This blog has been quite for several months now. Life was incredibly busy. But now that the busy holidays are past I can fill you in on all the great food and farm happenings that you missed.
One of my favorite food adventures this fall was making apple cider. I’ve looked at cider presses before, but could never justify buying one. It’s one thing to buy a butter churn that you use once a year. It’s small and relatively inexpensive and looks really nice displayed on a shelf in the kitchen. But an apple press is a completely different animal so to speak. It is large and expensive and unless you have room for a giant coat rack it isn’t easy to store the other 51 weeks of the year. So even though I love to make things myself, especially my food, I really can’t justify this purchase.
This year at the store we carried fresh pressed cider from Musgrave Orchard outside of Bloomington. It was wonderful. Nothing beats the taste of fresh cider that has not been heat pasteurized. It is complex and sweet and tart and so incredibly full of flavor. We will certainly carry their cider again next year, however it made me wish once again for my own cider press.
Now at the store we carried over 20 varieties of apples and we had plenty in stock. At the end of the season we had about 20 various bushels left over. I shared my wish for a cider press and DJ came to the rescue. His neighbors had a press and he arranged for us to use it. You will not find them in the pictures because they are Amish, but they were more than generous. They not only lent us the press, but they also helped with the work and made snacks for us to eat. We made sure to leave them with plenty of cider, but we definitely got the better deal.
So one glorious day this fall we washed and mashed and pressed apples. We strained the juice and drank our fill and bottled the rest. What we couldn’t use right away we froze. When you take it out and thaw it, it tastes like the day it was bottled. Our cider making was very energy efficient. The only energy used was our muscles. Our cider is unpasteurized and un-inspected and unsanitary according to modern beliefs. It would never be approved for sale. But, it is delicious and wonderful and we’ve enjoyed every drop.
Below are more pictures. I also have links to Musgrave Orchard and to a great do it yourself cider press that I may just have to try someday. And who knows, maybe someday we will have our own official and inspected cider to sell.
