The Craftiest Workshop

We currently don’t have access to any apple picking in our area. We have two apple trees planted and they may start to produce in a year or two, but that doesn’t really help now. Back in June when I saw my sister, I had asked if we could come in early September to get some apples from their tree.

Last weekend we drove to Sherwood Park, just outside Edmonton, to do just that.
Their tree was full of apples.

They are hard to see because they are mostly light green. Some of the branches had four apples coming out of the same spot and when you’d pick one, the others wanted to fall.

We started picking what we could reach from the bottom. Chris and Cam used a step ladder and stool next while Lisa and I started sorting and bagging the apples already picked. The last attempt was made turning the step ladder into an extension ladder and climbing as high as we could to pick. We left maybe 20-30 at the top of the tree.

When all was said and done we had 36 apple bags with 30 apples in each. This was not my sister’s first rodeo; she has been saving apple bags to be used each year. There were another 50-75 apples picked laid out on a lounger chair plus a half a five gallon pail of bumped and bruised apples that we cut up for their freezer. All in all, I would say there were 1200-1300 apples in total on the tree.

We had some other things to bring back with us or I am sure we would have taken all 36 bags of apples with us. As it was, we got 26 bags in the car.

You can guess what I was doing this week…processing apples.

Here is a photo I took to give you an idea of what I was working with. From left to right: a store bought honey crisp apple, one of the larger pocked apples and one of the smallest picked apples. I would say that the majority of the apples were closer in size to the larger apple. Very few had any bruising and no worms or bugs inside the apples.

The first day I used my steam juicer to juice some apples with 2 cinnamon sticks, 10 whole cloves and 1 cup of sugar. I put it straight into jars. The photo is of three batches done. The jars on the right are slightly lighter and the only difference was that I also added 10 whole allspice and steamed it exactly two hours. The darker juice I had left a bit longer. This juice is quite concentrated but very tasty and I will enjoy it as apple cider this winter. I might make one more batch adding Saskatoons to the apples.

I diced up 8 cups of apples then mixed them with sugar and spices for apple crisp in large ziplocks. Four of these bags went into the freezer.

I cut up more apples dicing some in 2 cup amounts for loaves or muffins and into apple slices in 4 cup amounts for pies. More added to the freezer.

By this point the bottom shelf of my freezer was getting pretty full but I still had 17 bags of 30 apples left. I also have one shelf full of Saskatoons and Haskaps. I have to leave some room for meat and vegetables.

While next making applesauce, I realized that after I spooned out the soft fruit from the slow cooker, I was left with a nice mild juice. For the next few days I experimented with different fruit flavoured apple sauces and then canned the juice the next day.
The applesauce was simply 10 cups diced cored apples and 1- 2 cups frozen fruit (added in the middle) covered with water in the slow cooker. High for 1 hr and 2.5 hrs on low. Spoon out the fruit into a stock pot, blend with an immersion blender then add 2 cups of sugar and 2 Tbsp lemon juice. Heat just to a boil and put into hot jars. This is SO good. I especially like the strawberry/blueberry version.

For the juice, I strained it with a jelly bag, added 1/2-3/4 cup sugar (to taste), brought it to a boil and put into hot jars.

I have made two batches of apple/strawberry/blueberry, one apple/strawberry/kiwi, one apple/Haskap, one apple/raspberry/haskap and tomorrow will be apple/mango. It is a great way to use up left over frozen fruit. I didn’t use Saskatoons or wild raspberries for this because both are quite seedy.

This is how much I got from one batch from my slow cooker.
It also leaves the least amount of waste with only a soup bowl’s worth of cores to compost.

One of the days I decided to use the dehydrator but it only fit ten apples.

It gave me a few jars of dried apple rings to snack on.

As of Saturday afternoon and I am down to seven bags in the garage plus six bags worth that I put in cardboard flats in the basement where it is cool. I will share a few bags but there will still be some left to figure out what to try next.

390 apples processed in six days; only 390 apples left.

Anyone need apples?