Confession Time

I've worked at my job for a little over a year and a half now. Every day when I walk in the building, I could walk left to go to McDonald's, or walk right to go to my office. Every day for a year and a half I've been strong and made that right turn.

Apple Butter and Homemade Pretzels

Daring Cooks time again!

The September 2010 Daring Cooks’ challenge was hosted by John of Eat4Fun. John chose to challenge The Daring Cooks to learn about food preservation, mainly in the form of canning and freezing. He challenged everyone to make a recipe and preserve it. John’s source for food preservation information was from The National Center for Home Food Preservation.

I chose to do the apple butter to get myself into the fall mood. On Saturday morning we stopped by the Troy Waterfront Farmers Market to stock up on the apples. We'd never been before, so we got so excited by all the fresh produce, breads, cheeses and meats that we picked up some tomatoes, greens and elk jerky, and even stayed for lunch (I had nachos from Magdalena's Menu, he had a curry sampler from Thunder Mountain Curry). I couldn't find Golden Delicious so I went with Gala instead. Four pounds ended up being about 14 apples, as they were small.

I was somewhat less excited about this challenge than the previous ones, as it didn't involve a meal or any challenging new culinary techniques. Canning was definitely new, and maybe could be considered challenging, but didn't do much for honing my cooking skills, really. Still, it was a good thing to know how to do, and I do love apple butter, so overall it was a fun challenge.

However I did find the recipe and instructions to be very confusing, ambiguous and contradictory, so just a warning - there may be a bit of kvetching (not to mention improvising) in my writeup below.