Sarah cooking bacon

If you haven’t fixed it before, you need to do so. It’s one of the super easy things you can fix. Like fixing scrambled eggs, there’s no need to measure things. You want a good quality bread to fix French Toast. Something like French bread, a good bakery bread or the Pepperridge Farm sourdough will make an excellent dish. A bread of substance is needed. If you use your normal sandwich quality bread, the bread will get too soggy as it has too much air & will soak up too much of the egg mixture. Then the end result will be a piece of bread that is toasted on the outside & soggy inside–not an attractive or tasty dish.

Turn your stove on to medium heat & heat your iron skillet while mixing your eggs. Usually when I’m fixing it, I’ll fix a larger batch than necessary to have French toast mixture handy for another morning. There’s 3 of us in my family living at home so if I crack 4-6 eggs, I’ll have extra egg mix leftover. How many eggs I use is based on how many times I figure we’ll have French toast in the next few days. Lightly whip the eggs & add some milk, approximately a tablespoon and a half for every 2 eggs is how much I usually pour in the bowl of eggs. This is a guess as I eyeball it. Then I add around a half teaspoon of cinnamon & half as much nutmeg. Some people add a dash of salt. I prefer to leave it out & nobody has ever complained. Lightly whip the ingredients until the spices are evenly distributed.

Whisking egg & milk mixture for French toast.

Cracked eggs in bowl

Pour the mix into a shallow container. Place a slice of the bread in the egg mixture & gently push it down until the mix flows over the top. Using a fork, I lift the bread up & turn it over so both sides are well coated. Lift it up using the fork & let the excess mix drip back into the container. Gently drop the coated bread into the hot skillet. After it has cooked for 3-4 minutes & is toasted on the bottom, use a pancake turner to flip it over. Let the other side cook until it is grilled to your satisfaction. Using the pancake turner, slip the piece of French toast onto a plate.

French toast cooking in iron skillet.

Depending on your family’s taste, the French toast can be served with a sprinkling of powdered sugar, syrup, applesauce or a warm fruit puree. After fixing however many pieces I need, I store the leftover mix in the refrigerator. I would not suggest keeping it more than a couple of days before using it.

Finished French toast with an egg

Place the lids on them & place the jars in the boiling water in the water bath processor. Leave the jars in the water bath for 10 minutes. Use the canning tongs to place the jars in the hot water & pull the jars out of the hot water. Be very careful when pulling the jars out! Don’t want anyone dripping hot water on themselves or dropping a jar. Listen for your jar lids to pop. Double check them by pushing down in the center with your thumb. If there’s no give to the lid, they’re sealed. I hope you enjoy finding directions for fixing different foods on my blog.

My apple prep production crew is hard at work as you can see.

I got up, fixed breakfast for my work crew & set up my production line. Doesn’t that sound official? Jim & Sarah were both quick to volunteer to help with the apples. Sarah is an old hand at it after all these years. Jim, on the other hand, didn’t have a clue what he was getting himself into. It’s a family thing here at the Spears house. When we were halfway through, he did have a very good idea, but he assured me it would be worth it when he got the first piece of pie.

Sarah set up for the first apple peeler, corer,slicer & got Jim to do the adjusting on it. Then she set up the other one just a few feet down the counter from Jim. They set up a 5-gallon bucket underneath to catch the peelings & throw the cores. While they worked on getting set up, I mixed up the topping for the first pies. We have 12 pie crusts. The plan is to fill all of them & freeze them today. Twelve crusts are going to become 12 crumb topped apple pies!

Having gotten the first batch of topping ready, I filled up 2 large bowls with water & fruit fresh. I wash the

2 tv trays 4 pies

apples & my crew gets started on the apples. I go into the next room & pull out 2 tv trays. Set the trays up & place 2 crusts on each tray. We are underway!

By then, Jim & Sarah have almost filled a bowl with apples. I give them the other bowl of water & fruit fresh to place the peeled apples in & take the other bowl to the opposite counter. A colander is set up in the sink. I pull a stack of apples out & cut the slices in half & place them in the colander to drain. Everytime it’s full, I start measuring apples. The recipe I’m using takes 7 cups of apple slices. Sarah teases me that I’ll be counting to seven in my sleep after today’s work.

When I have the right amount of apples, I add the sugar & cinnamon & stir the mixture up until the apples are coated. I have separated a couple of eggs & lightly beat the whites. Using a pastry brush, I brush the bottoms of the pie crusts with the egg white; this will keep the bottom crust from becoming soggy. Divide the apples up in two pie crusts. They fill 1 crust completely & 1 crust partially. Again I slice, drain & mix apples. I soon get figured out that 3 recipes fill 4 crusts nicely. Dot some butter on the apple slices & the pies are ready for the topping.

I have made this pie for 3-4 years now & have learned they will slide in the freezer bags more efficiently, without losing their toppings, if I freeze the pies first. There’s only room in the freezer compartment for 2 pies so I take the other 2 pies to the freezer in the basement. Along the way, I slip enough apple slices into the other room to fill the dehydrator. This process gets repeated twice until we have all 12 pie crusts filled & topped.

This is what the pie crust looks like piled with the apple mixture.

Apple pie with the crumb topping will go into the freezer next, then a freezer bag & back in the freezer until somebody wants an apple pie.

Along the way, one of the peelers stopped working properly so that slowed us down some. Except for some smoke breaks for Jim & a lunch break for us, that’s how we spent a good part of the day. By about 4 o’clock, I was sliding pie 12 into the oven for our supper. The rest of the pies were in the oven. We were all pleased & proud of ourselves for having accomplished the goal for the day. Only a bushel and a half of apples remain. Applesauce will be on the agenda next.

Today Sarah & I went on a tour of Apple Valley Orchard that had been set up by Gretchen Detwiler of Home School Passport. The tour started with a talk on the edge of the orchard. Then we got in a trailer pulled by a tractor & rode through the orchard getting a close-up view of the trees. After that, we went through the grading,sorting room where they pack the apples, saw the room & machines used to make their cider, & heard the story of Johnny Appleseed. We were each given an apple and an apple shaped plastic drink container that had cider in it. It was good. After that we were free to leave or check out the bakery/gift shop.

They had bushel boxes of seconds for $11 so you can guess what this week’s theme is. LOL. I bought 3 bushels so have lots of apples to eat, can & bake. The bakery also had a beautiful apple strudel I couldn’t resist. I’d show you a picture of it except it didn’t stay around long enough. You can guess what we thought of it by it’s quick demise. They also had an interesting loaf bread I bought. It looked like raisin bread but I suspected it was chunks of apples instead of raisins & I was right. It’s nice but wouldn’t want it as often as raisin bread.

When we got home, after a rest I started making apple butter. Apple butter was what I decided to do first. It’s time consuming, but so simple to make. Take 4 pounds of apples, core them & cut them into chunks. Put in a large pot with 2 cups of water or cider. I have used just water, but I have some cider on hand we don’t care for that much so I used half cider & half water. Simmer the apples on low heat until they are falling apart. At that point, you’re supposed to run them through a food mill. Never having had one, I process them in my blender. It has worked just fine for me for over 20 years so I sincerely doubt I’m going to buy a food mill.

Measure your processed apples. Put them back in your large pot with ½ cup sugar for each cup of apples. Add 2 tsp. cinnamon, 1 tsp. cloves & stir. If you have fresh lemons, add the rind & juice from one lemon. If not, substitute dried lemon rind from your spice cabinet & the thawed frozen lemon juice. I have not had any lemon rind of any kind & the apple butter still turned out tasty. If you have the time, cook it on medium-high heat until it thickens. It is then ready to be added to your hot clean canning jars & put in the water bath processor for 10 minutes. I’m usually working on something else at the same time though so I usually continue cooking mine on low heat. I just stop & stir it occasionally to keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pan. It takes longer to finish this way, but you also have the time to devote to something else so pick whichever way works best for you.