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Highview Pastures Farm

We are hosting Thanksgiving this year.  I/we have never hosted Thanksgiving before.  After the initial freak-out of “omfgwearehostingThanksgiving” I reminded myself that it will be fine, we had after all, hosted a homemade pizza party for 30 people last fall.  Because of this, my fear lied in the fact that it is Thanksgiving, a holiday rich in tradition, but not the company nor number of guests.  Eight people, the number we are hosting, is nothing to be concerned about since as usual, I will prepare too much food.  However, I WAS concerned about the turkey.  I called the Birchwood Cafe to see if I could still order a bird from Wild Acres and they put me on a wait list.  But what was I supposed to do until I find out if I get one or not!?  I took to the Minnesota Grown website, hosted by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, typed in my area code and the product I was interested in (poultry, natch).  I was lucky enough to stumble upon the family owned and run farm of HighView Pastures and with a $10 deposit I was able to secure a locally raised, free-range turkey.

I made that call last Monday and got to pick up our bird today in Farmington.  It is rare when I leave the 554XX or even 551XX zip codes, so to make the drive to the country is a bit of a haul for me.  But I was excited! – In the country, by myself, blaring lady GaGa, and despite driving behind really slow UPS trucks, I knew that this turkey farm was going to be fabu – and it was.

This isn’t the mailbox to the farm.  This is a mailbox a few farms away.  I missed it and had to turn around.

However, THIS is the front-yard of the farm and those oblong white guys…err ladies are TURKEYS.  There were turkey hens running around as well as a few Tom Turkeys.

Roaming all around were not just turkey hens and Tom Turkeys, but chickens and geese as well!  They didn’t care that I, a human, at three times their height, was roaming around their territory.  Nor did they seem to care that I drove a large car called a Corolla that could easily squish them.  They just wandered about “cluck, cluck, clucking” away and “gob, gob gobbling” as they walked.  They seemed so at peace.  I wonder if they were curious as to where half of their friends went?  Their other turkey friends who just disappeared yesterday and never came back?  Do birds have the mental capacity to think such thoughts?

Here is one of their brothers…or sisters.  Plucked, decapitated, and vacuum sealed.  The she-farmer thankfully gave me a bag to carry Turkey in.  I would have felt like an inconsiderate slob waltzing amongst the poultry outside, displaying their dead friend like some sick freak.

On the bright side of eating meat – this is where it’s at.  The bird was raised on a lovely farm, able to walk around freely, and had food made available to it as they wished.  Lastly the farmers, unlike Evil Poultry Corporation, did not inject their turkeys with saline thus making them appear and feel more plump and ultimately deceiving the customer.  Better yet, our turkey was ALIVE until just yesterday.  Up until yesterday, I’m sure it lived a happy life, or as happy a life turkeys expect to live.

In following the Cook’s Illustrated recipe for an old-fashioned stuffed turkey (apologies if you can’t view it as you may need to login), I separated the skin from the meat on the breasts, legs, and back with my gloved hand, though I did not remove the skin.  After separating it, I rubbed the meat with Kosher salt and wrapped the bird back up in plastic wrap since it should be salted and wrapped tightly for 24-48 hours.  In essence, I violated the bird, with salt, then mummified it and finished the job by putting it back in the cold, dark refrigerator.

There s/he is!  Alive yesterday.  Dead today.  In my refrigerator until Thursday.

The farm trip was delightful for a variety of reasons and I’m so glad that we were able to get such a happy turkey for Thanksgiving – something to be truly thankful for.

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HighView Pasture sells s many other products such as eggs, pork, and beef.  Seriously, check them out!

As previously mentioned, I went to The Affair where I attended a chai demo given by cookbook author, chef, biologist and native Indian Raghavan Iyer.  After realizing that we have this book at home written by Iyer, I paged through until I found a recipe that contained all (or almost all) of the ingredients we already had at home and came upon chicken with potatoes.  I did end up going to the store to grab some ingredients for the spicy garam masaala, and in so doing, forgot the turmeric, and couldn’t locate unsweetened coconut (had sweetened at home though) nor dried Thai chillies and stupidly thought that dried chipotles would suffice.  For the most part they did, but the smokiness was nothing if not lame and the spiciness was somewhat lacking.

Since I am trying this new thing where I carefully read through a recipe before delving in, I noted that I desperately needed to make the spicy garam masaala before doing anything else.  In his demo and book Iyer explains the importance of using fresh spices because one spice has not one flavor, but six.  SIX guys!  It’s like this:

  • Flavor 1: whole seed
  • Flavor 2: ground whole seed
  • Flavor 3: Whole seed dry roasted
  • Flavor 4: Whole seed dry roasted and then ground
  • Flavor 5: Whole seed fried in hot oil (or clarified butter) 10-20 seconds until it has a nutty aroma
  • Flavor 6: Whole seed fried in hot oil (or clarified butter) 10-20 seconds until it has a nutty aroma, then removed from the oil and ground.

Had I not known the above, I would have been a complete slackass and used already ground spices, mixed them together and Called. It. A. Day.  Learning this spice secret is great; greater even than learning The Secret.  To create the spicy garam marsaala then, I used whole spices.  The freshness of them is unclear since I bought them from a grocer who has held them for who knows how long.  However, because I roasted the seeds myself, it has to help…right?

Whoa! It's my banner!

After I roasted the seeds a couple of minutes and let them cool, I took out a reserve coffee grinder (at the time we only had two – I mean this to infer that we now have three) and threw everything pictured above, plus the chipotles and ground it.  No more than a minute later I had a chipotle version of spicy garam marsaala.

Iyer says that this is only good for about a month in a container before it begins to smell and taste rancid.  I assume that the freezer could prevent this from happening as fast?  Regardless that is where mine no resides and I’ll just guess that it is OK for three months (and I just pulled that number out of the air since it lies between 32 days and forever).

I have now spent about a whole ten minutes prepping this part of the dinner (a component of which I only need 1 teaspoon).  Realistically, this was no more complicated than the recipe for the chicken with potatoes, or any recipe really (with the exception of this one).

I wedged the potatoes into eight pieces each and let them simmer in the skillet while I worked the coconut mixture; consisting of coconut, garlic, oil, coriander, and chilies (though truthfully I just used jalapeños).

When the coconut began to brown, I pulled the skillet from the heat, scraped the mixture into the food processor with the specified 1/2 cup of water and let it run a few minutes until it could not be processed anymore.  The seeds are not going to break down in a large processor like mine (11 Cup) and that is perfectly fine.

I started working on the chicken; cutting it up and pan frying it until golden brown.  At this point, everything came together; chicken, the potatoes you probably forgot about, the coconut mixture, spicy garam masaala, the tomatoes, salt, and turmeric.

When the chicken is cooked through, garnish with cilantro and perhaps make some rice!

A few weeks ago, The Heavy Table had a post looking for new blogs they could feature on their site.  Immediately I sent the link to Tracy to encourage her to submit HER blog.  She did so at the right time because she was the 50th person to do so, meaning she won tickets to The Affair for that weekend.  Because I am lucky, nice, or Tracy just couldn’t find someone to go with, she invited ME!  And I went, even though I agree with some of the points Kitchen Bitch made about their advertising sensibilities (I’m more against infidelity but it made me question whether the promoters hired a group of teenagers or an advertising firm?  The obvious imagery is an insult that even Pete Campbell wouldn’t hurl at us).

I’m not going to write-up on the event, but rather just tell you the Who’s Who of The Affair.

First, we went to a chai making demonstration hosed by Om restaurateur, and author of 660 Curries as well as Betty Crocker’s Indian Home CookingRaghavan Iyer.  I learned a lot about making chai and have considered even giving it a whirl at home someday.  What was most surprising to me was that he authored that Betty Crocker book, the same mysterious book that is on our book shelf in the kitchen which I recently moved elsewhere because I thought, “Betty Crocker don’t know jack about Indian home cooking!  Hmpf!”  When I got home after The Affair, I made mention of the demo to David who also started talking about the book.  More interestingly, Iyer hosted a cooking class/demo at their house (I think?) for his sister, AND he got the book signed.  I then made it a point to page through it and make something from it that week, which I did – more on that later…

BUT on our way to a cheese and chocolate demo (which tasted very “blah.”  I want my cheese to taste like something and that something is not bland Velveeta – Heeeeyoooo!), out of the corner of my eye, I caught a fire engine red dress.  The woman wearing it was short, shorter than me (and I’m short).  ZOMG!  It was Marjorie Johnson – Minnesota’s best known home baker (right?)!  You may remember me writing about her here, here and here.  Then again, you may not remember that, so…you’re welcome.  I haven’t followed her career, but a friend gave me her fabulous book, Blue Ribbon Baking a couple of years ago, and I’ve caught her on Leno a few times.  Her methods are tried and true, she’s short like me and she’s so adorably sweet.  I know she was there to sell and sign book but was kind enough to let me get my picture taken with her on my phone.

(I don’t normally look like a dude)

This couldn’t be topped, so shortly thereafter we left The Affair.

Thanks for The Affair, Heavy Table!

So Jim Lahey (YES! THIS Jim Lahey) has a new that came out called My Bread, or rather, my bread.  Because of this, his book reviewed with a recipe in Gourmet’s last issue in November.  The title of the recipe is called Pizza Patate and includes the necessary pizza dough recipe as well.  When I first considered making this I was falsely under the impression that it would be much like a potato knish, or even sort of close to gözleme.  However, after using my brain and eyes to read through the recipe a week thereafter, I came to realize it was nothing more than a potato topped pizza recipe.  It was also not a baked potato pizza a la Pizza Luce which I love love love.  On the other hand, it was because it was none of these things that I became intrigued and made a serous commitment to make Pizza Patate.

I attached the slicer t the food processor and sliced about four medium sized potatoes.  Everything was going well until a potato got stuck and it being 8:30am, I figured that using a knife would be the most effective way to push it down through the spout.  Which it was.  Until the handle of the knife got stuck on the slicer, I had a 7″ chef’s knife wobbling around, and the slicer stem broke.  (Don’t worry, I jumped away for safety rather than do anything effective like turn the food processor off.  Safety first though.)  Being safe and sound, I continued on by placing the taters in a bowl with a generous helping of kosher salt and filling it with water until all the spuds were covered.  I left them in the refrigerator longer than anticipated, but it was not detrimental (Friday morning to Sunday night).

Sunday morning I deviated from my normal pizza dough to use Lahey’s recipe (which is only slightly different from his No-Knead recipe).  After getting the dough close to ready, I emptied the potato bowl of its water and pressed any remaining water out with a dry towel.  Then in went to the thinly sliced onion (which I sliced by hand kthx?), some olive oil, as well as pepper.  Because the potatoes were soaking in Kosher salt for two and a half days, adding salt was wholly unnecessary.  Then I spread these guys across the dough which was already stretched across the pizza stone which had been preheating n the oven for a good half hour.  But something was inherently wrong, and it wasn’t just the lack of rosemary…

It was the lack of bacon.  After more consideration, it was also the lack of cheese.  In essence, I created not pizza patate, but rather, a breakfasty potato pizza, which according to Babelfish (which had steered me wrong so many times before in my seven years of German language learning), looks like this in Italian: pizza della prima colazione della patata.

Pizza della prima colazione della patat pretty much tasted like a giant-sized hash brown, but the delicious kind that was made with love and not with over processed potatoes from Denny’s.  However, now that my replacement slicer stem has arrived in the mail, I may safely slice some potatoes and try pizza patate again, but more accurately.

To be honest I cannot recall any desserts we ate in Russia.  This is not to say that they don’t have any, but I could not conjure up one of my own and so took to the Internets and came across this honey cake recipe.  The nesting dolls in the upper left-hand corner only ensure that this is a tried and true Russian recipe.  However tried and true is far from inaccurate as I will detail.

I fancy myself pretty good at baking – I even call myself a baker.  I think I grasp basic baking and cooking concepts easily and can certainly follow a recipe as well as understand what went wrong in a given recipe when it comes out sub-par.  I take a mental note of it and understand to alter it later when I again try to make it.  Given this, I was pretty frustrated with this recipe.  Though the method didn’t SEEM to make sense, but I went with it anyway in an effort to learn new techniques.  FAIL.

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The recipe instructed you to heat the butter, sugar and honey in a pan and then add it to the beaten-egg-flour-mixture.  I did this. In fact, I did this twice.  The first time after adding this hot mixture to the egg-dough there were sizable chunks in it.  I figured I must have heated the sugar too hot and thus created scrambled eggs – an unappealing mouth feel and taste for sure and one I have overcome before while making pastry cream.  I tossed it all out and started again to have something similar occur, but the chunks were much smaller.  I tossed that out as well and moved on a the creaming method, which just made more sense to me and for the recipe.

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butter sugar egg honey

I added the other ingredients and the batter finally came together in a smooth manner – in a batter manner if you will.

The other problem I had with this recipe was its insistence of baking eight separate layers and this may be a problem because of my relatively limited experience, or my alterations with the recipe and thus consistency of the batter, or it could be that this recipe is faulty by nature.  Whatever the culprit, I found it near impossible to spread the batter neatly and evenly as thin as requested over the spring-form pan.  After a failed attempt, I opted to bake the cakes in two pans where after baking i cut the cakes in half.  Not eight separate layers as demanded, but halfway there – literally.

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super fuzzy cake picture!

The only thing in this recipe that was full proof was the cream filling, which required nothing more than mixing three ingredients together and icing the cake so it was made to be easy and coherent.

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It deviated from the photo on the recipe, but it was still very attractive, and more so since I got to use one of my new display dome and trays.

And so this is how the Russian Dinner Night concluded.  We ran out of good Russian vodka but still have fantastic wine, good food and great friends, which may (or may not?…depending on how you roll) be most important anyway.

In Russian pelmeni looks like this: пельмени.

Visually it looks like this:

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The word itself may be completely bizarro, but as you can see, пельмени is nothing more than a dumpling.  The same type of dumplings that you have eaten many times at your Norwegian grandmothers house, or Swedish, or German, or Chinese (but not the delicious looking soup dumplings).

The contents of the dumplings are really basic: 1 part ground beef to 1 part ground pork and then spiced however you like!  I diced up about three cloves of garlic, poured in some Worcestershire sauce, some red pepper flakes, salt and pepper then mixed it all together by hand until everything was well incorporated.  After which, I placed it back in the refrigerator, covered to work on the pelmeni dough.

In our St. Petersburg cooking class, Chef Tsvetkov Oleg divided the tasks for the pelmeni making by sex: the men did all of the tasks pertaining to meat and mostly dough, whereas we women performed all of the vegetable prep work (for the solyanka).  We took a number of breaks throughout our class where Chef encouraged us to take shot after shot of vodka, which we did.  So when we returned to the kitchen to work with sharp knives I think I moved slower, not only from the alcohol, but because I was really mesmerized by the way in which Chef was making dumpling dough.  He took approximately three cups of all-purpose (I assume) flour, added a pinch of salt for flavor and then eyeballed an amount of oil, vegetable or olive perhaps.  He then just kneaded it in a plastic container until it became dough.

I wanted to take the same idea and use it at home.  Unfortunately, I was overcome by a simple noodle recipe (though I used All Purpose Flour instead) involving four eggs, went with it, and then ran it through my pasta machine to flatten the dough out to long sheets.

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Oddly, this cookie cutter did not suffice.  I had to use a drinking glass to cut out the dough and then at times a knife to cut it away and in to rounds.  This occurred – I believe – not due to the dough recipe, but due to the fact that I ran the dough through the pasta roller too many times, the dough got pretty tough (as evidenced later when I ate the meal).  Curses!  So beware…

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The rounds weren’t much larger than 2.5″ across.

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To seal the pelmeni, I did nothing more than use the tines of a fork; no water, egg wash or other goop to glue it together.   The super great thing about pelmeni is that it keeps so well in the freezer.  I made up a huge batch of these one afternoon, just in order to have on a rainy/snowy/lazy day, put them on a cookie sheet in a single layer, froze them and then bagged them up before I again threw them in the freezer, just like the Siberians.

On Russian Dinner Night, as we were starting to eat our solyanka, I pulled out a large pot to boil water in.  I now realize how lovely it would have been to put some chicken broth in as well.  Luckily I still have a gallon bag full of pelmeni in the freezer to try that idea out on.

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I boiled them for about 15-20 minutes – because there is frozen, raw meat inside, It is necessary to ensure it’s actually cooked through.  After pulling the dumplings out, I poured a bt of live oil on them as well as some salt and pepper.  After a quick stir, they were served!  Because the soup was so hearty, we needed only a few dumplings to satisfy our need for savory before we had dessert…

What people don’t realize about Russia, is that Russians eat much more than borsch and potatoes.  If you happen to go to Russia, nothing screams tourist quite like a giddy foreigner ordering borsch.  Anyone with an interest in beet soup can imagine how to make it as it doesn’t require a lot of imagination.  Fortunately, this is not a post about the betaine-rich root vegetable, but rather a dynamic soup called solyanka.

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This is a picture of the solyanka that we made in our Russian cooking class while visiting St. Petersburg this past summer.  I know you think it looks like a hodge podge of random leftovers found in your refrigerator thrown together in a pot and called soup.  However, that is often a description suited for Midwestern hot dishes.  Solyanka contains layers of flavors that are unearthed on every bite.  It is hearty enough to serve as a main meal (lunch) but is adequette to serve as a first course. Solyanka can be made in three different ways: vegetarian, meat or fish based, all of which are savory and hit the head on the umami factor.  However, I decided to make this version beef based, just as we were taught on our trip by Chef Tsvetkov Oleg.

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an intimidating character

I mostly followed this recipe and then tweaked it according to my memory of what we ate in the motherland, as well as what could be surmised from the first photo of this post.  In order to ensure the best possible solyanka,  I drove all over th city gathering ingredients.  My first stop was Kowalski’s to take advantage of their fresh olive bar – much to my delight they also had gherkins!  A little over $9 later, I was heading toward my favorite neighborhood butcher, Everett’s where I ordered a fresh-cut sirloin steak (~ 1#) and a hot polish sausage (I know that everyone in South Minneapolis is all about Clancey’s, but we closer to East Lake than…a lake.  Moreover, the guys at Everett’s are top-notch AND they smoke some killer jerky).  Eleven dollars later, I was out of there and on my way home to start making soup.

I cubed the sirloin in to pieces measuring no more than 1/4″ on each side and threw them in the pot with about eight cups of water.  Because I bought more steak than the recipe required, I compensated by adding an extra two cups of water.  As the beef and water became broth, I fried up some bacon, threw that in the pot, as well as sliced the Polish and threw that in as well.  With all of the meat accounted for, I moved on to the vegetables.

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I cut up an onion and the pickles and sautéed them in the same pan as the one I cooked the bacon in, leaving just enough grease to cook these veggies.  When the onions started to become translucent, I added a generous amount of tomato paste and continued to sautée all of it for a few minutes before dumping the entire contents of th pan in to the pot with the water (now broth) and meat.  I felt as though something was still lacking.  There were so many delicious flavors and textures roaming around in the pot, but I  wanted something more substantial.  With that I cubed up two or three medium sized Yukon potatoes and threw them in the pot as well.  After which, I added four bay leaves (ZOMG I know!  It’s so many!!!) and let the soup cook itself on low heat until it was time to serve.  In the meantime I got to bask in the homey aroma emitting from the large pot on the stove.  Thirty or so minutes before serving, I added fresh olives to the pot and let it finish cooking.

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I garnished the soup with some fresh sprigs of dill, a generous squeeze of a lemon wedge (as well as the wedge itself) and a dollop of sour cream.  This soup has it all: a savory base with the meat, sour with the lemon, gherkins and olives,  rich and creamy with the sour cream and a hint of fresh with the dill sprigs.  With the complexities contained in this soup, I don’t understand why borsch is solyanka’s constant rival.  Who says there is no diversity in Russian food?

on a similar note…

Lady Gaga’s video for her single Bad Romance premiered today.  Of it, she explains:

“There’s this one shot in the video where I get kidnapped by supermodels.
I’m washing away my sins and they shove vodka down my throat to drug
me up before they sell me off to the Russian mafia.”

On the dawn of the anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, David and I invited friends over for dinner as we hosted a Russian themed meal.  It has been a plan in my head since coming home from a visit to St. Petersburg this summer.  The plan taking place on the weekend before the anniversary of the fall of communism was merely a coincidence.  Despite as much, we started the night off in the only appropriate manner: drinking the last of our Russian Standard Vodka purchased in the motherland.

Most people only know about three things about Russia:

  1. Russians drink a. lot. of. vodka.
  2. Communism and its father Karl Marx
  3. Vladimir Putin’s pecs.

Despite my strange interest in all three areas, I will only answer to the first point.

Russians do drink a lot of vodka.  When you go to a decent restaurant, you will be served, without ordering, a shot of vodka and you are expected to drink it right away whether it is lunch or dinnertime.  If you are out to eat with a group of people, you will order a bottle of vodka for the table and everyone (who wants to) is given a shot glass to partake in the bottle.  It actually isn’t that difficult to go through an entire bottle in one sitting.

I needn’t explain the plusses of drinking vodka at lunch or dinner.  Instead, I will merely point out the other main reason why Russians drink so much vodka.  They live in RUSSIA.  Do you even realize how far north people live in this country and how cold it can get?   We weren’t even 60 degrees north of the equator while in St. Petersburg, it was summer and it was kind of chilly.  Think of the people who live 9 degrees further north and even further north than that – how else are they going to stay warm?

Lastly, vodka is the national drink and literally means ”little water.”  However, it was not until 1893 when Dmitri Mendeleev (who you may remember from such places as the Periodic Table of Elements and Mendelevium) researched the properties of the spirit to determine that the optimum alcohol content for drinking should be 38% (it was later pushed to 40% for taxation purposes) and was written in to law.  A little more than a decade later, Mendeleev was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the Periodic Table of Elements.  Because of grudges and arguments conducted by a certain committee member, Mendeleev was not awarded the honor despite two nominations. To get back on point: Russians take their national drink seriously.

With that, it should come as no surprise then that the Russian vodka we drank was beyond exceptional.  It was impeccably pure and no matter how much I drank, I did not once encounter even a glimpse of a hangover.  The vodka we drank was just as good to take shots of as much as it was to sip.   Because of this, it was most unfortunate that the bottle of Duty Free Zarskaya vodka was confiscated in Germany.  :::Sigh:::

Since this visit, I have come to realize that we can and should own shot glasses and should not fear seeming like a Frat House.  Shot glasses do not make a frat house; light up beer signs do.

A few weeks ago, some friends and I went apple picking.  I picked THE HELL out of some of the fruit heavy trees.  Like, I picked 13 pounds of apples.  More apples than anyone else picked.  At home, we ate a lot of them; I made a pie, I made some pork chop dish  and we ate them with with cheese as dessert one night.  You may think all of these things would take care of 13 pounds of apples.  It does not.  So I came to a near final resort: applesauce (but not pork chops and applesauce).  It was nearly the easiest thing to make, and I understand I make this claim often.  But seriously, applesauce is the easiest thing you can make.  It’s even made easier because it virtually requires no ingredients, save some cinnamon..if that’s what you are in to, like me.  This time when I say easy, I mean EASY.

Step 1:  Slice apples and remove any innerds.

Step 2:  In a pot/Dutch oven/heavy bottomed sauce pan add water (apple cider if you’re so fancy, which I am) until it’s about an inch high (thick?) in the pan of coice.

Step 3:  Turn on burner.

Step 4:  Place your apples in the pot (Harrelson and Goldencrisps or some Honeycrisp rip-off as seen here).

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Step 5:  Cover pot and wait about 20 minutes until apples are really soft.

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Step 6:  Run softened apples through a food grinder.  If you do not have a food grinder use a potato masher and do it by hand (The only drawback to this will be the skins, which obviously cannot be mashed.  Instead, think ahead!  Do you have a food grinder?  NO.  Cut off skins before boiling.  OR. Do you have a food grinder?  YES.  Keep skins on.)!

Step 7:  Put mashed apples back into pot.  Add cinnamon.  For the 8 or so apples I used, I added about 1 teaspoon of cinnamon.  It was lovely.

Fin.

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See?  Easy breezy!  The best part of this entire process was when David came home and taste tested it.  Wearily he asked how much sugar was in it.  I was proud to say that there was no added sugar.  Homemade applesauce is pretty much the easiest and healthiest dessert.

Nature – 1, Factory Processed Foods – 0.

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