Apples

[TopStar74]

We have a glut of apples from our garden. Anyone doing anything interesting with them? I do not like eating apples that much. I will eat them, but just because they are lying around in the kitchen and not because I like them. From the last few days, just a last minute thought occurred when eating my porridge for breakfast. I took an apple, fine chopped it into tiny bits, and put them in to my boiling hot porridge and waited for a while and then ate the porridge. Surprisingly, tasted really good. The effect of hot porridge and the tiny size, meant the apples had ever so slightly softened and the acidic taste seems to have disappeared. I then made a bigger amount for the entire family and they all gulped it down happily too! We have been having it for the entire week for breakfast in the mornings now! Hopefully I won't get tired of it soon. Any similar experiments in your homes?

[cleo2002]

We sometimes have apple puree with toffee sauce on pancakes.

[redsturgeon]

With a glut of apples then you need to look at what you can do to preserve them.

Apple puree frozen or apple based chutney are two possibilities.

John

[didds]

or just turn them into crumbles and pies and eat them that way.

if its the acidty you don't like then add sugar, and/or use sugared custard.

or make cider - its very easy. plenty of advice on the web

If you have access to dry ice, then with isopropyl alcohol you can instant freeze the cider it to about -40 degrees, then run the ice/slush through a salad spinner and come out with freeze distillated "calvados".



didds

[UncleEbenezer]

What kind of apples?

Some are great for eating, others for cooking, others again for booze.

One suggestion to consider: get a fruit juicer. Apple juice is good, and furthermore apples are an excellent mixer with a huge range of other fruit & veg in a drink. With or without a shot of something stronger according to occasion and taste. Downside of a juicer is that they're a pain to wash up.

[daveh]

I've made apple jelly so far this year, and am planning on doing some apple chutneys. I have a basic recipe and am going to try some variations with the spices, with one fairly plain, one with some curry powder and one with chillis. I'll also see how long they will store if I keep them in a cool garage for eating/use over the winter.

[amiaspden]

I have a dehydrator, and apples sliced thinly and dried make a very good snack. They're not like the dried apples you buy, which have a spongy texture and added sulphur dioxide etc, but more like apple crisps. Very nice with a glass of white wine.

I also add them to my porridge, but I cook them with the porridge using my pressure cooker. I add sultanas and cinnamon. Grated raw apples mixed into muesli are nice too.

You could also stew and freeze for use in crumbles etc thoughout the year.

[midnightcatprowl]

Although I do eat apples I tend to enjoy them more when cooked. I'm helping friends with their enormous glut of apples at the moment. They get handed to me as mixed bags of cooking apples and eating apples but I don't differentiate between them for cooking. I find that both types 'work' cooked separately or cooked together for my purposes:

parsnip and apple soup (which includes a little honey), very nice on cold days;

an apple or two can be usefully added to a wide variety of soups while you are making them - gives an interesting depth to the flavour without tasting particularly 'appley'. Agricultural workers wives employed to pick apples always took their lunch in a big shopping bag which came out again lined with apples at the bottom (it was expected and understood that women would take such 'gleanings' for family use) and they would add them to soups and stews as well as the more obvious uses as apple sauce, baked apples, apple pie;

toasted cheese and apple sandwich - add a little sugar or honey if the apple is too tart for your taste or let your imagination flow, I'm thinking say of a generous sprinkle of paprika;

combine apples and a cheapo bag of frozen berries and bake as a base for a crumble or bake and freeze as a base for future crumbles. Berries are actually improved by the combination of apple, I prefer a little honey to sweeten rather than sugar. You can vary your bases by adding spices of your choice (many people would like cinnamon which is the one spice I don't like, I tend to use mace or nutmeg) or some vanilla or maybe even something like rose water if you happen to have it.

instant almost effortless apple 'sauce' - just add slices of apple (I leave the skin on, depends how you feel about texture) to the last stages of the cooking of a fry-up or to the last stages of roasting vegetables;

as a vegetarian I'm fond of what I just call 'bakes' but there are similar meat based dishes. The layers vary according to what I've got available but potato, onion, leek, sweet potato, carrot, parsnips, peppers, aubergine, flavoured as you wish and moistened with stock with a layer of potato on top with butter dotted on or a savoury crumble mix on top. When apples are plentiful a good thick layer of those in the middle is good.

[jackdaww]

we too had an enormous crop this year , far more than we can eat .

i put many out on the roadside , bagged up - for free or donation - most takers do donate .

some have come back to us , in the shape of pies , and some very nice dried , i think by a dehydrater .

the rest go for the birds , they will all get eaten , especially if the fieldfare's arrive.

[sg31]

we too had an enormous crop this year , far more than we can eat .

i put many out on the roadside , bagged up - for free or donation - most takers do donate .

some have come back to us , in the shape of pies , and some very nice dried , i think by a dehydrater .

the rest go for the birds , they will all get eaten , especially if the fieldfare's arrive.

We moved to this house last year and had a massive glut of apples. We put them on a tale by the roadside 'Free, help youself'. not one was taken. We offered them to the local stables, not interested. We did manage to give a fair few to a neighbour who passed them to her circle of friend and the local care home took a bag. Other than that I did probably 8 trips to the tip loaded to capacity with absolutely beautiful apples and dumped them. It really was a shame.

This year the trees have been severely cut back and as expected we have had no fruit but both trees are now looking much healthier and should produce again next year. Once I'm organised any surplus will become cider.

[UncleEbenezer]

We moved to this house last year and had a massive glut of apples. We put them on a tale by the roadside 'Free, help youself'. not one was taken. We offered them to the local stables, not interested. We did manage to give a fair few to a neighbour who passed them to her circle of friend and the local care home took a bag. Other than that I did probably 8 trips to the tip loaded to capacity with absolutely beautiful apples and dumped them. It really was a shame.
.

Aaargh. That's painful to read!

If it looks like happening again, please post here with a hint of where you are. I get given apples by a friend with a prolific tree, but would have no trouble using more.

[doone100]

Would this be of any interest?
http://applepressingservice.co.uk/

[bungeejumper]

We have more than 20 apple trees, all of them authentic Victorian specimens (130 years old) and most of them completely inedible by today's standards. (Well, the apples are. I haven't tried gnawing at the trees yet.) The Victorians grew these wooden apples mainly for their keeping/bottling qualities, rather than for their taste, because unlike us they couldn't nip out to Tescos for some Chilean Granny Smiths. If you wanted Vitamin C in April, you had little choice.

Maybe half a dozen of our trees produce tasty apples - James Grieve, Yellow Ingestrie, Russets, Bramleys and a few unusual but pleasant cookers, and we usually pick a couple of hundred pounds, of which we give away half. The rest of the apples - and we're talking about more than a tonne here! - get kicked into the borders, where they sustain the blackbirds through the winter. The apples we keep in the garage will last us till beyond Christmas, maybe till February.

I did try making apple wine a long time ago, but it was rather prone to catching off flavours from wild yeasts, and it was damned hard work chopping and crushing them. I've seen some instructions for making a cider press out of an old table, and I might give it a go one year if can figure a way of motorising the chopping process.

One thing's for sure - apples make dreadful compost! Slimy, foul-smelling and acidic, The birds are very welcome to them.

BJ

[oldapple]

We got a glut of apples this year too and I've been trying to use them in crumbles, with gammon or ham roasts and in soup. The birds have been getting lots of them too. I haven't ever tried preserves or chutneys - too much effort for the goo I'd end up with - but what doesn't take too long to prepare is to wash and core a few bigger apples, skins still on, set them flat and fill the cored holes with sugar, and cook them in a hot oven till soft (lovely with a few cloves spiked through). Sg31 - if you lived near any organic pig farmers, I think they'd love to get your apples.

I called myself oldapple because I was researching old apple varieties back then. It seemed a good idea till someone said old apples were shrunken and wizened .

[sg31]

If it looks like happening again, please post here with a hint of where you are. I get given apples by a friend with a prolific tree, but would have no trouble using more

That's an excellent idea, if we have a surplus in the future I can post on here and anyone close enough can have them. (Worcestershire).

We were caught out last year because we had bought this house but the sale of the old one was delayed. Driving 200 miles between them on a weekly basis didn't leave much time to sort out the apple problem.

Sg31 - if you lived near any organic pig farmers, I think they'd love to get your apples.

That is worth looking into.

I hate wasting anything that can be useful to other people. Actually having to drive a dozen miles to the tip to get rid of excellent quality apples was annoying, having to do it numerous times was not the high point of my year.

The local deer did eat some of the windfalls but even they decided they'd had enough.

[kempiejon]

. I've seen some instructions for making a cider press out of an old table, and I might give it a go one year if can figure a way of motorising the chopping process. BJ

We made cider one year for a wedding party and the apples were processed by running them through a freshly cleaned chipper http://www.screwfix.com/p/bosch-axt-220 ... oC9HDw_wcB

[didds]

As some one who has been part of an ad hoc cider club fpor several years I can confirm that scratting (chipping) the apples is the naff part.

I know some people that have quartered, frozen and defotsed apples to break down nthe apples so they can just go straight into a press, but then again they were only doing it for a few bottles of apple juiice. The sacle we were producing it would have taken an army of freezers!

didds

[didds]

I hate waste too, but sometimes I think you just have to shrug and accept the waste.

Years ago I went through a stage of preserving "everything" - but realised that ended up with way too much chutney that I/we was/were never going to eat... because I don;t "do" chutney basically.

So aside from maybe making a little for presents for friends that DO like chutney I learned that lesson that preserving and using excess produce only "works" if you actually want what you make. That sounds daft probably - too obvious. But I see it elsewhere too, where people like me try and do stuff that then they don;t actually wan in the cold light of day

So in summary, by all means fill your boots with the apples when you can... but if you really fundamentally don;t like apples then don;t sweat it Try and find somebody else that does of course, but otherwise its bird feeding time

didds

[TopStar74]

Thanks for all the interesting suggestions! Maybe next year I might venture into the task of making Cider. Let us see!

For now, I am absolutely delighted at having Waldorf's salad everyday to work for my lunch! I know my excitement may appear over the top to some, but I find it really exciting that I picked up apples from my garden which have travelled 0 airmiles, and am filling my belly everyday for lunch (saves me a few quid) and I am eating healthy. A win-win-win-win for me! It also gives me a surprising sense of contentment of preparing the salad the previous night before just going to bed. Just calms me down

Oh, had to edit and add - Waldorf's salad is really delicious and the few variations I try on the usual recipe have the surprise and fun element too.

[kempiejon]

As some one who has been part of an ad hoc cider club fpor several years I can confirm that scratting (chipping) the apples is the naff part.

I know some people that have quartered, frozen and defotsed apples to break down nthe apples so they can just go straight into a press, but then again they were only doing it for a few bottles of apple juiice. The sacle we were producing it would have taken an army of freezers!

didds

We used a garden shredder to work over our apples, we made 80 pints I forget how many sacks of apples were used but we were at the car loads amount.