apples - Common Sense Home

Apple Currant Spread – Low Sugar with a Touch of Cinnamon

July 22, 2017 by Laurie Neverman 2 Comments

I came up with this low sugar apple currant spread to use up this year's bumper crop of currants. Since currants are quite tart, currant jelly uses a lot of sugar. Currant seeds are sizable, so I knew a regular jam wouldn't be popular with my family. (Plus, currant jam is still loaded with sugar.) Instead, I cooked up my currants and ran them through the chinois (food mill). This gave a mix of juice and a little bit of puree. I cooked the currant juice/puree up with some applesauce (and cinnamon), but it was still very runny and tart. (Both currants and apples have natural pectin, but not quite enough in this case.) I added sugar for sweetening, and some Pomona's low sugar pectin for thickening. Voila! [Read more…]

Easy Apple Crisp – The “No-Fuss” Alternative to Apple Pie

October 11, 2016 by Laurie Neverman 4 Comments

This easy apple crisp recipe is a “no-fuss” alternative to apple pie. I prefer to use a firm, tart apple, like Granny Smith, or in our case, the mystery apples from the wild apple tree growing on the fence line. Any apple will do – the filling will just get softer with a softer apple. During apple season, this is one of our “go to” desserts. This apple crisp recipe is simple enough that the boys can make it themselves. (They still haven't completely mastered rolling out pie crust neatly.) [Read more…]

5 Awesome Apple Dip Recipes – Caramel, Chocolate, Nuts and Cheese

September 30, 2016 by Laurie Neverman 14 Comments

One of my favorite things about fall is apple harvest – and apple dip! The thing is, last year I grabbed a container of caramel dip at the orchard without looking at the ingredients. When we got home, popped the dip container open and tasted it, I knew I had made a big mistake. It tasted like chemical preservatives and the texture was awful. The ingredient list took up one side of the container, and most of it was things that were hard to pronounce. We ended up tossing it.

This year I'm prepared! I raided my old recipe books and did some experimenting in the kitchen, and have put together five great apple dip recipes to share with you. We have Classic Caramel Apple Dip, Chocolate Almond, Maple Bacon, Walnut Ricotta Cream, and Pistachio and Blue Cheese. These are great for snacking or entertaining – heck, you could even add a few more dippers and make a full meal out of dips. Since everything can be prepped ahead, this would be a great option for holiday entertaining. [Read more…]

Preserving Apples – How to Make Applesauce, Apple Leather and Dried Apple Slices

September 12, 2015 by Laurie Neverman 22 Comments

“Hey, could you use some apples?”

“Sure, I'd love some.”

So started around two weeks (off and on) of preserving apples. There were (I would guess) around two to three bushels to start with, which we made into sauce, fruit leather, popsicles, and cinnamon/sugar dried apple slices. [Read more…]

How to Make Apple Jelly With Just Two Ingredients

August 22, 2015 by Laurie Neverman 66 Comments

The natural pectin in apples prompted the authors of Stocking Up III to call apple jelly “the simplest of jellies” because it is made with only apples and sweetener. This year we had a ton of crabapples gifted to us from a neighbor. I canned 14 quarts whole as honey-cinnamon crabapples, made some into applesauce and used some for both juice and sauce. It was nice to get two end products out of the same batch of apples. I cooked the apples up one night and made the jelly the next day so the juice had time to drain. [Read more…]