Some bites (bytes?) of food

Popular Science has been spending September relearning how to eat. Is it because it's Food Safety Education Month? I don't know. And, I didn't notice they were writing to this theme until this week, when I saw this article in my inbox: How to Forage Your Way Through Your Neighborhood. It's a cursory overview of how to take advantage of the free and plentiful (hello, crab apples!) produce of the natural world.

Peruse the PopSci site and you'll find tons of other fun food nuggets they've published recently. A few that grabbed my attention talk about:

• How to start eating bugs (they're the sustainable protein of the future),
• A closer look at the environmental impact of reusable kitchen items vs. their disposable counterparts,
• The taste of color,
• And, of course there is also an article on the food waste in our own homes.

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Cider Update, late August

Just under three weeks from first press, 19 days to be exact, on August 21, we bottled 22 liters of the crab apple cider. Final gravity (after adjusting for temperature) was 1.024, giving us a 6.4% ABV. 

Now, here's the thing. These small, bright pink crab apples already have a high sugar content on their own, and the addition of honey pushes that to a potential alcohol content of 9%. What I'm saying is, at this stage, the wild yeasts have not yet consumed all the available sugar. If we allow the cider to continue fermenting, it will result in not only higher ABV but also higher pressure as the process produces carbon dioxide. (That's right, yeast farts.) Too high a pressure, and we get bottle bombs. Not a fun surprise. Very difficult to clean up. Also, longer fermentation means less sugar, but we really like the sweet-tart taste right now.

So. Moving the liquid from the fermentation bucket to the bottles aerates the cider enough that all the carbon dioxide dissipates. Flat soda. Because we like our cider to sparkle, we let the bottles sit at room temperature another three days, when we can see a ring of bubbles in the neck of every bottle. Then, we cold crash them.

Cold crash! I.e., refrigerate. Chilling the cider pauses -- or at least slows down -- the fermentation. I say "pause" and not "stop" because refrigeration does not kill this wild apple yeast; rather, it forces it into dormancy. We must now keep the cider chilled or else the yeast will wake up, and fermentation will resume. (We bought a used wine fridge for this very purpose.) Even in the fridge, the yeast may very slowly continue their work, and over the months, the cider may grow slowly stronger, drier, and fizzier. We will monitor any changes as we drink through our inventory.

The next update will focus on our second batch of cider, made with a variety of wild apples from around the area. It includes three quarts of pink crab apple cider; you may remember my passing mention of Experiment #1, for which we pressed a second load of the pink crab apples.

See the quarts of fresh pink crab apple cider we froze, now thawing here three weeks later to be mixed with the apple cider. For contrast, on the right is a glass of the original pink cider after fermentation and bottling. It lost its rosy color but kept that sweet pucker--and made an excellent refreshment to accompany the full-day's work of processing our next round cider Labor Day weekend.

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Summer 2021 Garden Update

Once again, someone was throwing something out. Some things. Several of these galvanized windowsill planters, originally sold with seeds and peat pellets for themed herb and vegetable gardens, were in the trash, seemingly unused, now just empty little troughs. Len had some length of chain left over from a project or some long-ago dismantled item, so he made for me this cute, hanging herb garden. We faced the planters backward to hide the labels "Cocktail Garden," "Italian Garden," and "Taco Garden," since those do not accurately describe what's growing in the containers—and, yeah, for a cleaner, unified look. 

I'm certain the Italian and taco gardens would have come with tomato seeds, and I just don't believe a tomato plant would grow very heartily from such a small container. Maybe that's why they were thrown out. I'm sticking to herbs, small hot peppers, and edible flowers.

I have been enjoying this herb garden, which includes my hopeful perennials on the ground (marjoram, tarragon, thyme, rosemary that I will try overwintering indoors, oregano, parsley, and a probably dead sage) and some annuals in the cute hanging arrangement (marigolds, chamomile, cilantro, basil, and a late-arrival tabasco pepper plant that is only just now getting buds). I find reasons to use fresh herbs in most recipes these days, and almost daily I pick 5 or so chamomile blossoms and lay them on a newspaper in the basement, where they can dry out before I store them in a little glass container (for making chamomile tea later, if you couldn't guess).

Spearmint and lemon balm are sequestered elsewhere in the yard, since the mint family tends to hardily take over any space within reach. 

The herbs are probably my best performers in the garden this year. At last, in late summer, our tomatoes are beginning to ripen.

Meanwhile, the strawberry plants have not spread as vigorously as I'd hoped and even seem to be dying back. It's hard to tell. I see new leaves grow and other sections go brown. Same with the rhubarb. We didn't eat any this year, as the shock of transplant stunted its growth and spurred flowering, but I do see new stalks appearing while others seem to be dying off. I don't know what's normal. As usual with my haphazard gardening, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a strong reemergence next spring.

In the category of fun stuff, we got some volunteer sunflowers from seeds left behind by last year's sunflower patch. They were conveniently growing on the edge of our now-designated apple tree space, so I let them stay. None of them seem to be the mammoth variety, at least not in flower head size, but they are taller than last year! (And there, below them, our espaliered apple trees are beginning to take shape. I need to fix those guide wires, which are all loose and wonky after someone bent one of our posts! Can you believe it?)

Speaking of trees, I've been spraying a homemade concoction weekly on the cherry and apple trees to combat what is either a fungus or an insect putting holes in the cherry leaves and potentially affecting future growth. I guess I'm not seeing further damage, but observations are ongoing.

Our other gardening of late has been toward ornamental goals. When the nursery/greenhouse near us put flowering perennials on discount, I bought some cone flowers, larkspur, asclepias, and coreopsis to add to the previously "installed" dianthus and creeping phlox. I also transplanted some tiger lilies from my aunt's yard, which she originally transplanted from my great-grandmother's yard. Then, Len found free hostas on an online marketplace, so we drove to the neighboring town to dig up some plants from a generous stranger's yard and further beautified the bare soil around our back patio.

All of this, including the still-fragile grass we planted in our lawn months ago, I've been diligently watering solely from our rain barrels. It takes more time and effort (especially time) than just using the hose, and as a result, I'm certainly giving the plants less water than the people who soak their gardens daily with a heavy stream from their spigot. I'm sure that's why they have such lush gardens comparatively, but my plants are alive (mostly), and I'm happy to know we can enhance our green space without the toll on natural resources. 

The rain barrels have reached near empty during a couple of especially hot, dry spells, after which we audibly cheered on the rain storms that broke the temporary drought (and watched some neighbor kids danced in the downpour). Here's to the bursts of rain that offset the heat these past couple of weeks. Maybe we can enjoy an actual tomato and pepper harvest before cool weather comes. Say it with me: Fingers crossed!

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Viva la Sostenibilidad!

Here's a cheer you don't hear every day, but we recently received it, with an emphatic fist pump, too: "Sustainable living!" 

Let me clarify that I did not just translate this post's title, although the words are similar. "Viva la sostenibilidad" is Spanish for "Long live sustainability," which is actually redundant when you think about it. Anyway.

I'm going to mention crab apples. Again. It's that time of year. We were picking that second harvest, when a passerby shouted from his truck. (At least one passerby stops to talk to us every time; the trees are along a busy road.)

Guy: "What kind of apples are those?"

Me: "Just crab apples!"

Guy: "Are they sweet?"

Me: "Yes, they kind of are!"

Guy, giving two thumbs up: "I never noticed them here before!"

Me, spreading my arms like, well, here they are.

Guy: "What do you do with them?"

 Me: "Make cider!"

 Guy, giving a viva-style fist pump: "Sustainable living!"

Me, a thumbs up back.

You can argue that we didn't save these crab apples from going to waste, because they weren't somebody's leftover food, and they weren't headed for the landfill, but I will argue back that they're an example of the world's imbalanced abundance, an example of eating locally and seasonally, and an example of our making use of existing resources so that even something that's purely just for fun (cider!) has minimal negative impact on the environment and community.

And then, a recent Goodwill email was titled "How Thrifting Helps Support a Low Waste Lifestyle." It linked to this guest blog post by Sustainable Kay. I've never heard of her (and I disagree with her non-hyphenation of "low-waste"), but I like what she has to say, including:

A huge environmental benefit of thrifting is that it does not require new materials. When you purchase things that already exist, new resources are not used to create that item. This is especially big when it comes to items that cannot be properly recycled, such as certain types of plastic.

The blog post is, essentially, an ad for Goodwill, but it still makes a valid point. Before we try to recycle, we should first reduce and reuse, and the easiest way to do both at once is not to buy new. You can avoid brand new purchases by acquiring second-hand goods (Hello, garage sales and hand-me-downs!) or borrowing, whether it's a book from the library, a tool from a neighbor, or rental equipment.  

The Kindness Factor. Activist Rob Greenfield suggests you ask yourself, "Why buy when you can borrow? Why hold on to goods you don’t need when you can lend them to others?" Our own major example of this is being a one-car household. Thanks to bikes and trains and working from home, owning only one car works well for us most of the time. On the few occasions when we need a second vehicle or just one with larger capacity, we don't go buy a second car. We have the blessing of relying on the kindness of others, who give us a ride or lend us their car for a few hours. It's only fair that we should extend the same kindness and generosity with whatever resource we have. Books, tools, specialty kitchen gadgets, camping gear -- we're not using these things all day, every day, so someone else could use them when we're not (and you trust, of course, that they'll take good care of and return the items). You can also lend your time and energy.

The Money Factor. Obviously, you can spend less. Borrowing and curbside treasure-hunting cost you nothing, with the loose exception being a trade of goods or favors (say, neighbors exchanging vacation lawn care coverage), while renting and thrift-shopping certainly cost less than buying new. But, you can also make money in this second-hand system. Len has become our household's Director of Acquisitions and Sales. He finds things people are just throwing out, some of which don't require any fixing up, and we either keep it for ourselves (see patio furnishings, our game room, and winter goods), or Len sells it. While there are still plenty of yard sales around, online marketplaces like OfferUp and Facebook Marketplace have been great for buying and selling one item at a time. There's no setup, no signs to make, no sitting around in your driveway for hours. You'll encounter the occasional weirdo or no-show, but overall these have been successful avenues for us. (This outside post fairly reviews the sites.) Len lists an occasional freebie but mostly sells household items and makes $5 here, $20 there, even $100 on something big. He has also hunted down items we wanted for free or cheap: paver stones to redo our patio, a wine fridge for cold-crashing our bottles of apple cider, and so on.

I guess all this is to say that sustainable living doesn't mean eschewing all material goods but rather maximizing the usefulness of existing material goods instead of producing and buying unnecessary new goods. Just because you're done with something doesn't mean it's reached the end of its life. Someone else can use it. And, someone else out there is done with something you can now use.

Crab Apple Pie

The crab apple cider is bubbling away and tastes great so far. This weekend we will taste again and measure its alcohol content with the hydrometer. Because we like this pink cider sweet and bubbly, we will likely siphon it into bottles then. Maybe we'll put a portion of it into a second ferment to see how it does as a dryer, more potent libation, more like our regular hard cider.

We've decided to take further advantage of the short crab apple season. Not quite two weeks after our first crab apple harvest, we went back to a couple of the trees, where the fruits were now even riper -- deep, dark pink, with a good number having dropped to the ground (patrolled by a good number of yellow jackets), but still plenty on the tree. We harvested a modest amount of these riper fruits for a couple of experiments.

Experiment #1: Sweet crab apple cider for blending with the planned Labor Day harvest of wild apples. We shredded a bunch of these very ripe crab apples and packed our small fruit press full. We froze three quarts of this fresh crab apple cider, with plans to thaw it and blend with the apple cider in a couple of weeks.

Experiment #2: Crab apple pie. Unlike my failed Valentine Lollipies, made with crab apple butter, this is an actual apple pie, made with chopped fresh crap apples, and I'll classify it as a success. That isn't to say there aren't things I'd do differently next time around, so I've noted those below in the recipe, which I got from here, although the same Maine grandmother's recipe can be found on other websites.

Crab Apple Pie

Double pie crust 

8 cups or so large pink crabapples to steam and quarter (Note: ultimately you want 6 cups chopped crab apples; I didn't measure how many I started with, so I'm guessing it was at least 8 cups, based on the yield of cores left over.)

1 cup white sugar

1 tablespoons flour (I say bump this up to 2 Tbsp)

1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 1/2 tablespoons butter, chopped into small pieces

1/ 4 (heaping) cup brown sugar

Milk and sugar for glazing

Prepare the bottom pie crust and affix in a 9-inch pie dish. Refrigerate until needed. Have the pastry dough for the top crust handy in the fridge as well.

Steam the crab apples by putting them in a metal colander over a large pot in which several inches of water are boiling. Cover the colander and steam the crab apples for 3 minutes. Drain and let cool enough to handle. 

Why? Steaming the crab apples parcooks and softens them just enough to make them easier to chop, because they are so small and hard. You will not be attempting to peel them. 1) The skins will lend a beautiful rosy color to your pie; 2) Crab apples' natural pectin is more concentrated in the skin, so it helps serve as a preservative and thickening agent; and 3) It's impossible to peel crab apples.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Prepare the steamed apples by cutting them into sort-of-quarters to remove the seeds, core and stem. See the photo -- you cut two sides off, like you're cutting the apple in half off-center on either side of the core (like cutting mango halves). Then you cut the two remaining shorter sides off. 

Your goal is 6 cups of crab apple chunks. Note: If you prefer a mushier apple pie filling, it would be worth sautéing these crab apple chunks at this point to cook them even further before assembling the pie. Put them into a large mixing bowl and mix with the white sugar, butter, flour and lemon juice.

Transfer to the prepared shell, mounding up the apples. Sprinkle the top with the light-brown sugar.

Affix the top crust, making a decorative edge and cut small slits in the dough to allow steam to escape. Brush the pastry lightly with milk and sprinkle the top with sugar.

Put the pie in the oven, with a baking sheet on the rack below it to catch overflowing juices (or else they hit the floor of the oven and caramelize-burn into a smoky, sugary crust that is very difficult to clean up. 

Bake for 15 minutes at 450 degrees. Then, lower the temperature to 350 degrees and bake for another 45 minutes, (rotating the pan halfway through) or until the juices inside are bubbling and the crust is a rich golden brown. If the crust starts to brown too much during baking, loosely cover it with foil. Note: Next time I'd try lowering the oven only to 375 and/or letting the pie go longer so the juices have more time to bubble and thicken up. Even though crab apple skins are naturally high in pectin, the filling was still very liquidy when I pulled the pie out.

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

It's sweet and tart and brilliant pink. It's the rhubarb pie of apple pies.

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Photo Showcase: A two-bench summer

Len made two benches this summer. How about that? One for us, and one for his mom.

The first bench was already a bench. Someone was throwing it out. (Yes, this is the most common answer to anyone's asking how we acquired a patio furnishing.) 

Len took it apart, repainted the iron bits, cut new wooden slats, and put it back together again.

We wrote in blue crayon the many places we've hiked, biked, or camped. Len finished it with marine varnish, and it sits on our front patio. Our adventure bench. Our adbenchure.

The second bench used to be a bed.

This old wooden frame once held a twin bed for "Busia," Len's great-grandmother. It served as a little-used guest bed for awhile but has spent more recent years stored in a basement.

Len gave this old furniture new life with a few cuts and some rearranging of its original boards.

A little paint completed the antique-chic restoration, and now this family heirloom is functional once again, providing additional seating at Len's parents' house.

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Summer Cider

Monday evening's haul of crab apples was 110 pounds. These are the pink, oblong crab apples that range in size from large grape to golf ball and taste quite sweet despite their astringency.

So, Tuesday was summer cider day! Actually, it was summer cider afternoon, which of course lengthened into summer cider night. But, we finished pressing and even cleaned up before midnight -- hooray!

Len cleaned and sanitized an area for us in the basement laundry room. The crab apples got a cold water rinse in the washtub -- just a rinse and not a scrub, because they have useful wild yeast on their skins.

Then we shredded the crab apples in batches in our food processor. A real cidery would have an apple grinder or fruit crusher for preparing the fruit for the press, but we just used (abused?) our regular everyday food processor from the kitchen.

This is the pulp of just half the crab apples.

The pulp went into our 1.6-gallon fruit press. 

This is our first time using the press, even though my sister and brother-in-law gave it to us two Christmases ago. Last year's apple harvest was just pitiful. We visited some trees too late, while other trees just didn't have a good year. And then, we got Covid. We decided we were too tired (and too contagious) to try processing and preserving what few apples we had picked. Instead, we made a few apple recipes for ourselves over the next couple of weeks -- pie, cake, the usual apple snacks, salads, and skillets -- and that was it.

In batches, we pressed about 6 gallons of rose-colored cider. 

Some notes on this particular fruit press, a small EJWOX model: First, it works! The post-pressing apple pulp was very compact and quite dry. Second, because the pulp is so compact after pressing, it's a chore to get it out. That chore on its own is no big deal, but all the pushing, pulling, and wiggling to extract the bag of pulp also jiggles the screws in the press's wooden slats. These small screws too easily strip their holes and pop out! We had to sift through our bin of pulp more than once to find a lost screw, and Len had to shim a couple of the screw holes with toothpicks.

For every almost-gallon of cider, we added 1 cup of honey dissolved in one cup of water (heated on the stove to dissolve, then cooled to room temperature).

For those keeping track of the science, here is our hyrdometer math:

Original gravity of the fresh cider = 1.060

Gravity of the fresh cider with honey added = 1.070

Temperature of the cider at the time of the readings was about 74-75 degrees, but the hyrdometer is calibrated for 60 degrees, so we need to make a correction to the gravity. We're adding .0015 based on the hydrometer's instruction page.

Let's call our original gravity 1.072.

Oh, what's a hydrometer, you ask? It's a simple, neat little brewer's tool. It looks like buoyant thermometer, and it floats in the cider, indicating the relative weight of that liquid compared to an equal volume of water. While plain water has a gravity of 1.000, liquids with sugar in them will have a higher gravity.

So what? So... when we measure the gravity of the cider again after a period of fermentation, the gravity will be lower because the yeasts will have eaten some of the sugar and turned it into alcohol. By subtracting the final gravity from the original gravity, thereby measuring how much sugar has been converted, we can calculate the cider's alcohol by volume. Fun, huh?

We'll check the cider's progress in a couple of weeks.

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