It's apple season!

Pic courtesy of 2CookinMamas

I have two huge apple trees on my new property here in Roslyn, WA. One that bears sweet, eating apples and one that bears more tart, baking apples. In spite of cutting the trees down considerably before I moved in (so I could comfortably walk around the yard without whacking my brains out), they are still very prolific producers of apples.

So, what have I been doing with all those apples (besides just eating them) since I moved in at the beginning of October? Not enough to keep up!!

Apples in the dehydrator

1. Dehydrating - The first batch that went into the dehydrator was from the tart tree. I did toss the apple slices with a little sugar and a lot of cinnamon. Those dried apples lasted about a week due to my 17-year-old's voracious appetite, so today I'm doing round two. This time I'm drying a mix of the sweet variety and the tart ones as well. I also threw in some pears while I have it running.

2. Roasting - I've been roasting the tart apples alongside onions, sweet potatoes, carrots and a variety of meats like chicken and beer soaked brats (Oktoberfest!). I have to say, I'm not a huge fan of roasted apples, but I'm sure I'll keep trying. I think next time I'll add them later in the roasting time so they are not as squishy.

3. Canning - Next week I'll be making and canning apple butter in the slow cooker. I haven't done it yet because I haven't yet had the gumption to peel, core and cut 6+ pounds of apples.

4. Baking - In an effort to use up some apples, I embarked on making an apple cake last week. It didn't use up as many apples as I would have liked, but it was very good nonetheless! I'm planning on baking a Dutch Apple Pie this Friday, which I'm looking forward to!

Apples!

5. Squeezing - Okay, I know cider pressing isn't like orange juicing, but we're going to have a big cider pressing party here in the new week or two. We're not big into drinking apple juice or cider, but I am planning on making apple pie moonshine with the results of the cider pressing. I'll be reporting on the success of that project. Word on the street is that it's fairly potent stuff.

6. Finishing of the hogs - My friends (and ex-next-door-neighbors from Seattle) now own a small farm in Ellensburg. Among their many animals are four pigs that they are finishing on apples and other fruits. They've been making a weekly trip to come and grab all the dropped fruit from my yard, my next door neighbor and my boyfriend's apple trees. In exchange, I've been getting eggs from their chickens. There seems to be an imbalance in this deal, but I'm not going to point it out!

What's your favorite way to use apples?

Top 8 Ways to Preserve the Fall Harvest

Every year we go through the same routine - what to do with all those pumpkins, apples, green tomatoes and corn!

So, to keep a handy reference all in one spot, here are my favorite 8 ways to use up the fall harvest!

1. Processing sugar pie pumpkins - How to roast, process and freeze all those lovely pumpkins that you either grew or are buying from the farmers market, farm stand or grocery store.

2. Corn preservation methods compared: I compare different corn preservation methods and let you know how they all turn out.

3. What to do with all those apples: From canning, drying, freezing to making drinks, they're covered in this post.

4. How to ripen green tomatoes: From storing them wrapped in newspaper in a box to putting them in a paper bag, what's your favorite method of ripening green tomatoes?

5. Saucy apples: My favorite apple sauce recipe.

6. Hard apple cider: A link to how to make hard apple cider.

7. Preserving food for the winter: This post has my favorite method for drying apples.

8. Grilled pumpkin with rosemary and sea salt: This recipe is up over on my mostly neglected food blog (and at Mother Earth News). It's one of my favorite things to do with pumpkin.

What's your favorite fall harvest recipe or activity?

Roasting and freezing Hatch chiles

This year is the first time I've heard of Hatch chiles, the apparently notorious chile pepper that hails from Hatch, NM. Lovers of this smoky, spicy pepper wait with bated breath for these luscious green babies to come in and annual events in Texas and New Mexico herald their arrival.

I managed to score myself a batch of them over the weekend and got down to roasting them. While I ended up freezing some to have throughout the year, we are also planning on enjoying the freshly roasted peppers in such marvelous creations as:

Hatch burgers
Pineapple Hatch margaritas
Hatch brownies

and last, but not least, I'm planning on canning my new jam creation:
Hatch Chile Pepper and Anejo Tequila Blackberry Jam.

If there's any left, a lucky few will be getting some jam for Christmas.

How did I roast them? I just left them whole, roasting them about 5 minutes per side until they were good and charred but not necessarily cooked. I placed them in a bowl and covered with a cloth to let them cool down. As for freezing, I froze them in groups of 3. When they thaw the skins will peel off nicely. Just be warned - not removing the seeds and membranes results in a hotter pepper after freezing, so you'll need less. Which is a good thing since they'll last longer.

Gone canning

I got a surprise batch of plums from a neighbor friend yesterday and made 21 half-pint jars of Cinnamon Ginger Plum Jam with Lillet. That still left a ton of plums so I'll be working on making Cardamom Plum Fruit Leather. If there's any left over I might make some Plum Bread for freezing or I might just freeze the plums straight up for use later.

I checked on my kale, since I was planning on freezing that as well, but I noticed they are infested by tons of tiny white insects. Anyone know what these things are and how to get rid of them? They are not aphids, I think they are some kind of mite.

Finally, in order to save some grapes that were a little too high on the tannin side, I made some grape juice, which was really easy and the kids are enjoying that as well. I have some good news about my apple trees, but that will have to wait for another post because I am too tired.

What kind of preserving/canning/freezing/drying are you doing right now?

Photo courtesy of Coco Cooks.

Freezing corn: preservation methods compared

I wanted to share with you some of the results of the corn freezing methods that I tried last summer. Some came out fantastic and some came out inedible. I don't know if you have experienced the same problems as I, but here's the run-down.

1. Blanch and freeze off the cob: The first trial consisted of shucking the fresh corn, rinsing, blanching the corn on the cob in boiling water for 4 minutes and then placing into an ice bath for 5 minutes. I cut the kernels off the corn and put them into Ziploc freezer bags, sucking the air out with a straw, and then freezing. To reheat, I place the kernels in a microwave safe covered bowl and heat until hot.

Result: Good - a little better than premium organic frozen corn, but much cheaper and worth the effort.
Verdict: Would definitely do this again and would feel comfortable doing large quantities.

2. Grill and freeze off the cob: In the second trial, I decided to grill the corn instead of the hot water blanching, mostly because I was already grilling corn for dinner and just did the whole dozen ears while I was at it. I shucked the corn cobs, rinsed them, brushed them with olive oil, sprinkled them with salt and grilled them as long as I normally do to ensure that the kernels were nicely caramelized. Once they were cool enough to handle, I cut the kernels off the cob, put them into Ziploc freezer bags, sucked the air out of the bags and then froze them. To reheat, I place the kernels in a microwave safe covered bowl and heat until hot.

Result: Fantastic - this is, by far, my most favorite method.
Verdict: Unless the grill is out of propane or it's a monsoon and raining like crazy, I will forever process my corn this way. The flavor, even after freezing, tastes just like right off the grill.

3. Blanch and freeze on the cob: Similar to method number one, I shuck the corn, rinse, boil in hot water for 4 minutes and dip into an ice bath for 5 minutes. I put the corn cobs into Ziploc freezer bags, sucking the air out with a straw, and then freeze. To reheat, I place the frozen cobs into boiling water and boil until tender.

Result: Terrible - this corn had such an odd, water-logged flavor to them that it was bordering on inedible. In fact, we ended up composting most of what I made.
Verdict: Unless I find out what I did that went so terribly awry, I won't be bothering with this method again. I really did it because I needed to process the corn in a hurry and was too lazy to cut the kernels off the cob. In the end, I would have saved more time and expense if I had just done method number one.

So, now I know what kind of corn preservation method I will be employing next summer. I love eating corn off season (without having it shipped in from who knows where) and plan on processing a ton next summer.

What's your favorite method of preserving corn?

Preserving food for the winter

I spent most of yesterday afternoon processing food. It was a good excuse to warm up the house since it was a little chilly inside and having the oven on for an hour baking pumpkins got it warmed up quite quickly.

A few weeks ago I picked up four relatively large sugar pie pumpkins for about $1 each from a local farm. I finally got around to roasting two of them and ended up with a tremendous amount of cooked pumpkin. I still need to puree it, drain it, measure it out and freeze it, but it was such a big job I didn't have time to do it all yesterday. I'm thinking this year will be the year of lots of pumpkin pies, pumpkin scones, pumpkin soup, pumpkin cookies and pumpkin bread. Not that I'm complaining. I love pumpkin. And I still have five more pumpkins to process (including the ones from my garden).

While the pumpkins were roasting, I finally got up the nerve to ask my next door neighbor if I could take some of her apples. I'd seen another neighbor over there last week picking apples so I figured she was amenable. Also, Saturday was really windy and I knew a lot of apples fell from the tree. So, I asked if I could take some of her windfall apples. She looked at me as if I were completely off my rocker. But, then again, she doesn't speak English very well.

After peeling the apples, I cored and sliced them. I put them in a solution of water and lemon juice to keep them from turning brown. After draining them, I tossed them in a sugar and cinnamon mixture and put them in the dehydrator. They turned out fantastically and they smelled heavenly while they were dehydrating.

I have another neighbor down the street that has an apple tree that I know doesn't do anything with them, so I'll hit them up next and start all over again. I'm pretty sure they don't mind not having to deal with all those apples. Anyway, I love getting seasonal foods preserved for future use, especially when it is free (or nearly so)!

Anybody got a favorite pumpkin recipe out there?

Pumpkin photo courtesy of teenytinyturkey.

What to do with all those apples

Apple season is upon us and last night I went to a course and tasting on Washington apples at The Dahlia Lounge (thanks to my foodie brother, Darryl).

So, while my mind is wrapped around apples, let's discuss some of the fantabulous things you can do with all dem apples. Don't be shy - make this year the one where you buy a bushel or two.

Of course, there's the myriad ways of cooking and baking with apples, but I'm assuming you can eat only so many apple pastries at once so I'm going to focus on throwing out some ideas of things to do with apples that you can store and enjoy throughout the year.

Drinks
Well, first off there's the beverage selections. You can press your own apples and make apple juice or apple cider. You can home pasteurize these juices by boiling and then freezing the juice to make sure that nothing unwanted grows in your liquids. If you are real excited, you can make your own hard apple cider. You can even make your own apple cider vinegar if you let your hard cider ferment until it becomes vinegar.

Don't forget! You can boil down the juice or cider to make an apple syrup which can come in handy for making apple-flavored cocktails among other things.

Canning jams, jellies and whatnots
Next up are easy ways of preserving the apple bounty by using your trusty canner. You can make apple jelly, caramel apple jam, applesauce, apple chutney and apple pie filling.

Don't forget! You can make your own pectin from apples for use in your other canning projects.

Drying and freezing
A great, fast and tasty way of preserving loads of apples is by dehydrating them. You can dry them with or without the skins on, just know that it takes longer to dry them if you leave them on. By doing this at home you avoid the sulfur-laden ones from the store.

It's easy to freeze apples. You basically just slice them up, toss them with ascorbic acid and freeze. Another thing I like to do is prepare apple pie filling and freeze until ready to use. You can also freeze the pie filling (inside a large freezer bag) in a pie plate if you intend on going straight from the freezer to the oven.

Storing them straight up
If you are lucky enough to have a cellar or some sort of cold storage, you can store your apples until you are ready to eat them. Thick skinned apples are better at storing than others, just make sure they aren't bruised otherwise they'll all ripen faster. It's the old "one bad apple" adage.

Downed apples
If you don't know what to do with all those windfall apples that get blown off your trees (or your neighbor's), check out this article from Mother Earth News, What to Do with Windfall Apples.

I hope this has given you enough ideas of what to do with your apples. What's your favorite method to store or preserve them?

Crazy raspberry lady

I was at our grocery store the other day buying 1/2 flats of berries from a local farm (they deliver daily!) when a man asked me a question about the raspberries. Well, let me tell you he got an earful!

After chatting for a few minutes, discussing how long they'll last, what to do with them, how to freeze them, what kind of deal this was, etc. he said, "Wow, you know a lot about raspberries!" I was somewhat embarrassed, but just answered, "Well, I'm the crazy raspberry lady". Of course, my cart was filled with two half-flats of blueberries ($5.98 each!) and two half-flats of raspberries and nothing else.

I was thinking of making jam, but just wasn't in the mood. So, instead I've been freezing and drying the berries that haven't been making their way into our mouths. I freeze them on cookie sheets and once they are frozen I pack them into Ziploc freezer bags and suck the air out with a straw. I've been doing this for the last two weeks so I think I finally have enough berries to last us for a while.