Yummy Yummy In My Tummy

So I made a recipe last night that I found on Eating Bird Food for homemade, sugar free apple butter. Now, my sugar free muffins were not super successful. I actually have had a hard time eating them because they just are too dry. But I am not one to be wasteful, and I thought apple butter sounded like about the perfect thing to make with my 5 lb. bag of apples to spice up my muffins and have around for awesomeness!

Here is the recipe straight from Eating Bird Food

(with the changes I made starred ***)

Healthy Homemade Apple Butter (no sugar added)
10 medium sized apples (choose a sweet variety like Red Delicious or Gala)

***I used about 13 apples, the entire 5 lb. bag because they were pretty small
2 cups of unsweetened apple juice or approximately 5 apples juiced

***I used no sugar added 100% apple juice
1/4 cup water

***I added this, but would probably leave it out next time...just seemed a little too liquidy and if it needs more moisture I would go with more juice
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 T cinnamon
1/4 t ground cloves
1/4 t ground nutmeg

***I used about 1 Tb (give or take) of pumpkin pie seasoning and tossed a whole cinnamon stick in the crockpot while it was cooking for seasoning...I like the ginger flavor that it adds.

1/2 t pure vanilla extract
pinch of sea salt

Prep:
1. Place cored and sliced apples (not peeled) into a large crock-pot / slow cooker.
2. Juice apples and pour juice on top of sliced apples. Add water, apple cider vinegar and spices. Stir all ingredients together, cover pot and let it cook for 15 hours on low.
3. The liquid will reduce and the apples will be very soft, darker in color, and smell lovely. Turn the crock pot off and let the apples cool down a bit (about 30 minutes), then transfer the mixture into a blender (or use a hand/stick blender) and blend until completely smooth.
4. Let the apple butter cool and then transfer into storage containers. It should store well in the fridge for about 3 weeks.

***I ended up getting a peanut butter jar, a marinated artichoke jar, and an Earth Balance tub full of apple butter (hooray for reusing containers!) I am keeping the peanut butter jar in the fridge to use over the next 3 weeks and I froze the other 2 containers to take out when I finish off the first one. And I am TOTALLY making another batch of this and getting pretty little jars and giving it away with batches of homemade muffins for Christmas!

I made a peanut butter & apple butter (pb&ab) sandwich to go with my leftover chili for lunch today, and brought another little tub to go with a muffin for an afternoon snack. It is just yummy! No sugar, no sweeteners so I like it even better than jam. And it can't get much cheaper to make for how much you get! ($3 for a bag of apples, $2 for a jug of juice that I froze the rest to use next time, $1 for a jar of vinegar that I was buying anyway for my hair and face). Definitely in love with this stuff...try it this weekend, you will be happy you did!

Other variations I would love to try are apple/pear and apple/pumpkin. Can you think of other variations that would be good? Let me know!

Oh yeah, and anyone who reads this blog who I may be giving a Christmas gift to...you will forget everything you just read :-)