Tools of the Trade

Yesterday was yet another day of "preserving the apple." A dear friend came over with 4 bushels of apples from her dad's garden/orchard -- two baskets of red, sweet apples, and two baskets of little, green apples that took FOREVER too cook and soften. We ended up making 60 quarts of apple sauce and apple butter combined. Another profitable, satisfying day's work. My friend took most of the apple jars home with her since my DIL and I had plenty from our own apple processing days and she has 6 children at home to feed.

Since I'm in the Season of Preserving, I wanted to share with you some of my favorite tools. This apple-peeler-corer-slicer is the Cat's Meow. I absolutely love this tool and use it all year round to make apple pies, crisps, or just to peel and slices apples for salads. And yes, it works for potatoes too, but I rarely use it for them. One of my all-time-favorite catalogs is Urban Homemaker, where you can find lots of quality "tools of the trade" for a reasonable price. This is not an advertisement, but I highly recommend Marilyn Moll's enterprise. She really cares about home and health.

The other favorite "Apple Tool" is my Villaware Food Strainer, another great purchase I made at Urban Homemaker. You pour cooked fruit (apples) in, take a few cranks on the handle and the sauce comes through the trough while the seeds and peels come out the other end. With different sized screens, you can strain other fruits/veggies too. I mainly use mine for apples though. My son and I tried processing cherries through it and nearly locked the whole thing up with the large seed-pits. So stick to using the recommended screens on this fine tool.

Happy Harvesting!