The Portion of my Inheritance

I am not sure how much more I can take, I can barely hold on. The hot Texas sun wears on me and I am suffocating from it.  My heart longs for my beloved fall and I hold on to hope that it is just around the corner. I grasp for it prematurely and create moments to bring me closer to it.

It’s almost here. . . It’s almost here . . .

It’s not quite apple time, but I seize an opportunity when Azure has apples for sale. I can not help myself and I go for it. I hear it everywhere, “It’s not time for apples.”

But I take the plunge anyway and my apples come and I spend the day with my apples.

Ginger Gold are these apples. A little different than what I am used to and everyone reminds me again, “Well, it’s just not time for apples.” But I am determined.  The Ginger Gold apples have a soft texture with a tart taste.

I started with one of my favorites, dehydrated apples. After all, my children got me a dehydrator for my birthday last year and I haven’t had the opportunity to use it.

I pull out my handy dandy apple peeler, slicer, and corer. But they were too soft to peel or slice, so I settled for just coring the apples, then I sliced them by hand with a knife.

I soak them in distilled water and citric acid for a few minutes, sprinkled them with organic cinnamon and put them in the dehydrator for about 6 hours. The house smelled amazing!

Let me just say that I love, love, love this dehydrator. Purchased at Amazon here.

The apples however is a bit of a different story. That little tart kick turned into very sour apples. The girls didn’t like it, too sour for them, but their daddy liked them.

My next apple project was to make applesauce. I had little hope of it turning out very edible for the girls. I was sure it was going to be too sour for them, but I could not let my apples go bad.

Another wonderful gift from my kids, the Food Strainer, Sauce Maker, also purchased from Amazon here.

This is the coolest thing ever and I had so much fun using it. It was hard physically for me to put it together, my son-in-law had to do the strong arm stuff, but I did manage to take it apart alone.

I cut the apples in fourths, cutting out the bad parts and bruises, put them in a pot and covered them with distilled water. I cooked them for about 20-30 minutes, then put them in a colander to drain the excess water.

You simply put the apples in the top bowl and crank the handle.  Apple sauce comes out one side and all the trash-skin, seeds, core-comes out another side.

Next I put the apple sauce back into the pot and added sugar. For the amount that I had I added 1 cup or organic sugar. I also added 1 heaping teaspoon of organic cinnamon. I cooked it until it was hot and bubbly, making sure everything was mixed together.

l had already prepared my jars and lids by boiling them in water to sterilize them. While they were still hot I spooned the hot apple sauce into the jars filling them up almost to the top. I left about an 1/2 inch at the top.

l boiled them in a water bath for about 30 minutes, then I just sat back and listened to the lids pop. A wonderful sound.

I did sample the applesauce and I was pleasantly surprised! It tasted amazing. It was not too tart after all.

There were a few apples left that were beginning to get some bad spots, so I cut those out and made apple crisp for supper.

Absolute apple love

Keep me as the apple of the eye; Hide me in the shadow of Your wings.  Psalms 17:8