When I see kitchen gadgets for sale, I tend to ignore them.  They’re usually expensive, unnecessary, and just create more clutter. 

But a couple of days ago, I was coring lots of apples and thinking that I would appreciate an apple corer to save me some time.  And wouldn’t you know, the next day what did I see in front of me at the discount store but an apple machine!  I usually would walk right past this, but yesterday, took a second look.  It was an apple peeler/corer/slicer, and it seemed to be decent quality.  So I took the chance and bought it for $7, hoping that it would work well.

This apple machine, as it’s called, is super!  My kids love it.  They think it’s fun to peel, core, and slice an apple in 15 seconds (my 15 yos does it in six seconds :)), with the peel coming off in one long curly piece.  I love it, because now my kids are all vying for the opportunity to use it, and I don’t have to do any more cutting and peeling!   As a result of their fun today, I have 7 quarts of applesauce waiting in the canner right now.   (They all had to taste some, we actually made more than that.)

As a nice bonus, because the apple peels are unsprayed and come off so nicely, it was easy to turn them into a treat today.  I had one son mix up some oil, cinnamon, and sugar on the peels, and then roast them.  He forgot about them, so I have 4 large pans of charcoal, but he put some in the dehydrator and those came out well. 

Now on to my next gadget – gotta get a cherry pitter!

Avivah