Apple Cider mm mm mm

So....I'm not going to write too much because I have these two cool friends who wrote about our Apple Cider Pressing day.....first is Suzanne....then there will be a few words from the leader of our group day JAKE...his writing style is really pretty charming...I hope you enjoy the pictures....that's my contribution of this blog post...Oh and I helped cut up the apples that my husband David and I picked out of our small garden orchard....

from Suzanne -

"A couple of years ago, my friend Jake mentioned to me that he had built himself a cider press for extracting the juice from apples. He built a cider press!? From scratch?? How cool is that?!

This summer after picking blueberries together, my friend Yvonne and I were continuing a long chat at her kitchen table and she talked about wanting to find a cider press for the apples on their trees without spending $300 on a new one. I told her my friend Jake has a cider press he built… Upon inquiry, he was very gracious about allowing us to come to his house to do a pressing.

So on a recent Sunday morning, we arrived at Jake’s house bright and early, armed with apples, knives, wine, and a few nibbles. We were prepared. :)

The apples had been gathered a couple of weeks prior, giving them an heady apple fragrance (and a few fruit flies!) and had allowed them to "sweat" a bit, soften up some, and made them easier to work with.

Next, we began cutting. These were organic apples (unsprayed) and thus were not the "perfect" specimens one expects to buy at the store. No matter. I am a minimalist when it comes to food and when we can be close to the source, I believe it gives us a connection to the whole life cycle we otherwise completely miss out on. I miss this about not living on a farm.

Jake has fashioned a grinder comprised of a garbage disposal (new!) built into a smallish table which is counter height. We quartered the apples, cutting out the dark spots, and fed them into the grinder. Mush came out the pipe underneath the table and dropped into a strategically placed bucket.

When the bucket was about a third full, Jake dumped the contents into a cloth bag which lined the press. He twisted the bag shut, fit a round lid inside the press, and turned a handle, bringing pressure down to squish the lid against the bag and this really fantastic brown juice seeped through the staves of the press and was captured in the wooden tray below which had a small notch cut in and the juice was captured in yet another strategically placed bucket.

The day was one of those awesome Indian summer days – blue sky, warm sun, cool air. It brings to mind the reason for seasons; autumn is for harvesting the bounty of the goodness of summer. It makes me grateful for the perfection of God’s creation and the food He offers that provides perfect nutrition for us. Putting up food for the winter makes me feel rather like an industrious squirrel, and seeing filled jars on the shelves and boxes or bags in the freezer gives me a sense of warmth and comfort.

Working together with friends makes it even better. Since I secretly believed I should have had the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder while growing up, I’m all about “sustainable living” and also really like the idea of barn raisings, quilting bees, and harvest parties. What a bonus: getting one’s work done and having social interaction at the same time!

Thank you Jake and Yvonne, love you guys!

Suz"

From Jake -

"I have always had an interest in home-brewing and wine making. The whole process of fermentation is fascinating to me. It is a completely natural occurring process that results in a compound that we as humans have come to develop entire industries around. You take sugar and add an organism that can metabolize this basic ingredient into carbon dioxide and alcohol as its waste products. It can't be any simpler. Nature has been doing it for eons. Humans have utilized the process for thousands of years, but only understood it for a few hundred."

From Jake -

"Several years ago I got it into my head that I wanted to make hard cider. I purchased some books and read up on the process. It is very similar to making wine from grapes. The apparatus is just a little different due to the properties of the fruits. I checked stores and the internet for pricing on apple presses and they seemed high. I knew what the finished product (apple juice) was and looked at photos and models on display at the stores and decided that I could build one. The wooden framework was easy. The screw portion that exerts pressure across the pressing plate was more difficult. I was working on a bridge project and saw that some of the concrete forming hardware would work for the main screw. The screw is built of 3/4" acme coil thread and a coil nut attached to the crossbeam of the press. These products are used in the structural concrete industry because of the steep thread pitch and how quickly you can screw a nut onto the rod. The steep threads also are self-cleaning if concrete gets spattered on the threads. I "borrowed a section of coil rod and a two coil nuts to build the press. One nut is attached to the crossbeam and the other is attached to the bottom of the coil thread. When you turn the screw, downward pressure is applied to the bottom nut which is then transferred to the pressing disk.

I built the wooden framework and the pressing basket out of maple, which my wood supply shop told me is the only wood allowed by the USDA for food applications. I also learned that maple is a very neutral wood and would not impart any flavors into the juice."

Ok....We had to take a break....and we needed some energy....what????

We all had a glass, but Suz was the poser!

From Jake -

"Another necessary piece of equipment when pressing apples or pears is a grinder. Internet research told me that lots of people use a garbage disposal for this. The idea seemed sound to me and I bought a sturdy unit with stainless steel internal components. I made a table for it to mount to and wired it accordingly with an on/off switch."

From Jake

"After the press and grinder were built all I needed was a pressing bag, collection vessels and fermenters; all of which I had from making beer earlier. Other than that, my only other comment would be that pressing apples, pears, etc. should be a group effort. There is a lot of work involved and is time-consuming. It definitely makes the process a lot less tedious and monotonous when you have such good company and take frequent breaks. I look forward to next year's crop and doing this again. What a good time I had!!"

Here's Jake showing off that he can tighten down the press

using only ONE finger...such TALENT!

mmmmm....more energy food....the little tomatoes were soooooo good!!!!!

Pouring the finished organic apple cider into clean jugs!!!!

It takes a strong steady hand to hold that funnel!

(I know my description of the press and the process is pretty analytical, but that is the engineer in me) By the way...drunkenness was key for these activities back in the day. It helped to mellow out an otherwise difficult existence. I see no problem with imbibing while toiling away as we did. And nobody got cut or their hand mangled in the grinder!

Jake

Suz at the end of the day....boy did we have fun! We also got a tour of his farm, and got to play frisbee with Jake's Blue Heeler 'Sapphire'!!!! I also can NOT wait for next year, in fact I hope we get to try pressing some pear cider as well!!!!!!

Hummingbird Baby....

I was lucky enough to be at the right place, at the right time the other day...sitting on my yaw yaw in the office and I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, I grabbed my camera and went right out the front door...ever so slowly to get the shots...it was a hummer baby getting lessons from it's mum and also getting fed a bit too....so cool...learning how to hover, but most of the time hanging onto the flowers and leaves with it's toes!!!!

Baby is on the left, mum on the right

Baby

Baby

baby....this is how I identified it as a Rufous hummingbird

by looking at the tail feathers and also at the chin and belly colors~

Mount Ashland revisited

Mickey and I decided to go on a hike again yesterday. We had originally planned on going to Denman Wildlife area near White City, but with the weather so hot we would have melted, so she suggested going back up to Mount Ashland. I jumped at the chance and picked her up at 6 a.m. We went into town and grabbed coffee at Dutch Brothers first...for her a cold triple iced mocha and for me a white chocolate raspberry sugar free skinny HOT one! Then back onto the 'five' (interstate 5) to Ashland, taking the Mt. Ashland exit...the first thing we saw were YELLOW lupines in bloom....beautiful....then we stopped for some amazing views of Mt. Shasta and Shastina!!!!

On up we drove past the ski chalet area, hoping for the gate that opens to travel toward Grouse Gap to be open! Luckily it was and we headed along the road, not getting far before the mountain meadows of wild flowers lured us to stop and get out to see all the flowers in bloom since our last visit.

Columbine was not only in bloom but there was this area of massive amounts of these plants...I've never seen so many all grouped together in bloom all at the same time!

There was Western Wall flower in bloom here and there adding a splash of yellow.

And also Indian Paintbrush here and there...

We saw many little birds and butterflies and I wished for the day to never end. We went from burying our noses in the flowers and bugs below us to standing in awe of the vistas of forest and mountains all around us. The weather was perfect - my car thermometer said it was a 'balmy' 66 degrees...hah! I think the only thing that coulda made the day any better woulda been a tunafish sandwich with dill pickles, chips and a V8!!!! (next time)!!!!

I posted all my pictures to my FACEBOOK if you want to see some of the birds and butterflies.

Common Gray Fox

I was standing on the front porch a few days ago looking at song birds at my bird feeder out in the forest...I saw what I thought was a coyote coming up through the forest...It disappeared several times and I thought it had seen or smelled me and went back the way it came, but it suddenly popped out going toward the pond....I was pretty excited when I realized it was a gray fox! I had never seen one this close before...

He did figure out I was taking pictures of him and off he ran.....dang!

What a lovely tail he had...look at that black stripe going down to the tip of it!

Lower Table Rock-Sunday June 27 2010

The State of Oregon Bird - The Western Meadow Lark, greeting Mickey and I as we were about to start up the trail head at Lower Table Rock near Medford, Oregon.

The first sign that you see as you are walking up the trail....it makes you really think about being glad for having ankle high boots and jeans on...however more than that it made me really think about watching where I was walking!



This is a Lark Sparrow!!! I had never seen one before and this one allowed me to sneak closer and closer to finally get some really great close-up shots of him. There were several sightings of these birds throughout the day. They were low flying across the tops of the meadows and seemed to do a lot of walking within the meadows eating small seeds off the grasses.





On the top of Lower Table rock earlier in the spring there are what is called "Vernal Pools" If you want to read more about vernal pools here is a really awesome BLM pdf file url! enjoy!
http://www.blm.gov/or/resources/recreation/tablerock/files/vernal_intro.pdf

There was a small area with a tiny bit of water that the song birds came to drink from. Mickey pointed out a pacific tree frog to me as well...they are so tiny!!!
This green area below in my picture is where the vernal pools were located in during the winter and early spring seasons. The mountain in the background is Mount McLoughlin...usually by now there isn't that much snow at the top of it, but our winter hung on through spring this year.




There were many butterflies on our hike - unfortunately I filled up both of my memory cards so I didn't get to take all the pictures I wanted to of them. This is called Mylitta Crescent and I think it is a female....


This flower is from the Orchid family and is called Hooded Ladies Tresses or Spiranthes Romanzoffiana (what a mouthful!)

Here is Mickey hiking out toward the far end of Lower Table Rock. We didn't go all the way to the end because we got side tracked with the small flowers and insects around the vernal pool areas and then several families with children had arrived. It made me think back on when my boys were small and at 3 and 4 years old they did this hike with no problem. Kids have so much energy and for me this was a much harder climb than it was 15 years ago!!!! hah!

This little flower is Downingia Yina also known as Cascade Calico Flower...it was in many areas around the vernal pools.

We had a wonderful day hiking and hanging out - as usual! We made the drive to the town of Ashland and were one of the first people into Morning Glory restaurant for breakfast. We sat down and our waitperson brought us HOT coffee....mmmmm....I forgot my glasses so had to go out to the truck and get them....they have a new menu and as always there were too many choices - all of them sounding way yummy! As you can see by the picture below I ordered an Omelet...it was filed with this sour cream or probably creme fraiche, spinach, mushrooms, onions....and can you see the chopped up bacon on the top? and killer hashed brown potatoes that tasted like they'd been bathed in butter (no lie!). I also had a muffin that was perfect by itself although they always have jam that tastes home made at the table! Mickey had Coconut Macadamia nut waffle with lemon butter....we had some serious calories that morning!


After breakfast we drove up to Mount Ashland, it was a beautiful morning and along the road up to the ski area we encountered several folks armed with yellow bags picking up trash!!!! Keep OREGON green!!!!! I'm not sure if it was just local folks that lived on that road or what? Later on as we were parked and walking past a locked gate there was soooo much trash in the roads...lots of beer bottles and just garbage that people had obviously left after late night parties...soooo gross....

Below is a tree that I thought was quite beautiful. It must have been girded in some way in it's youth, but continued to grow and became large and lovely!

Here is a picture I took of Mickey -the thick fog was just blowing in for a bit....it was sort of unworldly and ethereal at times...not unlike a white-out!

In this picture below you can see the fog blowing through and the blue sky starting to appear!

We had an awesome day! I added two new lifebirds to my list of birds....and we are continuing our summer hikes by doing one of the Table Rocks tomorrow morning...it should be a perfect day!

Getting ready to do a hike this weekend with Mickey....I can't wait! We always have so much fun! We're going up to Mount Ashland...I hope most of the snow is gone....last year there were all sorts of butterflies and bugs...I'm hoping for more of the same! Breakfast beforehand as well at Morning Glories....ahhhhh....waiting for that first cup of coffee....

Yvonne's TACO SALAD

If you put your curser on the recipe above, and left click on it, it will pop out bigger...I'm pretty sure you can copy and paste it into a word document to save...if not, email me and I'll send it to you in either a WORD format or just in an email....

So I haven't posted to the blog for quite awhile, and I decided to make Taco Salad today, then share it with you all...
Just cutting up the black olives got me to thinking about things that take time. I have been following Jamie Oliver's new show "Food Revolution" check out his homepage and you can see the good things he does! Anyway - He is all about feeding whole foods to our children at the elementary school level and teaching folks how to eat healthy!!!! So today when I did my normal grocery shopping routine, I decided I would stick to my list and not buy any processed food - junk in - junk out - you know? When I got home I thought I'd make Taco Salad for the boys ...and as I was putting it all together, I realised that it really takes a bit of time to make something wholesome to feed to your family. We are all so busy running here and there, and not taking time to do things that are healthy for us, so I figured if I didn't buy junk food for them to eat, when they got hungry, they'd be sort-of forced to eat foods that are better for them - and ME too since I seem to really struggle with my weight now...It also dawned on me that slowing down, thinking about what you're doing and investing time has some pretty awesome merits in other parts of our life...for instance our relationships!!! With our spouses, kids, people we work with and even people we don't come in contact with all the time...like the folks at the bank, grocery store or people who we gain service from. So my point is....If we made sure that we sat down for family meals at least 4 or 5 times a week, we could visit with our kids, learn what they're doing at school, listen to them, pay attention to them - with funds so tight, watch a movie with them, play a board game like scrabble or ask them to help you weed for so minutes...time well spent together!!! With your spouse - sit down with them when they get home from work, meet their eyes, get them a glass of water or a cocktail (depending what your preference is) and ask them about their day...My parents did that each night after work...the first one home would make cocktails (gin martinis) and they would sip them and talk or prepare dinner together...that was a long time ago for me, but a really good memory...so you see, I know we have all this technology with the Internet and smart phones, but what it really comes down to is old fashioned ways sometimes - if you really want to know the people you live with, or work with you've got to TAKE SOME TIME....if you want to feed your family healthy food - start with WHOLE FOODS...if it comes in a package with lots of different ingredients that you have NO idea what the meanings are, well then, it's probably not all that great for your body - right?
so here are some pictures of the Taco Salad I made today...I'll post the recipe as well too!!!!

Here are the chili beans piled up on top of the lettuce, cheese, tomatoes and olives...

Red bell peppers, onions and lean ground turkey...yummmm!!!!!

mixing it all together with the corn chips!!!!!

and finally the Taco Salad....finished and ready to eat!
Here's a close up....boy it's good!!!! Don't you wish we had smellavision or eatavision or something like that, so you could try it too???

just for fun

Last year Mickey and I went to Ashland and we stopped at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and got Caramel Apples...these are not just ANY Caramel Apples...they are sometimes covered with chocolate, nuts and all sorts of sprinkles...they'll even cut them off the stick for you to enjoy right away....so...uhm...we went out and got into my 4runner....poor Mickey...I had my Moto Q and I was recording away....she is so lucky she didn't choke...we were laughing so hard.