apples!

I've had apples on the brain the last few weeks. I'm starting to switch gears from sewing as my major project focus to cooking

(stocking up for Miss C's birth). Our apple baking that we've been planning to do this month will trigger the start of my major cooking. So, when I decorated our white board for the month it

had apples on it (I use the white board to keep track of things that tend to change often like grocery/gas spending, shopping list, projects, and special instructions for the kids such as restrictions, medications, extra rewards etc. and we always have a verse at the top for the month). Of course I had to wear my new apple apron while processing apples!

I spent quite a bit of time Friday evening and Saturday cutting up and processing apples. Apples were on sale at the commissary and though we are planning a trip up to an orchard in a couple of weeks I thought I'd get a head start with the ones from the commissary. I learned how to make apple butter in the crock pot last year at this site , but this year I used my huge roaster oven to make it in! I started it on Friday night, added the sugar and spices Saturday morning

and by lunch time I was able to serve some with lunch (though the rest still needed to cook longer)! The apple butter is so good on homemade biscuits with a bit of butter! YUM! I canned almost all of the apple butter, it sure made up a bunch! We'll use it on muffins, sandwiches etc. but also on one of my favorite fall recipes "apple harvest rolls" they are like cinnamon rolls, but use apple butter and chopped apples in the filling as well. I'll be making those in a couple of weeks after going to the orchard!

I also had several pots of apple sauce cooking yesterday. I only managed to can two jars though. One pot was served with dinner, and by the time the other two pots were done my poor feet and back were just too tired to can them, so we'll just enjoy the apple sauce this week. I'm sure my kids will not mind one bit!

Speaking of kids... While I was busy with the apples the rest of the family had a fairly quiet day around the house, though at one point Rob did take most of the kids out on an errand. The kids would wander in from time to time to check on my progress and maybe get an apple (or swipe some bits I'd already pealed and chopped!), but for the most part they all enjoyed the time to just play.