Apples and Cinnamon

Poor apples. Ever since the whole Garden of Eden thing* they've suffered from bad PR. Sure, they've got that whole "apple a day" thing going for them. Unfortunately, now we know that if you are going to have an apple a day, it had better be organic. Apples are the most pesticide contaminated produce that you can buy.

Of course, if you are lucky, someone you know will have an apple tree in their back yard and they will be begging their friends and neighbors to take some off their hands. Apple trees aren't very common in the desert where I live, but sometimes you get lucky. We went to a friend's house for a Father's Day barbecue last Sunday. His mom had brought over a bag of apples from her backyard tree and invited anyone who was interested to come over and pick some.

No way I'm passing up an opportunity to pick free, homegrown, organic apples!!! Bubba and I made arrangements to be there the following afternoon and I picked my own apples for the first time in my life. Bubba even helped. I was glad because he wanted nothing to do with picking peaches a few weeks ago. It's funny, because you tend to think of picking apples as something you do in September, not June. They were ready though. You'd pull one down and two more would fall and hit you in the head.

We took home twelve pounds of apples. I ate one in the car and it was fantastic - halfway between sweet and sour with the perfect amount of crunch. I hate mushy apples!

Today, I started peeling, coring, and chopping some of those apples. Yup - I do it by hand. No fancy unitaskers here.

After I had prepared enough for one batch of jam, I realized I had barely made a dent in the bag! I actually ended up making about three batches of jam and still have about half of the apples left. The website on which I found the recipe had a glitch in it's code or something, because I swear to you the line in the ingredients graphic that said White Sugar was NOT THERE when I made the first batch. I thought it was strange, because jam normally calls for a LOT of sugar. Also, the recipe tells you to stir in the sugars, plural. I looked at the list and all I could see was brown sugar. I looked it over again and again and there was nothing else, so I figured maybe it was a typo. The finished jam was tart, but not bad.

Well, then I lost my internet connection. Sometimes this happens on my laptop and the only way to get it back is to reboot. Thank goodness for Google Chrome and how it remembers the last tabs you had open! When I checked the recipe to start my second batch, darned if that line for the white sugar hadn't reappeared! I ended up dumping the first batch of jam back into the pot, adding the missing sugar, bringing it back to a boil and then re-canning and processing it. It tastes fine and is just a little darker than the other batches. Still, I won't be selling those jars. I'll make a notation on the label so I know those are just for us to have at home. :)

This stuff tastes just like apple pie filling! My husband commented that if I were to put some into a little folded over pie crust, it would be like having homemade Hostess pies at home. I plan to have some on fresh baked bread tomorrow while cranking the AC and pretending it's fall already.

I have eleven 8oz jars ($5) and six 4oz jars ($3) available for sale, if anyone is interested! Just let me know.

*yes, I know that the fruit Eve tasted was probably more likely to have been a pomegranate, but popular legend blames the apple even though the fruit in question was never actually named.