The heatwave has sure ripened the fruit early in our mini orchard this year. While the plums are slowly growing and turning a shade of light purple and the grapes are getting plumper each day, neither are ready to harvest. We had a big crop of cherries and noticed the apple tree was laden with big apples and the ground was looking like a picnic ground for any four legged creature (let’s say raccoons for peace of mind!) that walked by.
We grabbed a tarp and tied it to the fence and pulled it into the alley and shook the tree to get the apples. We were dodging and weaving to not get bopped in the head from some of the bigger ones came crashing down! Once we got that side of the tree pretty well picked we flipped the tarp back into the yard to get the rest. I admit I was a bit more choosy about which one made the keep bucket and not the recycling bin knowing we had well over 40 pounds of apples.
My neighbor gave me a family recipe for an apple cake. It was delicious and I think it will freeze well so will bake it again this week. That gives me about 39 more pounds of apples to deal with!
I remember standing over the sink with my grandma, peeling and coring apples to bake pies and make apple sauce. We cooked the apples and then ground them in a hand cranking apple mill. Well, I am glad for the instant pot! I can skip the peeling and go straight to coring and chopping. It’s nice to google ‘applesauce instant pot no peel’ and come up with a dozen or so recipes. I put a cup of water in the instant pot then filled it about 3/4 of the way with cored apples and set it for five minutes on manual. I released the pressure, spooned out the apples and put into the food processer and pulsed until it was smooth. My favorite way to have apple sauce is warm with a little cinnamon and sugar and cream. Now I’m heading out to get freezer containers because this was so much easier then I expected I am going to use ALL the apples instead of picking and choosing.
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Our New Neighborhood 2023 