Apples: Day 3

It was another day full of apples and today will be too.  My daughters took turns with the apple peeler/corer.  When the apples are crisp it works like a charm, 30 seconds from whole apple to sliced up perfectly.  But every day the apples sit in the garage, even though it's cool, they get softer.  Then we have to do them by hand.

These applesauce days are developing a pattern.  Wash, peel/core, and throw into the pot.  We keep going until the pot's full.   It makes some muscle to stir it.

Some of the apples are going into the freezer.  After dipping them in water with lemon juice and salt, we lay the apples out on cookie sheets.  By morning they are frozen solid; we break the pieces up and move them into bags. 

Some of the apples are going into apple butter.  We put over two gallons of applesauce in the crock pot, added spices, and then let it simmer all day.  It sure is an easy way to cook it down.

At the end of the day, we started in on some eating.  Applesauce and cottage cheese are one of our favorites, especially when it's Christina cottage cheese.  Last summer we made several batches of cottage cheese and stored them in the freezer.  Today the first came out to thaw.  Oh yeah, it's worth it.

Cheese Tasting - Finally

There are boxes and boxes of apples staring at me from the garage.  We went to a U-Pick place and picked over five bushels.  The texture is good, but they are pretty bland.  I picked up some Jonathans and McIntosh at the fruit stand to mix in and beef up the flavor.  We haven't had time to can, so we started with some dehydrating.  My 13-year-old ran the apple-peeler-corer and got a dozen apples done in less than 10 minutes.

I dipped them in water with a little salt and lemon juice to prevent browning and then laid them out in the dehydrator.  Those twelve apples filled nine dehydrator trays, although I probably could have fit a few more in.  After about six hours, they were nicely dehydrated without being crunchy.  They filled a gallon ziploc and I'll store them in the freezer.

It's been two months since I made my first cheese.  Hard cheese has to age for at least two months, four to six is better.  Today we got our first taste of homemade cheddar cheese.  It was harder than I expected and the flavor was mild, but there was a hint of pungent aroma that made me optimistic.  This was my first cheese.  As I gained experience, I learned how to cook the curds without overcooking and that a higher cream content gives the soft texture of cheddar.  Just before Christina dried up, I made a perfect looking block that will be aged to mild in another month.  That's the one I'm looking forward to.

We grew soup beans for the first time this year.  Today we picked another row and were discouraged to find that many of the shriveled pods had gotten wet from irrigation and had the mold to prove it.  Even so, there was still a lot.  It took about two hours for four of us to shell them all.

The beans are a beautiful red.  I had to get after the girls for playing in them while we were shelling.  Because they have too much moisture still, we spread them out to dry for several days before we put them away.

Today we are getting ready to go camping.  We used to camp regularly from spring to fall.  Even though we haven't gone since early summer, I'm hesitant to leave. My hunger for the hills isn't strong.  Camping used to be a primary way that I connected with the earth and with God the creator.  With so much time outside this last year, I feel deeply connected to this land that I'm not enthusiastic to leave it.  Our oldest will stay to care for the animals and all will be fine.  But I'll miss this sacred ground and the animals who live on it with us.