And Yet More Food Preservation!

 

Tomatoes and apples aplenty.

The dried tomatoes of previous years were very successful so the first batch for this year has been prepared.  All the seeds and soft centres were saved and sieved leaving me with a lovely refreshing drink of tomato juice to enjoy as the tomatoes dried.

 

 

 

Then came the apples.  This turned out to be a very long job but hopefully it will all feel worth it when the cider is brewed.

The apples have also struggled in the drought.  They are much smaller this year and have ripened more sporadically than in previous years.  An awful lot were brought down by the storm and suffered a lot of bruising but I still managed to pick around 10 UK gallons or so.  I gave them a quick rinse and then cut them into small enough pieces to go through the shredder on my food processor.  What you can’t see in the picture is the pebble-dashing of the kitchen with bits of grated apple flung out while putting yet more chunks of apple into the grater feed tube.  Next year I will be doing this outside.

I then pressed the grated apple and finally transferred it to a large covered container to start a natural ferment.  I will be tasting and sweetening if necessary this weekend when I’ll move it to demijohns to finish fermenting.  The raw juice tasted good so fingers crossed for the cider.