applesauce anyway and I figured I should start small. When my kids were little I would make them raw applesauce lest they lose and nutrients in the cooking process, but all that took was some cut apples and a blender. Not a lot of skill or "know how" there!

So I snagged a recipe online and I was off. I washed and cored and cut my apples and set them to cook on the stove. Off for the next step. Use a food mill. Um, a what? I have a lot of kitchen appliances as I love to cook, but a food mill. Quite sure I don't have one of those... well now. Hmmm.

After they had sufficiently cooked I mashed away and the result was lovely applesauce complete with lumps of skin. Not so attractive, I had not actually thought this all the way through. I knew quite well that the skins would not simply vanish on their own, so in the absence of a "food mill" I had to think of some way to extricate the skins.

That's when my brilliance shone through. I grabbed my handy dandy plastic colander and strained it that way. And it looked cool and tasted good and is almost gone. Why did I do this again?

The next project... apple butter and apple bread. This time I just might read the recipes all the way through first.

4 comments:

Jamie said...

LOL how funny! I hate when things like that happen... I've learned to read through the recipe before I even think of making something! How yummy...I love fresh, homemade applesauce!

Laura said...

Oh, yum!

Let us know how the apple butter making goes and share the recipe. My kids go through apple butter like crazy!

We are planning the orchard expedition here, too. 'Course, we gotta find an orchard first. LOL!

Anonymous said...

Too FUNNY!! I have decided this year we are doing a home-made Christmas tree - fresh cut tree, trimmed only with things that we have made...

Well, last night I set about making one of the ornaments that I chose as a project - it took 2 1/2 hours. Needless to say, John will be fetching our ornaments from the attic. :) At least our intentions are pure, right?

Anonymous said...

I just had to laugh when I saw a google ad for strainers in your sidebar. We don't need no strainers! Ha!

I had an applesauce stainer, but I think it is in my mom's storage container. They are pretty cool. I know my kids would enjoy turning the wooden press. Then again, maybe they would use it as a club. :)