Raspberry Recipes

Are you ready to make a delicious raspberry applesauce and some raspberry vinegar?

I am not noted for my cooking skills, but yesterday, I blogged about picking raspberries at a local U-Pick operation near Binghamton, in upstate New York.  This left me with about four pounds (1.8 kg) of delicious, fresh raspberries for recipes.  But, frozen berries will also work in what I am about to tell you about.

For my raspberry applesauce, this was a spur of the moment thing.  I had had breakfast at the orchard cafe, and was able to get raspberry applesauce as a side.  I told the server the applesauce was heavenly and he told me I could buy it by the pint or quart.  When I saw the price, I decided to try to duplicate it myself, given that I was about to go out and pick raspberries.  I already had apples in the house.

I looked online, and chose this recipe.  The only problem was, the resulting applesauce had a lot - and I do mean a lot - of seeds in it. (and nowhere did the recipe say anything about cooking and straining the berries separately).  So, if you have digestive problems with seeds, this is not the recipe for you.

I am sure one of my blog readers will tell me what I should have done.

Anyway, this is what I did do.

Raspberry Applesauce

Ingredients

3 lb apples  (sorry, metric folks, you are on your own once again)
1/4 cup sugar (you may want to adjust for taste and add towards the end of cooking)
1 cup raspberries, fresh or frozen
Small amount of lemon zest

Method 

1.  Core and peel apples.  This is not done in my home anywhere near perfectly, so don't worry if you have leftover skin.

2.  Add other ingredients, except the zest.  Again, you may want to leave out the sugar until after step 2, so you can adjust to taste.  If you do, keep in mind the sauce will taste sweeter as it cools.  It's easier to add than to take away.

3.  Cook about 1/2 hour or until apples are tender.  At this point, add the lemon zest.  Then, take a potato masher and mash the apples.   I wanted this to be somewhat lumpy, to duplicate what I had been served at the cafe.

4.  Let cool.  This can be refrigerated or frozen.

It's too thick now to strain out all those seeds, but if I ever make this again, I am going to have to figure out a better way.

And, since one of my readers wanted my spouse's recipe for raspberry vinegar, I looked and looked on my blog, because I thought I had published it a while back. But apparently not, so here it is.

Raspberry Vinegar

Ingredients

Clean mason (canning) or other jar (we use a canning jar)
Enough raspberries to fill jar
champagne vinegar or a good white wine vinegar
cheesecloth or straining bag (some call them jelly bags)
Another clean jar (for when the vinegar is ready to strain)

Method

Fill jar with raspberries.
Fill jar with vinegar, enough to cover.  For a pint jar, this would be approximately one cup.
Let sit for 2-4 weeks.
Then pour through the cheesecloth or straining cloth into a second clean jar. Discard the berries.

If you use raspberries, what is your favorite recipe?

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