About
Earl Aagaard’s opinions about everything that interests him. Og also enjoys gardening, travel, reading, woodbutchery, and lots of other stuff.
Categories
Monthly Archives
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- December 2011
- September 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
- December 2005
- November 2005
- October 2005
- September 2005
- August 2005
- July 2005
- May 2005
- March 2005
- February 2005
- Complete Archives
- Category Archives
Join Og's Mailing List
Powered by ExpressionEngine
OgBlog.net
Thursday, September 23, 2010
APPLESAUCE IN BEND
Applesauce is a big deal in our family….we had a small orchard of our own at PUC, where I taught the Home Fruit-Growing class. Every year, we cut up apples together and had a big day in which we made anywhere from 60-100 quarts of sauce, which we gradually ate up through the following year.
When we moved to Tennessee, we had enough applesauce (no kids around to eat it) to last us through the first year, and then I actually had to BUY apples the second autumn we were there. Our kitchen was small, so I used the camp stove on the back porch, and it was pretty unhandy, but we made enough (delicious) sauce for the next year. In 2006, I heard about the county-supplied cannery just up the road in Cleveland, TN, and that made life a LOT easier - I used it two more times, and we brought boxes of 2007 and 2008 applesauce out to Oregon with us.
Of course, Laura and her family were here, and we wanted to share, so I needed MORE applesauce. Leave it to my resourceful daughter, who had already scouted out local neglected apple trees with fruit all over the ground. I asked permission of the homeowners, and Sophia and I picked up buckets of apples from at least four different locations around town—here are some identified to us as Romes
.
.
They were beautiful apples - the tree was inside the yard and was watered regularly along with the lawn. What amazed me was that they were 70-80% clean - no worms….and I’m confident that NO ONE was spraying that enormous old tree. We also had some lovely apples of unknown variety
.
.
I’d guess that fewer than half of them were clean, but that’s pretty good for a tree that hasn’t been cared for. The sauce they gave was kind of grey-green and not very sweet - I doubt they were terribly ripe, although they were falling. Then I found a crab-apple tree, and picked a lot of them to add an interesting flavor and tartness to the sauce - they were present in amazing numbers, and I picked all I could reach from the ground…..but most stayed on for the birds
.
.
Finally, our prize apples!! Two badly neglected trees in someone’s front yard - whenever he watered the lawn they got irrigated, but they didn’t get a lot. The picture was taken after most of the apples were gone - both from the ground and the branches.
.
.
We were a bit late for this fruit - most of the apples were on the ground, and many had begun to rot. Almost all of them had at least one worm, but we got a lot of apple flesh from them, and the clean ones were quite beautiful
.
.
So was the sauce!! A lovely pink color, and as flavorful and sweet as one might wish.
.
Reading
- BlogsForDummies :)
Web resources
- Arts & Letters Daily
- Ravi Zacharias
- Southern Adventist University
- The SAU Biology Deptartment - where I work with a bunch of very neat people.
- Venezuelan news—FROM Venezuela