While surfing the blogs I found this recipe for Apple Butter. Pictures follow the procedures to the finish.
Don
Boy, I felt all feminine and homemakerish yesterday while I was canning :) I had my little apron on and made my pretty little bottles of fruit. My hubby didn't understand why I was so excited to show him the bottles...LOL. He's like wow, it's fruit??? I wanted to do my canning sugar-free. Bottled fruits and jams have sooooo much sugar in them, so I did a little research and kinda made up my own thing and they came out great. I hadn't canned anything for like eight years and I think then it was only a fruit syrup and chili sauce, so this was new for me. I remember my mom canning a lot, but I never really helped. I started the apples for the apple butter the night before in the crockpot, so it only took a couple of hours yesterday to do that and some pears. I wanted to do more pears but ran out of time.
Here are my ingredients... sweet apples that I bought for .39/lb, pumpkin pie spice and apple juice. That's it!
I sliced and peeled enough apples to really fill up my crockpot.
I added about 3 cups of juice and a couple tablespoons of pumpkin pie spice.
Then I took a knife and chopped up the apples in the crockpot. It condensed them down so much I added about 15 more, chopping after each five or so until it looked like this. I figure there's at least two dozen apples in there. I put it on low and went to bed.
This is what it looked like in the morning. It smelled really yummy. I then turned it on high and cracked the lid. It cooked like this for about five more hours while I ran errands.
Next I smashed it up in my blender a couple of cupfuls at a time. There's still some chunks, but I like chunks. I left the lid off and left it on high while I washed and sterilized jars, got the water boiling... etc.
Here they are all nice and pretty. I got nine half-pints of apple butter. I think it will make great Christmas gifts. Especially because I know a lot of people that limit fats and sugars. There is no added sugar, so it's great. I think I'll deliver them at Christmas with a basket full of my Whole Wheat Low Fat Muffins. I know I would appreciate something like that at Christmastime when I'm still trying to eat healthy and it's soooo hard with all the goodies people bring you.
I also did six pints of pears. They're in unsweetened apple juice.
Another great no-sugar-added Christmas gift idea. I got the pears for .39/lb also and I have enough for probably 12 more pints. I'll be dressing them up cute soon and then I'll show them off again... because I'm pretty sure all of you will understand why I'm excited over bottles of fruit... LOL.
Find this recipe at:
http://inet-recipes.blogspot.com/
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