Recipe for making Homemade, Old-Fashioned, Fresh Pressed Apple Cider, Step by Step1. Find an old organic apple orchard hidden in the middle of the desert.
2. Select your favorite apples for juice. Most people like a blend of sweet and tart apples. I prefer straight crisp, tart Jonathans.
3. Bring friends along who think a work weekend is a vacation!!! Meet Lynn Patterson. He climbs the trees and gives them a good shake. We run for cover! We collect the apples in tarps that we have strategically placed under the trees. It is no bother if the apples get bruised as they will be mushed to a slop of wet pulp soon.
4. Leave Symbria under the tree and forget to tell her about step 3.
5. Be sure to bring Sara!!! Note how many bushels of apples Sara has gathered compared to her mom (Symbria) above?!6. Give the apples a good washing. Try not to get those around you wet. (Hee, hee!)
7. Convince family and friends that cutting up apples and slicing out worms for two days is therapeutic. Be sure to bring band-aids, if not for mistaking your thumb for an apple than for the blisters you get cutting for hours on end!
8. Pulverize the apples to a wet, sloppy, juicy sweet goo. We use a garbage disposal used only for this purpose to do the job. It does it nicely. (Notice how we gave this job to Lynn, and how he is sitting way over there by himself!)
9. Pour the apple slop into clean cotton kitchen towels. (These brown towels were once pure white. Quilters often die white cloth with tea to give it an antique appearance. No need, just give me a call!)10. Well in advance, be sure to marry a man who can literally do anything. This is very important! He is "one of those guys you can send out into the wildern
ess with a pocket knife and a q-tip and he builds you a shopping mall." In this case Monte has converted bits of scrap oak, pressed boards, scrap metal and plastic into a grand work of art. An authentic first-rate old-fashioned press. Man he turns me on!!!!
11. Visit every antique shop and yard sell for old 1/2 gallon narrow necked canning jars. (Symbria has an absolute obsession for these narrow necked jars. If you have some you would like to part with you will be her friend forever! Better yet, give the jars to me and I will gloat in front of her at my fabulous fortune!) Sterilize the jars in boiling water. Be careful to not glug the piping hot water all down your front as the jars fill with water!)
12. Heat the pressed cider to 160 degrees. If you forget this part you will have "apple jack" in no time! 24 hours and the cider begins to take on new life! Carefully fill your precious jars with your liquid gold. Place clean hot lids on jars and set off to cool. Soon you will here what is called the "canners symphony", the sound of the lids popping letting you know that the jars have properly sealed.(You will notice my favorite All-Clad 5 gallon stainless steel pot has turned tar black from the flame of the fire. Oh well, what can a girl do?)
13. When you pick your victims, I mean friends to "help" you with this project, be sure to pick the kind that want to come so bad that they will cook for you. Someone never told the Pattersons that you don't bring linen napkins when you are camping! We will never tell!!!)
14. To maintain nourishment during your labors it is very important to eat really well! Both we and the Patterson's are eating "local" as much as possible. All food in the following pictures (steps) are from our Quail Hollow Farm, the Patterson's Red Acre Farm, the Molto Vegas Farmers Market, or artisanol cheese from Jack Rabbit Ranch.
Breakfast Day 1: Light Omelet with Neuftchatel Cheese and Rosemary, Herbed New Potatoes, Farm Grown Sausage and Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice. (shown above)
Lunch: Sauted Corn Cakes, Summer Squash Carpaccio with Arugula, Pecorino, and Almonds; with an assorted Cheese, Apple, Cracker plate. (shown below)
And for Dinner: Creamed Tarragon Chicken with Apple Cider, Foil Roasted New Potatoes with Garlic and Thyme; Golden Beet and Blood Orange Salad and for my birthday boy what other than Warm Applesauce Cake baked in a Dutch Oven.
Day Two Breakfast: Herbed Scrambled Eggs, Bacon, Honey Whole Wheat Pancakes with Apple Cinnamon Syrup, and of course by now Fresh Apple Cider.
Lunch: Turkey, Apple, Sprout, Jack Cheese Sandwich; Tomato, Lemon Cucumber with Chevre and Basil Salad; Nitty Gritty Dirt Farm's Slaw; Salami and Cheese; Fresh Melons.
Dinner: Harvest Vegetable, Bean Medley with Pesto Sauce; Lynn's Homemade Rolls; Apple Tart with Rustic Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream.
Breakfast Day 3: Carrot Zucchini Bread with Fresh Yogurt, Homemade Peach Raspberry Preserves and Sausage.
15. All that work and eating requires a bit of relaxing and entertainment. Be sure to bring Grandma & Grandpa to play your favorite Blue Grass songs such as "Arkansas River", "Nobody's Darling", "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" and the ever popular, Grandpa's "I Just Don't Look Good Naked Anymore". And don't forget the grandkids who can entertain for hours catching and playing with huge bull frogs.
When it is all said and done this is the reward for your labor. This year we pressed over 70 gallons of cider. With every sip of cider throughout the year we will remember a wonderful experience with family and friends and the flavors of fall from the apple orchard. Life is good!
By the way, if you are interested in some of the wonderful recipes that were served this weekend, many of them came from these two outstanding cookbooks: Eating Local by Janet Fletcher and Local Flavors by Deborah Madison. I highly recommend them!
For next year we are taking reservations for confused work-a-holics. $500 per "participant!" (think Tom Sawyer and the white fence!)
