LAST WEEKEND I finished picking the all of the Spartan apples, fourteen pounds in all. Our little tree produced a total of thirty-two pounds of apples this year. So, what to do with them all? Most of the Akanes went to applesauce.
On Tuesday, five pounds of Spartans became seventeen half-pints of Apple Chutney.
On Wednesday, another five pounds were turned into eleven half-pints of Brandied Apple Preserves with dried cherries and ginger; a variation on Jam Lady’s Apple Maple Preserves. Delete the maple syrup, replace with brandy and add dried cherries and fresh ginger. Kind of like concentrated, spicy, apple pie filling; should mellow out in a couple of months. And I still have four and one-half pounds of Akanes and Spartans in the fridge! Some apple turnovers for the freezer, maybe.
And yesterday I picked the last head of Graffiti cauliflower (two pounds trimmed florets) to make five pints of purple pickled cauliflower, using red onions and red wine vinegar to preserve the purple-red color. It looks beautiful in the jars!
I think I am ready to give the canner a little rest until I have nothing but green tomatoes to turn into pickles or relish or salsa. I think there will be enough ripe ones to pick over the weekend to make sauce for the freezer. And that’s enough for this week!
Backyardnotes 
WOO HOO!! Thanks so much for the info, going to try this next week. 🙂
This week is consumed with putting on a Tomato Tasting (our 1st but hopefully not our last) at our Nursery (here in southern Oregon) and a Baby Shower for our daughter! lol
Hi there, I just popped over from the Local Kitchen Blog I LOVE your photos!! I would also love to try my hand at apple chutney and Brandied Apple Perserves would you mind sharing the recipes or pointing to where I could find them? Thanks!! 🙂
Thank you, Brooke, for the kind comments. The Apple Chutney recipe is from my 1972, Revised Edition 29, of the Ball Blue book:
Apple Chutney Yield: about 10 pints
2 quarts chopped, peeled & cored tart apples
1 c. chopped onion
1 clove crushed garlic
1c. chopped sweet red pepper
2 lbs. seedless raisins
4c. packed brown sugar
1 quart vinegar
2 hot red peppers chopped
3 tbsp. mustard seed
2 tbsp. ground ginger
2 tbsp. salt
2 tsp. ground allspice
Combine ingredients and simmer until thick, about 1 – 1/2 hour. Stir frequently as mixture thickens to prevent sticking. Pour boiling hot into prepared hot jars, leaving 1/4″ headspace. Seal and process 10 minutes.
I made this a couple of years ago but with 1 lb of raisins (I thought 2 lbs of raisins was a lot!) I gave some of it as a gift at Christmas to a friend and her daughter and son-in-law ate the whole 1/2 pint with a spoon! This needs at least a month for the flavors to mingle and mellow.
Here is my variation/substitutions for this year’s batch:
12 oz. dried apricots, chopped
1 lb golden raisins
4 cloves garlic,
chopped hot peppers ( 1 red & 1 green)
1 1/2 tbsp. mince fresh ginger
1 tbsp. ground ginger
Vinegar: 1 c. cider vinegar, 3 c. white vinegar
(I made 1 1/2 times the recipe since I had so many apples. 5 lbs of apples yielded 3 qts. chopped and used 2 c. cider and 4 c. white vinegar)
The Brandied Apple Preserves are a variation of Apple Maple Preserves from the Jamlady Cookbook, by Beverly Alfeld (available through Amazon). Yield: about 5 1/2 pints
12 c. peeled, cored and finely chopped apples (about 6 lbs.)
6 c. sugar ( I start with 4 cups and add more to taste)
1 c. apple cider (sparkling is okay, I had it so I used it)
2 c. brandy
9 oz. dried cherries, roughly chopped
1/2 tbsp. minced fresh ginger
1 scant tsp. ground cinnamon (more to taste if you like)
1/2 tsp. ground allspice
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg (freshly grated if you have it)
Soak 6 oz. of the cherries in the 1 cup of the brandy until softened, about 1 hour
Combine all ingredients together and cook until thickened. About 1/2 hour before the preserves are ready to jar, add the remaining cherries and remaining cup of brandy. Pour hot preserves into hot sterilized jars; seal and process 10 minutes for pints or half-pints.
For Apple Maple Preserves delete the cider, brandy, ginger, and cherries. Add 1 cup of grade A maple syrup. Also called out is 1 – 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon. The cinnamon tastes strong when cooking, but really mellows over a couple of months.
Hope you enjoy!
Gretchen
P.S. The apple maple preserves are great mixed into plain yogurt (Nancy’s, of course).