Making use of wedding gifts: Crock Pot Apple Butter

I'm not really much of a "fall girl." You know the ones I mean: as soon as there's a nip in the air, they get a pumpkin spice latte and wear a scarf and post filtered pictures of fallen leaves on Instagram. No judgment, as those things are totally fine. I'm just not that into it. The most autumnal I've really ever gotten is to light an orange-colored scented candle, although I do love a good scarf.

However, I am a big fan of the holidays. And by extension, food that reminds me of the holidays. Usually, holiday foods are fall foods. In that spirit, today I made apple butter.

Apple butter is another thing that my granny used to make. She was the type to be up early on Thanksgiving, peeling things and baking away. I can remember several times where my mom and grandma would be peeling potatoes for what seemed like hours.

My granny didn't have a peeler, a food processor, or an apple corer, among other things. I don't even think she had a crock pot. So props to her for doing this shit old school. But it's 2014, and to quote one of the great philosophers of the 21st century, ain't nobody got time for that.

This is the recipe I used. I know you can make apple butter without a slow cooker but... why? It took me almost no time to get this going, which would not have been the case if I had had to churn something or whatever you do. Now that I have all these new gadgets that loving family and friends gave us for wedding presents, making things that might have taken me a long time before (and therefore would not have gotten made) are a snap.

(The crock pot itself was also a gift and that's because G would never let me buy one. He once said "Crock pots are a crock of shit." He certainly hasn't complained about eating anything that's come out of it, so a point to crock pots.)

I made myself a cup of tea (in my amazing PerfecTea maker, which was not a wedding gift but a Christmas present a couple years ago from my cousin) and got to work.

If you don't have a Titan peeler, you need one immediately.

I peeled three pounds of apples in about 5-10 minutes. It would have taken Granny a bit longer, I'm sure--but not that much longer.

I put them in a water bath and I'm not really sure why. Some bit of stored knowledge tells me that the apples won't turn brown if you do that, and I don't know if that's true. I did it anyway, though. They didn't turn brown. So maybe it worked?

This apple corer/slicer thing is a great invention. I don't know how I lived without it. I'm kind of all thumbs when it comes to slicing apples--usually I end up cutting way too much of them off just to try to avoid having seeds or weird things that feel like plastic (what are those?) in my mouth.

I mixed up all the sugars and spices in this little measuring bowl that's part of an amazing Joseph Joseph set, along with that blue bowl pictured above, that nests together and includes all the basics: measuring cups and a measuring bowl, a sieve, a colander and a large mixing bowl. It's awesome because I have a tiny kitchen and anything that saves space automatically gets lots of points.

Spices go into the crock pot along with the apples, mix 'em up and turn on the heat!

I somehow resisted eating one of these.

The crock pot had to go for ten hours and I'm not the best at math. So I had to get out of bed twice: once at ten in the middle of Cinderella (which I'd never seen before and was way better than expected. I hate those evil stepsisters ugh) to stir and add the vanilla flavoring and then again at midnight. I definitely didn't stay up until midnight and when the alarm went off I trudged into the kitchen, turned off the crock pot and went back to bed. The mixing can wait until the morning.

Which it did. And that was fine, because it was nice and cool by then. I ended up with three jars filled about 3/4 of the way because I wanted to give some samples to friends.

I put some on a piece of toast when I got home this afternoon. It's delicious! It does taste a bit like applesauce, but what's the difference really? Not much, IMO.

I plan to use it for this recipe ASAP. Doesn't that look amazing! Maybe tomorrow I'll stop by Publix on the way home for some fresh brie.

Verdict: Pretty easy to make but either start it very early or very late so you don't have to wake up in the middle of the night to stir it like me. I'm sure I'll make it again. Doesn't really have that usual apple butter consistency or flavor I'm used to, but still delicious nonetheless. 8/10

Catching Up and a Persimmon Pie

Hey, yes, hello. Its been a while. A lot has happened, good and bad. Let's talk about the good!

I got married! Yay!

I'll have to do a post of honeymoon pictures soon. The wedding was beautiful and everything I'd never even dreamed possible. I haven't gotten the pics from the official photographer yet but I'll post those up too.

So it's fall now, and that's suddenly very apparent here in Florida. This weekend we've gotten down into the 30s. But it'll be back to the 80s during the week which is fine with me.

Anyway, I was after some jelly because we had really lackluster, mass-produced sugar-free jellies in the house and I was tired of it. Jelly is just not the place you want to skimp on sugar. I decided to buy a nice jam so I went to the Jacksonville Farmers Market and found these guys on the way to the jams.

Persimmons! When I was a kid, my granny had a persimmon tree. She'd use them to make stuff but it'd been so long I couldn't even remember what they taste like, only that I liked them. So then I sent a pic to my husband, and this happened:

He is from Chicago and I guess that might excuse it--I don't know if they have persimmons up there--but "Those tomatoes look funny" is probably the most hilarious thing he could have said. He really had no idea what a persimmon was. (Bonus wordplay joke below; how do I love thee...)

So if you don't know what a persimmon is either, let me enlighten you. They are sweet and taste sort of like a date. They're a fall thing and pies made with them are way less common than pumpkins and apples, which of course makes me partial to them. So I made a pie.

Story time: I didn't know how many to buy, and the Asian-American woman who sold them to me did not understand my Southern accent when I asked "How many of these do I need to make a pie?" She kept repeating "Pah? A pah? What are you making?" So I just Googled it and found a recipe I wanted to use, saw that it asked for 4 cups and then eyeballed it: I bought nine for $3.

Just so you know, I think I might have made one pie in my life, and I can't remember it, so it's safe to say I'm pretty new at this.

I used this recipe from Loveless Cafe. It looked pretty simple.

First step, cut the persimmons in half and scoop out the middles. After I did that, I tried to use my hand mixer to smoosh them up, but I guess they were a little too firm. Out came the food processor!

That did the trick.

Add an egg, some cream, etc. etc.

I love the look of the cream part! So swirly.

I didn't bother making my own pie crust, because screw that. I bought a frozen one and poured my creation inside. It fit perfectly, which meant that I had eyeballed the amount of persimmons correctly and I was quite pleased with myself.

While it was in the oven, I definitely didn't eat the leftover batter.

After I baked it, the middle removed itself from the crust a bit on the sides--I guess the ingredients got smaller with the heat. Oh well.

We put some whipped cream on top. It tasted really good. So good that I forgot to take a picture of it. G loved it, saying he'd rather have persimmon pie any day over pumpkin pie.

My verdict: pies are pretty easy to make. Persimmons are fun and different. Yummy. 10/10

Oh, and by the way: I bought that piña colada jam from Frog Bakery at the Farmer's Market and it is DELISH. Check her out and get some stuff from her!