Not Your Mama's Applesauce (shh...there's chili in there)

Chili in applesauce? Why not?

Applesauce and chili powder make a surprisingly good combination. Wait, maybe it's not such a surprise.

Both these flavors work well with pork roasts, so why not eliminate the roast and just make a batch of spicy applesauce?

 As this cooked, I tasted it and realized the chili powder was overpowering the apples. I found some cranberry juice in the freezer, added it to the mix and tasted. Perfect amount of sweet and tart.

The resulting applesauce is a wonderful mix of warm spices, sweet apples and tart cranberries.

Happy soon-to-be-Fall!

Apple Sauce with Chili Powder and Cranberry

Makes about 7 4 oz jars

Ingredients:

  • 10 Granny Smith apples, peeled and cut into chunks
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 2 teaspoons chili powder
  • 1/4 cup frozen cranberry juice

Method:

  1. Put the apples, sugar, lemon juice and chili into a large pot.
  2. Cook over media heat, stirring every few minutes, for 30 minutes.
  3. Add the frozen cranberry juice to the pot, stir until it's melted into the apple mixture.
  4. Using a potato masher, mash up the large chunks of apple and cook for another 1o minutes.
  5. Place in sterilized jars: click here to see how to sterilize and seal the jars.
  6. Turn the sealed jars upside down, allow them to cool completely.
  7. Good for three months until opened. Refrigerate after opening.

Homemade Slushy: Cran-Raspberry with Strawberry Slushy

Summer means icy drinks like this cran-raspberry with strawberry slushy.

 This past weekend my daughter asked if we could make slushies. We searched for a machine that might assist us in our efforts, but came up empty.

Isabella then remembered an As-Seen-On-TV slushie shaker that she had seen at our local Walgreen's. They have two shelving units full of As-Seen-On-TV products (wait, I noticed yesterday that they've replaced this section with back-to-school items, even though it's still July). We purchased a Slushy Magic cup and went home to give it a go (we paid only half the price that was listed on their site).

The cup comes with some "magic" ice cubes (whose ingredients I decided against investigating) that you put in the freezer for a few hours. Then you pour juice into the shaker cup, add the "magic" cubes, cover and shake.

It seems that we didn't leave the cubes in the freezer long enough. And, I think it would take about forty minutes of dedicated shaking to get the Magic Slushy cup to create a nice smushy iced beverage.

We went to plan B: use my drink blender, with the juice, some whole strawberries and ice. We blended several batches, poured them into some red Solo cups (Isabella sang the song while we worked, the "Glee" version) and put them in the freezer for two hours.

They were great. When we got to the party, we poured them into smaller cups, added some ginger ale and a sprig of mint.  A great standard kid-friendly drink was born!

Cran-Raspberry with Strawberry Slushy

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups cranberry-raspberry juice
  • 10 strwberries, hulled and cut into chunks
  • 8 to 10 ice cubes
  • 1 cup ginger ale
  • 10 mint sprigs for garnish

Method:

  1. Put juice, strawberries and ice into a blender. Mix until ice has become crushed and strawberries are just past being chunky.
  2. Pour mixture into several plastic cups.
  3. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the freezer for two hours.
  4. Remove from the freezer, pour into individual serving cups.
  5. Stir in a splash of ginger ale into each drink. Garnish with the mint.

A Nice Iced Drink

Let me introduce you to my new non-alchoholic beverage of choice: Ginger Ale with pure Cranberry Juice.

Pure cranberry juice is really sour. It has no sweetners, not even grape or apple juice. It's not meant to be drunk alone (as far as I'm concerned), so I usually water it down.

The other night, I decided to try it with some Ginger Ale instead of water.

Whoa.

What a nice combination, the gingery-sweet soda and the tart cranberry juice taste great together. I suppose you could bill this as a healthy drink, what with the pure cranberry juice and all, but that might be pushing it a bit.

The color of this drink is a conversation starter, too, so it's a great going-out drink, you know, a good opener....

To make this at home:

  • mix 2/3 ginger ale
  • with 1/3 pure cranberry juice

Voila! A great drink is made.

Enjoy!