Fruit Share Expansion

It's time to share Fruit Share with the rest of Winnipeg!

We had a great first year - 14 volunteers, 30 homeowners, 6 community organizations and 1700lbs of fruit!  Way to go everyone!

In our first year, we also had tons of positive feedback and interest from individuals and organizations across Manitoba.  Everyone, it seems, would like a piece of the apple pie!

As a result, it's time to think expansion.  What would a bigger, better Fruit Share look like?  How would a bigger, better Fruit Share be coordinated and funded?  Who would be interested in participating in a bigger, better Fruit Share?

These are the questions we're interested in discussing at an upcoming Fruit Share Expansion meeting.

If you're interested in participating in the discussion, please call 284-1234 or email getty.stewart@gmail.com with your email and contact information.  We'll send you the exact date, time and agenda for the upcoming meeting (early December).

Congratulations Fruit Share!

I opened the mail today and found the first letter addressed to Fruit Share.  Very cool.

Even better was what was inside the envelope.  (insert drum roll here)

The letter said...

Congratulations on being nominated for a Golden Carrot Award, as an Urban Community Food Champion!

How awesome is that!  Apparently we are, and I quote, "amongst a stellar group of individuals who are engaging Manitobans towards healthy, fair and sustainable food for all."

Congratulations Fruit Share volunteers!  And, thank you to Fernando for nominating Fruit Share.

The award is an annual award put on by Food Matters Manitoba. If you want to join the celebration and learn about all the other great initiatives going on around Manitoba consider attending the Golden Carrot Award Ceremony.


Golden Carrot Awards 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
Manitoba Legislature, in the Rotunda
9:30 - 11:30 am followed by light refreshments
RSVP 943-0822
www.foodmattersmanitoba.ca

Hope to see you there.

Fruit Share on Breakfast Television

We made it to the big leagues!  Fruit Share made it's debut on television this week on the Manitoba Association of Home Economists' Family and Home segment.

Melanie and Aidan, two of Fruit Share's biggest fans and helpers, (also my 6 and 9 year olds) joined me to share the story of Fruit Share with City TV's early morning viewers.

Check out the videos.

Aidan has an apple peeling contest with host Jon.



Melanie makes apple oat muffins.

Apple Curry Soup

You know you have too many apples when you start making apple soup!

I was a little skeptical about this simple apple soup recipe.  Apples and onions - really?

Really, it's great!  Simple and elegant, this soup makes an impressive first course to any special dinner.

Apple Curry Soup

Apple Curry Soup 

Ingredients

1 Tbsp. butter
1 large onion, sliced thinly

4 cups vegetable stock

3 Manitoba Goodland apples, cored, peeled, & chopped

1 tsp. curry powder (or to taste)

3 sprigs of curry plant leaves (optional) 

2 Tbsp lemon juice

2 Tbsp. butter

1/4 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup light cream

salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

Sauté onion in 1tbsp of butter until soft.

Add soup stock, apples, curry powder, curry leaves and lemon juice.

Bring to a boil.

Reduce heat and let simmer for 10 to 20 minutes until apples are soft but not mushy.

Strain mixture through a sieve or a food mill. 

Compost the remaining pulp.

In another large saucepan, melt remaining butter.

Mix in flour and cook 1 to 2 minutes.

Whisk in the strained soup.

Heat through.

Adjust seasoning.

Heat cream in the microwave.*

Add cream to soup.

Garnish with sprig of curry plant.

Serve.

Makes 4 servings.

*Heating cream will help prevent it from curdling when being added to a hot liquid.  

Sauté onions.

Add apples, stock and seasoning.

Strain mixture through food mill.

Dried Apple Rings

We finally made those oven dried apple rings that we mentioned several weeks ago. They're fabulous!  The adults love them as much as the kids do.  They make a perfect snack for back to school.

These apple rings still have a little moisture to them.  If you are going to store them for a long time, you might want to dry them out even more by keeping them in the oven a little longer.  Storing them has not been an issue in our house since they're all gone within a couple of days.

In an effort to be somewhat energy efficient, I throw in a fresh batch whenever the oven is already on after baking something else.

We've also discovered that sprinkling a little cinnamon on top before they go in the oven, is a great addition.

Here's a photo gallery of how we made them.

Wash, peel, core and slice apples.

Soak in lemon water for 5 minutes.

Drain and pat dry.

Place on rack on top of cookie sheet.

Put in oven for 3-4 hours.

Take out when dry - chewy but not crispy.

More Apples for Agape Table

Last night, we beat the rain and cleared three more apple trees.  In the end, we added about another 450 lbs of apples to our tally.  

This morning, Agape Table got another two boxes of apples to share with their guests.

Thanks to our amazing volunteers and homeowners for making Fruit Share possible.

A Nice Thank You

It was nice to hear a lovely Thank You message on the Fruit Share hotline (aka my phone) today from Micheal at Fred Tipping Place.  I don't know Micheal, but he wanted to extend a hearty THANK YOU to all the Fruit Share volunteers and fruit owners for sharing fresh fruit with them.

Thanks Micheal for your appreciation, it makes our volunteer work that much more rewarding.

More Goodlands

Another great picking session this afternoon.  Thanks Stephanie!  We got about 180 pounds of big, delicious Goodland apples.

This time, we shared a box with seniors at Fred Tipping Place.  Douglas was one of several seniors who thoroughly enjoyed taking a few apples up to his apartment.

City TV also came out this afternoon to get some footage of us picking apples.  It will be aired on Tuesday, September 14 when my kids and I will be doing a Breakfast Television segment on Fruit Share for the Manitoba Association of Home Economists.  Stay tuned for more details.

A Drive to Apple Junction

Back in the old country, my family had an orchard right next to our circa 1600 Bauernhaus (farm house) on the outskirts of our small farming village.  We had plums, apricots, pears, cherries and apples.   While we preserved much of that fruit for our own use, we took many of our apples to the apple mill in the city.  We would drop off bushels of apples and return home with glass bottles of fresh pressed apple cider*.

Memories of those trips came flooding back as I packed up the kids for our own journey to Apple Junction just East of Landmark, Manitoba.  We were excited to turn our bruised and dented apples from our tree shaking experience from last week, into fresh, delicious apple cider.

Apple Junction is a family run operation that, in addition to making their own brand of apple cider for sale, offers to custom press apples for the public one day a week (call ahead for an appointment at 204-355-9288).   Tony and Debbie Unger along with their seven daughters are amazing to watch.  While some of the girls are busy baking in "Mum's Country Bakery" attached to the apple room, others are helping their dad handle the apple pressing.

When we arrived, we were met by 10 year old Melissa Unger who was handling a pallet jack and 50 lb boxes of apples as if it were nothing.  She was strong, confident and at ease with customers who looked on in awe.  Inside the press room, things weren't going as smoothly.  A glitch in the machinery temporarily halted operations.  The first break down of the season didn't stop the girls - they simply switched tasks cleaning the floor, emptying the pulp bin, loading apples and helping in the bakery.

As Tony worked to get the machine back in operation, we took a stroll around the farm and went to the bakery for some homemade cookies.  After finishing every last crumb, we decided to leave our apples and pick up our juice at another time.  We left Apple Junction without our juice, but with a heaping load of admiration for the work of the Unger family.

While we didn't get to see the juice pressing live, we did watch this video to see the whole process as explained by Tony himself.



Since then, we've picked up our 104 litres of apple cider and are enjoying every sip.  Because our cider didn't go through the pasteurizing process mentioned in the video, we froze our cider to enjoy all year long - good thing we have a big freezer!

*A quick note about cider.  Apple cider is commonly used as a term for unfiltered, unsweetened, unprocessed, fresh pressed juice from apples.  It is opaque and darker than store bought apple juice because of minuscule bits of apples suspended in the liquid.  It has a short shelf life unless frozen or heat sealed.   Hard apple cider is cider that has been fermented and turned into an alcoholic beverage.  Although, beware, for some people, cider always refers to the alcoholic version so be careful what you ask for!

A Good Day of Apple Picking Helps Reach 1000lbs of Fruit!

After a busy day of picking some more gorgeous Goodland apples, Fruit Share passed a major milestone of 1000lbs of fruit.  That's a lot of fruit!  Thanks everyone!

Yesterday, Aidan felt more comfortable climbing the tree rather than the ladder.  He swears by his new found technique and claims he picked the best apples from his vantage point.  Meanwhile, Melanie, who decided climbing ladders or trees wasn't her thing, was busy snapping these photos.

 

After we picked as many apples as we possibly could, we shook the the last few remaining branches.  But this time, we held out a blanky to catch them all.  Well, we didn't catch them all, but we were able to save quite a few from the "bruised box".

Linda, Janet and Scott went on to pick at yet another location -an even bigger tree with even more apples. 

Everyone walked away with several big boxes of apples and today Teen Challenge, Agape Table and Janet's church will get their share too.

Agape Table Gets Apples

Agape Table has been serving hot meals to people in the inner city since 1980.  It is able to provide this service through the support of the Winnipeg community.  Fruit Share is proud to share some of its bounty with this great organization.

Mike, a volunteer with Agape Table gladly takes in one of the two big boxes of apples we brought earlier this morning.

More Picking Set for Wednesday

Come join us as we rescue more apples.  We have two locations for the morning of Wednesday, September 1.

Exact times and locations will be sent to all registered fruit picking volunteers.

Hope to see you there.

Apple Cake Recipes

My friend Kathryn sent me this link to two dozen apple cake recipes.

http://tipnut.com/make-apple-cake/

Now, which one to make first?

Drying Apples

Chris, another great FruitShare volunteer found a recipe for dried apple rings.

If you try this recipe, please let us know how it works.

Dried apples
Ingredients
4 medium tart apples
2 tbls. lemon juice
2 cups water

Preparation
Pre heat oven to 300 Combine water and lemon juice in a large bowl
Core apples and slice into 1/4 inch rings
Place apple rings in water, juice mixture and make sure to cover apple completely for 5 minutes. This will keep apples from discoloring.
Drain well and pat dry
Lightly spray 2 wire racks with cooking spray
Arrange rings on racks in single layer making sure not to touch
Set each rack on a baking sheet
put into oven one sheet on top oven rack and the other on the bottom rack.
Bake for 15 minutes
Reverse sheets in the oven.( Place the top sheet on the bottom rack and the top sheet on the bottom
Bake for 15 more minutes
Shut oven off and let rings dry in the oven without opening the door, about 3 hours.

Shaking Apple Trees

We had a great time picking apples on Tuesday night.  Gorgeous, delicious Goodland apples.

We picked as many as we could with our super tall step ladders.  But this was a very tall tree and we could only go so high.  In our eagerness to get every last apple, we did the only thing we could think of - we shook the apples from the tree.  We cringed as we watched and listened to them plummeting to the ground.  They landed pretty hard and most have big bruises on them now.  They're still useable for applesauce and juice, but they're not so great for eating, slicing or giving away.

Oops, maybe shaking the tree without a safety blanket to catch them before they hit the ground is not such a great idea.  Lesson learned - unless you intend to whip up a big batch of juice or applesauce right away, shaking apple trees is not a good technique for harvesting apples.

Since they're in no shape to be given away, we're researching the most effective way to turn them into juice.  Stay tuned as we find out what options are available to us apple shakers!

Thursday Evening Apple Picking

We have another apple picking session scheduled for 7 pm this Thursday.

Leave a comment if you're interested.

Tuesday Evening Picking Scheduled

Another picking opportunity!

Join the fun and help us pick apples tonight at 7pm.

Register now to get all the details.

Maple Apple Crisp Recipe

From Aleta, one of our great Fruit Share Volunteers.

I made a big pot of applesauce and Maple Apple Crisp.  Here's the recipe I adapted from one I found in my collection.


Maple Apple Crisp
Ingredients
6 cups apples - peeled, cored, and sliced
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 pinch salt
1/3 cup butter, softened

Preparation

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
Place apples in an 8x8 inch baking pan, or a 2 litre pottery flat bottomed dish.
Toss apples with syrup.
In a separate bowl, mix together flour, oats, sugar, and salt.
Cut in butter until mixture is crumbly.
Sprinkle mixture evenly over apples.
Bake in preheated oven for 40-45 minutes, until topping is golden brown.
Serve warm or at room temperature.

Serves 4-6

Delicious Apples

It took two of us, three hours to pick 210 lb of delicious apples from this tree.  The homeowner was as thrilled to see her apples being harvested and put to good use as we were to have them. They're perfect for eating right off the tree or turning into endless apple recipes (stay tuned for Aleta's great Maple Apple Crisp recipe).

This morning, the kids and I delivered four big boxes (about 120 lb) to Winnipeg Harvest.

Picking, eating, processing and sharing all those wonderful apples brought us and many others a lot of JOY! To learn more about the JOY flower you see in this photo visit Deb-Dawson Dunn's site - Get It Dunn .

Apple Picking Time Set

We'll be on our ladders picking apples in the neighbourhood bright and early tomorrow morning.  Can't wait to see what we'll be getting.

If you're interested in joining us, sign up now and we'll send you all the details.

Stay tuned for more pictures!

Apple Butter Recipe

From apple sauce

to apple butter.

After making tons of apple sauce, apple juice and apple deserts, I thought it was time to try something new - Apple Butter.  I found an easy, fool proof crock pot recipe for Apple Butter.

Turns out I am a fool and messed up this great recipe.  My first mistake was using cider vinegar instead of apple cider (oops!).  After the first 15 hours the acidity wasn't fully cooked off.  At that point I hadn't realize my cider/vinegar mix-up yet, so I figured it just need a little more time.  My second mistake was leaving the mixture to cook for an extra night (oops!).  The next morning the apple butter was no longer acidic but it was too burnt to eat.  What a waste.
Later that week, after finally realizing what I had done, I decided to try it one more time with another batch of homemade applesauce.  This time it worked - even after I reduced the amount of honey and omitted the cloves!

We use our apple butter on toast, pancakes and waffles.  It's a thick, fruity alternative to syrup.

Apple Sauce and Apple Juice

Peeling and coring apples, whether they're crabapples or the larger applecrabs, is tedious and time consuming.   Luckily, making apple sauce and apple juice don't require those steps.

Basic Apple Sauce Recipe

Start with this basic recipe.  After you have the basic sauce, you can add whatever flavours (sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, honey, etc.) that you prefer.  You can also use it in other recipes or freeze it for future use.

Ingredients

Apples

Water

This recipe works for whatever quantity of apples you have.

Preparation

Wash apples and remove any leaves.

Quarter apples.

Place 1 inch of water in a large pot.

Add apples to the pot. Cover.

Bring to boil.

Turn heat to low and let apples simmer until they are soft and mushy (30 - 60 minutes).

Stir every 10 minutes and add more water if mixture is too thick or dry (consistency will vary depending on type of apple).

Take off heat.

Separate cores, peels, and stems from the sauce with a food mill or by squishing the mix through a strainer.

Enjoy your applesauce!

Basic Apple Juice Recipe

The juice from this recipe is cooked and ends up thick and opaque.  We like to dillute it with sparkling water or club soda for a refreshing drink on a hot summer day.  The kids prefer mixing it with Sprite for added sweetness.  

Ingredients

Apples

Water

This recipe works for whatever quantity of apples you have.

Preparation (similar to apple sauce recipe above)

Wash apples and remove any leaves.

Quarter apples.

Place 1 inch of water in a large pot.

Add apples to the pot. Cover.

Bring to boil.

Turn heat to low and let apples simmer until they are soft and mushy (30 - 60 minutes).

Stir every 10 minutes and add more water if mixture is too thick or dry (consistency will vary depending on type of apple).

Take off heat.

Separate all the pulp from the juice by placing the whole mixture into a cheesecloth or super fine strainer like the one pictured (Lee Valle fruit strainer).  

Allow to drip for 4 hours.  

Enjoy your juice!

This juice can also be used for making apple jelly. 

Apple Oat Muffins

Apple Oat Muffins 

Based on a recipe from Canadian Living Test Kitchens.

Ingredients

1 cup (250 mL) large-flake rolled oats
1 cup (250 mL) buttermilk (milk and lemon juice alternate)
1 cup (250 mL) whole wheat flour
1-1/2 tsp (7 mL) baking powder
1/2 tsp (2 mL) baking soda
1/2 tsp (2 mL) ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp (1 mL) salt
1/3 cup (75 mL) liquid honey
1/3 cup (75 mL) vegetabIe oil
1/4 cup (50 mL) packed brown sugar
1 egg

3/4 cup (75 mL) diced apples 

1/4 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Topping

2 tbsp brown sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tbsp chopped walnuts

Preparation:
Lightly grease muffin tins.
In large bowl, stir oats with buttermilk; let stand for 15 minutes.

In separate large bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.
Whisk honey, oil, sugar and egg into buttermilk mixture; pour over flour mixture. Stir just until dry ingredients are moistened.
Add apple and walnuts.  Stirring just to mix in.
Fill muffin tins. 

Mix topping ingredients and sprinkle over unbaked muffins.

Bake in centre of 375°F (190°C) oven until tops are firm to the touch, about 17 minutes.
Let cool in pan on rack for 5 minutes. 

Remove from pan; let cool completely.

Siloam Mission Gets Apples

On Friday, the kids and I loaded the van and took a huge load of apples to Siloam Mission.

Once we got there, a group (they call themselves "Assassins") from Elite Performance, who were there to help serve lunch, came out and within seconds unloaded the apples.  Thanks Elite!

Manitoba AppleCrabs

On July 29, we had our first apple harvest thanks to Lynda and Darrell.

These delicious 4-6 cm applecrabs (cross between an apple and a crabapple) are a light green with a red blush.  They're crispy with just the right amount of sweetness, great for eating just as they are or for any number of recipes. My kids declared that they are picture perfect apples.

Now, what to do with 200 lbs of picture perfect apples?!

Today, we'll see which community organization would like 66 lbs of applecrabs.  And then, we'll be busy making apple juice, apple sauce, apple butter, apple crisp, apple kuchen, apple cobbler, apple pie, apple muffins, or whatever else suits our fancy.

Evans Cherries

Yeah, cherries!

Three of us picked some Evans Cherries (sour cherries) this evening.  Two trees yielded three 4 Litre pails in about 3/4 hour of picking.  Luckily, we just finished just before the rain.

Here's a picture of Fernando, our newest volunteer, stretching to reach those cherries.

The cherries looked beautifully red and shiny - but they were very tart, as one curious neighbour discovered when she tasted one.  The expression on her face was priceless - as was her comment "You're gonna need a lot of sugar for those!"

As always, we split our haul three ways between the homeowner, the volunteers and a community group.  In addition to the small batch of cherries and some recipes, we added some green, yellow and burgundy beans from the garden.  

When I arrived, there was a lot of interest in the beans but very little in the cherries - they all thought they were too sour.  I trust that word will get around and someone will find something delicious to make with them.

Stay tuned for what Aleta and Fernando decided to make with their cherries.

Nanking Cherries

The Nankings are ready.  Just like a lot of plants this year, they're about 2 or 3 weeks early.

Unfortunately, we haven't had any come through Fruit Share.  Hopefully that means everyone has found wonderful ways to use them themselves.

We greedily harvested the ones in our own back yard and made juice, syrup and jelly with them.

If you're wondering what to do with your nankings, here are some ideas.

To get the juice...

To get the pulp...

Of course you don't need to separate the pulp and the juice.  Usually, I don't, but this year I was experimenting with my new toy from Lee Valley - the jelly strainer. 

If you don't separate the pulp from the juice, your jams, jellies and syrups will be thicker and not transparent.  Despite what the jelly judges at a country fair might say, I actually prefer having a little more texture in my spreads.

Before I even got to make any preserves, we found a lot of ways to eat our nankings:

• raw, right off the bush
• juice - unsweetened mixed 1/2 and 1/2 with club soda (adults' preference)
• juice - unsweetened mixed with apple juice (kids' preference)
• pulp - over ice cream
• pulp - over pancakes and waffles
• pulp - in muffin recipes instead of applesauce (Note: this will turn muffins an interesting colour!)

When I finally did make preserves, I made syrup and a preserve (cross between jam and jelly).  I love the tart flavour of nankings so I always end up modifying recipes to reduce the sugar content.  By doing so, my syrup and my preserves end up being less stiff than what they're "suppose" to be, but they are delicious!  

Nanking Syrup

4 cups of nanking juice 

1 1/2 cups of sugar (recipes often call for 4-6 cups of sugar)

1 package of light pectin (if using full sugar amount, pectin is not needed)

3 Tbsp lemon juice

Boil for 2 minutes.  Pour into sterilized jars, seal and heat process for 5 minutes.

Nanking Preserve

4 cups of nanking pulp 

2 cups of sugar (recipes often call for 4 cups of sugar)

1 package of light pectin

Boil for 2 minutes.  Pour into sterilized jars, seal and heat process for 5 minutes.

Note: There is some debate as to whether or not fruit preserves need to be heat processed.  Some (Kraft, the makers of Certo) argue that because of the high acidity and high sugar you do not need the final heat process  as long as you are using properly sterilized canning equipment.  Others (Depts. of Agriculture) still recommend heat processing fruit preserves for 5 minutes even if using sterilized equipment.   I choose to err on the side of caution and use sterilized equipment and heat processing.

Manitoba Strawberries

Manitoba strawberries are ready for picking.  Going to a U-pick strawberry farm and making strawberry freezer jam made it on to my kids' list of things they want to do this summer.  

The kids say you just gotta...

Pick 'em.

Admire 'em.

Clean 'em.

Squish 'em.

Mix 'em with sugar and pectin.  Then put 'em in a jar.

Enjoy all year long!