Spent the last weekend canning with my oldest daughter. We canned pickles (cucumber, squash and zucchini), stewed Italian style tomatoes, apple pie filling, apple-red cabbage relish, apple jalapeno relish, apple chow-chow and several other apple recipes (we have several apple trees.) Tiring but really enjoyed the time spent with my daughter. We also picked the apples and harvested some of the produce from our garden.
Coming up I will be picking a couple more bushels of apples to make this years hard cider and apple vinegar. I took pictures throughout the processing and plan to make a presentation to my prepper group about food preservation.
I have also been mushrooming and have gathered in Chanterelles, Boletes and Oyster mushrooms which I dehydrated, have about 4 quarts of dehydrated mushrooms which translates into several pounds of mushrooms. With dried Chanterelles going for around $6 bucks for a less than half ounce package in the store this is really great.
We have Granny Smith, What appears to be Yellow Delicious, Crab and Cider Apples as well as several varieties of pear (two on the same tree!). If possible once the pears ripen I may make some more Peary to go with the Cider. Last year the cider turned out really tart, but I had to use some juice from a local orchard since my trees got frost bit just at blossoming time last year. The year before last I made Peary and it turned out like semi-dry, crisp, white wine. I really enjoy this time of year in spite of all the hard work harvesting, preparing and juicing.
Gee, anyone who wants to come up and help harvest the rest of my apples is welcome, I will share in the harvest and in the cider if enough gets made! These are organic, no chemical or pesticide produced apples.
