Labor-Freeish Day - Home Canned Applesauce and Hickory Brown Sugar Rib Rub

Happy belated labor (or hopefully labor-free) day to all! My husband and I had a wonderful day together and got lots done around the property.

The day started with a surprise from my husband - he insisted that he had found a wild cherry fruit tree near our home with nickle sized fruit. A quick ride confirmed my suspicion that what he had found was a huge crab apple tree. Despite being literally surrounded by wild apple trees, these is the first real crab apple tree we've found. I can't wait to try making some crab apple jelly once the fruit ripens fully. In addition we found wild pear and elderberries that should be ready soon.

Not one to disappoint with unripe "cherries" my husband recommended taking a short walk to pick apples. While we are working to cultivate our own home orchard most of our trees are not fruit bearing yet. Luckily for us, we are literally surrounded by wild apple trees. I ended up picking 2 large buckets of fresh sweet apples while sampling several trees that should be ready in the coming weeks.

Fresh apples beg to be made into all kinds of delicious baked goods - pies, breads, cakes and the like. I quickly put these to work making one of my favorites - homemade apple sauce!

Apple Sauce

15 lbs Apples

5 cups water

10 Tbs lemon juice

4 cups sugar

2 Tb cinnamon

Before you get started, pour your water into a large, heavy bottom pot. Add lemon juice. Peel your apples. If you have a apple peeler and corer - this is a great way to put it to use. The rest of us will have to be satisfied with our paring knives.

Cut and core the apples. Rough cut into chunks - no need to be perfect here.

Drop chunks into your pot of lemon water to help minimize browning. If you still get a little bit of browning - no worries - it won't hurt your finished product - I promise!

Once you've peeled your full amount of apples, transfer your pot to the stove. If you plan to can your finished sauce, this is a good time to also put your canning pot on to boil to sterilize your jars. 

Bring your apples to a boil over medium heat and then reduce to simmer. Simmer 10-20 minutes, until your apples are tender. How long it takes will depend on how small you cut your apple chunks. Take your apples off the heat and run through a food mill to soften. If, like me, you don't have a food mill - improvise! I used the grinder attachment for my stand mixer. You could also just smash up the apples with a potato masher!

Return your applesauce to your pot. Add sugar and cinnamon and over low heat, stir until sugar is fully dissolved. From here, your applesauce can be eaten as is or stored by either freezing or canning.

To can your applesauce, ladle hot sauce into sterilized pint jars. 

Process via boiling water method for 10 minutes. 

Turn off heat an allow to sit in the water for 5 minutes before transferring to a towel covered counter or table to cool and seal. Let sit for 12 hours, check seals and store in a cool, dry place. Makes 9 pints.

If the apple picking wasn't enough, it was also time for one of our treks through the woods looking for dead trees that need to be cut to cull out the woods, avoid falling trees and get wood for our home for the winter. My husband and I walked through marking trees for friends and family to help us take down and gather.

Athena couldn't wait to get up to the woods. As you can tell - she was way ahead of us and pretty impatient for us to get there!

I got to play with some spray paint marking trees to come down.

I found a toad hiding out in a log - how neat is that?

I think these logs with the rotted out center have a very cool look - the wheels are turning on a mini furniture project!

Athena was thoroughly tired out when we got back home!

As a reward for our work in the woods, we celebrated with another star of our day - these delicious smoker ribs with homemade rub. We're still fairly new to smoking, but I think these rub combination turned out excellent!

Hickory Brown Sugar Rib Rub
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
3 Tb Hickory Smoke Salt
1 Tb paprika
2 tsp Garlic Powder
2 tsp dried Oregano

The key to this rub is the hickory smoke salt. I have just recently discovered this and couldn't wait to incorporate into a rib rub. I buy mine at a bulk spice place, but now that I've started using it I've noticed it in several of my local grocery stores. This batch should provide enough rub to do a half rack of ribs. If you have extra rub, you can store it in a mason jar with your other spices.

Slather your ribs with your prepared rub, and cook in your smoker to your manufacturer's specs for ribs. We used apple and hickory wood chips in the smoker to highlight the sweet and smoky already present into the rib rub. The final ribs came out extremely tender with a nice crust.

After a such an eventful day including some excellent food, there's little to do to top it. I settled for a cold microbrew, a long soak in the whirlpool tub and a good book. Happy Labor Day All!

Perfect Country Saturday Dinner (and a Cocktail too!)

Last year, our in-laws gifted us with a smoker for Christmas. Originally this was something that my husband wanted to process wild game into summer sausages and snack sticks. During hunting season it got lots of use, but we haven't really experimented with it since. With our in-laws in town and staying with us, it sounded like the perfect opportunity to smoke up some ribs and chicken wings.

We  started with a 12lb rack of pork ribs, which I grabbed up on sale  at the local grocery store for $1.88/lb.    Eric cut the rack up into 3 sections to fit into the smoker. He prepped the smoker with hickory and apple  wood chips. Almost immediately we were met with an incredible smell from the smoke - we knew it would be a hard few hours waiting for those those to be ready. Since we're very new at smoke, I'm not going to share any recipes or recommendations on smoking quite yet. All I'll say it the ribs were a huge hit and we'll definitely be experimenting more with our smoker in the near future.

Unfortunately, the large rack of ribs left us with no room for the chicken wings (that will be a try for another day) so I marinaded these for the grill. I purchased fresh whole wings from the store (a great and inexpensive summer find) and soaked half in traditional red BBQ sauce another the other half in a vinegar based BBQ sauce that is very traditional in our part of WNY. I've heard this referred to as "Cornell BBQ Sauce" (which I personally like as it references my alma matter) "Fireman's BBQ Sauce" and "Chivettas" which is a popular local brand name of this sauce that you can purchase in many stores. Chicken BBQ's using this sauce are at the top of every local group's fundraiser list and on any given weekend in the spring and summer you can find them in every direction. If this isn't something that's popular in your area, don't worry - I'll share with you a very basic recipe for this sauce. Don't be fooled by the ingredient list - this stuff is amazing.

WNY BBQ Sauce

In a jug or mason jar mix the below ingredients:

- 2 cups white or apple cider vinegar

- 1 cup vegetable oil

- 1 egg beaten

- 4 tablespoons garlic salt

- 2 tsp black pepper

Mix or shake together and use for marinading and basting. Please note, since this contains raw eggs, it is perishable - make sure you handle accordingly. This tastes best when used with chicken that will be prepared on the grill.

To go with our ribs and wings, I had to mix up a couple salads. My favorite is this homemade potato salad. It's very easy to make and a great excuse to use up some fresh herbs. I like parsley and dill with mine, but you can really use any combination of herbs you like.

Summer Herb Potato Salad

8 medium potatoes

3/4 cup mayonais

1/2 of a small onion, chopped

1-2 cloves minced garlic

Fresh Parsley

Fresh Dill (optional)

Salt and Pepper to taste

Peel the potatoes, cut into bite sized pieces and boil in salted water until cooked through. I like my potatoes soft enough that they start to fall apart a bit, but you can make yours firmer if you like. Run cold water over potato to cool and set aside.

Cut onion into chunks, peel and smash garlic clove. Put the onion, garlic and herbs in a blender and pulse a few times to chop them up into smaller pieces. Add mayonnaise, salt and pepper. Blend until well mixed.

Toss potatoes with herbed mayonnaise. Refrigerate at least an hour before serving for best flavor. 

With our ribs, wings and homemade salads, the BBQ was a hit with our family and friends. We battled a few drops of rain shortly before dinner, but were rewarded with this gorgeous rainbow during our meal. 

Now just as I promised that this blog came with a cocktail, I promised the gals that I'd whip up one of my personal favorite summer drinks for them. The cherry juice sinks to the bottom making this a summer hit that looks at good as it tastes. 

Pineapple Sunset

Ice

4 oz Orange Pineapple Juice

1.5 oz Pineapple Coconut Rum

Splash of Maraschino Cherry Juice or Grenadine

In a hurricane or other tall glass place a few ice cubes. Pour in orange juice and rum. Mix together. Gently pour in the cherry juice. You'll notice that it almost immediately sinks to the bottom and creates a great "sunset" affect. Caution - these taste so good you will quickly forget there's alcohol in them! Straw and umbrella are optional.

Here's to perfect country Saturdays, rainbows and evenings ending with great food, friends (and cocktails). Cheers!