All them apples

 

This afternoon I have been prepping apples for the Chateau freezer. These are a variety called Reinette du Canada, picked from the garden. Beautiful flavoured cooking apple.  The only criticism is that they discolour very quickly and after two of these trays I have orange hands.

As we are leaving in the morning the rest will be down to our daughter to deal with as she sees fit! My work is done.

I read that it is Blogtober - a post a day during October. Not sure if I’ll manage that but we will see

Apples for autumn

What a beautiful day we have had in Cambridgeshire today.  Wall to wall sunshine.  Perfect weather to be tackling all those apples!!

Saturday's windfalls

there's more - Sunday's windfalls

We need to make juice

First you chop

then you process

then you press

you drink

then you go down the garden.............

pick some perfect ones for eating

then you shake the tree!!!

and start all over again but not before having some lunch

Homemade Soda bread

My soda bread, french butter, a soft sheep milk Brebis, and of course some juice and an apple

add to that some french fig jam - made this whilst on our recent holiday!

back to work

We finally made just under 4 gallons of juice.  The juice clears nicely once it settles you get some sediment, which you can see in the jug.  We freeze the juice and it keeps perfectly, just grab a bag out and defrost. 

Last of the season

All the eating apples are now picked, with the help of the birds and the cat.  We made juice until the motor on the food processor burnt out; it wasn't really made for chopping up the quantities of apples we put through it so can't complain, just a shame it didn't wait til we had finished.

Anyone got any recipes for very sharp grapes, the tomatoes we are coping with, nothing like a plate of tomatoes fried with olive oil and balsamic vinegar on some nice crunchy toast.

Some apples for eating and a French Apple cake  - thanks for the recipe Joan; and another picture of Audrey as she's so pretty

PS - The apple cake is delicious, especially when it warm.............mmmmmmmmmmmm

Autumn afternoons

I love this time of year, the nights are drawing in, the morning are darker (not so much fun). Yesterday we went and picked more blackberries, 8.5lbs, they are now in the freezer awaiting jam, pies, crumbles along with the apples from the garden.



Hops we picked this afternoon on our walk back from St Ives.
 We had a couple of pints and a bag of crisps at the Cromwell, also bumped into an old friend

Our grapes are finally starting to ripen, but oh so sour!!!!

Windfall apples

Courgettes!!!! These got missed so now more like marrows.
We still have alot of crops - carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, runner beans, beetroot (but very slow).

Its been a pleasant weekend, quite leisurely really, we should have done more but what the heck, theres always next weekend.

Apple Juicing time and finishing off

From this........

to this ......... 36 pints of apple juice, note the one that got away!

And this was given to me on Friday in bits, hopefully Mrs J will be pleased with this jacket she knitted even if she didn't sew it up!