Apple Pie, Crisps, and a Full Belly

Our apple trees are ready for doing something with. The apples are a little smaller than last year, but much more plentiful. Therefore I started working with the corer, peeler and put 72 cups of apples into 6 of these bad boys and 8 Crumbles. 

 5 pies and 8 crumbles made it to the freezer! One got sacrificed in the quality control exercise. It passed with flying colours.

This is God's gift to apple peelers. I don't know how I ever got along with out it. It peels and cores and slices with just a crank of a handle. Well worth the cost in time saved!

Now, I have half of one tree picked with another 2 1/2 to go! I think I will be giving apples away, after 6 more pies!

Favourite recipes.

Fish Chowder


This one is a favourite of mine and was developed by me about 55 years ago when I was guiding tourists at a fly in camp. Take a large pot, dice up about 8 large potatoes and 2 medium onions. Cover with water. Add 3 bay leaves and about 12 whole peppercorns. Boil until the potatoes are soft. Add 1, 16 ounce can of niblets corn ( without the water). Add 1 pound of fish cut up into bite size chunks.  Add 1, 16 ounce can of Condensed Milk ( Carnation is my favourite) Do NOT boil at this point, just simmer. Add 1/4 pound of butter or margarine and continue to simmer.  This is one chowder that you can't overcook, and it is very good warmed up the next day.

When eating, keep an eye out for the peppercorns.

Spaghetti Squash


Do you get tired of trying to judge when a Spaghetti Squash is cooked in the oven? Try this one.
Cut the squash in half and clean out the pulp. Stick it in the microwave on high for 9 minutes. Mine has not blown up yet.

When cooked, add 2 heaping tablespoons of brown sugar and  2 tablespoons of butter. As you scrape the squash out with a fork, everything melts and gets mixed perfectly. Any left overs are great fried up the next day.

Enjoy!

Raisin/cranberry/cinnamon Bread


To improve your homemade raisin bread, replace some of the raisins with dried cranberries, or do like i do and just add a handful to the regular amount of raisins and adjust the water upwards slightly.

It really adds to the flavor and is a hit with all the grand kids.

What to do?

We have about 30 chickens that were about 16 months old, mostly hens that we decided to cut up and freeze with the thought of using them in the slow cooker. Well, we tried one, cooked for 10 hours and you could just barely cut it with a chainsaw! ;O) We decided to cut it up fine and use it in a stir fry. This worked better, but was still chewy. Anybody got any ideas on how to tenderize this meat?

There is an old story on how to cook up a merganzer that I might try.

Take one merganzer (a type of fish duck), place it in a large pot of boiling water. Add one piece of granite rock. When the granite is soft, eat it and throw away the duck.

Think it will work? I really need some help so that I don't waste all this meat.