Skip to main content

Throwback Apple Processing

My oldest son and his wife have two apple trees in their yard.  One is an eating apple and the other is a soft, tart cooking apple.  Each fall there are more apples than they know what to do with so they share.  These are organic apples, meaning they are never sprayed with chemical; however, they have been snacked upon by all sorts of bugs.  The apples are ugly, but the favor is very good; one just needs to work with them.

See all the spots, yup these are organic apples
Approximately 30 years ago I was inundated each fall with too many ugly apples.  Over time I figured out two things to do with them that the family enjoyed.  Applesauce was a hit, but I cut corners in making it.  Instead of all the peeling, coring and slicing they were merely quartered and then put on the stove to slowly cook until soft.

So easy to prepare

Partially cooked

Ready to separte the good from the pulp
After the mixture cooled in the past it was put through a cone-shaped colander.  I did not enjoy circling the mixture round and round to separate the apple ¨meat" from the seeds and peels.  It seemed to take forever.  The colander is long gone so a substitute had to be found, a potato ricer.  Mom gave it to me some time ago and I gave it a try.

The potato ricer
It is so much more efficient than the colander.  The ricing has to be done in the sink because every now and then sauce splashes out unexpectedly.  Here is the unsweetened product.  Back in the day it was dried into an apple leather, today it is distributed to those who will use it.


The finished sauce
The other thing I did in the past was make apple pie in a jar.  Essentially the pie, except for the crust, is placed in a canning jar.  The upside is that the spices, sugar and apples sit together for as long as the jar sits meaning the pie has a magnificent flavor.

In the past there were two young sons who loved to use an apple corer, peeler and slicer.  It fascinated them and for a few minutes I could count on their help.

Thirty years later I don´t have this piece of equipment, but actually with the apples I am using now it wouldn´t have worked.  The apples are too irregular.  After an hour or so of peeling and slicing, 3 quarts of apple pie in a jar were ready to go, using the recipe above I made a 1/2 batch of the goo.  Then the jars went into a hot water bath and ta da:

The quart is actually a 9"pie; the pint would make a small galette
Last evening I took a quart of pie and a large bottle of applesauce to my son and his wife, the apple purveyors.  My son was so pleased to get both; he went on about the apple leather made from this applesauce and how he would love to make a pie soon.  That reaction was heartwarming.  It indicates how much he enjoyed these things as a kid and how much he looks forward to having them again.  And guess what, I came home with another half bushel to process!





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anatomy of a Sock

I've been knitting socks for a relatively short time.  One of the disconcerting things for me as I started following patterns for socks is the pattern designer assumes the knitter (in this case that would be me) knows all the parts of a sock.  So I thought I'd devote a post to improve my own knowledge about the anatomy of a sock and maybe some of you will learn something about the humble yet necessary sock as well. Here's the names of the parts of the foot as I know them. #49 ankle, #50 heel, #51, instep, #52 ball, #53 big toe, #54 toe, #55 little toe, #56 toenail. There are some parts more important for this discussion; first the heel of a foot is generally used to refer to the entire C-shape from the ankle to the instep.  Speaking of the instep, it refers to that curve near the bottom of the foot.  And what seems to be missing in the design above is the sole which generally refers to the bottom of the foot in total or plantar aspect in more technical terms...
10 comments
Read more

Gosling's Meme and Knitting

What is a meme, you may first ask? Well Dr. Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist, came up with the idea in the late 1970's and stated something like: a meme is to a society what a gene is to a human. Both are an element or unit that can be replicated or passed from one individual to another. During the Internet age memes can be easily shared, replicated or otherwise passed on to another. Recent examples can be found on Gawker . Memes can include piano playing cats, a honey badger, the Call Me Maybe phenomenon and so on. The political campaign in the U.S. helped fuel memes using some of the most unusual statements like, "binders of women" and "you didn't build that." A few memes have staying power but most have a relatively short life span. Gosling's meme related to knitting has been around for some time; so when I again saw another post about him recently, it was time to figure out the origin. Ryan Gosling is a Canadian actor born in Onta...
Post a Comment
Read more

Yarn Usage II: Crochet vs. Knit

All four swatches were made.  Each is 6.25" or 15.875 cm square; each prepared with the same sized yarn and needles or hook.  It took 25 stitches to get the appropriate width for the knit swatches and only 20 stitches for both of the crocheted squares.  That already says something, but I'll get to it in a minute.  (Don't know what I'm talking about here?  Check out this post first.) Unfortunately, you'll just have to trust me that four swatches were prepared and that they were all the same size.  In the excitement to get to measuring and weighing of the swatches, no photographic evidence was taken.  Luckily for me the results of this research doesn't have to be reviewed by a jury of my peer.  This blog post will be the sum and total of where this information is published. The remains of my four swatches What can be shared, however, are the balls of yarn rewound after the weighing and measuring was completed.  You will note the size ...
9 comments
Read more