New European Food: Transparent Apples & Magazine Monday Reminder

First, the reminder: Monday is once again Magazine Monday, and this will be the last time I host, as our usual host, Ivonne of Creampuffs in Venice, will be back from her travels and will return to her MM hosting duties for the Sept. 21 edition of MM. So, if you've made a magazine recipe recently and would like me to feature it in my own MM post on Monday, send me an email at wandering_coyoteATyahooDOTca with the link to your post and I'll include it.

Onto apples. It's apple season here, and the other day my roommate said she'd spoken to the neighbour, who owns the house right next to ours, and the neighbour said we were welcome to the apples on the tree there. I didn't realize they were ripe as they were still a pale green colour, but apparently, that's just the variety. My roommate, J, said that she & her family call this particular type of apple "transparents" and some of her family members say that these transparents are excellent for apple sauce and apple pie. So, off I went to pick a bag full and bring them home.

The tree was absolutely laden with apples, and there were lots of the fruit on the ground, too. The apples on the tree were in generally good condition, not very wormy-looking. But it appeared that I'd gotten there a tad bit too late, because some of the fruit were rotting on the tree and the apples left were very soft. I picked a cloth grocery bag full and took them off home, where I planned on turning most of my booty into apple pie filling. I'm not a huge user of apple sauce, and I thought it would be cool to have some pre-made, homemade apple pie filling around over the winter for pies & crumbles.

Well...I had good intentions, for sure. But the apples wouldn't co-operate. After peeling & corning for what seemed like ages - and soaking the peelless apples in a lemony water bath to keep the browning at bay - and then slicing, I had two pots full of apples.

I added a bit of water, and a cup or so of sugar and brought the apples to a boil. I didn't think they'd disintegrate into much so quickly or easily. I added ginger, cinnamon, all spice, and nutmeg, and let them simmer. I then made a slurry with some flour (cornstarch thickened stuff sometimes doesn't freeze well) and added it to the bubbling apples. The mixture tightened up right away, so I put the whole sha-bang out on the porch to cool down as quickly as possible. This attracted some wasps, even though the lid was firmly on the pot.

Here is what the end result looked like: