Memories of the Fall ~ Kitchen Aid Fruit & Veggie Strainer Review

I thought I would reminisce about the last apple harvest with a review of Kitchen Aid's Fruit & Vegetable Strainer.  A perfect topic for today as I sit with a cold and slight case of laryngitis.  Could be worse right?  On the bright side, my mug of chamomile tea is being sweetened with some local honey purchased during the summer.  This unfortunate affliction has given me  a reason to test out the home remedy property of the honey.   I am finding the taste is wonderful combination and will get me away from white sugar as my "go to sweetener" in the future. 

Okay, back to the topic... My mind has always been drawn to a faster way to do applesauce.  Okay, faster and a whole lot cleaner way to make applesauce!    The Kitchen Aid Fruit & Vegetable Strainer has been on my wishlist at Amazon for a long time.  So when Farmerboy and his lovely wife purchased their farm complete with two gorgeous apple trees, I knew the time was right.  Here is a pictorial review of my first harvest season using the Kitchen Aid attachment.

The farmyard has two unbelievable apple trees.  One is some strain of Golden Delicious and the other is possibly a Snow apple mix.  The trees ripen about a month apart which is perfect for processing the apples.  Many families benefited this year.  The harvest was so huge that Mr. Hollow and I did not bother visiting any orchards this year; although, I did miss my Macintosh apples with melted caramels!  *sigh*   There is always next year.  ;)

The prep work was minimal for making the sauce.  I cored the apples, quarter them and boiled them with a little bit of water until soft.  (Next year I may use the trick of using a little cider instead of water for an extra kick in some of the batches!)

 

 

 I let the bowl cool as the next batch of apples began to cook.  It was a really efficient production line.  :) 

I did purchase the top feeding platform separately.  It holds a lot more apples to feed into the tube of the strainer.  Definitely a must have add on for me, since it kept the work area free of spillage.  I would highly recommend it.  The small area the unit comes with is just asking for a ladle to over shoot the mark.  :(

 

 

 

The apples (skins and all) are funneled by a spooled device down a metal cone with holes all over it.  The apple sauce is forced out of the holes and runs backwards out the bottom flute.  The skins are extruded from the whole in front into its own bowl.  How easy is that?  Instant pig or chicken feed!

 



Dark skins make for a pink sauce with these particular apples.  The sauce is beautiful and smooth.  I do like to add sweetener to my sauce.  So, it was popped back into a pot, sweetener added, brought up to a boil and canned.  No splattering-- No sweating-- No mess!

Seriously, this is all that was left from the apples! 

The process was a fraction of the time from the old way.  Clean up was a breeze.  It made me wonder what took me so long to try the strainer attachment.  The Kitchen Aid Fruit & Vegetable Strainer is a complete winner in my book!

Apple Pie with a Caramel Streusel Topping ~ Recipe

The fall weather in Northern Illinois has been absolutely beautiful.  The colors are a little late in the trees, but the temps have been comfortably cool.  My hubby left for a trip back in September and returned with a bushel of McIntosh apples.  He was passing through Gayes Mills and picked them up as seconds for $20.00. 

 

Since then, our family has definitely eaten our fill of caramel apples!  :)  So this weekend was perfect cool weather for canning some applesauce and making some pies.  I started with the sauce and worked my way through 25 jars.  Then, I decided to make 14 half circle hand sized pies.  With the apples left over, I decided to try a new pie recipe.  It was an apple pie with a streusel topping.  The pie was a big hit here which is great since I froze two for later. ;)

 

The recipe calls for a one crust pie shell... bought or homemade is your preference.  I made my pie in a 8 inch tin and the apples cooked down fine.  McIntosh cook down a little more than other varieties.  I made some alterations to some recipes that I found on line.  So here is my version:

 



 

 

Apple Pie with a Caramel Streusel Topping

7                      medium sized McIntosh apples (any tart apple would do)
2 T                  flour
1/2 rounded t  cinnamon
1/4 rounded t  nutmeg
1/4 c               white sugar (could use 1/3 c if the apples are really tart)

When the pie crust is ready in the plate, peel and slice the apples into a bowl.    Mix the apple slices, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and white sugar together.  Add them to the pie crust arranging them into a mound. 

Streusel Topping

3/4 c                 brown sugar
1/2 c                 flour
1/2 rounded t    cinnamon
1/3 c                 butter softened

Mix all the ingredients with a fork to combine.  Break up the topping and evenly cover the apples.

Put the pie in a 350 degree preheated oven.  I had the pie tin sitting in a glass 13x9 cake dish situated half way down in the oven,  and it baked for 60 minutes.  Since all ovens differ and my dish had sides that hindered the distribution of heat, check your pie at 40 minutes and decide from there.   I kept checking by pushing on the crust to make sure it was firmed up.

We didn't eat our pie until later in the day.  Mr. Hollow likes his warmed up a little, and mine was straight from the pan.  The one thing we agreed on was a caramel drizzle topping. For that, I unwrapped 6 Brachs caramels  and placed them in a small bowl with a couple of teaspoons of water.  The caramels were microwaved in 15 second intervals until bubbling.  Then, it is simply stir and drizzle.  The pie was absolutely delicious!  Packed with the best flavors of fall.  :)

How to Make Pie in a Jar

In past years, I have used up orchard apples by making and freezing 8 inch apple pies. They were so nice to be able to take out of the freezer and enjoy all year long, but with my son getting older and being gone most of the day, left over pie began to be a problem. I have a terrible time with tolerating waste, so I found myself eating more than I normally would. ~Which in turn, meant more hours on the treadmill later! :( So, I was on the hunt for a solution to my dilemma.

While on vacation in Kentucky, I purchased some single serving baked pies from the Amish that were very good. They made a circle out of the pie dough, added filling, closed the dough making a half circle, and baked. This idea was great! I was excited for the apple season to begin. The only possible problem would be storage. I figured... I would flash freeze, throw them into a bag, and hope they wouldn't find there way down into the bottom of the deep freeze! It was a great plan, ready to go into action, until I read an article about pies in a jar on http://www.ourbestbites.com/ . I was sold completely on this idea. Over to Amazon I went, and three days later my 36 half pint Kerr jars arrived!

This process is so smart and practical! You simply make a pie in a 1/2 pint wide mouth Kerr jar and freeze. The best part of the whole process is that you bake the pies in the same jar! You heard me... WOW! No more waste!! And better yet, everyone can pick their own favorite flavor. Genius!


Here is the beginning of my pies. I mixed up a two crust 10 inch pie dough from my favorite recipe. (It gave me enough to do six jars with a little left over.) I took a piece of dough and pressed it onto the sides of the jar and bottom. I spread the dough pretty thin, since my family is not big on lots of crust.

I rolled out the remaining dough and used the band from the jar to cut the top for my pie. The dough was rolled thin but easily movable.

Okay, I cheated and used cherry pie filling! One can made four individual pies. I set the crust on top of the jar and gently pushed it down onto the filling. It naturally formed a bowl with the dough of the top crust circle joining the dough on the sides of the jar. I pinched the dough sides to form a good seal and removed any excess above the jar mouth. And they were ready to be frozen.

Here are the peach pies that I made. Okay, I cheated on them too! I used peaches from a can and this recipe http://hillbillyhousewife.com/deepdishpeaches.htm . The only changes I made to the recipe was to halve it, cut the peaches into small chunks, and use a little more nutmeg to taste. It worked out wonderfully.

One word of caution... Make sure to set your different flavors in their own area for identification or work with one flavor at a time. Once the crust goes on, it gets tough to identify. (I do not put slits or air holes in my pies to be frozen.)

I put my finished pies on a cookie sheet and set them in the freezer to flash freeze the top. Then, I put the lids (with a flavor label) and bands on them, set them back into their card board box, and stacked them in the deep freeze. (Before baking them, I let mine sit an hour to adjust to the climate with the lid on, and then remove lid and bake.)

I will be working on apple, apple/cranberry, and pecan this week. I'll throw some pics up when they are finished. Pies in a jar are a practical solution for individuals living alone, families with picky kids, or families that just can't seem to finish that 8 inch fruit pie. ;)

And just think of the possibilities. I make my own pot pies from scratch all the time. Why not in a jar?

Thrifty Friday Find ~ Jar Lids

Canning jar lids and rings can be expensive to replace. Imagine my surprise when I walked into a flea market, found a beautiful booth with hand crafted lamps, and under one of the tables spotted two enormous boxes filled with bags that consisted of 12 canning bands & lids in each. She had both wide and regular jar sizes. So why would one person be selling so many? Well, this particular crafter makes lamps out of Ball jars. The Ball jars come with new bands and lids that she has absolutely no use for. So she thought, why not try and sell them? And at $1 a bag, who would pass them up? (or at least anyone who would be canning!) My husband wanted to make a "how much for all"deal that would have taken me to the next millennium in canning, but I decided get 12 of each size. The hubby of the crafter threw in some extra bags. What a deal! It never hurts to be on the look out for 'by products' of a craft. I had never thought about that with jar lamps. This couple was happy to get rid of (what they considered to be) a nuisance/space taker, and I was absolutely thrilled to have a good supply of bands and lids! :)