Saucy

There was a little time for slow-stitching yesterday morning, but then I got straight to work laying waste to the apples. First, I set up my medieval torture device, specially formulated for torturing apples, tomatoes, and various other vagrant fruits and vegetables. I can't remember if I told you I'd purchased this...it's an attachment for my Kitchenaid mixer. I've never gone in too much for the attachments, but I saw this online. It looked like a good timesaver, and so I bit. It will grind meat too.

Then I got to work cutting apples. Only one finger was sacrificed yesterday. That'll teach me to keep my fingers out of the way. When the apples went into the pot for cooking they looked like this.

After about 20 minutes of cooking, they looked like this.

I bought the larger tray for this device. It's ordinarily about $10, but when I bought them together, I only paid an additional $3, so what the heck? The apples went from the stove-top to being poured into the tray, thus. My one complaint about this set-up is that it's kind of high up on the counter, and so I was using a step stool to get myself up a little higher. It's really kind of a bad plan to pour scalding apples while holding the pot over one's head. (Important safety tip of the day. Stick with me.)

The attachment comes with a nifty little combination wrenching device/fruit pusher. One end works as a wrench to take the whole contraption apart when you're finished. The other works to push the food through the chute. Then I turned her on and watched her work. Here's a positively fascinating video so you can see it for yourself. Applesauce goes into the silver bowl in the left, dregs go into the plastic pitcher on the right. If you can't see the video, then click right here.

Here's a person-standing-on-a-step-stool-eye's view. I ended up putting an overturned bowl under the pitcher to get it a little closer to the chute. Sometimes the stuff kind of curled under and fell into the applesauce. Getting the pitcher up higher helped.

When it was all finished...voila! Applesauce here.

Dregs here.

That brown thing is a cinnamon stick. I couldn't find it until I started pouring the apples into the feed tray, and so I just dropped it in there. (Just wanted to let you know it wasn't the sacrificial finger.)

Applesauce was only the first item on yesterday's menu. By day's end, I had 5 pints of applesauce and 7 half-pints of Apple Pie Jam...and let me tell you, the jam is seriously yummy. You can find the recipe right here. It was pretty quick and easy to make, although that is where I sacrificed my finger. Be careful.

Since I have about a zillion little jars of things I've canned so far this year already open in the refrigerator, I wasn't going to open the apple pie jam right away. The Resident Engineer forced me to. Then he forced me to eat some over vanilla ice cream last night. It's a sad existence, let me tell you, when people are forcing you to eat upside-down pie a la mode.

When yesterday's canning was done, I had some time to sew. I sewed the strips together to make the pumpkins for the Pumpkin Pie wallhanging. This allowed me to use some of my smallest scraps...always a good thing.

All the while, The Watcher was there. He's my sewing room buddy.

When all was said and done for yesterday, I had the pumpkins sewn together. The leaves and stems still need top-stitching.

I was getting kind of tired by then...duh...and so I decided to quit for the day. Before I left, I laid out some of the fabrics. It's kind of hard to see in this picture, but I have in mind to use the green and dark orange for a border around both the pumpkin blocks and the embroidered pumpkin, and then use that green leafy batik on the left as a border all around.

My piece can be no larger than 17.5 inches wide by 22 inches long to fit on the wall where I want to hang it. The pumpkin blocks are already 12 inches, so there isn't a lot of room to work with. It might be a little dark, and so I'm still experimenting. I may change my mind about that dark orange and use something gold instead...or maybe a lighter orange...I don't know.

Today I'm back to canning more applesauce and also some maple bourbon apple butter. The apple butter is first cooked down, then placed in the oven for several hours. Since today is also a CSA pick-up day, there's no time to waste. I'll get right to work on the apples and, hopefully, have some time for slow-stitching later. I'd like to get those names for the Shop Hop finished before month's end.

So...how do you like them apples?