3 Ways to Use Your Apple Harvest

As I mentioned in my previous post, we have lots of apples! In Fall, I think that when it comes to food, pumpkins try and take center stage, but I feel that the apple is too often overlooked.  (I am biased, while I do love pumpkin and I love the idea of eating seasonally, I am definitely a huge proponent of the apple and all you can also do with them.)

So, yesterday, I worked on the first of 3 ways to use your apple harvest.  (Don't worry, I will share more as I try out recipes.)

First, my go to way of putting up apples is always apple butter.  I LOVE apple butter!  It makes me think of my great grandmother.  She was always canning and her apple butter was just the best.  Unfortunately, her recipe wasn't passed down to anyone in the family, but I have found a recipe that I feel is pretty close (or at least as much as I remember...)

I used this recipe from the lovely food blog Simply Recipes.  

I follow pretty much everything they do.  I would suggest that if you have a dutch oven, it works wonderfully for this task.  Mine is a 3 quart dutch oven by Gourmet Living which is very affordable for a dutch oven. 

Post apple softening in cider vinegar and water.

I like using our second hand food mill to reduce the apples to create the puree.

I know there are a lot of crock pot versions, and I am sure they are also good, but I just like the hands on approach and I have a lot of say over how thick and how it sets up and I can do the whole process from start to canning in about 3 hours.

Just after canning.

They make really good gifts. I always make sure to make myself plenty and then have at least a few jars for gifts.

Cut out some small squares of cute fabric and viola! A lovely gift for the holidays!

Ok, enough on apple butter.  So, while I had apple simmering, I found a recipe through Pinterest (hey, speaking of, follow us on Pinterest here) for a crockpot apple crisp.  

I found the recipe for the slow cooker apple crisp over at Chrissy's blog called The Taylor House.

I only changed one thing, due to not having just old fashioned rolled oats.  Instead I used my package of Bob's Red Mill Rolled 5 Grain Cereal. 

Was a great substitute for the regular old fashioned oats!

I quite enjoyed this recipe...actually the hubby and I enjoyed it so much that we forgot to take a photo before we ate it all...

Finally, another fun idea I saw on Pinterest was on my mind while working away.  That was a great way to use the old unwanted rinds and peels. (As you will see, you actually use these in the apple butter, but not in the crisp.)  I love trying to use everything, so you can imagine how excited I was to find a recipe for making your own apple cider vinegar from the remains.  

I found the apple cider vinegar recipe at Annemarie's blog, 

Real Food Real Deals.

I will note that this is the first time I am trying this recipe, and results won't be in for quite some time.  But it was easy, and we use apple cider vinegar for all sorts of things here, including upset tummies, recipes (like apple butter! Ok...Ok...I will stop going on about the apple butter...) and even to help keep the angora rabbits healthy.  So I was all about giving this a try!

My apples making us some vinegar.

So in about a month and a half I will be letting you know how it worked out.  But if I understand, this is basically a form of lacto-fermentation so I am sure it will be quite nice.

I still have plenty of apples, and plan on getting many more from our local you-pick over the next couple of months, so keep an eye out for some more ideas for these little gems.

How do you like to use your apples?

Ash

Rolling with the punches and supporting local farms = really good food!

This year has been a year for learning about gardening in our new climate and how to work with all the little critters of the area.  My big hopes for a large, prosperous garden faded fairly quickly when plants that I was told were not on the list of things wild critters would eat were killed off.  Marigolds to keep pests away were 'snipped' off to die, the little boogers didn't even eat them.  Just wanted them gone.  And the 8 tomato plants planted in the spring are now down to 2.  I hope to finally get some fruit off of them now that I have built a large wire cage to try and keep these two alive.  Nothing like watching a squirrel take off with tomatoes in its little hands or mouth to make you realize you need to batten down the hatches.

Almost done with this cage to keep the wild animals out.
A few more tweaks and my last 2 plants might just make it.

My green beans are trying hard to stay alive!
Anything poking out of the cage get eaten, so a new cage will be coming asap.

And that chicken coop that we built has yet to be filled with chickens.  I am pretty picky about my eggs, and would prefer fresh over store bought any day.

Luckily, our friend-lords came to the rescue and asked us to join them in sharing a CSA box from Talley Farms in San Luis Obispo.  They deliver the boxes to handy pick-up points throughout the county, and work with other local farms to fill the wonderful boxes with lots off goodies.  For cheap.  Seriously, so much fresh food for way less than you'd spend at the store.

This big box filled to the brim with vegis and fruits each week? Yes, please!

As for eggs, between the friend-lords' lovely little chickens and our friends out at Vicarious Ranch (check out their fun and adorable Facebook here), I basically never have to get store bought eggs (at least during the laying season here.)   So I can support local farms and ranches and my friends, while getting all the goodies I could not produce myself.

Color coded eggs from the friend-lords!

Baking bread and admiring the lovely colors of my delivery of eggs from Vicarious Ranch!

Last night was such a great and delicious example of how well we eat because of the good food we get.  We used the spinach and heirloom tomatoes we got in our CSA box, baked some french bread (seen rising in the photo above) and some of those eggs to make our own take on this delicious open face egg sandwich over at My Fitness Pal's blog.  Man...this one is definitely staying in the rotation.

We tweaked the above recipe with our homemade french bread and larger portions...cuz we can.

So, even though my efforts this year to build our own garden thus far have not quite worked as planned, our 'failures' have taught us a TON and during which we have found these wonderful farms and friends to support in the process.  It's a win-win for sure.

Life is all about learning, eating real food, and supporting our local farms.  At least it is in my book.  (Well, I'd probably expand upon that a little more, like making goods yourself and supporting local artisans off all kinds, but hey, I am biased.)

Ash

PS - I will be letting you know more about local farms like Vicarious Ranch soon!  We will soon be featuring a local farm, artisan or handicrafter each month.  Stay tuned!)