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I am beyond fed up! I had a problem two weeks ago where the videos were upside down. Adobe you owe me a refund and you need to FIX YOUR APPLICATION!
Thanks to those who helped me estimate the effort to forage, process and can some crabapple recipes. I ended up foraging about 6 pounds of fruit (volume wise it was about half of a standard tote bag's worth). It took about a half hour to pick them and maybe an hour to wash, pick over and prick them with a fork before cooking. The apples varied in size from a cherry to a large gumball.
Pictured are seven half pints of crabapple jelly and five pints of spiced crabapples, both recipes from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. The rings are still on because they are cooling. An eighth half pint and a little more of the jelly is in the fridge (didn't process it and will eat it right away). Also I have two cups of juice leftover that I might also process into jelly or freeze for later use.
Both are spiced with whole cloves, star anise and cinnamon sticks. I left the whole spices in the jars of spiced crabapples. For the jelly, I put the spices in a cheesecloth bag.
For processing all the crabapples, I found it useful to first wash and stem them, and check for any damage (rotten spots, bird/insect damage). Then I put them all in a big bowl and pricked each with a fork, so I got a second pass at picking them over.
The IKEA Chocolate Moose is very cute and easy to put together - three pieces, the body, back leg & head, the front legs and the antlers. It's impressive looking imo. The chocolate is thick and durable so that it stands on its own easily.
The milk chocolate itself is mid. Very creamy but also pretty sweet. Suitable for a kid's palate maybe more than an adult's.
There's a grove of crabapple trees in a park near me and the apples are just turning red. I'm planning to pick a bunch (foraging on city land is ok where I live).
Would someone with experience picking, processing and canning crabapple items please teach me your ways?
Specifically I wanted to know how many crabapples it would take to make say 4 pounds, which is what I'm seeing in most recipes. Is that like a paper grocery bag full or what?
About how long in hours would it take to pick and process 4 pounds?
Do you recommend going the jelly route or the crabapple butter route? Any particular spices beyond the usual cinnamon, clove, ginger?
I have the Ball book, which also has a recipe for whole spiced crabapples, which sounds interesting. Anyone tried it?
Picked up a haul at IKEA this week. The white chocolate raspberry bar is delicious and crunchy. The heart-shaped fruit gummies are tasty and cute - perfect for Valentine's or any other expressions of love. The licorice is also excellent - very flavorful and less molasses taste than others, with a soft texture. Haven't tried the moose yet but thought it was cute! Everything also was a bargain - about $5 for the moose and $2 for everything else.
Last year a groundhog discovered my peach tree and managed to eat or spoil many peaches. It ate or spoiled them before they were ripe.
Yes that fat MF can climb a small tree. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I would not have believed it.
I tried siccing my dog on it and otherwise getting the dog to pee and poo around to scare it. That did not work.
We put chicken wire at the hole under the fence where it got in. It just dug another hole.
My bird netting is on the top of the tree, not all under and around it. I could extend the netting but I expect that fat MF will just get around it or destroy the tree trying.
Any other ideas?
New England style lunch of home-canned baked beans with bacon, topped with the last of the end-of-summer piccalilli relish. The sausage was NOT canned but store-bought and added afterwards to warm up with the beans.
Image description: a bowl of baked beans with pieces of cut-up sausage, topped with a spoonful of piccalilli relish.