Comfort Food: Cinnamon Cranberry Applesauce

One of my favorite comfort foods this season has been homemade applesauce, cooked up in my crockpot. It's easy. It's healthy. It fills my home with lovely autumnal aromas while cooking. And it's inexpensive, but feels fancy and tastes rich; in fact, we usually have it for dessert. It's also open to endless variations of spices and mix-ins. Here's the recipe for my favorite version:

Slow-Cooker Cinnamon Cranberry Applesauce

5-6 apples, peeled, cored, and roughly chopped
1 Tb lemon juice
1/4 C water
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (or a bit more, if you really like cinnamon, like I do)
1 Tb brown sugar
1/4 to 1/2 cup dried cranberries

Use a 4-quart slow cooker. (Recipe could be easily doubled for a 5 or 6 quart slow cooker, or halved for a 1.5 or 2 quart slow cooker). Put the apples in the crock. Add the lemon juice, water, vanilla, cinnamon, and brown sugar. Give it all a stir.

Cover and cook on low for 4 to 6 hours. The apples are done cooking when tender enough to mash up with a fork. Do that, and then stir in the dried cranberries. Let cook for another half hour or so to allow the cranberries to plump up nicely. Serve warm (which I find most comforting) or cold, whichever you prefer. Serves 4-6.

Notes: The cranberries give this applesauce an extra texture element, and also a sweet-tart zing, which I really like. Depending on what kind of apples you use and your own tastes, you may want to adjust the amount of sugar used.

An Apple a Day: Friday

I won't be posting the recipe for today's apple dish until later because, well, I made it up, and I'm not sure how it's going to turn out. A few hours ago I threw a bunch of stuff (including 3 apples) into my crockpot. When it's done cooking in a few hours, it will be Slow-Cooker Chicken, Apple, & Sweet Potato Curry. Right now it's creating lovely aromas in my kitchen. How it will taste at dinner, however, is yet to be discovered. If it's a hit, you'll see the recipe posted here in the near future. If it's a miss...well, I suggest you go back to Tuesday and make apple butter, because that stuff is GOOD. I've been eating it every chance I get - on English muffins at breakfast, on my turkey sandwich at lunch, as a dip for crackers...

- BTW -
I'm participating in the inaugural edition of The Pick of the Patch over at Windy Poplars - a Friday collection of best posts from the week.

An Apple a Day: Thursday

Today's apple recipe comes from Aarti, winner of the most recent season of The Next Food Network Star. Travis and I really enjoyed watching this show over the summer. I was pulling for Aarti all the way and was delighted when she won in the end, giving her a shot at her own show on Food Network, called Aarti Party. Her "angle" is adding an Indian touch to both familiar and new dishes, thereby helping home cooks get comfortable and familiar with the spices, flavors, and cooking techniques used in Indian cuisine.

On Tuesday my best friend and I joined cooking forces for our second "Aarti Party dinner & pinochle night" and made two dishes from her show. The main dish was Mango BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches, which turned out super yummy. The second dish (and this is where the apple comes in) was an Apple-Lime-Peanut Slaw. The lime juice base of the dressing really gives it a kick, and the cumin brings in some Indian warmth. This is not your typical slaw, but it's very tangy and refreshing and we all liked it. When I make it again, I will probably go the easier route of buying a bag of pre-shredded cabbage. This was my first encounter with a head of cabbage, and I discovered that achieving small, even strips is no easy thing!

An Apple a Day: Wednesday

It's my turn to bring refreshments to our Wednesday evening small group meeting, which was a wonderful reason to bake my apple spice bundt cake. After a couple of harrowing entries into the RC 2010 Challenge, I am relieved to return to my familiar friend, the bundt cake. So much less fuss and stress. And way fewer dishes and things to wash. Happy all around!

Apple Spice Bundt Cake

Ingredients:
1/3 cup vegetable or canola oil
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups sugar (or Splenda for baking)
3 large eggs
3 to 4 tart apples, peeled, cored, and diced
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional...I usually leave them out, but if you're nuts about nuts, by all means, throw them in!)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350. Spray a bundt pan with non-stick cooking/baking spray.
2. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt.
3. In a large bowl, combine oil, applesauce, eggs, and sugar. Using a hand mixer, mix on high speed until bright yellow.
4. Gradually add dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing on medium speed until just incorporated.
5. Fold in vanilla and apples and, if desired, nuts.
6. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 75 to 90 minutes.
7. Remove pan from oven and let cool on a wire rack for 5-10 minutes.
8. Invert cake onto wire rack and let cool completely.

If you're feeling indulgent, serve drizzled with warm caramel sauce.


Tomorrow's Apple a Day Recipe: Apple-Lime-Peanut Slaw

An Apple a Day: Tuesday

Today I'm cooking up a big batch of apple butter. Early this morning I peeled, cored, and cut into eighths a combination of Cortland, McIntosh, and Gala apples (15 in all) and set them to cook on low for 8 hours in my 6-quart crockpot, with a tablespoon of vanilla extract drizzled over the top. While I was peeling I had the idea to include a few of the long, curly peel pieces on top, thinking perhaps they'll lend some of their color and flavor to the apples cooking below. Not really sure, but it looks pretty!

When time's up on the first phase of cooking, I'll pick out the peels and mash up the apples. Then I'll stir in 1/2 cup white sugar, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, and 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves, then let the mixture cook on low for another 6 hours.(Below: the apple mixture after phase one)

This is a new recipe for me, so I am eager to see how it turns out. It should be done cooking just before bedtime tonight, so I will update this post tomorrow some photos, a report on the taste, and whether any recipe adjustments are in order.

~ UPDATE ~

After cooking for 6 hours in phase two, the apple mixture smelled AMAZING but was still rather thin, so I set it to cook on high for about 45 minutes with the lid off to cook off some of the liquid. That seemed to do the trick. Next, I was looking for a smoother consistency, so I used an immersion blender to even out the texture, then let it sit for another half hour or so on low to really come together and get thick. (In case you're wondering, bedtime got moved back quite a bit! Next time I think I'll do phase one overnight and begin phase two in the morning.)

The 15 apples I started out with cooked down to about 7 cups of apple butter. On my last trip to the grocery store I was happy to discover that Ball (the canning company) now makes plastic 8 oz. freezer jars (in a pack of 5) perfect for projects like this.

I had some of the apple butter on an English muffin for breakfast this morning and it was a perfect taste of autumn. I like my apple butter just a little on the tart side, so the amount of sugar I used was perfect. If you try this out, you'll want to adjust the sugars (up to 3/4 cup of each) based on your taste preferences and the natural sweetness of the apples you use.

Tomorrow's Apple a Day Recipe: Apple Spice Bundt Cake!

An Apple a Day: Monday

Since I have a bushel of apples in my fridge from going apple-picking on Labor Day (see previous post), it's time to put them to good use. Each day this week (M-F) I'll be posting a recipe that uses apples...some of them are tried-and-true favorites, while others I'll be testing out for the first time this week. I hope you'll find one or two recipes intriguing enough to try yourself! Happy autumn!

Today's recipe is for Creamy Chicken Apple Chili. There are so many things I appreciate about chili. Among them: (a) the way it warms you up from the inside out; (b) beans are a really inexpensive, healthy, and filling ingredient; and (c) there are endless variations. Of the many different kinds of chili I've made (including three-bean turkey chili, Hawaiian chili, smoky BBQ venison chili, vegetarian chili, and pumpkin chili), this is the recipe I come back to most often. It's not what most people think of when they think chili, but BOY OH BOY is it good. It's like a hug in a bowl. Even my meat-loving husband has declared this his favorite chili.

I make a few changes to the original recipe (by Rachael Ray):

• I use only about a pound or so of boneless, skinless chicken breasts (vs. 2 lbs of chicken tenders)
• I use about half as much shredded cheese (1 cup is plenty!), and whatever I have on hand, whether it's a jack-cheddar blend, sharp cheddar, mozzarella, or most recently, havarti. The flavor changes a little bit, of course, but it's always been good. 
• I make it with pinto beans; I really like their texture in this.
• I usually serve it with corn muffins instead of tortillas.

Leave a comment and let me know if you try this recipe yourself!