Apple Cider Vinegar/Apple Pie Filling

July 26, 2016 Elizabeth Boegel

Our apple harvest has been excellent. As you know, we've been eating out them of hand, and drying slices for snacks. But I knew I also wanted to do two other things with them - pie preserves, and cider vinegar. An awful lot of folks make applesauce from their apples, but we only eat applesauce about once a year. I do use an awful lot of cider vinegar, though, so I knew that would be a worthwhile project. And last year I made pie preserves which we didn't use for pie, but rather for apple crisp, which was a great treat for breakfast on cold winter weekend mornings. I would take a jar of this apple pie mixture, put it in the bottom of a buttered square pyrex dish, then make a crumble out of thick-cut oats, a bit of flour, a little brown sugar, and some cinnamon. We'd pop that in the oven, say 350 for 30 minutes or until bubbly, and with a little cold cream, that was breakfast. We loved it. So I wanted to do that again for sure.

First, I had to peel and core many, many pounds of apples. This is a chore, no doubt, but the whole time I just kept thinking about how great it was to be using up the apple harvest, how nothing would go to waste, etc etc. It's funny what you tell yourself to get through the drudgery part of things, but it was all true and it worked well to keep my mind off the peeling. I peeled off a nail in the process, but oh well. Am I the only one who gets canning injuries? Surely not. The burns alone...

The apples soaking in a water bath with a little Ball 'fruit fresh' mixed in to keep them from browning

Most of the peels and cores went to the chickens, but a lot went in to making vinegar

Once that was finished, I could use the peels and cores and seeds to make apple cider vinegar. Tom and I have made both red and white vinegar over the last six months. Tom got me a beautiful vinegar crock and also a 'mother' - the bacteria necessary to turn wine into vinegar - at Christmas. I really like both the vinegars we've produced already; they are very 'winey' and have a nice sharp flavor. The mother seemed diminished after using it for those two batches, so we sacrificed it to the compost and washed the crock, awaiting this apple harvest.

You don't need a mother to make cider vinegar, though I did add a tablespoon or so of the vinegar we have on hand, Bragg's, which has a mother in it - that should help the process along. But the peels and cores, plus a little sugar and water solution, should start things fermenting and create a new mother, sort of like a scoby in Kombucha (which frankly, I just can't like, no matter how hard I try). Tom recently purchased some glass weights to use on top of our ferments, to keep the food under the liquid, in order to keep air out (and make a sort of seal). These have come in handy for this project. After filling the jars with peelings and the sugar solution, I popped one of these weights on top, then covered it with a bit of cheesecloth and put them in a dark corner to ferment for a couple of weeks. After that time, I'll strain out the peelings, and put the remaining liquid in our vinegar crock for several months to cure.

My next project was the apple pie filling preserves, which are a bit of a pain to make, but oh so worth it. I use the recipe found here, at the Growing a Greener World website. The recipe is by Theresa Loe, their preservation expert. It's a mixture of cider, apples, and spices, just what you'd expect.

One thing I want to caution you about. The recipe calls for Clear Jel. I took a shortcut and bought some from Amazon, this product by King Arthur Flour. It did not work well in this recipe. I had a gloops and glops of un-mixed clear jel that I ended up scooping out and throwing away. Buy it from the source Theresa gives you in her recipe.

DON'T use this in this particular recipe

Despite this snafu, I had enough thickening power to create a nice bubbly pie filling that filled five quart jars for canning, and a pint jar for someone to put on vanilla ice cream tonight. (Hm, wonder who that will be.)

It's lovely to think we'll be able to have a special breakfast once a month for a few months when it's rainy and cold. It's also a comfortable feeling knowing I used all the apples on our tree and didn't waste a one. From the early thinnings, I made all the pectin we needed for jam. The pruned branches have made a brush-pile-home for lizards and birds. The fruit has been used four different ways, and will be enjoyed all year. One small apple tree can provide a lot of food for a family of four.

Solar Dehydrating

July 25, 2016 Elizabeth Boegel

On these 100+ degree days, it really makes sense to use the sun to do some of our food-drying for us. Dehydrating requires three things: Heat, circulating dry air, and time, all of which we have in abundance here, and it's all free, to boot. No need to buy a $100 piece of equipment that we don't have the budget or storage for; and anyway, we can start small and upgrade later if we need to.

We experimented a bit with drying apple slices when we thinned out our apple tree back in early Spring. I used a baking sheet and an old floating row cover to dehydrate them, and they took very little time and were delicious, chewy and tart. So we knew it was possible, we just wanted a more dependable set-up.

Tom knocked together a folding frame from supplies we had lying around - wood slats, old screening, some hook-and-eye hardware - to make a serviceable drying rack for tomatoes, hops, apples, peppers, herbs - anything, really. We've placed it on our old patio table which is made of wrought iron and has holes as part of its design - that way the air can come up under and also flow over. The sun is hot, by God, so things don't take very long to dry, depending on how wet they are. So far, tomatoes take the longest. Our first tiny batch of tomatoes are on day 3 of drying.

fresh apples and peppers, joining some tomatoes already in progress

We're still in the experimental phase, so we're not doing huge quantities of stuff. An apple here, three little Calabrese peppers there - to see how long things take. Our goal is to dry a LOT of peppers to make homemade chili powder and chili flakes, maybe a few tomatoes to put in the freezer (I'd rather can sauce and crushed tomatoes, frankly), and a good amount of apples for the freezer, for snacking. According to the Ball Blue Book, after these things are dehydrated, they can keep in the freezer for a year. And I'd love to dry some of our herbs to replace the ones I've bought, as we run out. Thyme, rosemary, oregano - these are all dried herbs I use in abundance and would love to be able to make my own. (I do use them fresh, too.)

These seem to take a half a day to dry completely

apple chips are fast, depending how thin you slice them

The tray just stays out all day and all night; so far, we haven't had any raccoons or skunks try to rip it apart. The screen on both sides keeps flies and wasps out, and it is easily cleaned with the hose if it gets gunky. We are very happy with this design.

Yosemite

July 21, 2016 Elizabeth Boegel

Our family just got back from a few days in the glorious Yosemite National Park. We had an excellent time all around, with gorgeous scenery and some challenging hikes.

Upon our drive up, one thing stood out clearly, and that is all the dead trees in the Sierra Nevada and foothills. This is a news story that has been circulating, around here at least, for a month or so. After five years of serious drought conditions, and an increase in a certain beetle that preys on weak trees, the situation is dire. Looking around, it's impossible not to be awestruck at the magnitude of the problem and the possible fire danger. It's going to take years to remove all these trees.

The scope of the issue was very evident on our first day at the Hetch Hetchy reservoir.

Yosemite alone is nearly 1500 square miles. The Sierra Nevada range spans a distance of nearly 40,000 square miles. If one of every three trees is dead, you can start to grasp the enormity of the issue.

However, at Hetch Hetchy, there were plenty of nice things to look at, too! Clarkias and lupines, flowers that bloom in my yard in April and May, were on full display here, along with goldenrod, prairie coneflowers, and popcorn flower. In the meadows, there were carpets of blossoms.

The reservoir itself is spectacular, with one active waterfall at the moment, and more in the Spring. We took a hike up to see the lone fall. Some of us dropped out after a mile or so up, some of us after 2 miles or so, and Adam and my dad made it all the way to the falls. Dad brought his filter, which was great on these hot, dry hikes - as long as we could find a stream or lake to dip in to.

You can barely see the waterfall from here, center of the pic, to the right bottom of the 'shaved' dome

Adam gets his feet wet at the bottom of the falls

Our second day, we drove the the east rim of the park and explored Tuolumne Meadows. We started with an overlook of the Valley.

That's Half-Dome on the right. We are looking West, over the Valley.

After driving through the meadow, we parked and took a hike up around Lembert Dome to Dog Lake. It was a challenging, rocky path up to 9200 feet, and the altitude made us very short of breath, but the weather here was very cool and breezy and our lunch spot at the lake was gorgeous.

We met a ranger (and his horse, King) on the trail. The rocks in the trail were challenging for us, but must have been even harder for King.

Dog Lake. Those mountains in the distance still have snow on their North slopes.

While wading, Mom 'found' a leech. On her foot. Not pleasant. But interesting to look at. — While wading, Mom 'found' a leech. On her foot. Not pleasant. But interesting to look at.

Chipmunk! We don't have these in the Bay Area so they're fun to see. But I imagine that for some people, the last thing in the world they want to see is a chipmunk! Kind of how I feel about seeing deer in Yosemite - all the other tourists gushing - … — Chipmunk! We don't have these in the Bay Area so they're fun to see. But I imagine that for some people, the last thing in the world they want to see is a chipmunk! Kind of how I feel about seeing deer in Yosemite - all the other tourists gushing - and me just making a sour face!

On our third day, Adam and my dad decided to take an extremely challenging hike to the top of Upper Yosemite Falls. This was a 7 mile round trip, 2700 foot elevation gain climb to the very top. For perspective, El Capitan is 3,000 feet tall, so they hiked nearly that high. It took them all day, but that was an experience Adam will never forget. Tom, Kate, my mom, and I decided to spend the day on the Valley floor, walking around, exploring, and taking a smaller hike to Bridalveil Falls (hiking is very decidedly NOT Kate's favorite thing). Man, was it crowded. There are backpackers getting permits and bear canisters and food and then heading out to the back country. There are tourists from every country you can imagine. There are day hikers, like us, looking for water and a shady patch to cool down (the temperature on the Valley floor was 95, a considerable difference then in Tuolumne Meadows the day before). There are kids everywhere and families riding bikes all along the Valley. It sure is great to see so many people enjoying this National Park, but it does sort of stink to navigate the traffic. Like many National Parks, Yosemite is trying out a shuttle system to prevent folks from driving from one spot to the next, and it helps a bit. There's a LOT of people, though.

El Capitan. No climbers on it this day - too hot.

Today, we had a nice leisurely drive home with a stop at a cheesemaking farm in Oakdale. We bought some of their aged gouda, some fresh baguette that had just come out of the oven, and some salami. We stopped off at the next farmstand and bought a flat of strawberries. Lunch was complete. Finding a picturesque spot to eat it an hour on, around Tracy, wasn't so easy, but we finally found a neighborhood park in which to enjoy our purchases.

The person who had lived at our home this week did a wonderful job, and we came home to a garden full of tomatoes, cucumbers, and green beans. The animals seemed happy to see us, and I spent a good amount of time taking a look around. It's nice to travel, but nice to come home!

This last plant is very interesting. It puts out greenery in the Spring, which then dies back. In the hot summer, it blooms without any foliage, hence the common name 'naked lady.' But it's actually the only true Amaryllis. The ones we see indoors at Christmas aren't really amaryllis at all. They are from an entirely different family!

Balls!

July 15, 2016 Elizabeth Boegel

Not an expletive, but rather an observation. The garden is teeming with ball-shaped fruits.

The pumpkins and gourds are especially fun to watch, because there is rarely a blossom without some kind of bee in it. These are growing right outside our dining room door, which is always open to the fresh air in the morning, and I can sit and eat breakfast and watch the activity.

I've had to remove several leaves from the winter squashes and spray all the rest with a powdery mildew preventative. I wish I had started the preventative earlier, as it really seems to help. I mix several cups of milk with several cups of water, add a few teaspoons of baking soda, and a drop of dishwashing liquid, then spray it on the leaves (usually in the morning before it heats up). It's supposed to change the PH of the leaves so that mildew cannot grow; and like I said, as long as I do it BEFORE mildew shows up, it works.

The garden is just humming this time of year. I haven't noticed many butterflies yet, but then I don't have a lot of butterfly flowers blooming - just the monarda, and it's usually covered with native bumblebees. When the tithonia and cosmos finally blooms, then we should begin to see a lot of butterflies. Hummingbirds are everywhere, as usual, as well as numerous other birds. I love to have all this wildlife in our yard.

Everything is growing like crazy - August will be our primary harvest month, but we're getting lots of tomatoes, green beans, peppers, basil, blackberries, and apples now. I just harvested the last of our first planting of romaine; it'll be a while until we get the next batch. Last night I made a BLT pasta salad for dinner - using bacon that Tom had cured and smoked, and tomatoes and lettuce from the garden. (You can find the recipe at Grit.com.) The night before, our Thai basil was the star in an Asian dish. Berries for breakfast is a usual thing for me, as well as an apple in the afternoon. I bought some pluots from a farmer and made a clafouti, the easiest fruit dessert ever, and the America's Test Kitchen recipe doesn't even call for flour, if you're gluten intolerant. I've always got tomatoes ripening on the piano, and soon we'll have cucumbers, which is important because pickles are a big thing here in this house.

Everything looks full and lush, green and pretty. The bees are bringing in pollen, which lets me know the queen is still laying a lot of eggs, and the chickens are doing well, though they are too hot to lay many eggs at the moment. They are enjoying all the scraps from the garden - tomato juice and seeds, lettuce cores, basil stems. I've been working a bit at a summer camp for special needs kids, and so my time in the garden is even more precious. Luckily right now it's more about maintenance then anything else. Soon it will be all about preserving.

sweet pepper bed with basil and sunflowers

Today I'm home, so some maintenance is required and can actually be fulfilled. I'll have to get my work done early before it reaches the high 90's as it has been doing each day this week. Luckily, unlike other parts of the country, it cools down at night and the house can be opened for the night and the morning. We can close up the house at about 10 am and it will stay cool for hours. These are the days I'm thankful for our big shade trees!

First Tomato Canning of 2016

July 10, 2016 Elizabeth Boegel

The paste (or plum, or Roma) tomatoes are all starting to come ripe. I've been taking them off the vine just before ripe, if possible, and bringing them in to the house to ripen there, just to thwart the squirrels. After a while, they start to pile up.

Today I weighed what I had collected, and I had about three pounds. Not much, but enough to try a new project. All recipes I look at for tomato canning call for 25 pounds or more of tomatoes, but I don't mind making smaller batches. Today's batch was super small, but since I was trying something new, it was ok. If I didn't like it, I wouldn't have wasted a huge amount on my experiment.

I intend to raw-pack beefsteak tomatoes when they start to accumulate, or make crushed tomatoes from those (as well as tomato juice and salsa). I wanted to make sauce from these thick-walled, meaty paste tomatoes. Last year I made tomato paste and I just felt like it was too long a cooking process for such little result, and I never did get it as thick as storebought. So I can thought tomato puree might be the ticket - I can use that a hundred different ways throughout the winter. Then I found a recipe in Mrs. Wheelbarrow that really fit the bill: fire-roasted tomato puree.

It's a simple process - you merely slice the tomatoes in half and roast them cut side up (with salt only) until they are very soft but not black. (I found that foil lining the baking sheets really helped with clean up.) The skins and seeds are not removed, giving the final result even more flavor. At this point, you could just cool them and freeze them in mason jars; but I pureed them, then put them back on the stove to heat up again - with the addition of some citric acid, they can be water-bath canned. (I'm not giving a precise process here because I didn't want to 'steal' the recipe - and I think the book is worth purchasing.)

While I was roasting the paste tomatoes, I also roasted some cherry tomatoes to have in the fridge for snacks.

My three pounds of tomatoes only yielded one pint jar of puree, but there was enough left in the pan for all of us to taste, and MAN. I can't say enough about the flavor. Just tomatoes and salt, and the flavor is unbelievable. I may do all the paste tomatoes this way.

Anyway, the first tomato canning project is out of the way. It takes a couple of times to get back in the swing of things. Tom's been canning jam (strawberry, peach, blueberry) every weekend that he can, so he's already got his canning muscles back. Tom's our jam and pickle guy. I'm the tomato guy (gal). Pretty soon we'll have so many tomatoes that I'll be canning a batch every couple of days, so it won't take long to remember how it all works.