*NC Mountain Fresh Apples

If you read my last post, you recall that I recently made a trip to North Carolina. The timing was so perfect for so many things, such as it was peak season (for the fall colors in the mountains), and  I needed to spend some time with the best friend in the world, as well as the apple orchards were brimming over with this seasons juicy crop. I had been wanting to find some apples at rock bottom prices for canning and turns out the timing of my spur of the moment trip paid off!

Most of the orchards had their various apple selections for sale at the price of $26 (I think) per bushel. They of course sold them for half bushel, peck, half peck etc as well.  Some of the orchards had some bagged up and were selling them as "apple sauce" apples due to some bug stings, or possibly a bruise or two on some of the apples.  Making apple sauce was my plan with some of the apples, I was able to get two bags which made a bushel at the total price of $14. I was pretty thrilled.  A bushel of apples weighs about 45lbs, so this means I was able to get the apples for .31 per pound.  The apples that were bagged up (At Granddad's Apples in Hendersonville, NC) were so lightly damaged that I found myself wishing they had had more of them available.  But as it was my BFF and I bought all they had!  Great deal!

 Franziska and I really enjoying every moment of being in each others presence. So very grateful for dear friends who touch your heart and change you forever!

 Me looking really happy about my receipt and how much I just  "saved" by buying the bruised etc apple sauce apples!

Dreaming of planting an orchard on the back of our property! OH, wait, no I better leave the apple growing to NC so that I might make a trip to the mountains at least every October!

Pink Lady is Henry's favorite apple and trust me he has tasted many apples. He has always been an apple connoisseur.  I have apple cores that I collected over the years that he would leave under his bed, in a basket, and other various unacceptable places. I would also find them in places you would never expect to find a dried up apple core. I learned to pick them up and treasure what was left behind. Don't get me wrong, I didn't say, "Oh honey, you just put them where ever you want" but I tried to find joy in the messes sometimes. This was one of them that I learned to treasure. I now have a small basket  that holds some dried up apple cores from days gone by when my little guy still had his cute little primary teeth. 

 

This was taken at one of our favorite places to trip over to when I am in town, Lake Lure & Chimney Rock.  If you are ever in the area it really is a must see.  So much to take in, even if you don't buy a thing! The peaceful time by the bubbling Broad River is enough just in itself! Here is a YouTube of that area that you might enjoy.

 Once I got back home with our apples, Eric and I got right busy with peeling, coring and slicing. We love to work together on projects like this, we do make a good team.  I stumbled across a apple, peeler, corer, slicer while we were in a little General Store downtown there near Lake Lure.  I have, of course seen them before, but with having just bought two bushels of apples, I thought it might come in handy.  Turns out it was a great help and my beloved was glad I got it. Over the next few days I tried numerous apple fritter recipes trying to master the "fritter".   I ended up modifying one recipe to fit our desires and will post it for you all soon.  I think my dh could eat them breakfast, lunch and dinner but I am personally about frittered out.

 We were able to can 20 jars or so of apple sauce. I still have one half bushel that I plan to make apple butter with over the next week.  We also dehydrated a bunch as well. We all really enjoy munching on the apple slices as snacks, now to stretch them out... and not gobble them all up in one week.

Pears canned - check
Tomatoes canned - check
Potatoes canned - check
Apples canned - check
Pumpkins on the vine- will can
Cabbages growing swiftly - will make sauerkraut
and the list goes on and on as the seasons go.

We love being able to put up wholesome food for our family and looking for good prices, country fruit and vegetable stands are now something we keep our eyes opened for as well as grow as much as we can here at Erilyn.

*can it!

A week or so ago, I was sharing with you about my water bath canning experiences and I promised you that I would also share my first time pressure canning experience as well!  My dear husband has spent quite a bit of time researching pressure cookers/canners a while back and so we made the investment and purchased the 30 qt All American Pressure Cooker. I LOVE IT!

Let me back up just a little here and give you a bit of history. If you have been reading long enough you may recall that my parents were spring and fall gardeners. We processed and stored much of what came from the garden each season. We never had a pressure cooker that I can recall. I have always had a fear of a pressure canner due to talk that was heard around the big farm house in Southeast Georgia where my grand parents lived.  My mother had stories of when she was a young girl having seen peas all over the ceiling of their home, due to an exploded pressure cooker. So as you can imagine there was a bit of fear dancing around in me as we started to can our first jars of veggies a few weeks ago. 

We have canned 30 quarts of potatoes.  Early this spring we planted 75+ pounds of potatoe seeds and reaped quite a harvest. We have not purchased potatoes since that time.  We still have quite a stock, but many of them are starting to get "eyes" on them.  In order to continue our potatoe stock, we are slicing off the "eyes" with a portion of the potatoe, and planting them in our fall garden.  The other portion of the potatoes have been peeled, cubed and canned.   These can be used for potatoe salad, breakfast potatoes, mashed potatoes, stewed potatoes, or even in soups. 

 Yeh, so it is easy to see why there must be some care taken in order to properly use a pressure cooker. It isn't like throwing a pot of water on to boil with a boil control in the pot (*wink Franziska), but more like specific things that have to be done, which are NOT hard to do.   I encourage you, if you have a pressure cooker read the manual that came with it, and get busy following each step closely while you start canning with confidence.

As the pot started to heat up to the proper temperature, and pressure, these labels on the pot are staring your right in the eye.  These labels are not to be removed (per the All American company).  Listen when I say, it is really simple to can and even more safe in the newer pressure cookers that are now equipped with the safety pressure valve in case something goes haywire. 

We are looking forward to canning other things from our fall garden this year.  So, what have you canned lately?

*yes I CAN!

Yes I CAN!  You may remember me telling you this before, but I was raised a country girl.  I was raised to work in the garden to renew the land and to "put up" what we grew each year, in order that we could enjoy the fruits of our labor when the crops were no longer in season.  My mother did more freezing than canning, although she did a lot of jam and jelly canning through the years.  Actually I am remembering now, she did can pickles, beets, peppers, and other things as well, but we never did much with a pressure cooker.   I think my grandmother actually had a bad experience with a pressure canner, so my mother always had a more than healthy respect for a pressure cooker/canner.  I don't think I ever developed anything healthy in my mind towards the scary aluminum pot with a funny pressure gauge that rested on top and made an alarming sound, until well, just this past month!

My canning this year started with some pepper jelly, wowza. Pepper jelly is simple to make and does not require a pressure canner, just a hot water bath canner (or a large heavy pot).   We have just a few jalapeno plants in our garden this year, but the production is prolific so we have canned some, given away many, dehydrated some and giving away more! We bought some heirloom seeds early this spring so we could harvest some seeds for next year as well as build our seed stock. 


 
A sweet family on a little country road I travel frequently has pear tree in their front yard which produced some really beautiful pears last year. I found myself wanting to stop and ask if I could buy some, or trade something for some of their fruit. I never did.  But this year when the tree started producing I stopped by and asked.  The sweet couple heartily agreed and was just pleased that someone wanted to do something with them.  They had already canned as many as they were going to can for the year.  I agreed to trade them fresh farm eggs for several weeks, they of course were willing to just give me the pears for nothing at all.  I know that Mrs. K is grateful for the eggs as she has called me on several occasions to say just that, but I still feel like I got the BEST end of that deal. 

My mother makes some of the best pear preserves ever!!! So I got her recipe and did my best to replicate her preserves (of course she doesn't have a recipe...). I suppose I came close enough.  I also made pear relish, pear butter, pear sauce, and cranberry pear chutney, oh and I put some in the freezer for pies as well!

All of these things that I canned did not require that pressure cooker, but I will be talking about that in another post real soon!

When I go to Lowes with my dear husband, this is where I can likely be found. Yes, the canning "stuff".  When we go to Tractor Supply, yep, you guessed it, the canning section. Although both of these places are starting to move these canning items on out so they can make room for CHRISTMAS items. (which totally makes me crazy, but that is another story) It seems I have this new found hobby, desire, love, way to provide for our family , hobby, fix.. whatever you want to call it. I love CANNING!