Apple Pie, Crisps, and a Full Belly

Our apple trees are ready for doing something with. The apples are a little smaller than last year, but much more plentiful. Therefore I started working with the corer, peeler and put 72 cups of apples into 6 of these bad boys and 8 Crumbles. 

 5 pies and 8 crumbles made it to the freezer! One got sacrificed in the quality control exercise. It passed with flying colours.

This is God's gift to apple peelers. I don't know how I ever got along with out it. It peels and cores and slices with just a crank of a handle. Well worth the cost in time saved!

Now, I have half of one tree picked with another 2 1/2 to go! I think I will be giving apples away, after 6 more pies!

I am Appled Out!

Our Apple trees (three) produced extremely well this year1 The apples were nice and firm with no blemishes or bruises.



At present there are eight  9inch pies cooked and frozen sitting in the freezer.

The pies are excellent and we have sacrificed two already for testing.

There are also about a dozen apple crumbles in the freezer waiting for winter.

This is the critter that made apple processing bearable. I got it from Lee Valley Tools and it is the best invention since sliced bread. It peels, cores and slices in nothing flat!

However, I still have half a box of apples and have run out of desire to do any more ('till next year)

Wordless Wednesday...The last of the Apples

Apple Crumble

2012 Apple Produce

In just 3 months we have gone from flowers to apples to lots of ripe apples! This is exceptional for us as we are in Zone 2 of the gardening divisions. That is, we get winters down to -40C, and have a very short growing season.

We got two of these tubs from one of our 5 apple trees. I wish that I had written down what type of apples these are, because after 8 years of waiting for them to produce more than 10 or so apples, the memory gets fuzzy.

 After 6 hours of peeling, coring, quartering and cooking, I got 16 pints of applesauce. There is still 2/3 of a tub of apples left. I guess that I will cut them up and freeze them for crumbles, or pies during the winter.

 This was amazing in that none were bruised, bug infested or hail damaged. We have had two hail storms go through here but I guess the hail was not large enough to cause damage.

There must be an easier way to process these dudes without peeling with a potato peeler, or coring with a manual push through corer. I would have kept going, but my hands were getting sore.

The best part is that the end result has seen no pesticides, and is 100% organic!

The applesauce is sweet enough that no sugar was needed, just a little cinnamon and nutmeg.

Bugs and Crops

 I found more of these caterpillars today. It's hard to tell which end is which, until you realize that part of the leaf is missing under the head. They are feeding on the Honey berry bushes. I will leave them be, unless they decide apple leaves are better.

 The hail storm missed us the other night and the apple crop is safe. I wish that I had recorded what type of apple trees these were, but I didn't. So far they are safe and starting to turn red.

Now, does anybody out in blog land have a recipe for apple sauce that doesn't use sugar? I was thinking of trying Stevia, but don't know if it would work.