First attempt at Apple Butter

My family has a long history of making apple butter.  We used to do it in my grannies backyard in a copper cauldron, over an open fire.  That is one of the best memories I have from my childhood.  Last year we broke out the same cauldron and made applebutter.  This year I had to do it at home in my crockpot.  I had never tried this before, but I really wanted to give it a shot. 

Apple Butter
12lbs apples (sweet...not too crisp)
sugar
cinnamon
nutmeg
That's it.

    9:00pm. First peel an slice all those apples.  It took me about an hour.  Then add all the apple slices to a stockpot and add about 1/4 cup of water.  Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until apples begin to break down and volumn decreases enough to fit them into your crockpot.
   Next I added the apples to the crockpot, turned it on low, covered it and let it go until about 9:00am the next day.  Here is what it looked like at that point.  After I gave it a couple good stirs.

   I put the lid back on and let it go until 2:00pm that afternoon.  Stirring occasionally.  At this point I added my sugar and spices to taste.   I think I used about 3 cups sugar and only a little of the spices.  I like my apple butter to taste like apples....NOT Cinnamon, nutmeg or nasty, nasty cloves.  At this point I removed the lid and set the crockpot on HIGH.  I gave the mix a stir every 20 minutes or so until about 7:00pm. 
Here is what we had. ( I am talking on the telephone to my mother asking her for advice!) Thanks mom!

   I thougth the mix was thick enough so I stopped there and filled my jars with the apple butter. 

   It tasted amazing, but was a bit too thin.  I think I should have let it go a few more hours on high.  Mine is really about half way between thick apple sauce and thin apple butter, but at least I know how to do it now and can improve upon my technique next year!

Busy, Busy. Busy.

   I have been so busy lately that there hasn't been much time for creative cooking.  However, last night I had no choice.  My wife was working late so Simon and I were on our own for dinner.  I was hoping for a simple trip to a restaurant, but Simon said he wanted to go home and have dinner.  Most of the stuff we had planned for the week was too big of a meal to fix for just the two of us so we had to make something up.  The only thing you can EVER count on Simon eating much of is pasta, so that and a little from our basket and we were off to cooking.

Pasta with Sausage and Arugula

2 Sweet Italian sausage links (casing removed)
1/2 medium onion
1/2 red bell pepper
2 cloves minced garlic
5 medium tomatoes (diced)
1 tsp dried basil
1/2 cup chopped arugula
1/2 tsp Berbere spice (Ethiopian hot pepper spice)
1/4 tsp Mekelesha (I will talk about this below)
1/4 cup red wine
1 tsp red wine vinegar (only if your wine is a bit sweet as mine was!)

   I am not going to tell you how to boil pasta, but do that while you do the sauce.  I started by sauteing my sausage in a little olive oil.  I then removed it from the pan and sauted my onion, and peppers in the leftover fat until soft and then added in my garlic, tomatoes and wine.  I cooked this a little and then added my basil, berbere and Mekelesha.  Mekelesha is an Ethiopian spice blend that is a bit tough to find.  It is however, Delicious in red pasta sauces.  Check out this website to buy Ethiopian spices: http://www.ethiopianspices.com/index.asp  I know it has some cinnamon, nutmeg, and maybe some cumin in it, but I wouldn't guarantee anything.  Season with some salt and pepper and puree with a stick blender. Add back in your sausage after blending.  Right before you add the pasta (after cooking it) toss in the arugula and a bit of parmesan cheese.  It is delicious.  As you can see by the photo above.....Simon loved it!