Ok, so…it’s a bit cheeky to start out a post with the heading, “How Do You Like My Apples?”, but I just couldn’t resist. For weeks I’ve been finding ways to use up all the apples we either grew or foraged locally and I’ve been anxiously waiting to share the results with you.
Since September we’ve been making fresh pressed apple juice, applesauce, Irish apple cake, rustic apple galette, and caramel apples in our kitchen. I even tried to make apple fruit rolls but that was just a step too far…even for me. They weren’t so nice.
I give full credit for all this apple busyness to my lovely mother-in-law, who lives the adage “waste not want not”. Years ago, when she saw me binning (throwing out) apples that had fallen off our trees and were becoming worm fodder, she ordered me to collect them up and then she brought me into my own kitchen for a bit of culinary instruction.
“First you cut out the bad bits and toss them in the bin,” she said.
To which I replied, “But what about the worms?” Truth be told, I really didn’t fancy the idea of accidentally cutting through one.
“Don’t mind them…they can go in the bin too!” she answered with a smile. And that was that. I never looked back.
Leaving the skins on apples when you press them makes their juice run a gorgeous shade of pink. The colour alone is enough to suffer through yucky bits of brown apple and the possibility of the occasional decimated worm. If you have any doubt, just look at the photo below.
And don’t mind the brown foam at the top. As Mama told me all those years ago, “It’s lovely!” Enjoy.
Homemade Apple Juice
Makes One Large Glass
Ingredients
3-5 apples, washed with skins left on
Directions
1. Cut apples into chunks, remove and discard seeds and core.
2. Put into juicing machine as per factory instructions.
3. Serve or freeze immediately.
Note: To make enough juice to fill a 2 litre carafe like this one, I used 6lbs/700g of small apples.
In an Irish Home 