Hello again and back to Unorganized Cooking. You know, I made a better apple cider prior to this one but of course I didn’t take photos during the process, so now I have to settle for this. I’m not saying it was disgusting; I’m just saying the cinnamon was overpowering.

Ingredients:

• 6-10 apples
• 2-3 cinnamon sticks
• Brown Sugar (Turbinado)
• 1 Pomegranate
• Honey

Cooking Time: Too long

Instructions:

1. To start this off, make sure to wash your apples beforehand
2. Cut it in half
3. Lay the halves on the flat side and dice the apples in a 4×4 grid cut
4. With the pomegranate, score the peel and then pry it in half. Remove it of all its arils
5. In a pot, throw in all the diced apples and pomegranate arils into it along with the cinnamon sticks
6. Pour in near 3/4 a gallon of water and set the flame to medium high heat.
7. Apply 7 tsp. of brown sugar and a generous amount of honey.
8. Boil for about 45 min, mashing the apples enough to release flavor, but not to the point you accidentally made apple sauce. Also, make sure to get the arils at the bottom; they sink.
9. Once that’s done boiling, run the liquid through a strainer. If you want, you can even try using a filter or cheesecloth, but I decided not to because for some odd apparent reason the coffee filters I used work better when dry rather then wet, which makes no sense whatsoever
10. After you do that, funnel the fluid into a heat resistant bottle, whether glass or plastic. With plastic though, check for that number in the triangle thing. Certain numbers aren’t exactly safe for human consumption, just letting you know.
11. Refrigerate overnight, or while working, or while at school etc. until it’s cold.
12. Finally after all that work, it’s done. Nevermind about those artichokes, this took 12 hours to make!

If you want, you could go absolutely wacky and apply whatever else you want in the cider, whether it be citrus slices, pineapple, some mint, maybe some lemon balm, lavender. In other words, cider is a good canvas for many creative ideas!