Cooking in the Moment: Apple Favorites

My Great Aunt Helen is a famous cook, quite literally. She started the Norske Nook, has a few published cookbooks and has been on the Letterman show. For my wedding shower, she gave me a recipe for this delicious and easy Pecan Caramel Apple Pie.

Pecan Caramel Apple Pie

1/2 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup pecan halves

5 cups of apples

2 T flour

1 tsp cinnamon

2/3 cup sugar

Pie crust for double pie

Pat melted butter in bottom of pie tin. Sprinkle brown sugar over bottom and sides and then pecans. Roll pie crust and lay on top of this. Place apples, sugar, cinnamon and flour over apples. Place pie crust on top, flute edges and bake at 350 for 1 hour till done.

Remember to use a large pie tin and also put a baking sheet underneath the pie because it tends to bubble over. When I serve the pie, I like to flip it over so the caramel goodness is on top. Delicious!!!

Caramel Pecan Apple Pie

I finally mastered apple butter. The first time I attempted to make it I totally failed because I added apple cider vinegar instead of apple cider - duh! All that time and all those apples wasted. Luckily, my friend Heather Harrington shared some apples from her orchard and I tried a different recipe then the original apple cider recipe. Here's the one I used:

Peel and core 30 apples
1 - 2 cups of sugar (I used 1 cup sugar and 1 cup of honey)
1/2 cup apple cider
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt

Add apples to a crockpot. Add sugar cinnamon and salt on top. Cook on low in the crockpot for approximately 10 hours on low. Continuously cook down until the apple mixture looks and tastes like apple butter. Once it's done, either jar and add to your fridge or use the canning process (water bath canner - 10 minutes).