Every autumn for 5 or 6 years now, I've made apple butter. It's a bunch of work, but it's nice to give out on the holidays, and I happen to love apple products. I've had a few requests for it, so here's my recipe. It's based on one from Simply Recipes, but instead of cooking my butter on the stovetop, I usually bake mine down in the oven, which is a technique listed in Putting Food By.

Ingredients

• 4 lbs apples -- cooking apples are better here although I tend to use a mix
• 1 cup apple cider vinegar
• 2 cups water
• Sugar
• Dash of salt
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon allspice
• rind and juice of 1 lemon

Vaguely Special Equipment Needed

• A food mill, chinois sieve, or some sort of filter mechanism. I've used a cheapo mesh sieve for years now. It works well enough.
• canning jars

1. Cut the apples into quarters -- no need to peel/core them.
2. Put them into a big pot with the vinegar and water. Cover, bring to a boil and then simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the apples are soft.
3. Run the apple pulp through your mill or sieve into a large bowl, and then measure the puree. For each cup of pulp, add 1/2 cup of sugar, stirring to dissolve. You can use less sugar if you like although I haven't experimented too much with the limits of that.
4. Add the spices, lemon rind and juice. This is a good time to check the taste, because it'll be more challenging when it's boiling hot.

Cooking it Down: You have the option of cooking it down on your stove, but I'm lazy and easily distracted, so I follow something I found in Putting Food By, and I cook it down in my oven.

• Put the pulp in a large roasting dish or oven-safe enameled pot (I use my dutch oven), and cook it at 300F until it thickens.
• As it thickens, you'll see the color deepen, and it will start to bubble and should smell pretty damn good.
• You'll need to check on it every now and then to make sure that it doesn't get too much of a film on the top. This should take a couple hours.
• When it's starting to look shiny, and when a spoon of it forms a bit of a mound instead of sliding right off, you should be done.

Can, store, etc, according to whatever makes you happiest.

One random note -- I often make the apple pulp in advance, and keep it in the fridge for a couple of days. You definitely don't have to do the whole process at once.

via gimme some oven, I made this recipe for Thai Basil Chicken last night and it was damn tasty.

Tonight's dinner was a DAMNED TASTY Lemony Broccoli and Chickpea Pasta

Ingredients

• One 19-ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
• 3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
• 1 1/2 pounds broccoli, cut into florets
• 1 pound rigatoni
• 5 large garlic cloves, very thinly sliced
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
• 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, toss the chickpeas with the lemon juice and 1/2 cup of the olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.
2. In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook the broccoli until crisp-tender, about 4 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the broccoli to a colander and rinse under cold water until cool. Add the rigatoni to the boiling water and cook until al dente.
3. Meanwhile, in a large, deep skillet, heat the remaining 1/4 cup of olive oil. Add the garlic and crushed red pepper and cook over moderate heat until the garlic is golden, about 3 minutes. Add the broccoli and cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Add the chickpea mixture and cook until warmed through, about 1 minute.
4. Drain the rigatoni, reserving 1/4 cup of the cooking water. Add the pasta to the broccoli and chickpeas along with the reserved cooking water and season with salt and pepper. Cook over moderate heat, stirring, until the rigatoni is coated with sauce. Remove from the heat and stir in 1/2 cup of the Parmesan cheese. Transfer the pasta to a bowl, sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan and serve.

We've been making this recipe from Cookthink at least monthly since we found it:

Braised Chicken With Black Beans And Sweet Potato

This healthy, satisfying one-pot dish is made with chicken thighs and flavored with jalapeño, cumin, coriander, lime juice and zest and cilantro. Serve on its own or with a side of brown rice. We'd recommend washing this dish down with an ice cold beer.