BWW Cooks: Welcome to Apple Harvest Season

I grew up near, and still live around, Pennsylvania Dutch country. The south-central part of Pennsylvania, however, isn't just known for its German heritage, but for its being part of the area that John Chapman - better known as "Johnny Appleseed" - originally planted. The National Apple Harvest Festival is always the first two weeks of October in Biglerville, Pennsylvania. Biglerville isn't bigler or better, but it is prime orchard territory, and only about ten miles from Gettysburg, the home of Civil War tourism, so the Apple Harvest Festival is huge.

Most Americans, however, have no idea of the extent of apples across the country and the world. The two best-known apples in America, Red Delicious and Golden Delicious, have far less flavor than visual appeal and are poor cooking/baking apples. By and large, Americans, when polled, cannot name ten varieties of apple (in fact there are over 7,000 varieties!), and have no idea which apples make the best apple pies.

Let's cook with apples! There are recipes everyone loves and can make easily, and far better than commercial versions.

Easier than you think, and more nutritious than store-bought? Applesauce. You actually can use Red Delicious apples for this, as they break down easily (which is why they don't bake well). Other applesauce-making varieties you may find at a farmers' market, orchard stand, or well-appointed fruit section in a grocer's, include the Cortland, Empire, and McIntosh. Northern Spy and Rhode Island Greenings also make fine applesauce. Why make your own applesauce? Because it tastes better than commercial applesauce, especially when made with your own favorite apples. Because you can make it sugar-free, as it should be. And because when you have lots of homemade applesauce, you can bake it into muffins and scones, and you can stir it into oatmeal and other hot cereals. You can top waffles and pancakes with homemade applesauce. You can swirl it with vanilla pudding. You can turn it into an apple brown betty. Pork chops will thank you for making fresh applesauce. So will chicken. And applesauce cake is pretty darn delicious.

Recipes have so many ingredients to remember - but not applesauce. The two necessary ingredients are apples and water. Maybe half a cup of sweetener if the apples aren't quite sweet enough, but consider a deeply-flavored honey or a bit of maple sugar rather than nutrition-free white sugar. (If you use stevia, you had better not use that half a cup. It will be too sweet - and also too bitter.) That's to five pounds of apples. You don't even have to peel the apples - wash them, quarter them (cut out the cores), toss them into a big heavy pot, the sort you'd use for chili or stew. Put a little water in the pot, perhaps an inch, cover the pot, and bring everything to a boil. Now comes the hard work - every few minutes, stir up the apples and add a bit more water if the apples are starting to stick to the pan. Lower the heat so you're at a simmer rather than a boil, and every time you lift the lid and stir, the apples will be cooking down more and more. Don't add too much water; you want this thick.

Within the hour, all of the apples will have collapsed into softness. Now you have options. Beat the apples a bit with a spoon for something chunky and thick, or push everything through a colander or a food mill to get a traditional applesauce texture. Brown betty and waffle topping sauce can be done with a smashed rather than milled sauce. Taste what you've got. Does it need a bit of sweetening? Don't add that lightly. Perhaps it wants cinnamon. If it's surprisingly sweet, or if you overdo the sweetening, a squeeze of lemon juice is what you need. If you want to be sneaky, toss a few cinnamon "red hots" candies into hot applesauce and stir - they add color and a potent hot cinnamon flavor that will remind you of cinnamon schnapps, sneaking into the applesauce.

Let it cool in the pot. If you store it in the refrigerator, it will keep for a week if it hasn't been devoured. If you make a lot of applesauce, you can freeze it, too, in a tightly sealed plastic container.

Here's the best muffin recipe for homemade applesauce, one that's very easy to make from scratch: Grease a dozen-muffin tin (or two six-muffin trays) with spray release while heating oven to 375 degrees. Melt a stick of butter. Combine in a mixing bowl 2 cups of unbleached flour, 2/3 cup of sugar, 2 teaspoons of baking powder and two of cinnamon, and ¼ teaspoon salt. Add wet ingredients to bowl: 1 large beaten egg, 1 cup of homemade applesauce, and the melted butter. Beat this by hand - no mixer needed - and then quickly spoon it evenly into the muffin tins. Bake this for 18 to 20 minutes, until done. If you prefer, you can use two teaspoons of apple pie spice rather than cinnamon alone. Please don't cleverly substitute margarine for butter; butter has a far cleaner flavor that allows the apples and spices to shine. If you want to use whole wheat flour, substitute only ¼ cup of unbleached flour with whole wheat - whole wheat flour doesn't perform identically and can't be substituted one-for-one with unbleached flour.

For dinner, mix a cup of fresh applesauce with two tablespoons of brown sugar, ¼ teaspoon dry mustard and ¼ teaspoon of cinnamon, and a large pinch of sea salt, and you have a perfect glaze for baking pork chops. A few grinds of pepper and a dash of Tabasco will give more depth. If you fry a chopped onion in butter and mix all together with the applesauce glaze, you have a marvelous topping for baking pork chops or chicken breasts or chicken thighs.

Enjoy these dishes, and try some of your own. Applesauce is one of the most versatile ingredients for both sweet and savory dishes of all sorts, and fresh applesauce brings those dishes to life. There's little excuse for serving or cooking with oversweetened, canned applesauce when fresh, delicious applesauce is so easily made. Especially if you have children who love applesauce (what child doesn't?), you have a culinary game changer they'll love with homemade applesauce in your repertoire. You can even teach them to cook it! Again... enjoy.

Photo credits: Freeimages

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