11 October 2009

Apple Butter and Mango Salsa

Two weeks ago, I tried my hand at another preserving venture. This time on the menu: apple butter. I love love love apple butter. It makes me very happy. So Jason and I went to Russell Orchards, picked up some Gravenstein apples (a very good variety for sauces), found a tasty-looking recipe online, went out and bought a foley mill, and got down to work. Here are the lovely apples at the beginning:and at the end:(Pictures of apple butter in progress are not very beautiful. But here is a picture of Jason swirling the foley mill, which he enjoyed a lot more than squishing strawberries between his fingers.)I found the recipe here and altered it slightly. Next time, I probably won't use quite as much lemon.

I'm planning on selling my apple butter at show #3 in Peabody alongside the strawberry jam and strawberry lemon marmalade that isn't claimed from my giveaway back in July. For those of you who won, it has not left my mind. I'm making it too complicated, wanting to be all cute and crafty about packaging. But it has a shelf life of one year, so it's still good, and it's still coming your way. I just need to simplify. Surprise surprise. :o)

As a little unrelated bonus, I also made some delicious mango salsa:
I think I got the recipe here, but I'm not exactly sure. It looks awful familiar, but I used red onion instead of green onion. And I made a double batch. And I don't think I followed these amounts exactly. But that's the basic gist. You should definitely make this salsa. It is so very tasty. You won't be disappointed. (Also, a great big thanks to Jason, who spent a very long time cutting up the mangoes into tiny little corn/bean-sized bits.)

7 comments:

  1. wow that salsa looks good! too bad you are doing these shows and aren't planning a giveaway of your apple butter. Do you know they don't grow apples in Texas? You can't even go pick them if you wanted to! I don't even know if you could call this autumn!! Supposedly peach picking is a fair trade-off, but I am skeptical.

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  2. sorry about that. No apple butter giveaway this time around. I'm scrambling a bit for inventory. Although, I guess even if there was a giveaway, there's no guarantee it would get there in time to celebrate fall, since I still haven't sent away my July giveaway. Shameful. Bummer about the lack of apples in Texas. But peach picking is a good time. And oh the delicious things that can be made with fresh-off-the-tree peaches!! I think freshness makes a bigger difference with peaches than with apples anyway.

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  3. that salsa was sooo good. also, you're awesome and i love you.

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  4. I am totally going to try making some of the apple butter! We still have a bunch of apples from when we went apple picking (despite the apple cobblers and applesauce and plain apple munching) and while I don't have all the equipment (or the know how) to can, I think if I make 1/4 of the recipe, we could do with 1-2 jars in the fridge :) Woohoo! Apple butter!

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  5. Go for it! It is DEEElicious! :o)

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  6. question...do you think instead of cutting up the mangos you could have used one of those chop chop choppers?- you know what I mean? ("you're gonna love my nuts" promo guy thingy) Or would the pieces have been too irregular? I know how particular about cutting things just so.

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  7. I'm not sure. I would probably go through the pieced to make sure they were all small enough. (I like to be able to get a little of everything on my chip.) But the chop-chop-chopper would probably do a satisfactory job. ShamWow! (tm) man seems to think it's a pretty super-duper piece of gadgetry.

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