#140 Crab Apple Canning (09/28/12)

Just a little post on our canning ventures so far.  The 11 little jars are crab apple butter, aka Chutney, or spicy jam.  It turned out a little runny, but still pretty good for our first try.  Woohoo.  All but to snapped closed.  So they are the first two we will use, after the left over bowl we didn't fit into the small jars we had.  So many preserves, so little time, and so little jars.  I guess we need to stock up.  We thought 1 dozen of each size should be plenty, WRONG.  We have the big ones left, but they will get used quickly enough I imagine.  The jam size and the next size up are going to be our preference I think.

The four big jars were our first attempt at canning in general, and are straight, no sugar added apple sauce, same as the baggies. 

#135 Adventures in Apple Sauce (09/26/12)

Well, as mentioned in #130, we have a LOT of crab apples.  This is our adventure in making about 150 pounds of apple sauce.  This post is picture heavy. 

To start the mass production of apple sauce, we needed a plan.  This is what I came up with.  First day we tried this procedure. 

Pick large bowls of apples using the parachute method, holding a sheet under the person picking to catch the apples.  After the first afternoon of picking two bowls at a time, we then switched to picking a Rubbermaid tote at a time, and for the de-bugging (literally) fill the bowls and leave outside while processing the previous bunch. In the picture below, is my wife (left), me (middle), and my FIL (right). 

Here are a few pictures of our crab-apple trees. 

  

We then leave the bowls outside for a while to de-bug.  The freshly picked apples have a lot of lovely lady bugs, and a few other icky things that we try to have vacated from the bowl before bringing into the house. 

Alas, only a portion of them do leave, as this is our capture container that we empty after each bowl set.

  

We bring the mostly de-bugged bowls inside to our sorting station; our couch/coffee table with a chuck-it platter/bucket and a container for the good ones.  When full the good bin is approximately the two large bowls sorted down, which will fill our two cooking pots well. 

 From there we take them to the wash basin; our kitchen sink.

Then, as is, the apples go into the boil pots.  We add water to the pots, just below the top of the apples, about two depths down.

We bring the pots to a boil, and then let them simmer for about an hour.  Till they look like that, and can be smooshed with a spoon.

None of the water gets drained off.  Per put the contents into our food mill. 

Once a pot is process this is what remains, one pot equals about one of these bowls of apples sauce, and a bunch of stem/seed/pulp mess.  In this whole process we found, we have three crab apple trees, one tree that produces rose wildish apples, and one that produces white apples.  The picture below shows the variation of sauces; rose (left), white (Top Right), crab-apples (Bottom Right).  The two wild apple trees didn’t yield much.  The shown apple sauce was the total yield. 

 

We leave the apple sauce in the bowls to cool, usually ends up being overnight, due to timing.  Then we put about 4 cups of apples sauce into Ziploc baggies, in order to freeze them.  This is a very small portion of the apple sauce bags.  Each bag weighs just shy of two pounds, and we have about 150 pounds of apple sauce, so far.

 

While talking with a neighbour, he let us know, apples run in three year cycles, small, medium and lots yield.  This was the LOT’s year.  Our first run at sauce was just picking the apples that could be easily reached from the crab apple trees. 

In our first bunch of turning sauce into something we made fruit leathers with just crab apples and some corn starch.  They were very sour/potent.  The next run we tried something a little different.   We followed this recipe inspired by Sunrype fruit/veggie leathers.

               3 Cups Crab Apple Sauce

               3 Cups of Boiled Carrots

               1 Cup of White Sugar

               1 Cup of Boiling water

               Blend the sauce and carrots together. 

Add the sugar to the water to create syrup

Add Mixture to blender

Mix a bit more. 

Pour onto dehydrator tray liners.

Run the dehydrator for about 8 hours.  This yields about 12-16 fruit leathers.

In an epiphany, we also tried the same recipe substituting carrots for yams (sweet potatoes).  Both recipes turned out quite nice, however fairly sweet.  On the next bunch we are going to try and cut the sugar in half.  Each fruit leather has about one fruit serving and one vegetable serving. 

Once we had finished the adventure of saucing, there were still so many crab apples left in the trees.  That added with the knowledge that next year we might not get as many, we decided to pick more.  Last night we picked another 110 pounds of apples.  We still haven’t picked the trees clean, just got a little higher with a small step ladder.  On our first bunch, we did our first run at actual canning.  We just heated the sauce to boiling again, sanitized the jars by added boiling water then emptying, and putting the sauce directly into jars and adding the snap lids.  This morning, they had snapped.  Yay.  A movie quote comes to mind where a city lady inherits a farm and starts making baby food with the produce.  As she is leaning to can, she says “I will be domesticated.”  We have officially, successfully canned.  We are domesticated. 

I will try to remember to take a photo of the frozen apple sauce, and whatever we can right away, along with a picture of the finished reduced sugar fruit leathers. 

Any suggestions on recipes involving crab apples and sauce would be appreciated.  I think our next trial run, other than leathers, is apple butter. 

#130 Crab Apples (09/14/12)

As I have probably mentioned before, we have fruit to deal with, and lots of it.  We have managed to process the Nanking Cherry tree of my MIL.  We have a bunch in our freezer to do something with later.  Our next major project is crab apples.  OMG we have a lot.  On the first “pick” we got two huge bowls of crab apples off of one branch and a half.  We have 4 trees to do (and one wild apple tree). 

We have figured a fairly quick way to pick.  It requires three people, but we can fill two-three bowls in about 10 minutes.  Two people hold a sheet as a catch cloth; the third person pulls rapidly and just drops them.  As a sheet holder you can sometimes help with the picking with one hand, but main focus is making sure there is a large catch area. 

The first night we were picking we brought the bowls directly into the house; bad idea.  There was a Lady Bug parade.  We kept putting them in a glass with leaves, but out they came, so we covered it a bit and added as we found more, but sometimes the ladybugs would climb out as we were trying to add to the glass.  As small as they are it was hard to keep them wrangled.  We had to empty the glass a few times through the processing.  When the lady bugs were left to themselves they would climb the bowl to the rim, and just start walking around the bowl, hence the parade.  (There were a couple spiders too, but I ignored them and my wife took care of those.)  The next night of picking, we left the bowls outside for about an hour or so and most of them had vacated the bowls. 

As far as processing the apples first night we tried two kinds of batches.  Once batch, we topped and tailed the apples to get rid of the stem and the bottom fluff, which took a considerable amount of time considering the quantity of the apples.  The other batch we just washed and threw in the pot, to see if we could negate the topping and tailing to expedite the process.  Once they were boiled for about an hour we processed them in the food mill we bought from Bed Bath and Beyond to get rid of the seeds and what not.  We have come to the conclusion, we can save the topping and tailing and just boil them.  Once through the food mill, it takes all the needed stuff out, and tastes the same.  Yay on that one. 

For the first batch, we made 7 trays of fruit leathers by just taking the apple sauce from the food mill, adding corn starch to taste, and pouring onto the dehydrator.  In one of the trays we added cinnamon.  The second batch we have processed so far, we just froze into Ziploc baggies as flat bricks.  

As a little note, it is easier to process the apples while still warm in the food mill, than processing them cold.  More pliable I guess. 

This weekend is going to be an apple processing fiasco.  The frost is coming and so we have to get as much off the trees as soon as possible.  In order to accommodate the huge amount of bricks we will be freezing we have purchases a second small upright freezer.  I will try and take photos this time around to give an idea of the process.  By the end of this weekend, I may hate crab apples, or love the process. 

This year we probably won’t make it to do anything with the berries we have, as we think some are choke cherries, and some others that might be edible, but haven’t confirmed, so we haven’t got the time to organize what to do with them.  I guess that will be next year’s project. 

When trying to figure out the best way of processing the crab apples, we ended up watching a YouTube video of making crab apple jelly.  It looks a lot easier than I thought, so we will probably give it a try, once we have everything processed into apple sauce and frozen. 

#126 Catch Up (09/10/12)

Well, it has been over a week since my last post.  First major concern, last Friday, I found out, or donor for sperm is no longer in the system, and may not have sperm available for second pregnancies.  We are now having regrets not purchasing the full six at the time of purchase.  Alas, all things happen for a reason.  We will see how things go.  But it was a shock to our planning.  We are soon going to blitz through the sperm banks again and look for CMV positive donors as well, as a possible to save the current purchased items for my wife who needs CMV negative.  There are multiple options, but while we have the subscriptions for full profiles, we might as well use it. 

For the past week my wife, my MIL and I have been on vacation.  We went on a Cruise to Alaska.  It was a fantastic experience.  I had been worried about sea sickness, as I’m very prone to motion sickness in general, and while in Mexico, on various excursions on boats, experienced it to a varying degree.  Alas, I had my herbal Gravol in my pocket and took it when needed and was good to go.  I’ll post a few more pictures in a few days, with a bit more detail of our trip.  But here is one of a bear crossing our pathway while at a park in Juneau, and a rainbow we saw while on our boat.

The cruise was a floating buffet, so it was hard not be eat a lot.  It was diet killing, but worth it, I think.  In the end, I gained about 6 pounds, hopefully I can burn then off quickly.  Not holding my breath though, but will be working on it diligently. 

It seems Sunday was a day of days.  We got off to a slow start to have a morning to relax, watch some TV and started laundry.  While we were going through flyers to make up our shopping list we got a call from my FIL.  My MIL had slipped in a grocery store and was being attended by EMS and would be taken to the hospital, he just didn’t know which one yet.  Thankfully nothing got broken, but did end up with a lot of pulled ligaments in the back/inside of her legs. 

In the evening, while I was trying to take out the food processor to cut celery and cucumber for lunches, I sliced my thumb pretty good.  I yelled out ouch, and my wife yelled if I was ok, from upstairs, and I said “Not really.”  I had managed to get to the sink before blood started flowing quickly, but couldn’t get anything to put over it to stop the bleeding.  She rushed in and handed me some paper towel to be able to get me to the first aid station in our house upstairs.  We were on the debate on stitches or not, but once my thumb was above my heart for a while it stopped bleeding, one trip to emergency in a family per day is plenty.  So she put on a make shift butterfly bandage and taped/splinted me up so I couldn’t move my thumb and bust open again.  By this time it was after 10:00 pm and we still hadn’t had dinner, my MIL didn’t want the casserole I had made, she only wanted mushroom soup, so we made her some, then dished out the casserole for the three of us and took the plates/bowls to their house. 

While we were there, MIL finally reached the point where she needed some pain killers.  She hates taking anything, even for a headache.  So my wife went to our house to get something for her.  While there she let out the dogs for a quick run outside.  When she went to let them in something happened.  And this part is a good chuckle, only because he is ok.  My dog Tuffy was running full board into the house, but he missed the first step by a hair and ran straight into the slate riser.  It resulted in a temporary TKO (Total Knock Out).  My wife said Eep, and while she was wondering what to do, he regained consciousness.  He was a little wobbly for a bit, but seemed fine otherwise.  The story reminds me of a Tom and Jerry cartoon, so I have to chuckle. 

Now we are finally back on track, ready to work off the cruise pounds and process crab apple trees, browse sperm, and follow up when my Polyp surgery is.  Never a moment to say, what should we do today, there is always a long list of things to keep us busy. 

#118 Fruit Trees Galore (08/20/12)

In case I haven’t quite mentioned this in my blog yet, between our house and MIL’s house we have a lot of fruit trees that need to be dealt with.  There are six apple/crap apple trees, one Nanking cherry tree, a Saskatoon (?) berry bush (still developing though), and two large trees yielding berries yet to be identified, maybe chokecherries. 

As a starter tool for something to use for this fruit we bought a dehydrator.  It took us a while to give it a go, but finally have tried it.  First round we made some strawberries, apples, and pears.  We need to tweak our strawberry process; they aren’t quite like the Special K Red berry version yet, but still taste nice on cereal.  The dried apples were good.  We left the peal on and they turned out nice.  Next time I think we will try and make apple chips and see what happens.  The surprise was the pears.  They were fantastic.  I can’t wait to make a LOT more of those.  Each food processor tray holds about two apples or pears or about one pound of strawberries. 

To help picking the nanking cherries we picked a cherry picker from Lee Valley Tools, as seen below. 

This is a fantastic tool.  I highly recommend it if you have berries en mass to pick and process.  In the process of learning to pit these lovely cherries my wife came up with the best method.  She would slightly crush the berries between two bowls of slightly different size, kind of like a pestle and mortar action on a larger scale.  She would then put them into another bowl for my MIL to take the pit out.  By crushing them first, this saved breaking the skin by hand and squirting juice across the table. 

On the first bunch of cherries we just boiled them down a bit and froze half of the portion and made the other half into a version of pudding that we usually make with rhubarb.  It was very good. 

On a more recent use of the food dehydrator, we made fruit leathers.  This was a good experience.  On the second batch of cherries, which we weighed this time to be around 10 pounds, we boiled again as above.  In one pot, though, we added pineapple, and some strawberries to the cherry mix.  Once both pots had cooled we put the mixed bunch into our blender and crushed it up.  It was still very sour due to the Nanking cherries, so we added some corn syrup, and blended some more.  For some reason part way through this exercise our blender started leaking out the bottom.  It had slightly come unscrewed. 

Once we got the flavour tamed a bit, we poured onto the sheets of the dehydrator.  I am very glad the dehydrator we got had a fruit leather liner for each tray.  On some of the trays we sprinkled coconut, and some shaved almonds, and one plain.  Originally we were going to freeze the other pot of just cherries, but ended up whipping that in the blender, adding corn syrup and making just a couple trays of just cherry flavour.  Then we still had some blended smoosh left.  My wife wanted to try and add some bananas.  (I can’t eat bananas, as they cause my stomach a lot of pain.)  So for the last two trays it was a banana/cherry mix with coconut or almonds. 

What did we learn from this experience? 

1.      Mixing a small amount of the cherries with some of the apple sauce I’m sure we will be making, in order to create the fruit leathers will be a good way to utilize the cherry flavor.  These leathers were very strong flavor so we can cut them down quite a bit with apples and or maybe trying melons, but the apples are free. 

2.      We need to watch the amount of corn syrup we put into the trying to be healthy snack. 

3.      Putting a small nut under the fruit sauce to create a peal spot is probably a good idea, but yet to be tested

4.      Don’t put too much sauce on the liners.  Put it in the middle then shake to even out, but if it is too much, or too close to the edges, it will leak over and make a mess. 

5.      Make sure the bottom of the blender is screwed on tightly, along with the top is on before you hit go. 

The next tool we purchased for handling the mass amount of apples is a food mill.  From what we have looked up the best way to process crab apples is to boil them whole until they are very soft.  Then put them through the food mill.  In theory the food mill will push the sauce through the mill, and keep the seeds and such in the mill to be cleared away. 

I think before we have MASS quantity ready, we will do a test bunch and see what happens.  If we wait, I have visions of I Love Lucy in the factory and things getting out of control and food getting everywhere.  The test will have to be before we head out on the Alaska Cruise at the beginning of September.  Stay tuned for Experiments in the Kitchen: Testing Crab Apples.

There is still more cherries to be picked though, trying the food mill on them might be the easiest way to get the pits out.  We’ll see.