Last year we got no apples at all. We weren't alone. The fruit crop was dire in 2012. The rotten weather ensured that was the outcome. This year has been different. Though everything is later than normal, the fruit crop has, nonetheless, been a good one. We recently took over another derelict garden for the goats and on it is an apple tree which is covered with fruit. I started to pick the windfall apples on Sunday. These are eating apples. Some of the smaller ones today were used in making rosehip jelly. These are not the only apples we have. Recently a friend gave us a basket of cooking apples. There are many more apples still to come in so I'll be looking for some good recipes shortly.
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we use very simple recipe for apples - as there are very much of them and time is, as always very limited, we make really simple applesauce and freeze it.
just cut apples to pieces, add a little bit of water, heat shortly - not much, only so that apples soften, but not change the colour (long boiling destroys all vitamins) - maybe 20 min. then put the applesauce into portion sized freezer bags and into freezer. we try to freeze them flat, so later on we can just heap these bags on each other like tower - this is good for saving space. if apples are sweet, then we don't even use sugar, if they are sour, then we add very little of sugar - maybe 100 g sugar per 1 kg of apples.
so in wintertime we can use this applesauce as it is - with pork or rabbit or duck, for example. or we mix it with frozen tomato sauce (tomatoes just heated and frozen the same way), add onion, salt and spices, simmer shortly and make very simple (but very tasty) ketchup. as there is almost no or very little sugar, it's also healthy (one of the main priorities for us). if we want it as a dessert, we mix it with a little honey and put on pancakes.
no canning and all the mess with washing and sterilizing jars etc.
also, as a dessert with healing properties (cold, cough, runny nose) we melt this frozen applesauce, add some rowanberries (also from freezer), simmer little and if cooled down, mix in some honey. really tasty just like that, with pancakes, pork or in tea.
this allows to use no or very little sugar (as i mentioned, health is one of our main concerns) and use a honey instead. and it also allows to divide the job and not be busy as crazy in august-september.
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