Taking a Break

I've been canning since early this morning, so I am parking it here at the computer to take a break. It's kind of nice to sit, after you've been prancing around the kitchen in bare feet since 7 AM. To top it off, I had a late night last night, so the need to sit has me happy to play on the computer for a few minutes.

Yesterday evening, I spent some time with a good friend who just happens to have two "unused" crabapple trees in her backyard. Yes, it was a visit with an ulterior motive, but she was cool with it--and the roaster chicken and jar of red onion jam made her happy to do an exchange for unwanted apples. After recruiting her husband to hold down the top of the springy tree, we picked about 1/3 of a 5 gallon bucket full. Then we snuck over to the neighbors and swiped some un-used ripe apples of unknown variety to top off the bucket. By the time I stuffed it into the car, it was overflowing. Her dogs were delighted to help eat the fall-outs.

When I got back home, I poured off the regular apples and picked through the crabapples. After removing the leaves, pine needley bits, and sticks, I poured them into my largest pot, filled it with water and plunked it on the stove to come to a boil. Cue major dog fight, emergency visit to the vet at 10 PM, and returning home at 10:45 to turn the stove on again, start scrubbing the floors, and drink chamomile tea laced with gin to calm my fraught nerves. (Nope, no idea what started the fight, but poor Phoebe got the worst of it and is feeling veeeeerrrrrrry sorry for herself this morning.)

After finally falling asleep, I was up before the chickens this morning. Early rising gives me plenty of time to tackle big canning projects, so after straining the juice that stewed overnight I commenced filling every other big pot in the house with the pinky blush yumminess, added some sugar so I wouldn't make faces like my mouth had met Preparation H when I drink it down this winter, and set it to boil for a good 5 minutes or so. Into quart jars it went, and now I have 11 quarts of healthy crabapple juice to hopefully keep some nasty germs away this winter. But, my adventures in canning were not done! Oh no. I had oodles of crabapple guts to play with.

After a whirl around the food mill, I seasoned the pulp with cinnamon, cloves, and plenty of ginger (oh, and sugar too...crabapples are very tart!), set it on the back burner, and cooked it down until it was a thick, dark brown lovely butter. I wound up with four pints of it, and I am so happy. I love crabapples. Could you tell? I think it is a very under-celebrated fruit, which so many folks let go to waste in their gardens and backyards. I can't wait until my little Whitney crabapple grows big and starts producing all sorts of cherry-sized fruits! Then I can make my favorite concoction, spiced crabapple pickles. Mmmmmmmm....crabappley.