Ready to Eat

This post will be a little different from most since I’m not sharing a recipe. I promise to be back soon with something to cook. I always find apple time irresistible!

I’m simply describing an eating experience I encountered courtesy of Hurricane Irene.

As readers of my blog about caring for my mother know, my hometown of Hawley, Massachusetts, was hard hit by Irene … despite the fact that she had supposedly been downgraded to a Tropical Storm by the time she reached our community.

The roads in Hawley hew to the tradition of roads in many small communities—particularly hilly small communities. Our byways are built alongside brooks and rivers. Most of the time, this is a great idea. Why carve a road down a hill when you can just follow a stream around the hill?

During a hurricane, however, having one’s roads follow a river seems a lot less smart. Large parts of Hawley (including my own area, Pudding Hollow) were cut off during and after the hurricane by washed-out roads.

As a result, Hawley had its first ever (to my knowledge, at any rate) visit from FEMA. Federal and state officials helicoptered in to plan road repairs, bring medical help to a neighbor in need, and share food and water.

The food in question was a group of MREs—the ready-to-eat meals favored (or at any rate consumed) by our armed forces in the field.

Naturally, as a food person, I was fascinated by these. My mother and I really had no need for food. (Please don’t tell FEMA; this might be some sort of fraud!) Nevertheless, I asked for three of the meals.

The one I actually tried sounded intriguing. One somehow doesn’t expect to find Thai Chicken in MRE form.

A friend reminded me that Hawley is a bit far from Thailand. Even New York, where the MREs originate, is far from Thailand. So I’m not sure why I expected the food to be good. I guess I hoped it would be for the sake of the troops.

It took me a while to read the (very small, very obtuse) directions for heating the MRE with its “flameless heater,” a chemical pad that reacts to create heat when one adds a little water to its bag and then puts the bag in a box.



Even after I managed to decipher the directions, I didn’t quite heat the food correctly. I put both the chicken and its accompanying rice pilaf in the heater bag. Only the one closer to the little pad actually got warm. I resorted to my microwave for the other—not an option open to soldiers in the field.

The chicken and rice proved sadly bland … even when I added a little hot sauce from the enclosed miniature bottle (a nice touch). The dishes’ consistency was off putting as well; both were gummy.

The rest of the meal was pretty darn odd but designed, I guess, to put protein into soldiers. It consisted of vegetable crackers (today’s hard tack) with peanut butter, a peanut/raisin mixture, instant coffee (a tea bag provided an alternative), and chewing gum.

My friend Brett informs me that he and his fellow members of the 379th Engineers subsisted on these meals for weeks at a time overseas.

The whole thing gave me a renewed appreciation for our men and women in uniform. Risking their lives and leaving their families are bad enough. Having to eat bland, boring food … now, that’s too great a sacrifice.

When I learned that National Guard troops and other officials were working on the roads out of town it occurred to me that these men might be subsisting on MREs. I hastened to bake them some butterscotch brownies, and my neighbor Alice and I drove down to the road-construction site (very carefully) to distribute the treats.

I wish I could do the same for our troops everywhere.

Meanwhile, if you would like to help with hurricane relief in our area, please consider contributing relief supplies to the drive at our local elementary school, Hawlemont School in Charlemont. Coordinator Beth Bandy is asking for bottled water, nonperishable foods, cleaning supplies, baby food/formula, pet food, clothing, and anything else that might be helpful. She is also looking for drivers with hardy cars to deliver the supplies. For more information on the drive, call Beth at 413-337-4291.

Beth has also set up a Facebook page for her efforts.

And if you’d like to hear an abridged audio version of my blog post about our own hurricane experience, here’s the link for my commentary on WFCR-FM.

Mrs. Baker's Applesauce

Today I’m doing something I’ve never done before, revising an old post. I have quite a few apples on hand (although not as many as I did two years ago, when I originally posted this recipe). So I’m returning to the recipe myself and thought readers might like to come along.

When I first posted it, I didn’t have any regular readers—so I don’t know how many of you, if any, have looked at it.

Here are my words (slightly edited) from October 2008:

This year has seen the most abundant apple harvest I can recall in our corner of New England. My neighbor Alice speculates that our literal windfall of apples has something to do with the hatching of swarms of bees just as the apple trees blossomed last spring.

All I know is that our apple trees, most of which are older than anyone living on our road, suddenly acted like fertile teenagers.

Naturally, my mother and I have made large quantities of applesauce. Applesauce is the perfect fall comfort food, and it’s amazingly easy to make, especially if you have a food mill. Food mills render the peeling and coring of apples completely unnecessary.

The skin, core, and seeds of the apple cook along with the sauce, adding flavor to the end product, and then get pushed out and discarded. The residue left in the food mill is surprisingly small.

If you don’t have a food mill, you will have to peel and core your apples. On the other hand, you will end up with lumpy applesauce, which some people prefer to the smoother version.

As you can see in the photographs above and below, my food mill requires me to push the apple pulp manually through the holes in the mill. My neighbor Peter has a relatively high-tech machine with a crank that does most of the work. Either type of mill is definitely worth purchasing.

My applesauce is named after Abigail Baker, who lived around the corner from our property in Hawley, Massachusetts, in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Mrs. Baker is famous (in our corner of the world, at any rate) for creating the winning pudding in a late 18th-century pudding contest that gave our district, Pudding Hollow, its name.



When my friend Judith Russell and I began work on our Pudding Hollow Cookbook, Judy suggested that we include a recipe for Mrs. Baker’s applesauce. Somehow it slipped through the cracks then so I’m rectifying that omission here on my blog.

I have portrayed Mrs. Baker several times in the entertainment that accompanies our revived pudding contest. And I see her grave every time I visit my what my nephew Michael calls my father’s “burial crypt” in the Pudding Hollow Cemetery. Hawley’s most celebrated cook is therefore seldom out of my thoughts.

Judy, too, is in my thoughts a lot, especially at this time of year. She died in the autumn of 1994, but her colorful folk art and sunny spirit live on in our hills, in our hearts, and in my cookbook.

Mrs. Baker’s Windfall Applesauce

Ingredients:

enough apples to make 6 generous cups of cut-up apples (preferably more than 1 variety)
1 cinnamon stick
1 pinch salt
1/4 cup cider plus additional cider as needed
maple syrup to taste, depending on the tartness of your apples (I used 2 tablespoons for the batch pictured here, which was relatively sweet)

Instructions:

Wash the apples and quarter them (actually, I tend to cut them into eighths if they are at all big). Remove any bad spots, but don’t worry about cutting out the core and seeds if you have a food mill.

Place the apple pieces, the cinnamon stick, the salt, and the cider in a 4-quart pot. Bring the mixture to a simmer over low heat, covered, and simmer it until the apples soften, checking frequently to see whether you need to add more cider to keep the sauce from burning. The cooking time will depend on the type and age of your apples and how many of them you are using. A 6-cup batch may take as little as 25 minutes, but a larger, firmer batch can take up to an hour.

Let the apples cool for a few minutes; then run them through a food mill. Discard the pulp and seeds (excellent pig food or compost!), and place the sauce in a saucepan. Add maple syrup to taste, and heat until the syrup dissolves, stirring to keep the syrup from burning.

If you want to can your sauce, reheat it to the boiling point, ladle it into sterilized jars, and process pint jars in a boiling-water bath for 20 minutes.

The yield will depend on your apples. Six generous cups of apple pieces provide about 1 pint of sauce. Feel free to multiply this recipe if your apple harvest is copious.

Upside Down Once More (Hawley Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake)

I know, I know, I just posted a recipe for rhubarb upside-down cake!

Let me explain.

After various peregrinations I am finally home in Hawley, Massachusetts, contemplating the gorgeous greenery everywhere and the abundant rhubarb in my yard.

(It’s even more abundant in the yard of my generous next-door neighbor Dennis!)

Seeing its lush (if poisonous) green leaves and strong red stalks has inspired me to try yet another upside-down cake.

You may recall that the previous recipe from Sue Haas featured marshmallows. This ingredient surprised some of the commenters, particularly the eloquent Flaneur.

Here I dispense with the marshmallows and combine Sue’s recipe with my own for pineapple upside-down cake.

It’s amazing how different two rhubarb cakes can be! Of course, I like them both. (I seldom dislike cake, for my sins.)

Sue’s Michigan upside-down cake is not too sweet and not too goopy; the marshmallows hold it together and give it a slight vanilla flavor.

This version is definitely sweeter and richer. On the other hand, it’s also a little more rhubarby. The marshmallows tend to tame the rhubarb in the other recipe.

Which should you make? BOTH, of course………

Hawley Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake

Ingredients:

for the topping:

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) sweet butter
3/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
2 cups rhubarb (1/2-inch chunks)

for the cake:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1-3/4 cups flour
1/2 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

First make the topping (which goes on the bottom!).

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir in the brown sugar and cook, stirring, until it melts and bubbles—3 to 4 minutes.

Transfer the brown-sugar mixture into a 9-inch-square cake pan. Spread it through the bottom of the pan. Arrange the rhubarb pieces on top as artistically as you can. (Mine weren’t very artistic.)

For the cake cream together the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs, 1 at a time. Add the baking powder and salt. Stir in the flour alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour. Stir in the vanilla, and pour the batter over the rhubarb mixture.

Bake the cake until a toothpick inserted into the center (but not too far down; don’t hit the rhubarb!) comes out clean, about 40 minutes. If the cake is brown but not done before this happens, decrease the oven temperature and continue baking.

Allow the cake to cool for 5 to 10 minutes. Loosen the edges with a knife, and invert the cake onto a serving plate held over the skillet. Turn upside-down. Remove pan.

Serve alone or with whipped cream. Serves 9.

I should think you could absolutely bake this pan in a 10-inch iron skillet (heating the butter and brown sugar in it first, and then piling on the other ingredients). I couldn’t find my skillet, however, so I used a square pan and can only report on those results.

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Lock Your Doors!

My neighbor Jack, who read my recent rant about zucchini bashing, shared a zucchini anecdote with me the other day.

He was asked recently where he was living. When replied that he was in our small town of Hawley, he was told:

“Hawley’s a nice town. People don’t lock their doors there–except at this time of year. They’re afraid someone will come in and leave zucchini in the house.”

Here I try once more to redeem zucchini’s sinister reputation with a recipe.

Pam Matthews of Phillips, Maine, was one of my co-thespians (and friends) when she lived in western Massachusetts.

She sent me the moist, flavorful zucchini formula below. She says the recipe was originally meant to make zucchini bread, but she found it cakelike and decided to bake it in a Bundt pan instead of bread pans.

It makes a lovely coffee cake (or yes, sweet bread) on its own. You can also dress it up (as my young friend Maija did) with a little cream-cheese frosting. (The candy corn is not obligatory, although we had a lot of fun with it.)

Maija considers her candy placement.

Pam’s Zucchini Cake

Ingredients:

1 cup canola oil (or 1/2 cup oil and 1/2 cup softened butter)
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 cups flour
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (I like these so I used a little extra)
1/2 cup raisins (ditto)
1/4 cup finely chopped pineapple (optional: this wasn’t in Pam’s recipe, but I had it in the house so I threw it in, and it worked)
3/4 cup shredded coconut (again you could use a little more; I LOVE COCONUT)
2 cups grated zucchini, drained in a dishtowel

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a 10-inch Bundt pan.

Cream together the oil and sugar; then beat in the eggs, 1 at a time. Beat in the vanilla, followed by the cinnamon, baking powder, and baking soda.

Stir in all but 1 tablespoon of the flour. Add that tablespoon of flour to the walnuts and raisins and mix well. Stir them into the batter, along with the pineapple (if you are using it) and the coconut. Fold in the zucchini.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and bake it until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 55 to 65 minutes. Serves 10 to 12.

Figuring Out Florette

Florette in the Mid-1990s. Thanks to Sue Stone and Dennis Anderson for sharing photos for this remembrance.

On Saturday our small community gathered to remember one of my hometown’s legendary personalities. Florette Zuelke, my neighbor in Hawley, Massachusetts, passed away in April at the age of 90. Florette will be remembered for her passion for Hawley’s history, for her sense of style, and for her strong opinions on a variety of subjects.

Florette was a mixed blessing in many ways to her neighbors. Like most human beings, she had strengths that could also be liabilities. She painstakingly created gourmet meals, but her culinary perfectionism could daunt plainer cooks. She valued creativity, but those whom she judged less than creative often felt snubbed. She charmed men but tended to ignore (and therefore antagonize) their spouses.

She was a caring friend but was frequently thwarted by her own forthrightness. She wanted the best for her neighbors and her town, but her idea of “the best” was often rigid and tended to frustrate those around her. She came up with countless brilliant ideas but usually wanted others to implement them.

Perhaps most tryingly to her neighbors, she always wanted to bring appetizers to dinner parties—and invariably arrived an hour and a half late.

Solitude and dementia claimed Florette long before death did, and she alienated many of her friends as she got older. Few of us visited her at the end of her life in the nursing home to which she had moved.

In her heyday, however, Florette was amazing. Born in the small Midwestern city of Appleton, Wisconsin, she was raised with a strong sense of self and a love of music and culture.

The Belle of Appleton, Wisconsin

She moved to New York City to serve as executive secretary to conductor Robert Shaw at Juilliard and spent most of her professional career in music in one form or another.

She helped singers find their pitch at the Robert Shaw Chorale; worked with renowned composer/businessman Goddard Lieberson at Columbia Records; and served in a unique capacity at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, preparing lavish receptions to follow the performances of visiting artists.

Lieberson established the tradition of LPs at Columbia Records, nurtured the company’s classical department, and pioneered in recording original cast albums of Broadway musicals. I was always told that Lieberson was the love of Florette’s life, although their affair never supplanted his marriage to dancer Vera Zorina.

Florette became a close friend of composer Alice Parker at Juilliard and spent many summers renting an apartment at the Parkers’ Singing Brook Farm in Hawley. There she was a lively addition to what I remember as a golden summer community.

Back in New York, where I visited her once or twice when I was a child, she looked exactly like the chic urban career girls in movies. She was fashionable, nerveless (when she couldn’t understand one of James Beard’s recipes she simply telephoned the famous food writer), and glamorous beyond belief.

Florette in the Big Apple: with Mitch Miller, a Mystery Man (ideas, anyone?), and Liberace

In the 1970s Florette decided to retire and build a home in Hawley, which she called “Hawleywood.” It featured an eclectic Yankee-barn floor plan and a fantastic circular garden.

During a brief marriage she gave up her apartment in New York, a move that proved to be a mistake; her life’s artistry needed a grander palette than Hawley. Nevertheless, Florette threw herself into town affairs. She served as town clerk and was active in the historical commission.

She participated in the resurrection of the Sons & Daughters of Hawley in the 1980s, helping to transform the organization from a venue for annual reunions into a full-fledged historical society. She organized projects for the Sons & Daughters, helped start their newsletter, and badgered a colleague into audiotaping the memories of older Hawleyites. She hosted meetings in which she cooked ambrosial food as ideas were thrown around by artists, historians, and humanists in town.

Above all, Florette opened doors and resources to her friends and neighbors with the wave of a dramatically clad arm. She also offered amusement galore. Almost everyone I know has a Florette story.

Peter Beck, who bought Florette’s house and was a good friend to her longer than most, shared one with me recently. In the mid-1980s, according to Peter, Route 2 in Charlemont was being paved. Driving to Avery’s General Store one day (probably much too fast), Florette was stopped by a policeman on the work detail.

Unable to interpret his hand signals, she got out of her car and proceeded to instruct the man in the proper way to gesture. She dramatically swept her arms through the air to demonstrate how to signal a driver to stop or proceed.

When she had finished with the poor fellow, says Peter, she went off to do her shopping—only to return on the way home with several pairs of white cotton gardening gloves purchased at Avery’s. She distributed them to the road crew, explaining that the men should wear the gloves in order to make their now graceful hand signals more visible to motorists.

So persuasive, so daunting, was Florette that the men meekly donned the gloves. “Oblivious to the fact that road construction is dirty work,” concluded Peter, “Florette introduced style, making the project a white-glove affair.”

On Saturday we found time for lots of stories like this one, as well as a few songs. We enjoyed remembering Florette as she once was—elegant and caring; fun and funny; passionate about music, food, Hawley, gardens, and people.

When we were first planning the memorial Peter suggested “something Venetian, something Balinese, something Auntie Mame.”

The last of those ideas was perhaps the most appropriate, given Auntie Mame’s signature line, “Life is a banquet.” It’s an apt epitaph for the loveable, maddening, delicious Florette.

Florette’s BLASPHEMOUS CHILI

I can’t write about Florette without a recipe. This is the first of several Florette foods I’ll be featuring here. When we started asking friends and relatives what should be served at the party Saturday, “chili” was the invariable reply.

Florette fell in love with this recipe sometime in the 1980s and gave chili spice packets to friends and relatives for holiday presents for years after that. She also sold the packets to raise funds for her favorite charities. I am indebted to Elizabeth Pyle, who watched Florette put together the spices years ago and took notes, for the recipe.

Mixing the spices will make your house smell divine for days to come……….

For the spice mix:

Ingredients:

1/3 cup salt
1/2 cup cocoa (packed a little)
2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons allspice
1 cup plus 3 tablespoons cumin (packed)
5 level tablespoons crushed chili (red pepper)
3 tablespoons oregano

Instructions:

Mix thoroughly and whirl in a food processor to break down the red pepper flakes and combine. Makes 16 batches of chili.

For the chili:

Ingredients:

4 cups chopped onion
2 cups chopped celery
6 large garlic cloves, minced
3 ounces vegetable oil
2 pounds lean ground chuck
2-1/2 tablespoons CHILI SPICES
1 28-ounce can peeled tomatoes
1 16-ounce can tomato sauce2 or 3 cups beef or vegetable bouillon
2 cans (15 ounces each) red kidney beans

Instructions:

In a large stainless steel or enamelware kettle cook the onion, celery and garlic in oil over moderate heat, stirring, until the vegetables are wilted and soft.

In a separate skillet cook the ground chuck, breaking it up with a fork, until it is no longer pink. Remove any excess fat and add the meat to the vegetables.

Sprinkle the CHILI SPICES over the mixture. Add the tomatoes including the liquid, the tomato sauce, and the bouillon. Stir to blend the ingredients.

Simmer the mixture partially covered for one hour, stirring occasionally to keep from sticking to bottom of kettle. After 1/2 hour add rinsed and drained kidney beans.

Add salt and pepper if desired. Serves 10.

NOTES:
“Blasphemous” does not mean “extra hot.”For a “hotter” chili add a little crushed red chili pepper. For a milder chili add 2 or 3 cups of cooked spaghetti twists. The flavor improves with age and is best when chili is made ahead of serving time and reheated.

Liza Pyle, who loved Florette all her life, made packets of chili spices for the Florette party.

Follow-Up Note from Tinky in SEPTEMBER 2009:

Peter Beck, mentioned above, has put two posts about Florette on his own blog, Flaneur du Pays. One features a not-to-be-missed photograph of my neighbor and friend, Alice Parker Pyle, in a fixture of Florette’s home (as eccentric as she was
herself), the soaking tub.

They are “Thinking About Florette” and “Florette Continued.” Do take a look…….

Year's End (or Year's Beginning) Peanut Soup

I don’t see New Year’s Eve as a time for complicated cuisine. (Of course, I don’t actually see ANY holiday as a time for complicated cuisine. I’m a pretty basic cook!) I like to make something simple and spend the evening with friends and family.

It often snows on New Year’s Eve in Hawley, Massachusetts. In fact, it did today! Very small groups gather on my quiet street, grateful for congenial company and a wood stove. And no, we don’t always stay up until midnight. As my mother is wont to say, it’s always nearly midnight SOMEWHERE.

My simple new dish this New Year’s Eve is creamy peanut soup. Peanut soup is a classic dish for Kwanzaa, which ends on New Year’s Day. Like many Kwanzaa dishes and traditions, this soup is part African and part American: although peanuts are native to South America, early Spanish traders took them to Africa, and they returned to the Americas with slaves.

My version of peanut soup is adapted from a recipe from Colonial Williamsburg. It offers just a little spice and makes a cozy supper when served with cornbread near a warm fire.

Happy New Year—and Joyous Kwanzaa!

Creamy Peanut Soup

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons sweet butter (plus a bit more if needed)
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
1-1/2 tablespoons flour
4 cups chicken stock, warmed in a saucepan
3/4 cup smooth peanut butter
1 /2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (more or less, to taste)
3 splashes half and half (about 1/4 cup)
chopped peanuts or crumbled bacon to taste for garnish

Instructions:

In a 4-quart pot, melt the butter. Sauté the onion and celery pieces over medium-low heat and cook, stirring frequently, until they are soft (3 to 5 minutes).

Stir in the flour and cook, stirring constantly, for 1 to 2 minutes more. If the flour begins to stick to the bottom of the pan, add a bit more butter.

Pour in the chicken stock. Turn up the flame, and bring the stock to a boil, stirring. Reduce the heat to medium, and boil gently, partly covered, until the soup reduces and thickens slightly, about 10 minutes. Remove the lid from time to time during this process, and stir frequently.

The next step depends on how you feel about the consistency of your soup. Several peanut soup recipes I saw (including the one from Colonial Williamsburg) asked the cook to strain the soup at this point, being careful to extract as much flavorful liquid as possible. If you are set on serving a smooth soup, you can also pulverize the soup carefully in a blender or food processor.

Personally, I rather like having little pieces of food in my soup so I bypassed this step altogether. My friend Raymond tells me that he has tried the soup both ways (he works hard in the kitchen!) and much prefers the blended version so I will probably try that next time, but I enjoyed the soup the way I made it.

Back to the recipe: Whisk in the peanut butter and the pepper flakes. I found that 1/2 teaspoon of red pepper added a lovely tang to the soup. If you love spice, add more; if you are not a spice person, leave it out. Continue whisking until the peanut butter is mixed into the liquid and the mixture comes just to a boil.

Whisk in half and half to taste, and continue to heat the soup just until it is warm; do not bring it to a boil. Ladle the soup into bowls, and top with peanuts or bacon. Serves 4.

Hawley on New Year's Eve: Our Apple Tree

Truffle in the Snow

Mrs. Baker's Applesauce

This year has seen the most abundant apple harvest I can recall in our corner of New England. My neighbor Alice speculates that our literal windfall of apples has something to do with the hatching of swarms of bees just as the apple trees blossomed last spring. All I know is that our apple trees, most of which are older than anyone living on our road, suddenly acted like fertile teenagers.

Naturally, my mother and I have made large quantities of applesauce. Applesauce is the perfect fall comfort food, and it’s amazingly easy to make, especially if you have a food mill. Food mills render the peeling and coring of apples completely unnecessary. The skin, core, and seeds of the apple cook along with the sauce, adding flavor to the end product, and then get pushed out and discarded. The residue left in the food mill is surprisingly small.

If you don’t have a food mill, you will have to peel and core your apples. On the other hand, you will end up with lumpy applesauce, which some people prefer to the smoother version.

As you can see in the photographs above and below, my food mill requires me to push the apple pulp manually through the holes in the mill. My neighbor Peter has a relatively high-tech machine with a crank that does most of the work. Either type of mill is definitely worth purchasing.

My applesauce is named after Abigail Baker, who lived around the corner from our property in Hawley, Massachusetts, in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Mrs. Baker is famous (in our corner of the world, at any rate) for creating the winning pudding in a late 18th-century pudding contest that gave our district, Pudding Hollow, its name.

When my friend Judith Russell and I began work on our Pudding Hollow Cookbook, Judy suggested that we include a recipe for Mrs. Baker’s applesauce. Somehow it slipped through the cracks then so I’m rectifying that omission here on my blog. I portray Mrs. Baker every year in the entertainment that accompanies our revived pudding contest. Hawley’s most celebrated cook is therefore seldom out of my thoughts. Judy, too, is in my thoughts a lot, especially at this time of year. She died in the autumn of 1994, but her colorful folk art and sunny spirit live on in our hills, in our hearts, and in my cookbook.

Mrs. Baker’s Windfall Applesauce

Ingredients:

6 cups quartered apples (preferably more than 1 variety)
1 cinnamon stick
1/4 cup cider plus additional cider as needed
maple syrup to taste (I used 2 tablespoons for my most recent batch)

Instructions:

Wash the apples and quarter them. Remove any bad spots, but don’t worry about cutting out the core and seeds if you have a food mill.

Place the apple pieces, the cinnamon stick, and the cider in a 4-quart pot. Bring the mixture to a simmer over low heat, covered, and simmer it until the apples soften, checking frequently to see whether you need to add more cider to keep the sauce from burning. The cooking time will depend on your apples; my most recent batch, which used Cortland and Northern Spy apples I’d had sitting in my entryway for about a month, took 20 to 25 minutes.

Let the apples cool for a few minutes; then run them through a food mill. Discard the pulp and seeds (excellent pig food or compost!), and place the sauce in a saucepan. Add maple syrup to taste, and heat until the syrup dissolves.

The yield will depend on your apples. My test batch this week gave me just under 2 cups of sauce. Feel free to multiply this recipe if your apple harvest is copious.