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Roasted Apple Butter with Maple Syrup

Apple Butter on Toast

A Change of Seasons

You aren’t planning to start preserving? Well, why shouldn’t we?

East of Eden, John Steinbeck

Inspiration

Fruit butter is this month’s Food in Jars Mastery Challenge. There were so many decisions, what fruit to use and then what method of cooking. I was so very tempted to try peach or nectarine butter but the gravitational pull of autumn was more than I could resist. We stopped by Gizdich Ranch and bought newly harvested apples. On the day we went they had tiny, tiny Gravensteins, Golden Grimes, Honeycrisp, Gala and Mutsu apples. After sampling them all I chose the tangy, green skinned Mutsu for apple butter and baking. A few Golden Grimes and Honeycrisp came home for afternoon snacking. Apple season is here and I’m planning on enjoying every crisp slice. READ MORE . . .

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Pear Walnut Muffins

Pear Walnut Muffins

It’s Still Summer

“The floor of the Salinas Valley, between the ranges and below the foothills, is level because this valley used to be the bottom of a hundred-mile inlet from the sea. The river mouth at Moss landing was centuries ago the entrance to the long inland water.”

East of Eden, John Steinbeck

Inspiration

The fabulous pears are from Gerlinde’s birthday party, a gift from Judy and Mark. Gerlinde gathered her friends together to celebrate a momentous date, a marker of time past and times to come. Nostalgia, a longing for the past came rushing and blowing. Straightforward, direct, reminiscent of the afternoon wind in the Salinas Valley. The only escape was to go inside, the place where introverts hide. It was a sensory thing, the winding county road, the sweetness of a summer forest in bloom, the gathering of Gerlinde’s long time friends. It arrived, settled in and took me back, I felt summer. READ MORE . . .