Preservation

Last week’s allotted blog writing time was filled with an “adventure.” Nothing spiritual, but it did have to do with good stewardship.  It all started with the purchase of a dehydrator during our Christmas sojourn to Las Vegas. Last weekend I put my new appliance to work. 

A friend gave me a box of apples, mostly small in size, but all very sweet. The first layer of apples were washed, cut up and cooked on my stove top for apple sauce. My apple saucer or fruit sieve or whatever its correct name happens to be is an inherited appliance from Mom Diehl. (Actually, appliance is probably not a correct description since I think of such items as being powered by electricity. My apple sieve is definitely Patty powered).

This particular “appliance” for lack of a better word, is not designed very well as the fruit pulp just slips around the funnel shape because the “pestle” doesn’t fit flat against the the funnel side. And thereby comes a story.

The year we moved into this house I was putting items in a large box I called the “blessing box” (an idea stolen from a friend) consisting of things I no longer needed or had room for as our new home was a downsizing move. Unfortunately, I had put my mother’s apple sieve, which was very efficiently designed, on top of the items in “the box”. I went to a church retreat on this particular weekend and Dean had a garage sale. He was proud of helping clear out the house along with the garage, for when I returned home, the blessing box was empty. Needless to say, I was not pronouncing blessings upon him at that point.

That brings me to this Christmas. My son, Jeff, knows how frustrating it is to use Grandma Diehl’s apple sieve so when he saw a smaller version of my mother’s sieve at a friend’s house, he asked if he could buy it. His friend promptly gave it to him and he, in turn, gave it to me for Christmas. 

Now, back to the apple preservation. After the apple sauce preparation came the fruit leather trial. This necessitated the use of blender AND food processor (I clearly did not have the tools for a rapid, streamlined operation). I eventually poured apple puree onto two greased trays and started the dehydrator. While it was doing its work, my “new” apple sieve was initiated into service in the Diehl kitchen.

The next attempt was drying apple slices and I figured I had just the thing as my dehydrator manual had referenced the Presto Salad Shooter for just such a task. Maybe if the apples are nicely firm this appliance (it’s run by electricity:) fits the bill. These little apples were very ripe so the Salad Shooter just made a clogged up mess of mush. After several uncloggings I got smart and just tried a one-shot apple corer that divides the apple into 8ths (not an appliance--it's Patty-powered).

I’m happy to say these varied forms of apple preservation all taste good, but my efforts were less than a stellar success. I do have some bags of frozen apple sauce, the “dried” pieces of apples have been quite tasty, and the apple leather has not yet molded (I didn’t get it spread to a uniform thinness). I think we can get the leather eaten before that happens--the mold formation, that is.