Applesauce and Olives

Our late season preserving continues with making a batch of applesauce made from the apples we gathered from around the property. There are thousands of apples and we spent an hour or so last weekend collecting a nice haul. Tonight Nance borrowed my mom's Squeeze-O to grind and smush the steamed apples into sauce. Its amazing how yummy and easy it is. Nance has been the project master while Joe and I have been employed cranking the Squeeze-O. Our friend Carlene gave us some applesauce she made which in turn inspired us to give it a go.

A few nights ago we spent some time cracking green olives that were sent from California. The olive season is in the fall and you can buy them fresh and uncured and then cure them yourself, which we've done for the last couple of years. Again, Joe and I were put to work with some little wooden mallets I made just for this project, cracking each olive. Once the olives are all cracked, the bucket they are in is filled with water and then the water is changed every day or so for a week, give or take, to remove the bitter flavor. Eventually they are stored for the long term in a salt brine with olive oil.