Apple Sauce & Apple Butter

After preserving apple pie filling, I still had a tonne of apples inundating my fridge.


So, I decided to make some apple sauce and apple butter.  Apple sauce is very easy to make and tastes much better made from scratch than the sugar-filled sauce you'll buy at the grocery store.  I took some inspiration from Marisa's, at Food in Jars, apple sauce recipe


Apple Sauce


5 lbs apples
1/2 cup of apple juice
1 tbsp of cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp of clove
2 pieces of star anise
2 heaping tablespoons of honey


I don't have a foodmill, so I peeled, cored and sliced my apples ahead of time.  Add apples, apple juice and star anise to a non-reactive pot and let cook until apples soften.  Once apples are getting softer, add cinnamon, clove and nutmeg.  Stir every few minutes.  After about 15 minutes, apples will be quite soft.

Remove star anise.  I like a blended consistency for my apple sauce, so I used my immersion blender.  Then, I added honey to taste.


While apple sauce is cooking, prepare jars by putting them in a water canner on a slow boil to sterilize.  I usually leave them in there for about 15 minutes.

Pour applesauce into your prepared jars leaving 1/2 inch of headspace. Wipe rims, apply lids and screw on rings. Process in a boiling water canner for 15 minutes for half pints and pints, 20 minutes for quarts.

When time has elapsed, remove jars from canner and let them cool on a towel-lined countertop.

To store, remove rings and keep in a cool, dark place. Applesauce will keep in storage up to one year.
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I knew I wanted to use at least part of my apple sauce to make apple butter.  Apple butter is also very easy to make.  You just take apple sauce and cook it down more to make it into a thicker consistency. This can be done on the stove, in the oven or in a slow-cooker.  

It seemed simplest to me to use the slow-cooker. 

I started with 2.5 litres of apple sauce and let it cook on low for about 16-18 hours.  This may be more time than necessary, but I didn't follow instructions and left the lid on overnight.  I should have left the lid partially open so that the water being released from the sauce would evaporate more.   Maybe it's for the best since I only stirred it once during the night rather than more regularly, as required.

As it cooks, it gets darker and thicker.  You'll know that it's ready when you put it on a plate and, after leaving it for a minute or so, water doesn't form around the mound of apple butter.

In the end, I reduced the sauce by half and ended up with 1.25 litres of apple butter.

Go ahead and can that, following these instructions.  

By this point -- I had used up all of my apples!  Success!  

Until.... I went and visited Giz this past weekend and picked about 3 bags worth of apples.  Doh!

Cranberry Sauce

I never love cranberry sauce or jelly out of a tin. It's just not as flavourful as home made. And why wouldn't you make home made - it's just so easy and supports our local cranberry farmers.

I happened to be following Johnston Cranberries on Twitter (@CranberryFarmer) and saw a recent marketing video for his farm. Many thanks to Jake Thomas of Riley_Lake_Productions (@RileyLakeFilmTV on Twitter) for allowing us to share this wonderful video about cranberry production on the Johnston Cranberry Farm.

1 pkg (12oz) fresh cranberries

1 cup orange juice

1/2 cup sugar

In a medium saucepan stir together orange juice and sugar. Add cranberries and cook on medium heat, stirring often for about 15 minutes. Cranberries will start to pop and soften. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

I can't even share a finished product with you - it was all gone before I could even get a photograph.

Melbourne: Part I

R and I met about 11 years ago. We were both planning to live and work abroad, in London. After an initial meeting at a restaurant a few months before starting the trip, we met for a second time in the departure lounge at the Toronto Pearson Airport to catch our flight to London Heathrow.

We were pretty much inseparable from that point and found a flat together, along with 4 other guys (a mix of Aussies, Kiwis and Italians). I was a bit hesitant to live with 5 guys, but after hearing daily stories about my colleague's four female flatmates, I was quite content to be with a group of guys (despite the Playboy poster that hung in the kitchen).

When we started to plan our trip to Australia, we sent a message to the Aussie flatmates (who are still travelling the world) for advice. This is the first time we got a sense of the rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne. Here's the advice we got from our flatmate from Sydney:

not too sure about melbourne but bring your turtle neck sweater so you can fit in with the other Melbournites when you're sipping a latte writing poetry on your computer wearing a beret.

Alrighty then!

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We flew from Sydney (read about our time in Sydney here: part 1, part 2 and part 3) to the last destination, Melbourne.  We were lucky to have some friends and family in Melbourne.

On our first full day, a friend who has moved from Toronto to Melbourne took us on a walking tour around central Melbourne.  We met up at Flinder's Station and went from there.  Here's just some of what we saw:

This is Flinder's Station:



Across from Flinder's Station:

Melbourne is known for its great restaurants, coffee culture and the uniqueness of the various areas of the city.  I would love to spend more time getting to know the cafes, restaurants and laneways.  This laneway is called Centre Place.

Melbourne has these fancy (I probably am not allowed to walk through here) arcades that look like something out the Victorian era.  This is the Royal Arcade.

This is the visual orgasm that is the Hopetoun Tea Rooms.  

These amazing-looking desserts can be found in the Block Arcade.

Also in Block Arcade is Haigh's Chocolate

They sell high quality chocolate, which we taste-tested for good measure:

Another thing you'll notice is that there is a lot of graffiti in Melbourne.  Sure, some of it is just tags.  But, a lot of it is really impressive.  There has even been some debate around the protection of the street art.

On a separate visit downtown, we stopped in to the Cupcake Bakery.

I think this is their molten chocolate:

and this is the lemon meringue:

View of downtown:

I'll stop there... But stay tuned because there's more to come!