All posts tagged apples

That time of year again

Every year some friends generously allow us to go and collect apples from the old trees behind their house. The trees are tall and there’s always fun and games with a long pole to knock the apples off – they are simply too high up to pick by hand. Every year I completely forget to take photographs, and 2021 is no exception. Anyway, the apples end up a little bumped, but since they are cookers and I process them quite quickly, this is not a problem. The upshot is that every year in late September or October, I end up with a big tub full of apples and several days of work to convert them into a product that will be useable through the coming year. This seasonI have decided that the majority will be stewed and bottled, plus some used for sweet hot chilli sauce. Some years I make lots of juice, but we haven’t been drinking it much lately, so that is not my current priority. Of course, the abundance means that there is lots of opportunity for apple cakes, crumbles and pies, and today we indulged and had them with waffles and cream for brunch.

This old-fashioned approach to storing the the glut and not having to rely on what’s in the shops at any given time of year feels very much like rebellion – a quiet protest against the food system that most of us find ourselves unavoidably bound to. I love the seasonality of harvesting food; I love making use of local produce and exploring inventive ways to preserve it and value it; I love a cupboard full of sealed jars, squirrelled away for use during less productive seasons; and I love the kindness of those who share their bounty freely.

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by The Snail of Happiness on October 10, 2021  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on October 10, 2021

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2021/10/10/that-time-of-year-again/

A fruity post

Over the years I have become fastidious about bottling fruit, so that I have a supply all year round with which to make desserts and breakfasts. It all started with apples given to me by friends and family. With limited space in the freezer, I learned how to preserve the (free) bounty in jars. I progressed on to bought fruit – pineapple, peaches, nectarines, plums… available cheaply and in abundance for limited times of the year.

This year, however, we’ve tried to minimise our travelling (for quite some time we were only allowed to go out for essentials and then ideally only distances less than 5 miles) and so there were few opportunities to acquire exotic fruits (the place we get them from is local for a rural area but many more than five miles away). It’s probably been a good thing, though, because it has encouraged me to use what’s on the doorstep. So this year the jars are once more filled with apples, but there are also red currants (it was a spectacular year for them) and rhubarb. There are still some jars of plums and pineapple, but most of the produce came from our garden or the gardens of friends. I’m currently still working on the 2020 apple harvest and have yet to juice any of them, but the cupboard is looking nice and full, and it will certainly see us through many more months with relatively few food miles.

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by The Snail of Happiness on September 22, 2020  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on September 22, 2020

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2020/09/22/a-fruity-post/

Apple time

Yesterday we went to pick apples just down the road…

since then the kitchen has been a hive of activity…

Mehu Liisa

There was a little time yesterday to do something that didn’t involve apples. I made harissa paste with some of the abundant chillie harvest…

26 Comments
by The Snail of Happiness on October 7, 2017  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on October 7, 2017

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2017/10/07/apple-time-3/

Autumn arrives

Having just finished the summer bottling, we had a day off and went to visit Momma Snail. Imagine my delight to be offered some of her windfall apples – a sure sign that autumn is on the way and that the next big job will be bottling and juicing apples. On returning home I went to check our tiny apple tree and realised that several of the branches were under severe strain with this year’s crop, so I relieved it of some of the weight and picked up a single windfall. These are all destined to become juice – possibly apple and blackberry juice if I can find the time to go for a walk to pick blackberries.

Moma Snail’s apples
Home apples

And whilst I was in the mood for harvesting, I picked some of our chillies:

IMGP3903

Clockwise from left: Yellow Romanian; Pyramid; Lemon Drop; Black Hungarian

There are lots more to come. In particular, the Pyramid chillies are only just starting to ripen up, although the plants are laden with fruit. I have picked some of the Black Hungarians before they turn red as we really liked the flavour at this stage. Preservation for all these is easy – I simply freeze them whole. I’ve tried drying them in the past, but I much prefer using them from the freezer – plump and juicy and easy enough to chop/remove seeds immediately you take them out.

Are you seeing signs of autumn or are you in a place to see signs of spring?

16 Comments
by The Snail of Happiness on August 22, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in gardening and growing
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on August 22, 2017

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2017/08/22/autumn-arrives/

Meet Liisa

We are currently in the throes of apple processing season. My usual approach is to stew all my apples and then bottle them hot before heating them in a water bath to ensure that they keep for a good long time. I used to freeze them, but we just ended up with a freezer full of apples with no room for anything else! Now, once they are processed, no additional energy is required for their storage. This year I’ve also bottled blackberries with some of the apples for a bit of variety. I love being able to preserve food like this, especially apples since we get so many given to us for nothing.

For a few years, though, we have been discussing the possibility of making a scratter and press so that we could produce apple juice. Somehow we never got round to it. And then a couple of weeks ago I was introduced to a gadget that I simply couldn’t resist – a steam juicer. This amazing gadget produces hot juice that can be bottled directly for storage. It’s really just a big steamer with a reservoir to collect the juice, which has a pipe to drain hot juice directly into bottles. All that the user needs to do is wash and then chop up the apples (in fact it works with all sorts of fruit and vegetables), place them in the steamer basket with some sugar if the juice is for keeping, fill the bottom pan with water, turn the heat on and let them get on with it. After about a pint of juice has been released, you collect this in a jug and pour it back over the fruit, but after that there’s very little to do. You obviously need to be around to keep an eye on things to make sure the bottom pan doesn’t boil dry and to drain juice into (pre-heated) bottles, but it’s a remarkably easy way to produce juice.

a handy hook
filled up
on the boil
From this
to this
to this
and lots of this

And the name of this glorious gadget? It’s a Mehu Liisa. And I feel I must thank Rachel (@CambridgeGoats) for introducing me to this wonderful thing. Now, where can I get some more apples…?

16 Comments
by The Snail of Happiness on October 22, 2016  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on October 22, 2016

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2016/10/22/meet-liisa/

November shoots

Some time back I wrote a post entitled Is it worth growing potatoes? My resounding conclusion was ‘yes’. Even though they are relatively cheap to buy, I like the fact that I know they will all get eaten, that it cuts down on our food miles and that that I can grow them chemical-free (check out my original post to get an idea of the pesticides that go into the spuds you are likely to get from the supermarket).

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Tiny potato shoots – I hope they survive

Anyway… this year, construction of the limery meant that I was short of growing space and so not all of the potato tubers that I had available were eventually planted. Over the summer, the remainder sat in egg boxes on my windowsill and grew a few leaves, before starting to shrivel. Even so, they tenaciously held on and I couldn’t bear to throw them away. Finally, though, even I had to admit that I needed to do something with them. So, on Saturday when I removed the no-longer-productive courgette plants from their large pots in the limery, I decided that the remaining compost may just be able to have a second life as a medium for growing potatoes. And so, I rearranged the compost and popped the somewhat shrivelled tubers in. The pots remain in the limery and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that these sad little remnants of this year’s planting will spring to life and provide us with a small crop sometime in the new year. Who knows? I could just have put the used compost and tubers into the compost bin, but I have nothing to lose in this experiment. I will be certainly be gloating if I can eat fresh Welsh new potatoes in February.

I’m also pleased to report that the limery is still proving its worth (all these pictures were taken today):

Lots of chillies still ripening
Apples being stored in the limery (Mr Snail returned with a couple more boxes yesterday)
Ginger sprouting
New shoots on the orange tree

It may be the depths of autumn, but we have green shoots and reminders of summer.

10 Comments
by The Snail of Happiness on November 24, 2015  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on November 24, 2015

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2015/11/24/november-shoots/

Hot, hot, hot

Well, as the song says “the weather outside is frightful” (rain and wind) but indoors we are revelling in a warm fuzzy feeling brought on by produce from the limery and the generosity of friends.

Part of the chilli harvest

Part of the chilli harvest

Despite the relatively late completion of the limery in the summer, it has still provided us with an abundance of food, not to mention being a lovely place to sit and a great place to be messy with water! We’ve had a decent number of tomatoes, plenty of sweet peppers and some courgettes (still producing slowly), but the biggest success has been the chillies. Admittedly this is because I went mad and sowed far too many seeds, but even so, it bodes well for production next year. The heat in the chillies is variable – currently the Bartlett’s bonnets are the mildest, which has come as rather a surprise – and so making curry or our our much-loved red-hot cauliflower has been a bit hit-and-miss. With this in mind I decided to have a bash at making chilli sauce to use as a condiment with a guaranteed level of heat. I trawled the internet for inspiration, found a recipe I liked the sound of and proceeded to modify it beyond recognition! This is what I ended up with:

Sweet apple chilli sauce

100g chillies, chopped (I used 5 lemon drop, 2 Barlett’s bonnet and 18 pyramid)
200g caster sugar
200g Demerara sugar
3 cloves garlic chopped
15g fresh ginger chopped
200g roast tomato passata
400g stewed apple (unsweetened)
160ml cider vinegar
1tsp salt

Put all the ingredients in a pan and simmer for 30 minutes. Allow to cool and then liquidise.

All in one pot

All in one pot

With my chillies, this produced about 1 litre of very hot , very sweet sauce. It provided a great accompaniment to smoked mackerel fishcakes last night and I think it could easily be used as an ingredient in a curry… you wouldn’t need much!

Ready to eat

Ready to eat

22 Comments
by The Snail of Happiness on November 8, 2015  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on November 8, 2015

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2015/11/08/hot-hot-hot/

Normal service will now resume…

Hello world!

A few of my current apple collection

Part of my current apple collection

I know that you haven’t heard from me for a while, but there was a trip away, a whole heap of orders to make, piles and piles of apples to process and a novel to edit. In fact there are still piles and piles of apples and a final read-through of the novel, but progress has been made. In addition, Mr Snail was ill for a week and so I had to do all my own washing up… good grief!

The first time we went to Norway, Mr Snail got the idea for a novel involving the snow hotel and kicksleds. Finally, over the summer, he finished writing it and it was ready for editing. One of the things that I hate about many self-published books is the poor English – confusing ‘too’, ‘to’ and ‘two’; grocers’ apostrophes; poor spelling – and, perhaps worse, plot inconsistencies and factual errors (bluebells flowering in July, for shame). So, although editing factual work rather than fiction is my profession, I have switched hats and am now in the throes of my final read-through of Kirkenes Blue. While I do this, Mr Snail has been working on the cover…

Draft cover

I have already suggested a slight edit to the text!

All being well, Kirkenes Blue will be available in both paper and electronic format towards the end of the month and I’ll have preserved enough apples to provide me with a year’s worth of breakfasts.

24 Comments
by The Snail of Happiness on October 25, 2015  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on October 25, 2015

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2015/10/25/normal-service-will-now-resume/

The first of many

I make it a policy not to turn down offers of fresh produce. Far too much food is wasted in this country and I’m always sorry to see apples, plums and pears falling from trees and rotting. In our garden we have one tiny, fairly recently planted eating apple tree – currently growing exactly four apples. If we had more space we could have a bigger cooking apple tree, but there seems little point because we always get given apples.

Just a few to ease me in

Just a few to ease me in

And so, when I got home yesterday after a trip out, I was unsurprised to find a carrier bag of apples on the kitchen counter. These had been given to Mr Snail by our lovely next-door-neighbours, who had been given them by a friend. I know that we’ll have pounds and pounds of apples coming our way next week, but this small bag was still welcome. I considered whether to wait until I had more to add them to, but decided this morning to make a gentle start to this year’s bottling extravaganza.

So I peeled and cored, stewed, bottled and then sterilized in a hot water bath. The result… three jars for the store cupboard and some left over stewed apple for breakfast this week. They are not as exotic as peaches, nectarines or mangoes, but they do form a staple for me throughout the year and, once bottled, require no extra energy for storage (unlike freezing). Plus, I know exactly what the ingredients are (apples and a tiny bit of sugar in the syrup that I top the jars up with)… now, that’s my sort of processed food!

Peeling and coring
Stewing
Sterilizing

No doubt in two week’s time I’ll be sick of the sight of apples and bottling equipment, but for now I’m just loving all the abundance and generosity.

14 Comments
by The Snail of Happiness on October 4, 2015  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on October 4, 2015

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2015/10/04/the-first-of-many/

Apple time

How can they escape your notice when they are so big?

How can they escape your notice when they are so big (1.3kg)?

It’s good to make plans, but in life sometimes you just have to respond to the situation. This seems to have been particularly so this year in the garden – our warm winter followed by an early spring and hot July seem to have combined and delivered us to a premature autumn. Currently there are blackberries to pick and apples to harvest. Normally I would not expect to have to deal with bags of cooking apples until September, but mum gave me the first bag from her tree on 10 August and so the great apple processing event is underway, whilst still having to deal with mounds of courgettes/zucchini (I found the one pictured snaking its way under its parent plant out of sight, attaining a weight of more than 1.3kg/2.8lbs before I spotted it). I’m waiting for a sunny day to do some more courgette dehydration.

The first bag of many, I'm sure!

The first bag of many, I’m sure!

Although I know I can do dried apple rings, I love bottled apples and so most of the harvest is likely to be preserved this way… I have loads of Kilner jars, so am able to store litres of the stuff. Over the weekend I made two big pots of courgette and carrot soup, some of which we ate, but most of which went in the freezer for delicious lunches on cold winter days. So preservation is proceeding apace even if it does seem to be happening somewhat earlier than usual. Now I’m expecting a message from Perkin to tell me to come and collect apples from their fantastic tree too. I do love this time of literal fruitfulness!

However, life does throw all sorts of things in our paths and so, whilst I am busying myself with gardening, preserving and cooking, Mr Snail of Happiness is preparing to go and work away from home for at least the next six months. A phone call 10 days ago offered him a big contract with a company he has worked for before that was too good to turn down. As a result, in the past week, we have bought a second car and done a lot of on-line property hunting. We collect the new car tomorrow (a tiny one with very low carbon emissions and fuel consumption and no car tax) and he’s off to view a couple of flats on Thursday. Thus, this winter I will be ‘home alone’ during the week… which may result in much more blogging and crafting. In the mean time, bear with me because we have a lot of packing to do and finding all those things that we stored  after his last contract away from home, more than four years ago.

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by The Snail of Happiness on August 19, 2014  •  Permalink
Posted in food and cooking, gardening and growing
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on August 19, 2014

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2014/08/19/apple-time/

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