Search Results for: apple farm

Make Fresh Apple Juice – Without A Juicer!

August 15, 2016 by aplough Leave a Comment

Ladies and gentlemen, apple season is upon us. With the warm spring, the apple blossoms were more abundant than they’ve been in 10 years in Finland. The pollinators got busy, and with sunny days and no rain during this glorious Spring it appears they’ve done their job well. We are now looking at apple trees loaded with apples, everywhere we go. There’s no better time to make fresh apple juice.

But if you don’t own a juicer or a juice press, how in the world are you gonna make apple juice? Turns out – there’s an easy way to get the job done.

We don’t own any apple trees ourselves, but we do own “apple shares” in an organic apple farm, from which we get boxes full of beautiful, delicious Amarosa apples every October. No worries, though: my father-in-law has 2 apple trees in his yard that are ripe and loaded, and he’s more than happy to share.

He sent me home with a big pail of apples. There could have been more, but I declined, because I reasoned: “what are two people going to do with more than 5 kg of apples”. But these apples. They were clearly apples meant to be pressed into juice. Heavy for their size, and so juicy you couldn’t bite into one without juice running down the apple, onto your hand and dripping on the floor, there would have been no point in trying to turn these into sauce or pie. But I had a load of them, and no juicer.

So I decided to hack a juicer – with my blender + a linen bag. I washed the apples, removed the cores, left the skin on, and chopped them into thumb-sized chunks. I filled my trusty blender to the brim, and sent the blades spinning. After tamping the apples a few times, the blender made short work of the apples, and I was left with apple puree. I poured this through into a linen bag (a nut milk bag or old, clean t-shirt would work as well) twisted the top, and “milked” the juice out of the bag.

My oh my. I wish I’d accepted more apples. We may need to go back for another visit tomorrow. This is seriously some of the best apple juice I’ve ever tasted. Fresh, clean, sweet, crisp, with just the right balance of tartness, I can’t say I’ve had better apple juice anywhere.

And, well, it does give a whole new meaning to the concept of “hand-pressed juice”.

So now, I’m on the lookout for more free apples (anyone?!?). I’m confident (er, strongly hoping) that apples will be available any day now – the neighbors down the road have the same challenge my father-in-law ~~did~~ does – more apples than they can eat off of trees producing record quantities.

But now, that’s more a pleasure than a problem: forget making lemons into lemonade – it’s apple juice we’re talking about, and it’s way, way better.

I used some of this fresh apple juice to create a new recipe for granola, and turned out the crispiest, chunkiest granola on record. Recipe to follow.

But for now, apple juice. Unless of course you own a juicer; then use that. Though you’ll miss out on all the fun that’s about to follow, so you may want to try this anyway.

And then, when you get sick of juice, well, there are other options, too. Try these:

The fun is just beginning! What are you going to do with all this your bounty?

Hand-pressed Apple Juice

You’ll need:

5 kg/8 liters fresh juicing apples
knife + cutting board + apple core remover (not essential, but faster. I use this one).
blender
linen bag, nut milk bag, or old, clean cotton t-shirt
Large bowl to catch the juice

Wash the apples to remove all excess dirt or grit. Remove the cores. Cut the apples into thumb-sized pieces (larger pieces are hard for the blender to deal with and get stuck on the blade if you fill the blender – which you will). Fill the blender container to the top and secure the lid. Turn the blender on to medium low heat, and blend the apples until they become a uniform puree. You may need to stop the blender a few times to stir the mixture if the apples get stuck.

Pour the apple puree into your linen bag or milk bag. Twist the top of the bag several times, and hold the twist in your non-dominant hand. Hold the (now dripping) bag over a large bowl to catch the juices, and with your dominant hand (the one you write with), squeeze the mass of apple puree to “milk” the juice out. Continue pressing and squeezing the bag until the mass left in the bag is really small and very little juice is being extracted. You should get around 1.5 liters of juice from around 5 kg of apples, depending on how juicy your apples are.

Serve immediately; store in the refrigerator for up to 5 days; or freeze for later use.

Makes approximately 1.5 liters/6 cups of juice.

Did you enjoy this recipe? Do you have other tricks up your sleeve for using a bounty of fresh apples this season? Please share them below – I’d love to know!

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Eat Simply, Eat Well,

Ann

Apple, Golden Beet and Savoy Cabbage Salad to celebrate the Harvest

October 8, 2014 by aplough Leave a Comment

Apple, Golden Beet and Savoy Cabbage Salad

Have you ever wanted to pick an apple from your own apple tree? Me too. I dream about it all the time. There remains just that one small problem of living in an apartment with no back yard. Or maybe you have a back yard but no apple tree in it. Or the apples on the tree you have are not fit for eating. Or, or. In Finland, there is now at least one solution to that problem.

Last week was a celebration of the Harvest season. It started off with a trip to Råbäckin maatila, a small organic apple farm in Espoo run by an entrepreneurial farmer Rikard Korkman who sells his apples in a different sort of way. Instead of waiting for his apples to ripen, to see what kind of yield he’ll get, and then going down to the local bulk buyers to see what kind of price they’ll offer him, he’s made the apple season much more fun and personal for those of us who don’t own apple trees. You can buy annual “shares” of the apple farm. Yep, that’s right: you can “own” an apple tree on his farm Or two.

Since this year was the first year of yield, each share, costing €40 annually, was comprised of 10 trees per share owner, and each owner received whatever yield those trees delivered.

The estimation is that you’ll get about 15 kilos (33 lbs) per share; this year the summer crops delivered in abundance with each share owner getting roughly 50 kilos (110 pounds!) of apples. The winter apples didn’t fare quite as well due to an unusual cold spell during all of June which reduced the rate of pollination, so the average yield came in at 8-12 kilos, which the Rikard supplemented with other apple varieties to reach the 15 kilo mark. Look at these beauties:

My apples: Punainen Åkerö (substitute apples, left) and from my trees, Amarosa (right)

It’s an excellent deal all around: Rikard knows he’ll sell all of his apples; in fact, they are sold before the first apple bloom blossoms on his farm each Spring. He knows to whom he is selling his apples, so the relationship feels much more personal, for both Rikard and for consumers like me. I love feeling like I am helping to support a local producer, and so do 131 other people/families/shareholders. The waiting list is long too, with 90 people/families in line waiting for Rikard’s apple trees to grow in size so that they too can join in on the apple harvest. Next year and each consecutive year afterward, as the apple trees provide a larger yield, one share will be comprised of fewer trees, with the intention of keeping the target yield per share the same.

We went down to the orchard to take a look at “our” trees (of which I sadly have no picture), and it is clear how much love and care is put into the place. I loved seeing my name hanging on the trees, and picking a few of the apples hanging from the branches. Walking into the barn felt like a step back in time: as the sweet, sharp, cozy scent of apples met my nose, I was drawn back to my childhood, when Mr Block the apple farmer from Eastern Washington would show up with a huge delivery of apples for our friends, neighbors, and quite a pile for us kids to munch too. I am already looking forward to going back to Råbäck Farms next year. Thank you, Rikard!

—————–

I haven’t found olives better than this in Finland.

On Saturday and Sunday, 4-5 October, Slow Food Vastnyland held the Slow Food Farmer’s festival in Fiskars, a lovely artisan village about 1.5 hours outside of Helsinki. This was the second year I had visited this market, so I knew what I was looking for: fresh, crisp, sweet Savoy cabbages; red and golden beets, dark malted rye bread from Backer’s Bakery, Butternut Squash and Uchiki Kuri Squash (I saved the seeds from both for my own garden next year); huge, red Rosamunda potatoes for making baked potatoes (though I didn’t find the Blue Congo I was hoping for), and cauliflower in purple, neon green and white. Not to mention big jars of gorgeous, green, garlic scented olives from Ruukkikylän Herkut – my oh my, those olives are worth the trip all by themselves.

So there I was with my 15 kilos of apples and my huge bag of produce so I had to get cooking. All week, the kitchen has smelled of apple crisp and apple cake, and the hum of the food dryer full of apple slices has been filling this house with music. We’ve had roasted butternut squash with sautéed Savoy cabbage, flavored with Asian spices and served over soba noodles; butternut squash pancakes flavored with chili and Rosemary thanks to Jamie Oliver’s Jamie magazine and the delicious recipes found within…

…and then we’ve had salad. Like this one.

I needed a salad fit to put the full flavors of that beautiful fall produce on display. So I roasted a golden beet, shredded and apple, chopped some cabbage, and alongside of a small stack of butternut squash pancakes, served a salad fit for the Harvest season.

Apple, Golden Beet & Savoy Cabbage Salad served with Butternut Squash Pancakes – delish!

Apple, Golden Beet and Savoy Cabbage Salad

2 large leaves of Savoy Cabbage
1 golden beet, roasted until tender
1 large winter apple, grated on a box grater
1/2 onion, diced, rinsed under running cold water and drained
1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil
2 teaspoons lemon juice
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

If you don’t already happen to have roasted beets on hand from another project, roast them first.

Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F. Wash the beet to remove all dirt and cut off the long root tip. Prick holes in a few places with a knife tip, and wrap the beet in aluminum foil. I usually cook several beets at once as they take a long time to roast, but keep well in the fridge for a few days. Place the foil-wrapped beets on a pan in the oven and bake until they are tender when a knife is poked through: 45 – 90 minutes (seriously!) depending on the size of your beets. Remove from the oven, cool completely, and remove skin.

Now that you have your beet ready to go, slice it into thin rounds, then stack the rounds and slice the beet again to form matchsticks.

Remove the rib from the center of each cabbage leaf, cut each leaf into quarters, stack the quarters, and cut the cabbage quarters into thin slices.

Combine the beet, cabbage, apple and onion in a small mixing bowl. Add the olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper and mix to coat the vegetables with the dressing. Taste; and add salt and pepper as needed to your liking.

Serves 2-4. Easily doubled or tripled to serve more hungry people.

Fiskars Village, Lohja, Slow Food, and Christmas is coming

October 20, 2015 by aplough 2 Comments

Before you start to wonder why on earth I’m talking about Christmas in the middle of October, let me explain.

A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to join Slow Food Helsinki and LUMO for a visit to the annual Slow Food Festival in Fiskars Village. It’s a wonderful event in the small picturesque town of Fiskars – the place where the orange-handled scissors the company Fiskars is widely know for were originally made. All that remains now of the corporation’s presence is a visit-worthy museum showcasing the wide range of products it has manufactured over the years, but now, the town has become something even better.

It’s a town of red brick buildings set between green lawns with a small river running through. Inside these brick buildings working artisans craft and sell their products – each and every piece made with love and care, and each of very high quality. If you are looking for a special something that is “Made in Finland” – something truly unique that would be difficult to find elsewhere, this is the place to come. From candles, to honey, to chocolate, to furniture to textiles to ceramics to cheese – this small town has more than enough pleasant surprises packed in it to entertain you for a weekend – or more. Stay the weekend in one of the local hotels or B&Bs, and enjoy your country getaway.

But that’s not all. Every year, the town hosts one of Finland’s best food festivals, one I put on my calendar every year, and so should you. The Fiskars Slow Food Festival is held every year on the first weekend in October. Farmers and artisan producers of food products from the region gather in this village to offer eager customers the best of what they have made and grown over those long summer months when the sun rises early and sets late.

It pays to arrive early and buy quickly: chances are good that the goat cheese made by a smiling and dedicated Frenchman for Fiskars cheese factory will be gone long before noon. Same with every single cake and cracker from the wonderful, tiny, Bakgården, who makes the most delicious goat’s milk cardamom rolls and gluten-free seed crackers and bread. You can taste honey from multiple vendors – each with its own distinct flavor based on the flowers, shrubs, or trees growing nearby. There are garden fruits and vegetables for sale too: oh the apples! And of course squash: butternut, hokaido, spaghetti. And brassicas: cabbages in red and green; broccoli; cauliflower in white, orange, green and purple; and Brussels sprouts. You’ll find potatoes of multiple varieties. Products made from wild Finnish berries: lingonberry, bilberry, cranberry; and from the domestic berries: Saskatoon and aronia. You’ll find meat products from local organic farms: beef, lamb, pork – and even wild game on offer – fresh, frozen, dried and cured.

Maybe you missed it and are already looking forward to next year – definitely put in on your calendar now.

But there’s good news: you can sample those delicious flavors I’ve been talking about in just 6 weeks! The Old-time Christmas Fair in Lohja is just around the corner, in mid-December.

Located just 60 kilometers outside of Helsinki, Lohja is a beautiful small town in western Finland. Every year, it hosts Finland’s largest Christmas festival near the medieval stone church of St. Lawrence, right in the heart of Lohja. More than 200 vendors gather to sell their handmade products – and after speaking with vendors at the Fiskars’ Slow Food Festival, I can happily inform you that many of the same vendors will be on site on the 12th & 13th of December to sell their products.

For more information on this festival in English, take a look here. And since you’ll be in the neighborhood, stop by Fiskars Village as well: all season long, the town will be dressed up for Christmas, and at its charming best. You don’t want to miss these!

Bonden Behövs – Farmers Wanted!