I’m afraid I don’t have a recipe to share today…
Wait, wait… I might still inspire you, though! In fact, I am truly hoping that I will.
I, myself, was inspired for this one by Heidi, over at Food Doodles. Greatly inspired, to be honest.
You see, I had gotten up that morning with the firm intention of making apple compote out of the 3 million cooking apples that I got when I went to the orchard. I figured I would do what I usually do, which is peel, core and slice my apples, throw them in a large pot, add plenty of cinnamon and cook them until they become soft and mushy, but still have a few chunks remaining. Then put that in jars and use in all kinds of lovely apple dishes, or recipes that call for unsweetened applesauce.
But the thought of doing something useful and yummy with the scraps had never even come close to crossing my mind. To me, peelings and cores were nothing but waste.
And what a waste it would’ve indeed been, if it hadn’t been for Heidi that day.
As luck would have it, while I was enjoying my coffee that morning, preparing mentally to tackle the task ahead… (hey, peeling 3 million apples is no small task. Thank goodness I had my mom and daugther to help out, else I’d still be at it!) I was super excited to have received this new post by Heidi, because she hadn’t been posting in a while and it felt real good to see her back in the game.
Turns out she had some great news, but also, she had been making this gorgeous apple jelly using nothing but apple scraps. Now THAT immediately caught my attention. I had to give it a go.
I decided I was going to just cover my scraps with water, let that boil for a while, and see what would come out of it.
I must’ve had, oh, I don’t know, about 16 cups worth of peelings and cores, maybe? I threw that in a large pot, covered with water, added about yay much cinnamon, brought that to a boil and let it simmer for as long as I felt necessary, until I was left with some sort of mush, I would say maybe a half hour.
Then I poured that mixture into a colander (the kind that you would use for pasta, with the “large” holes) and kept the liquid, of course. I pressed down on the mixture with a laddle to extract as much liquid as possible. I then poured that liquid into a fine mesh sieve and let it drain. Of course, I had to do this in several goes and help it go down with a spatula from time to time.
Once all the liquid had drained, there was quite a lot of pulp that remained in the sieve and it reminded me a lot of apple butter. It had a great, creamy texture and a superb appley taste but none of the added sugar. For sure, I wasn’t going to throw that out, so in a jar it went!
As for the liquid, I put it back in the pot, added about ¼ cup of honey (I must’ve had well over 8 cups of liquid), and let that simmer for an additional lenght of time, like, I don’t know, 30 minutes again?, until it had reduced into a nice, thick, red syrup.
I guess that’s when you’d be adding pectin or gelatin if you wanted jelly, but I what I wanted was apple syrup, so I just left it as is. I think it’ll be delicious over pancakes, or oatmeal, or some sort of a breakfast bake… if I can ever stop eating it by the spoonful, that is!
Look how gorgeous!
Now, unfortunately, I’m not going to tell you how to go about canning this, I am not a pro. In fact, it’s a good thing none of you saw me canning these. It was my first time and it was NOT pretty!
I guess it’s a good thing that these jars are not going to last long! Not sure I trust my canning techniques 
So hey, don’t be surprised if you see one or two recipes involving apples pop up here in the next couple of weeks days!
Oh, hey, whoa, almost forgot!
It’s time to announce the winners of my 1st blogiversary giveaway!
Now before I do that, I want to, again, thank each and every one of you for your unbelievably kind comments. You guys warmed my heart like you can’t even begin to imagine. I am deeply and sincerely touched.
Without further ado, here goes:
Actually, I had to draw 3 numbers. First number was 96, and the winner was… ME!
Boooooh! No good! Put it back, put it back!
Darn, I knew I shouldn’t have commented… but couldn’t help answering questions, you know!
Alright, let’s get a real winner this time.
Second number was… lucky 13, which corresponds to Mike’s (Stormnet Media) comment.
And the third number to come out was…18 ! This one belonged to Stephanie P.
Congrats to both of you. I will be emailing you your “card” shortly, once I figure out how to get this done!
Be sure to check your inbox
Good on you for using up all the apple in very unique ways. We go through alot of homemade applesauce in our house, so I now make roasted applesauce. Do not peel your apples, cut in 1/2, then I use a melon baller to remove core & seeds-super fast trick and turn them cut side down on a foil lined cookie sheet (with edges), roast for 20 minutes or so in 400 degree oven. The skins dome up & crispen, you remove them and you are left with applesauce, mix in cinnamon, no sugar required as the roasting makes them sweeter & eat or pack away. Clean up is easy too-toss the foil.
I LOVE the idea of roasting the apples. Next time I make a not so big batch, I’ll be sure to give it a try! And that melon baller trick, been using it for years. Works like a charm!!!
Brilliant, Kim! Doing this tomorrow with (hopefully) the *rest* of my apples!
Ahah! Brilliant idea!
And I still envy you your mountain of apples! 
I love how you used those apples! And to be honest; I think your canning technique looks absolutely fine but then I’m no expert either having done it once before with home made plum jam. I’d love to make that apple pulp and juice like you did. I gotta remember that!!
Thank you very much Sonia (The Healthyyy Foodie), you’re a very special person, doing very special things in the kitchen. Had to share this story with your audience because its such an interesting story (I find a lot of things “interesting”).
I was in the car heading home and my GF was driving. Like any good social media “addict” I was updating my status and looking forward to seeing what other people are doing/eating/saying on a Friday night.
What, I won something? This has to be a joke, maybe someone is trying to “phish” my credentials (Don’t know what “phishing” is? Go here >>> http://www.commoncraft.com/video/phishing-scams.
Couldn’t be happier to win something from a person I’ve never met but admire so much because of… her “bio”?
I can remember it clearly. Little under a year ago, I read Sonia’s bio and I questioned my own eating habits.Let’s be clear, I’m a card carrying-Trader Joe-shoppin-recycle my trash-bike to work-foodie that loves to see what other people are eating.
Strangely, I find joy in this, have I found “my tribe”? You know, when you think you’re the only one on the planet that does things a certain way. Trust me on socmed, you learn very quickly there are millions of people like yourself, you just happen to be “one of them”.
There’s a little irony in winning a prize from you Sonia…first, you have the sexiest first name on the planet (I was first introduced to the name Sonia from the actress Sonia Braga and her performance in “Gabriela”, all I can say…OMG – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlQ2aBBpl00 )
Lastly, there is no way you could know this because I don’t post my birthdate anywhere online but my birthday is on Monday. What a nice present, could not have come from a kinder, more compassionate person with a serious talent with a camera and food made with love.
Congratulations on your first year, I never get tired of reading your blog posts and I’m sure you readers feel the same way.
With much gratitude,
Michael
Oh my, Michael… if you didn’t have a girlfriend, I think I’d ask you to marry me right now!
You are just so sweet, no, truly, you are a gem! What a beautiful, wonderful thing to say. I am at a loss for words here. To think that I really don’t care for my first name, and often think that my life is so boring and uninteresting, to have someone tell me that my first name is sexy and that they admire me? Truly, I don’t know what to say. I am swooned. I am extremely happy that you ended up winning the card, even more so knowing that, like me, you are the kind of person who just never wins anything. $25 isn’t much, but I hope you end up getting something that you truly appreciate.
And by all means, Mike, let your presence be known from time to time. I appreciate hearing from you. A lot!
Aw, I’m so glad I inspired you! Yours turned out so beautiful! My apples weren’t very red, that must have been why mine wasn’t such a pretty color. And that butter looks great too! Did you just use the peels for this or cores too? I threw my cores in so there were all kinds of seeds and stems and things in mine, but I was super tempted to throw it through a food mill to see what I would get. I’m a bit disappointed that I didn’t now that I see yours
Your compote looks delicious too. That’s usually what I do, I like my applesauce with a bit of texture so I use a potato masher and leave some chunks in it. So yummy! That reminds me to go get more applesauce apples before it’s too late! Thank you for all the link love! 
I used the peels as well as the cores, I wasted NOTHING!
I too had all kinds of seeds and stems, etc. To be honest, one or two seeds sneaked their way into the final product, but then again, a few more also managed to sneak their way into the actual compote. Strange that you would need to use a potato masher, I just stir my apples very delicately, until I get the desired texture. I have to be careful NOT to break them too much. I find most apples don’t even need to be pureed, it just happens by magic. Must depend on the variety, I guess. No problem on the link love, I owed you that much. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have that gorgeous syrup in my fridge and cupboards! 
Whoa, both the syrup and the butter look yummy! I love that you used the scraps and the cores instead of throwing them away – nice job on using all that was given to you AND you made it look delicious! I would have never known that you didn’t know how to can things…its looks like you didn’t a pretty top-notch job from what I can see!
I made some applesauce tonight and used your guide to use up my peels, and I love the result! I didn’t end up keeping the pulp because it didn’t turn out as planned, but the syrup that resulted from that turned out so yummy! Thanks for the tips!
Alright!
Thanks Andrea, glad you liked the syrup! Too bad the pulp didn’t work though… what happened?
The peels never really broke down like yours did, I don’t know why? But after I extracted as much liquid as I could from them by using the pressing method you did in the strainer, I wrapped the peel mixture all up in some cheesecloth and squeezed the life out of it and got even more liquid! So I recommend the cheesecloth method too
Hmmm… I think my instructions might have been unclear then. My peels never actually broke down either. I chucked them when I was done extracting all the liquid. I actually got the pulp from passing the liquid a second time, in a fine mesh sieve. So I started by extracting the juice, using a standard colander and pressing down like mad to get the most out, then I passed that liquid a second time in a fine mesh sieve and just let it strain, with very little help. What stayed in the sieve is what became my “butter”. Hope that makes sense and that it helps clarify things a bit…