Apple Juice

When I canned apples and apple pie filling this summer, I froze the apple peels and cores. When fall came and my freezer was so full that going shopping meant a stressful session of trying to fit new things into not enough space, I pulled out all the quart-size bags I could find and made apple juice.

The juice will be used to make jelly, not for drinking; I suppose that if I added sugar it would be drinkable but I haven't tried it. We don't eat a lot of jelly on toast; most of the apple jelly ends up in sauces and glazes for chicken, pork, and such. Our favorite use is in dump chicken; the original recipe called for peach or apricot jam, but it is delicious using apple jelly instead.

I dumped four quart-size freezer bags of apple cores and peels into a stockpot and added three quarts of water, then let it simmer for an hour or two. It turned out to be a beautiful fall day, on the warm side, and the house got pretty hot. When it had simmered long enough, I let it cool for awhile, then strained the solids out with a muslin jelly bag.

I then simmered the juice awhile longer, since it tasted kind of thin. I ran the juice through the jelly bag a second time, and ended up with almost two quarts of juice, and a half-cupful of what looked like thick applesauce. I added the applesauce to the goats' feed the next morning, and gave the cooked peels/cores to the chickens.


As you can see, these two jars are different colors. The pink juice was made a week earlier, using the same method, from apples from our own trees. The juice that looks like commercial apple juice was made from a combination of our apples and the apples from my neighbor's trees. I need to run the pink juice through the jelly bag again to remove the sediment before I make jelly from it. The two batches yielded almost two quarts of juice each, so I ended up with almost four quarts of juice to use in making jelly. All of this came from just peels and cores that most people throw away.

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For another use for apple peels, go to Dehydrate 2 Store and choose the video "Apples, Apples, Apples". Tammy throws out the cores though.

Here is a recipe for making apple jelly without using pectin.

Friday Follow-Up

I feel as though I accomplished ~nothing~ this week. It was a very hard week and it took a lot of energy just to get through it. I guess it's understandable that nothing else was done.

I did only two things worth mentioning:

-- our farrier trimmed up all the horses so they are now ready for winter, but this isn't something *I* did, I just held them while he worked

-- labeled a *lot* of soap in preparation for a holiday bazaar

Hopefully next week will be better.

Thankful Thursday

I am thankful to the Lord my God for every breath I take and every beat of my heart.

I am thankful for His Son Jesus, Who gave His life for me on the cross.

I am thankful for salvation, for His forgiveness, for His grace and mercy.

I am thankful for His creation: this beautiful earth and all that is in and on it.

I am thankful for the heavens He created: a full moon, a starry sky, a beautiful sunset.

I am thankful for restful sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care.

I am thankful for a roof over my head, and food on our table.

Late Night Feeding

Last night we had a 4-H meeting at 5:00, so we fed the horses before we left home, and planned to feed the goats when we came back. Because of the time change, the sun had set long before we got home at 7:00 pm.

(By the way, my personal feeling is that we should go on Daylight Savings Time and stay there all year, permanently!)

We ate dinner first, then I went out the front door to feed the dogs in the pitch-black dark, back in the house and out the back door to feed the goats. I took the high-powered flashlight with me, which is extremely heavy and awkward to carry. I turned on the light in the goat barn and turned off the flashlight. Carrying a large armload of hay, I didn't have enough hands to carry the flashlight so I thought I'd walk over to the hay feeder in the dark.

But it wasn't dark anymore. The full moon was rising behind the leafless walnut trees, and it lit up the barnyard with a soft white light that made everything visible as day. The shadows of the tree branches laced the ground. The white markings on the goats made each one identifiable. I could even see the grey horse way down in the pasture, his coat glowing in the moonlight.

What started out as "I wish I'd fed them before I left" turned into "it's sure pretty out here tonight". The stars lit up the sky and the quiet became loud. I slowed down and enjoyed my chores. If I had gone outside any earlier, the moon would not have been high enough in the sky and I would have missed this magical time.

A Slice of My Life

Convenience Foods - Chicken Stock

A little work now will reap several quarts of chicken stock for your freezer to use later. In this tight economy, making something from scratch will also save you money.

Whenever I make chicken for dinner, the bones are put in zippered freezer bags and saved in the freezer. Anytime I use onions or carrots or other "soup" veggies, the peels, tops and bottoms are also saved. Celery leaves, garlic skins, the ends of peppers, leftover tomato slices, and more are added to the "stash".

Usually, I save veggies leftover from dinner (a spoonful of corn, or a half cup of peas, etc) in a separate bag. I don't care for these in stock, but they could be used for that purpose. I use mine in chicken pot pie or casseroles instead, like a frozen form of Veg-All.

When I have enough chicken bones and veggie scraps, or when the freezer is too full, all the bags are emptied into the stockpot, water is added, and the pot simmers all day long. Adding a splash of apple cider vinegar will help draw calcium out of the bones. When it's done, I strain the solids from the broth, then run the broth a second time through muslin or cheesecloth, and refrigerate so I can remove the fat after it cools. This last time I ended up with 5 quarts of broth for a day's work, but it isn't a full day, just a few minutes here and there.

Either keep this refrigerated, or freeze in zip-topped bags or freezer containers. If you wish to can the stock, you must use a pressure canner.

It's not only free, since it's made from what is essentially throwaway bones and scraps, it's also sodium-free unless you decide to add salt. It's thick - gelatenous - you can't pour it out of the jar like you do the canned stuff from the store. It's so much better for you too. If you want a richer stock, just cook it down for awhile with the top off the pot.

What can you make with this stock?
Chicken soup, chicken stew, chicken'n'noodles; add to casseroles and other recipes that call for stock or broth.

Index of Convenience Foods posts:

Part One - Spice Mixes

Part Two - Chili Mac

Part Three - Ground Beef

Part Four - Dump Chicken

Part Five - Make Ahead

Part Six - Pizza Crust

Part Seven - Pies

Friday Follow-Up

This week...

-- I've spent time helping dh work on the addition. I helped K work with her horses. Basically I did a lot of fetch-and-carry and pick-up-after-others-type work this week.

-- Made apple juice from the bags of frozen peels and cores. I am trying to clean out the freezer, so used the frozen peels/cores to make juice, and will can the juice so it can be stored on a shelf instead of in the freezer.

-- While looking for the bags of apple peels and cores, I cleaned out a bit of the freezer. I found some freezer-burned meat that fed the dogs over several days.

-- While cleaning that part of the freezer, I also realized that although I processed several pumpkins last fall, we haven't had many pumpkin pies this year. It's time to remedy that.

~ Nothing like being side-tracked, right? Note that while
looking for all the bags of apple peels and cores in the freezer,
I did a few other things while I was there! ~
-- We were blessed: a friend baled her hay before frost (it was iffy with all the rain and mud whether or not she would get it done in time!) and delivered a large amount to us. We spent a day unloading her trailer and stacking it under cover. It began raining again a few hours later, so it was excellent timing.