Making Apple Cider

After two years of almost no apple harvest due to a late frost one year and a caterpillar invasion the other, we have been blessed with an extravagance of apples this year.  Every bough of every domestic and wild apple tree weighs heavy with it's bounty.  The deer and bear will have an easier winter for it.  

From this bounty, we were lucky enough to be invited to participate in an annual apple cider pressing day.  An elderly couple with a camp passed on their cider press to a neighbor and told them, it was "for the community."  So each year the neighbor invites friends and their children to participate in pressing apple cider.  

We were told that the more varieties of apples that were put into the cider the better the cider would taste. 

We started by going out to different wild apple trees.  The children climbed up into the trees or grabbed the branches and jumped up and down to shake off the apples onto a drop cloth.  We didn't want to pick up the apples that were on the ground because the deer had come in to enjoy them and left droppings of their own!  

The children washed the apples.

You can see the apples being washed and
the cider being pressed out.  

And then put them in the chopper.  It's a rotating drum with steel blades that chop an apple to bits in seconds!  The lid keeps the apples from flying back out (and probably helps to keep little fingers out of the blades too!)

We spread out and push down the chopped apples a bit. (That's a hand in there smoothing out the apples.)

Then put a wooden cover over the chopped apples and cranked it down to squeeze out the cider.  

You can see a sack of leftover crushed apples (the "squeezings") in the background.  We took the squeezings home to the pigs and the blueberry bushes.  We were told that blueberry bushes love to have apple mulch around their base.

Maggie, the apple chasing dog, had an exciting day.

We pressed about 15 gallons of apple cider and everyone went home with the "fruits" of their labor!

I heard a sound as of scraping tripe, 

 And putting apples wondrous ripe, 

 Into a cider- press's gripe.

~ Robert Browning 

Yellow Transparent Apples

At yesterday's Farmer's Market, one of the other farmers, Mile's Farm Produce, brought a wonderful crop of Yellow Transparent apples and their own local peaches.  The fruit is smaller this year due to the late spring and the long, painful drought, but it still tastes very, very good and is all the more precious!  When I talked to the older folks that came to my stand, they told me that yellow transparent apples make a wonderful applesauce.  Of course I had to give it a try.   

I wanted to get some history on this pale beauty.  According to vintagevirginiaapples.com, "Yellow Transparent originated in Russia or one of the Baltic States and was introduced into Europe in the early 1800s, and into the United States in 1870.  The white flesh is crisp and juicy with an acid flavor. Refreshing, well-flavored, soft, pale-cream flesh, whose acidity can make it too sharp for some tastes.  It will store for only a few weeks, and ripens in late June and early July over a 3 to 4 week period (here in north-central PA, we're just seeing these apples riping in mid-August!)."  

Credit

There's nothing easier to make than a pot of applesauce - peel and core the apples, cut them up, throw them in the pot, heat and mash them.  You'll end up with chunky applesauce that tastes 1000% better than anything that comes in a jar.  

If you like to flavor your applesauce, or if you like it a bit sweeter, you can add cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, or a little brown sugar.  An added bonus to making applesauce is that the cooking apples make your house smell delicious!

What did I think of the yellow transparent applesauce?  Let me put down the spoon so I can let you know...

No, seriously, the sauce from yellow transparent apples was not as sweet as I've made from MacIntosh or Yellow Delicious apples, but the fresh apple taste came through beautifully.  If you're used to a sweeter sauce then you might want to add a dab of sugar.   

"An Apple A Day Keeps The Doctor Away"

Derived from the old English saying . . . "Ate an apfel avore gwain to bed, make the doctor beg his bread," the original author of this most popular apple saying has been lost to history.

Is Summer Finally Here?

The month of May was a climatic roller coaster here in Potter County.  We jumped between temperatures in the 50s to temperatures in the 70s with nights dropping down into the 30s and lots and lots of rain, rain, rain. Everyone's gardens are going in later than usual this year, but they are finally going in!

The weather did great things for the fruit trees, we had lots and lots of flowers and now I'm seeing the beginnings of what I hope are baby apples.  While the flowers were out, I kept seeing a beautiful orange and black oriole going to the flowers and poking it's beak into them.  Do orioles drink nectar?

My front door flower urns are growing beautifully!  There's one of these on either side of the front door. I have to have my flowers in heavy concrete urns because the wind here is fierce and a simple pot would blow away!

The weather has been perfect for hostas - and so far the slugs have not chewed on them.  I find the chickens poking around underneath the plants.  Maybe they're cleaning out the slugs?

The chive bed is springing up and flowering!  I'm working on a recipe from Mary Jane's Farm for a homemade chive-laced soft cheese spread for my Farm Share baskets.  If it works out, I'll put in the recipe with the fresh chives they'll be getting.  I hope it'll be something yummy for hanging out in the evenings with a glass of wine!

Yes, I think summer is finally here!