Sunday, November 3, 2013

Northern Apples

The Northerns have an apple tree in their front yard. It's pretty old, and the apples look pretty gnarly. Because the apples look so bad - and because NorthernDaddy sampled some years ago and found that they weren't real tasty - the apples are allowed to fall the ground and feed the local wildlife.
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That's all changed now. An acquaintance from church passes by the Northerns' house all of the time. She'd been keeping tabs on the apples for a few years, and had been hinting to NorthernMommy that the apples were just being wasted by letting them fall. She convinced NorthernMommy to pick those apples and at least use them for cider.
 
It's not slave labor if they're family!

 
See? The apples are not quite ready for their close-up.... These things are gnarly: spots, mold, and insect holes. NorthernDaddy decided to hold out a few to make some apple bread while NorthernMommy and LittleNortherner went off to work the cider press.
As he was peeling the apples to make the bread, NorthernDaddy decided that he had to taste a slice to make sure that the apples weren't so bad that they would mess up his bread. Surprisingly, the apples were sweet and super-delicious.
The cider turned out to be excellent, the bread smells great (waiting for it to cool now), and the apples from the Northerns' tree will be wasted no more! Next year should see a new cider press in the back yard and a small batch of hard cider fermenting - along with regular cider, apple butter, etc.
 
 
 

2 comments:

Iris said...

We'll be expecting some apple butter and cider next year! Then we can make our own apple cider donuts!

Iris said...

We'll be expecting some apple butter and cider next year! Then we can make our own apple cider donuts!