New Skills

So, I got a "new toy" and I am going to teach myself to use it.  I hope that it is not at the expense of someone's life via some bad bad bacteria that inhabits my handicraft.  Botulism.  Pray with me that all goes well and Botulism finds itself a dark deep hole in the ground far away from people to live in.  OK - that being said... I have purchased a pressure canner and up first is canned apple-stuff.  Pops came home with a large box of apples from a colleague and I set forth to create delicious home canned goods.  

I started with Cinnamon Candied Apples.  I started the mess with an apple corer and a bottle of fruit fresh! 

After coring the apples, I sliced my apples and tossed them in a pitcher of water laced with Fruit Fresh... an apples second best friend forever.  I am their 1st BFF!!
I made a syrup with apple juice, sugar, cinnamon red hot candies, cloves, cinnamon sticks and some other stuff that I don't remember and it doesn't add deliciousness to the recipe!  (Just safety, probably...)  Once the syrup was bubbly, I tossed in my apple chunks.  A funny thing happened... all the bubbling stopped!  OK, not so funny, but I think it is sure interesting to watch a boiling pot go from tons of bubbles to nothin' as soon as the cooler stuff is added.  NOt- funny.  I know.  Think creepy like a witch's brew... no, not like that either.  Whatever, moving on.
After a bit of patience, I got this lovely mixture back up to a rolling boil and stood near enough to inhale all the lovely fall fragrance.  mmmmmmmmmmm.  Yea, my house smelled magnificent!
Next, came packing the jars, filling with syrup and then topping with lids and rings.
Then, my pressure canner looked like this!
I set it to do its thing and got to working on this Sweet Meat that I picked up at Mary's Garden the day that we went pumpkin pickin'.  I decided that this year I would roast my own pumpkins to use for pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread and pumpkin "stuff" in general.  Mary recommended the Sweet Meat and a Cinderella Pumpkin.  I decided to try the Sweet Meat first for three reasons:  

1. It is smaller than the Cinderella Pumpkin 
   
2. I had easier access to the Sweet Meat than the Cinderella Pumpkin 
   
3. I wasn't convinced that this green squash would have an orange pumpkin interior!  
   

I guess I was expecting it to look honeydew melon-ish!
So, I chopped right in (OK, I'll be honest... I could barely cut this thing.  Pops came and sharpened my knife and stood there praying that I would leave all my fingers intact.  Just so you know, I did keep all my fingers and didn't even make a scratch!)  and found that YES, the inside of a Sweet Meat is a nice squash to up the beta carotene in your life!

I continued to work at the squash for some time trying to get some good sized pieces to put on my baking sheet to roast this interesting veggie.  I gave up on the camera and worried about getting it roasted!  I put in in the oven to roast and sat down to read a new book I picked up at the library.