Alaskan Apples - What to do with them!

 

 Crab apples being prepped for the juicer above, and apple pieces in the juicer below.

 

Im my previous post I talked about some of the great varieties of apple that wil thrive in Alaska and preserving the harvesting heritage.  Now we're going to talk about some of the great things you can do with these apples!  Crabapple jelly is by far one of the favorite uses of crabapples here at Wicked Raven.  The jelly is a clear rosy color and has enough natural pectin that none has to be added and it still makes a "stacking" jam!  That means that you can stack it up on whatever you're making and it stays there!  It makes a great gift jelly in a pretty jar with a bread mix (Ill help you with that one in a later post).

 

The juicing process takes just about all day with a stove top juicer and Im sure you could speed it up somehow but I like having the process going on in the kitchen while I sew, clean, prep menus, or any number of other things that two job hockey mom  hobby farmers never seem to catch up on.  It also makes your house smell great!  Whats not to love.

 

This batch of apples (about 3 gallons whole) produced about 16 cups of juice and I used all but four of that to make jelly.  The other four cups we added one cup of sugar (you could probably use less or use liquid stevia too), chilled it for about two hours and the kids drank it with dinner!  So good and so full of natural vitamins.

 

Best Crabapple Jelly

 

4 Cups Crabapple juice

4 Cups Sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon (optional)

 

Using a large saucepot, bring all ingredients to a boil over high heat stirring constantly.  Cook to gelling point (when you drip some on the spoon rest, then tip the rest it moves slowly or not at all).  Skim foam if necessary and ladle into hot jars leaving 1/4 inch of space.  Place two-piece caps on and process in a hot water bath for ten minutes or use the quick turn method to seal.  (see below for directions)

 

Starting the Crabapple Jelly

The quick turn method to seal jars is a simple way to seal your jelly without a water bath.  You cannot use this method for everything - I only use this for jelly.

 

Once your hot jelly is in the hot jars, adjust the two piece caps and tighten them down.  Turn the closed jars upside down and set your timer for five minutes. 

When the five minutes is up turn the jars right side up using a quick turn or flip.

Let jars sit and you will soon begin to hear them seal - some go fast and some go slow but I have never had a jar not seal unless I had a glob of jelly on the rim that I missed wiping off!  Good eating!

This is a great way to keep your jars hot while your product finishes.  Put the clean jars in the oven on warm while you finish the product and you won't have to worry about them being hot enough!

Blessed Be and Happy Harvest Time!

 

Tune in to the next post for Easy Spiced Apples!

 

Apples from Alaska!

This post also falls under gardening with your kids!  The apples below are on a tree at Snowfire Gardens (see my links for more information) and we have so much fun every year rounding up all the kids (even the grown ones) and doing harvest at Nana and Boopah's house (or Gramma and Grandpa as you may call yours)!

This tree is a Carroll apple and it produced that whole blue bushel tub full of apples - good eating apples too! Even in this crappy weather we had all summer here in Alaska the orchard had a banner year. My parents do have a ten foot tall fence to keep out the moose riff raff so their trees dont get trimmed the way ours at Wicked Raven do. There are a total of four families and includes six grand kids - four boys and two girls who come together at least one day a year and do a family harvest day at Snowfire. It is a great family bonding time as well as teaching too. This year besides apples we dug potatoes, dahlia bulbs, and harvested two kinds of Kale.

 Above Nana, Raeley and Devin harvest two kinds of potatoes, below, before the wash cycle!

With all the rain we had here in the Matanuska Valley the potatoes were a little harder to harvest - soil was very wet and heavy!  Lucky we have some strong youngsters (and energetic adults) to help!  Two of the kids didn't get to come to harvest day this year and boy were they salty pretzles about it!  The only saving grace was that we chose a sunny day - one of very few we had all summer!

 

The above is Kim picking from an apple-crab tree and we got another bushel from this tree.  This is a great way to teach the kids where their food comes from, how to take care of it (you absolutely cannot just drop apples into a bucket), and how long some things take to grow.  This orchard has been growing for about 12 years, and there are about 15 varieties of apple and apple crab trees.  Check the web site in the summer at www.snowfiregardens.com for garden tour schedule if you would like to see the orchards and gardens.  Its worth it!

Here at Wicked Raven Farm we have 7 varieties of apple and crabapple trees.  We have had only one tree produce thus far, however our orchard is only about three years old and regularly gets trimmed by a momma moose who comes with her calf each year.  We also have two varieties of grapes (yes they will grow here) and we have 3 varieties of cherry trees and we had enough for a pie last year!

Tune in to the next blog to see some of the fun things we do with apples!  Yum!