Apple season is just ending as fall turns its temperature to cooler weather. We went apple crazy at my house this fall with our 200 pounds of apples. I love apples so much and have always kept in my mind that an ‘apple a day keeps the doctor a away’ so I try to include them daily in my diet. We used every bit of every apple that we had. We made, apple fruit roll ups, apple sauce, apple chips, apple cider vinegar, apple juice, apple cider and hard apple cider. The pulp from juicing we made into treats for our animals. The horse, the ducks, the chickens, the bunnies and the dogs loved their special healthy treats! We had so much fun making healthy apple creations that I wanted to share with you the recipes that we used.
Apple Fruit Roll ups / Fruit Leathers
Ingredients:
- 8 lbs Apples
- 1 cup of Water
- 2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
Directions:
- Place the apples in a large saucepan over medium heat
- Allow to simmer about 10 minutes until its cooked
- Pour the cooked apples into a blender until smooth
- Pour blended ingredients into the pot and add lemon juice and cinnamon on low heat
- Spoon the mixture on to dehydrator trays with parchment paper or sprayed with oil. Takes about 10-12 hours
- If you do not have a dehydrator, this can be done in the oven
- preheat oven about 150. Pour mixture on greased baking sheet. Cook for 8-12 hours.
- Cut the fruit leather into rectangles and roll them up to make fruit roll ups.
Apple Chips
- Thinly sliced apples
- If using oven, preheat oven to 200 degrees
- Line baking sheets with parchment paper
- Spread apples without overlapping.
- Sprinkle Cinnamon and place in oven and dry for an hour.
- If dehydrating, place apple slices on racks, sprinkle cinnamon and leave for about 6 hours.
Apple Sauce
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Ingredients:
Directions:
** you can add a sweetener like sugar, honey, agave, maple syrup, coconut sugar, etc. if your apples are not sweet enough. |
Apple Cider Vinegar
Apple Peels and Cores
You will need:
- Apple peels and cores
- Water
- Sugar (1 Tablsepoon per one cup of water)
- Glass jar
Directions:
- Fill the glass jar with apple peels and cores
- Still sugar into water into the sugar is dissolved
- Leave a few inches on top
Apple Peels and Cores soaked in sugar water with a fabric cloth rubber band to the glass jar
- Cover with cheese cloth or fabric scrap and a rubber band
- Set in warm, dark place for 2 weeks
- Skim off any brownish scum on top
- Strain the apple scraps from the liquid
- Discard scraps (chickens or compost)
- Set strained liquid aside in covered jar for 2-4 more weeks
- It is complete once it has a distinct vinegary taste and smell
- Once finished cap it and store in fridge
Apple Juice
If you have a juicer, simply cut your apples up cutting the cores out (which you can use for apple cider vinegar) and put through your juicer. Enjoy! Keep it refrigerated.
There are other ways of making juice by heating up apples in water for 30 min and then straining the apple mush out which you could use for apple sauce. The liquid is the apple juice which you can add cinnamon or sweeter if you want.
Hard Apple Cider
This is our contraption getting the apple juice into the 8 gallon buckets
- First, juice the apples. I recommend taking the peels off and cutting out the core (which you can use for apple cider vinegar).
- Juice apples and pour into a fermenter, usually a plastic food grade bucket. You can obtain from a brew shop.
- Add a packet of yeast (wine yeast or cider yeast)
- Add 2 pounds of brown sugar or honey
- Mix it up and put the fermentation lid on the bucket and fill the air lock with water to form a seal.
- Let sit in dark, warm place for 2 weeks. Taste it. You can keep letting it ferment or bottle. Add sweetener (xylitol or stevia) if you would like the cider sweeter.
Apple Cider
Cheers to Apples!