 Autumn
brings trees laden with apples, and high winds bring lots of windfall
apples on the ground that need to be used before they start to go off. The
brown, bruised spots from landing on the ground will ferment quickly
and turn to alcohol. These are still safe to eat or use in coooking. An enterprising moose in Sweden got stuck in an apple tree
after eating fermented apples and getting drunk. We do not need to
go that primitive to use all the bounty that the wind brings
us.
If there are any undamaged apples, they can be
stored for several months into the autumn or winter. Select perfect apples that are not bruised or
cut. Wrap individually in a sheet of newspaper, place in a
plastic bag and put someplace out of the way that animals cannot get
at them. Hanging from the rafters in the garage or cellar is ideal, as
long as it doesn't get below freezing.
Apples with minor blemishes can be eaten raw,
lacto-fermented or cooked. Bruised or damaged, even with a
small
amount of mold on them, can be made into a syrup to use as a
sugar substitute. You can even use the damaged apples that are starting to ferment to start an apple wine or ale.
Raw apples can be added to sauerkraut
or other pickles by putting sliced pieces into a pickle brine. Apples
added to any jam
or jelly will add flavor and make it easier to set. Pickling
apples
Apples can be added to sauerkraut
to
double the bulk of the kraut. Take the bruised or damaged apples that
can't be stored, peel and slice and add to the cabbage and proceed to
make sauerkraut as usual. Store-bought sauerkraut can be "re-rawed" by
replacing liquid with a salt water brine in a ratio of 1 teaspoon of
salt for every pint of water and slices of apple peeled thin with a
potato peeler, and let set for 3 days. Apple Syrup
(Sugar
Substitute)
Fill a slow cooker up with windfall or damaged
apples. Small amounts of white mold is okay. Other soft, sweet fruit
such as plums or apricots that are
starting to go "off" can be included. Cover with water and slow cook
for a day. Crush fruit with wooden spoon. Top up water and slow cook
another day. Allow to cool and then sieve through a cotton flannel
jelly bag. Use the syrup to substitute for sugar in any recipe,
reducing liquids in the recipe as appropriate.
Return syrup to slow cooker and simmer uncovered until it has been
reduced to half its volume to make a thick syrup [optional].
Spiced apple coffee
Weak
coffee works very well with this recipe, so, if you're trying to cut
down on coffee, use a half a cup of leftover coffee added to a quart of
water. If you don't drink coffee at all, then plain water will do, or
any tea you like. Experiment. (See coffee).
Put your coffee, or designated liquid, into a baked enamel, ceramic or
pyrex pot and heat it on the stove. Add heavy cream (double cream) and
honey. If you're trying to increase the amount of healthy fats that you
eat, a spoonful of butter or coconut oil would not go amiss here,
either. Take soft, windfall apples. Peel and dice the white flesh into
small pieces. (Save the peel and core for apple syrup, see below.) Put
in a stick blender cup. Add some of the tepid coffee or liquid and
blend until pureed. Strain if desired or leave the unliquefied pieces
in. (This could be a treat for anyone who has trouble either digesting
or chewing their food.) Add it to the hot liquid simmering on the
stove. If you keep the hot liquid below 106 degrees (the point at which
it feels hot but not too hot to touch without feeling pain)the apples
stay raw and you can have the pleasure of your morning coffee along
with the healthiness of your apple a day.
Peel
and chop up apples, add a brine with one teaspoon of sea salt to each
pint of water. Push the chopped apples down under the brine and cover
the jar. Let sit at room temperature for a week. To make into a sweet
and sour apple pickle, chop up another apple, mix with sugar or the
sugar syrup below and cinnamon to taste. Add to pickled apples. This
will not stay sweet, so eat right away or don't mix the pickled apples
with the sweet, chopped apples until you are ready to eat it.
Apple Ale
Put
apples in slow cooker and cover with water. Slow cook until soft. Smush
up with wooden spoon or hand and strain through a sieve. Add a cup of
sugar for each quart of apple juice. Find a bruised apple that is a
little frothy around the bruise and drop it into the apple juice and
sugar mixture. Cover with an airlock.
When signs of fermentation appear, you can remove the apple and replace
airlock. Let it ferment from 1 - 6 days, depending on how strong you
want it.
Apple Wine
Apple
wine is easy to make and it is the quickest wine that can be ready
to drink, often in only three months, where most wines need to be aged
a year.
Apples can be either chopped and blended with water in the blender or
put in the crockpot with water and slow cooked. Sieve through a cotton
flannel jelly bag, add 1 cup of sugar per quart of liquid and a yeast starter.
Cover with an airlock
and let sit until sediment falls to the bottom and wine has cleared.
See Wine.
Cultured
Apple Butter
Ingredients:
2-3 apples
3-6 tablespoons of butter
vanilla
cinnamon
whey
sea salt
Directions:
Wash, core and sliced apples fairly fine, but don't peel
Put butter in cast iron pan
Sautee apples with cinnamon and vanilla (to taste) until soft.
Put in a blender (a stick blender works well for this) and puree
Place in glass jar
Add 3-4 tbsp whey and 1/4 tsp of sea salt and a few tablespoons of water
Cover and leave at room temperature for 2 days, then refrigerate.
Serve or toast or biscuits.
Grain-Free
Apple Pie
Preparation:
Make the crust material and let it sit overnight. Mushing this together
is slow and tedious, so I often put the ingredients into a bowl and
leave in front of the TV to do during a show. It is not something that
is easy to get done if you need to use it right away.
Ingredients:
1 cup of tapioca flour
1/4 cup of lard
1/4 cup of butter
pinch of salt
teaspoon of sucanat or unrefined sugar
a pinch to a teaspoon of cinnamon, depending on how much you like
cinnamon.
Directions:
Mix
dry ingredients and fold into lard
and butter until it forms a ball or at least all the fats are blended
into the flour.
Roll
the dough ball out flat to about 1/4" and cut into smaller pieces. (The
dough will not hold its shape while baking like wheat flour dough will,
so there's no point in making special shapes.)
(The
flat pieces of dough can be frozen if desired, or used immediately.)
Put
piece of dough in the bottom of serving-sized baking cups.
Add
filling (apple pie or jam).
Put
another layer of dough on top.
Bake
in a medium oven for 20 minutes to a half hour, or as long as a similar
sized wheat pastry would take to turn brown (helps if you are baking
regular wheat pastry for someone along with the tapioca pastry)
Note:
the dough will be liquid and bubbling when it comes out of the oven and
will not become firm and crust-like until it has cooled.
Apple
pie filling:
Peel, core and chop up apples to fill the baking cups. (Do not overfill
the cup as the tapioca flour becomes liquid during baking and will
overflow the cup if it is packed too high.)
Add a teaspoon of butter in small pieces.
Add a pinch of cinnamon
Add 1/4 teaspoon of arrowroot
Add a spoonful of raisins if desired
Add a teaspoon of sucanat or drizzle of honey
Mix together.
Apple Jam
Peel
and core apples. Set in slow cooker with a little honey and cinnamon.
Cover and cook at low temperature until apples are soft, then mash with
a fork. If the mashed apples are too thin and watery, uncover and
continue slow cooking until it has rendered down to a jam
consistency.
Sort-of Raw
Applesauce
Peel and chop apples. Put in a covered ceramic dish and put into slow
cooker.
Allow to slow cook for a couple hours or until apples become soft, but
not so hot that they are painful to touch. They do not need to break
down and be mushy, they can still retain their shape.
Add some cinnamon and mix in with a fork.
Taste and decide if you want to add some raw honey or other sweetener.
Serve warm with clabbered cream if desired.
Cooked Applesauce
Peel, core and quarter apples
(use a combination of types if you have them)
Put a small amount of water into a crockpot or slow cooker
Cover and cook on low heat overnight or until the apples are the
conistency you want for your apples (chunky --> mushy)
Transfer to glass jars and put in fridge
Can be frozen in mason jars -- do not fill and do not close cover
until applesauce is frozen
Add sugar to taste when serving
Apple Cake
Preparations:
Grease a 10"x12"x3" baked enamel or
pyrex
glass pan
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups of flour
1/2 cup of milk or cream
6 tablespoons of brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon ground mixed spice
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon of melted lard
1 tablespoon of melted butter
2-3 medium apples, peeled and grated (alternatives: grated carrots
and/or zucchini/courgettes)
1 handful of raisins
Instructions:
Beat
flour, milk, sugar and egg in mixer until smooth or 5 minutes by hand.
Drizzle in melted butter and lard. Add apples and raisins and mix in by
hand with a spoon. Pour/push batter into prepared baking pan. Bake at
medium heat until cooked and lightly browned on the outside and a knife
inserted into center comes out clean. If necessary, make a piece of
aluminum foil the size of the baking pan and cut a rectangular hole in
the middle and place over cake and return to oven so that cake can
continue to cook in the middle without getting burnt around the edges.
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Scoop out
the core of an apple
but leave some at the bottom to form a hole in the apple.
Pack the hole with butter, cinnamon and a bit of organic brown sugar or
maple syrup
Place in a baked enamel or glass baking dish with a bit of water added.
Bake at medium heat until soft
Serve with something fermented, like sauerkraut
Apple Cider
Vinegar
Make cider by pressing whole apples and collecting the juice. For
smaller operations, it may be easier to peel, chop and core the apples.
For large operations, you will need a cider press.
Add a few raisins to the apple juice, cover with an airlock and allow
to ferment until it becomes an alcoholic hard cider.
Put a mother of vinegar or a mother of kombucha into the hard cider, or
mix it with some raw vinegar or kombucha
.Apples
and
Sauerkraut
Shred cabbage and pack into glass jar.
Peel apples and slice into cabbage.
Add brine made in a ratio of 1 teaspoon of sea salt to 1 pint of water.
Cover with an airlock and leave at cool room temperature for a month.
Apple sauerkraut can be used in place of carrots in a carrot cake
recipe for an interesting taste.
Dehydrating
Apples
Preheat the oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit.
Peel and core ripe apples (remove any bruised spots).
Cut apples into thin ring slices.
Dip each slice into lemon juice on both sides.
Place in a single layer on a baking rack placed on top of a cookie
sheet.
Place the sheet of apple slices in the oven and bake for about 1 hour
or until fairly dry and lightly browned. Time will vary based on
thickness of apple slices.
Remove the cookie sheet from the oven and lift each apple slice up off
the rack to prevent them from sticking as they cool.
After cooling completely, store the dried apple slices in an airtight
container and keep in a cool, dry place or can be frozen.
Root
Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits & Vegetables by Mike
and Nancy Bubel. An excellent
book on storage of
fruits and vegetables.
The
Forager's Harvest
A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants by
Sam Thayer. The author tells about
things he has experienced,
not
just cut and pasting or rephrasing what other people have written.
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Apples
