What to do with all those apples?

Last autumn I was behaving like some apple picking nazi. I was cursing why other garden owners wouldn’t collect their apples but instead just let them rotten in the trees or on their lawn. You see, I come from a family where basically entire warm season is dedicated to collecting and preserving goods from the garden and forests. First it was the strawberry season, then raspberry, quickly followed by black, red and white currants, then lingonberry and cloudberry and last apple and mushroom season. It's my parents who did and still do all the hard work but I’ve been telling to myself that there is still a tiny bit of this ancient survival instinct left in my genes too. Until this apple season when I felt overwhelmed by other things and simply didn’t have energy and motivation for all that apple preserving. We still had apples and jams from the last year in the freezer and believe me, there is a limit to amount of sweet apple cakes one can eat. This must be what you call a first world problem!

Please, let this be the last one!

But wait, before we drag the starving kids of Africa to the equation and start guilt tripping for real, there are couple of option for lazy moderntime homesteaders like me!

Fresh yummy juice with
apple and carrots

• JUICING. I really try my best to not let all kinds of different appliances enter my kitchendoor but my juicer has earned it’s place. Apple juice is superhealthy (raw and no added sugars obviously) and juicing is relatively easy and fast. And besides apples you can throw into the juicer some pears, carrots and ginger to not to get bored with the taste. Juice is healthiest right after juicing but it can also be frozen. You can also make apple cider with more sophisticated methods than I did it – by forgetting a juicejar in a room temperature for a couple of days. I don’t know if I should have drank it, but I obviously did. There are many things you can make from the leftover pulp. If by now you’re also fed up with sweet cakes and muffins with apples on them, try apple pulp energybars. Pulp can also be frozen. Sure you can also throw it away but there are some good fibers and vitamins left in that stuff!

• SHARING. Lets face it; there is an unequal distribution of apples in this world, a few of us have too many and the rest of us have none. To make ease this unequality, leave your extra-apples in a basket where people can see it with a sign “please take some”. You’ll make your neighbours’ day. Next Sunday in Copenhagen there’s this brilliant happening by the local council to distribute apples from those with too many to those with not enough. If you are a garden owner from Copenhagen with too many fruit or a gardenless local with desire for fresh, local apples, you can sign up for the happening. Participants will be going through the gardens picking up the fruits and later the fruit will be shared with the locals. I think this is brilliant! If fair distribution of wealth would be just as easy...