HARVEST. The very word gives a warming glow, the thought of gathering in the food grown in sun kissed fields. Harvesting is the process of gathering a crop from the fields. But we harvest too in our gardens.
The gathering of the food was of such importance that many societies and religions have a feast or festival and a blessing.
The word "Harvest" comes from the Old English word hærfest, meaning the crop gathering season. The word has come to mean the entire process of gathering the product.
This year, I have been given a mountain of apples, far more than I could possibly use. I found an old farmhouse recipe book which was full of ideas.
Comments
Autumn 2019 update
I have added a recipe for a soup I tried today and also a comment about Apple juice.
It could be a great apple crop this year. I will give you some.
Yes, I believe in eating what is in season. We had the Irish apple cake yesterday for Sunday dinner. I hope you enjoyed your apple dessert.
I do enjoy apple crisp - that's what we will be having for dessert tonight!
Some good tips here .
I love preserving food for the cold months . Lots of lovely jars on the shelves or boxes in the freezer.
I like freezing apples, slice apples as I would for apple pie, dust with cinnamon, which is a mild anti fungal, toss into a freezer bad. This saves time on Thanksgiving and Christmas when baking holiday pies. I always seem to run short on time, this helps nemeses and the apples still taste fresh. Yes, the freezing method is a good and handy one.
Nicole
How good is that !
I have added my favourite Irish Apple Cake from County Kerry to the page above for your to try if you so wish.
Great ideas! One of our local farmer's markets was just closing for the season yesterday and I bought a giant basket of end-of-the-season apples for all of $1.50. I've got to use them up this weekend so you've given me some great ideas (for sure the ones in better shape I'm going to slice and freeze them as you described, using my vacuum sealer to make air-tight packages.)
Thank you Katie. Apples do last and your friend was right - ugly apples still taste good.
At the moment the upside apple cake is going down well as it uses up so many apples and is so easy to make. Good luck with your harvest. I think nature provides us with what we need at this time of year.
Lovely ideas as to what to do with apples in the fall. A friend just gave me a huge bag of orchard apples, he told me, "Now they are very ugly but I promise they are the best apple you will eat or one of the best." He was right on both counts but I can only eat so many apples so fast, give many away and share and still left with tons of apples, I thought of you and your ideas, so thanks again for this great guide to using apple harvest wisely