I've been wanting to try apple butter for quite some time, but I wince at the thought of spending more than $4 on a jar of anything. I looked around at the usual suspect stores and realized that this must be a seasonal item or something. I did find a huge, cheap jar, but decided that the high-fructose corn syrup was not worth it.Finally, "The Ever-Nurturing Ukrainian" found a pure unsweetened version in the $3-range at Henry's Farmer's Supermarket from the L&A Juice Company. So the ingredients in this one read:
apple juice, evaporated apples, cinnamon, clover, and citric acid
Nutritionally, it seems similar to regular spreads, and taste-wise, think of some very smooth applesauce with a stronger apple flavor... that's apple butter! This stuff tastes best when it's cold and requires refrigeration since it doesn't have preservatives. And no, it is not really a "butter" by any means, except for that fact that it's spreadable.
In my weaker moments, I eat this with pretzels, as the sweet/salty combo is very satisfying. I also used this for crepes (to be mentioned in another entry). It also flavors bread and oatmeal wonderfully, and I'm sure would taste very good with peanut butter. Due to the strong flavor, you don't have to use that much, either.
P.S. On a side note, I went to the doctor yesterday, and I learned nothing new about my lip condition. At least he confirmed that my airways are not falling victim to this newly-developed allergy. I basically am left to figure out the cause on my own, most likely a product I was using. So I guess this means I must ceremonially toss all of my lip products except the Burt's Bees balm I'm using. I'm also avoiding eating oily food, since that also seems to exacerbate the issue.
He said it is nothing serious for now and told me to take Claritin or Benadryl (already have been and am a living zombie because of it). If I ever did have a bad episode, though, he offered prednizone (steroid) shots. Great *sarcasm*, but I always seemingly get the episodes on Saturdays, meaning that I could never get to him until Monday anyway. And if it worsens to a point where I can't breathe, there's always the good ol' 9-1-1. Better use my detective skills and find out what the culprit is...
P.P.S. I'm going to one of Moby's North American concerts this Fall with "The Ukrainian" and hopefully others! My man is such a good sport. I now have three months to get him familiar with the music so that he can get
We used to eat apple butter all the time when I was little - it's a Pennsylvania Dutch staple. I can't remember HOW we'd eat it at all though!
ReplyDeleteGlad you lip thing isn't threatening. You'll have to play super sleuth for a while...
I'm not a big fan of apple butter, mainly cuz I don't know what to put it on. Pretzels sound like a good idea though!
ReplyDeleteI use to read about apple butter in those novels about pioneer life or something like that and use to want to try it so bad and then I did and it was not what I thought it was. :( It just sounds good but it was not good.
ReplyDelete