barley and apples

The 25 lb sack of barley flour I ordered from a local mill arrived a few days ago. It's been sitting on my living room floor imploring me to bake something already or at least put it away. For those of you wondering why any city dweller would want a 25 lb sack of barley flour let's just say Barley flour is normally 3.79 for 20 oz plus tax. That brand is not local or organic. Barley is a whole grain which I use as the main flour in all kinds of things including bread, pie, cookies, muffins,pancake mix, cake..this was 37$ for 25 lb of local organic barley flour including shipping which is 9.25 cents per oz. as opposed to 18.95 cents per oz at the local store. Barley is a whole grain flour with a moist crumb that no one in my house is allergic to. It is not gluten free but it is tasty and wholesome. I also only have to lug it up the stairs once and don't have to worry about running out later this winter when we have less $. So it's about half the price , more convenient, local, organic and I can afford to get it right now. Win! Lesson here: search for local mills online for inexpensive grain prices.

There's also a 15 sack of apples on the kitchen bench reminding me there's another 10lbs still in the fridge from last fortnight's csa delivery and the thanksgiving delivery is in 10 days...which all means I better get cooking soon.

First the apples.....

I thought that using up the 10 lbs or so of apples sitting in the fridge was a good plan so I went by my old standby of applesauce. Stef and I eat a lot of applesauce. I didn't have time to sit near the dutch oven for an hour so I decided to experiment with crockpot applesauce. I prepared half of them , paring off bad spots , core and a few worm holes (because those happen in organic fruit), I leave the peel . I then threw them in our 3 qt crockpot on low with about 20 oz of water 1 lg stick of cinnamon. 2 inches of diced fresh ginger, 2 cloves and a pinch of all spice. The next morning the sauce wasn't quite as chunky as a I like so I decided to add another 20 oz water and prepped the other half of the apples and threw them in the mix. I had a cold and forgot about them for a day. This am I realized that I could smell apples cooking and discovered they were almost smooth. Applesauce disaster. The 'applesauce' tasted like applebutter... kind of. I added other stuff. Then I ran it through the stick blender until fully smooth. Now it tastes like apple butter but a touch thin. IT should be applebutter in the morning when I turn off the heat.

Applebutter

a slow cooker with a low setting

10 lbs of apples pared and diced (not peeled) and divided in to 2 equal piles.

set one pile in the fridge

water

1 stick cinnamon, pinch of allspice

1 thumb fresh ginger diced

3 tb honey

2 tb lemon juice

1 tb blackstrap molasses

2 tb cider vinegar

1. Put 5lb of apple bits in crockpot with chunked ginger and spices

2. Cover with water (about20 oz) and set to low

3. The next day add the rest of the apples and another 20 oz of water

4. Allow to continue cooking overnight

5.add honey,lemon juice,molasses and cider vinegar

and blender this thoroughly until smooth

6. Store if it's thick enough for your uses, cook up to 8 more hours. Note: the naturally occurring pectin in the skins should help it firm up a bit so err on the slightly runny side. Refrigerate and give some to a friend.

now I will be making up some of this stuff:

http://squirreleats.blogspot.com/2011/11/barley-quick-bread-and-barley.html