Our family LOVES apple crisp and apple pie (apple, pumpkin, & pecan pies are my favorites!) ... but we like them in the winter when apples aren't in season, which means we need to preserve the apples in October/November when they are in season..
First we wash them ...
Insecticide, pesticide, and fertilizer don't agree with my stomach so it comes off in the sink
The coveted job: Peeling and coring with the Apple Peeler Corer. his little tool is super nice to have for this process. it beats manually peeling and coring any day of the week ... but if all you have is a knife or a potato peeler then don't let it stop you.
Ta-Da! The Apples are magically transformed into slinkys.
Important Sanity Tip: These slinkys are not toys. They cannot do
somersaults down the stairs or bounce from hand to hand. Attempting such
things, may result in hot water and soap ... but they're good to eat!
You can cut the apples into tiny pieces if you prefer. We cut the
slinky in fourths but has we add the sugar and cinnamon they are cut up further with all the stirring and snitching.
The sugar we use is either sucanat or turbinado sugar
Sucanat: A natural sweetener from the dry cold-pressed juice of organically grown
sugar cane that has retained its molasses content and many vitamins
Turbinado (Pictured Above & Below): White sugar that is only partially refined, thus leaving it healthier. It's courser than brown sugar but almost has the same taste, but it isn't the same because most brown sugar is made by adding molasses to fully
refined sugar.
The amount of sugar and cinnamon is entirely up to you. How sweet do you want your apple pie/crisp? Of course you can add more in January when you pull the apple pie filling out of the freezer and thaw it. The reason sugar is added now is because it keeps the apples from turning brown, and sitting in sugar and cinnamon helps to sweeten/spice the fruit all the way through.
Now it's off to hibernation in the deep freeze until the craving for apple pie drives the baker to the wake the silent sleeper.
