"It's Like Buttah"

Guess what? You're not gonna believe this...Adam and I went to yet another farmer's market this weekend and processed more food for our back shelf. I know, it's so unlike us. This time, we went to the big deal though. The downtown Portland Farmer's Market. It was so huge and so crazy, but tons of fun. There were ALL KINDS of cool things to look at and think about buying. Mushrooms, fresh roasted peppers, flowers, bread, any kind of produce you would ever want, wine, chocolate, cider......the list goes on.

Adam bought me some of the biggest, most beautiful dahlias I've ever seen. Take a look....

We had a project on the brain going into the market, so we tried our best to stick with our plan. The project was apple butter and more dried tomatoes. So our first stop was the apple stand. It may seem easy, going to the apple stand and buying some apples. Well, you have to choose between over a dozen varieties, which is oh-so-hard when they are all delicious. After moments of deliberation and sampling we chose a mix of Tokyo Rose and Gravestein varieties (as well as some Ginger Gold for snacking).

So we did buy lots of tomatoes, but nothing special, so I won't bore you with those details. We also picked up mushrooms: shitake, lobster and chantrelle. I need to get a picture of the lobster ones. They are pretty weird looking. Perhaps in a later update.

I will post the recipe for the apple butter below. It turned out to be (not to toot my own horn) the best apple butter in the history of apple butters. And we had to make homemade biscuits to give our apple butter a proper delivery system. Those turned out equally as good. I'll go ahead and throw that one in too, but I'm ashamed of how much shortening is in them, so on second thought...

Apple Butter:
4 lbs of apples (we chose a mixture of tart and sweet varieties)
4 cups of sugar (however, after pouring 3 cups in, I decided that was enough and it was)
2 cups water
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg

Peel, core and cut up apples. Put in a large stockpot with two cups of water. Simmer until they are soft. Puree softened apples in a food processor or blender. Mix the pureed apples with the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Simmer slowly in the pot until the mixture turns out round on a spoon when you scoop it out. Ladle hot butter into hot, sterilized jars. Place lids and seals on. Put the jars in a hot water canner bath and process (boil) for 10 minutes. Listen for the lids to "pop".

Now we need to roll ourselves out the door and go for a bike ride to work off those biscuits! Take care :)