It's apple time in Apple Country again.   So, we made our first trip of the season to our favorite Cider Mill. Our mill has actually partnered with a Hard Cider company, and we got to do a tasting of their latest combinations.  One of the combos was black cherry cider.  I loved it... and then I remembered that I had a TON of sour cherries left over in the freezer from earlier in the season.   I decided to make my own!   
These recipes are super-easy and don't call for any kind of finishing sugar.  They are dry, and tart, and delicious. My version of hard cider is very unlike a lot of the commercial stuff that's out there these days... which, in my opinion, tastes very much like my daughters' apple juice with carbonation and some alcohol in it. 

4 gallons of fresh pressed MacIntosh Apple cider.

2, 1 gallon batches of MacIntosh Sour Cherry cider.

Like I said.  These are so, SO easy to do.  All you need is cider, any fruit you want to enhance it with, cider yeast, carboys and airlocks.

Bring the cider to room temperature by letting it sit out on the counter for a few hours.  Dump it into a carboy.  Add any extra fruit you may want to add (each of these cherry gallons has about 1 cup of frozen (thawed) sour cherries in it).  Pitch 1 package of yeast per carboy.  Seal with an airlock and let ferment for 7-10 days at room temp.  Then remove any leftover fruit and bottle the cider in beer bottles or swingtop bottles.  Store at a cool temperature (I keep ours in the basement) for about 2 weeks and the result will be dry, carbonated apple-y goodness.  The longer you let it sit in the bottles, the dryer it will become.


Enjoy!!

This week's CSA haul consisted of:

1 quart sweet cherries
1 quart sour cherries
2 pints blueberries (1 pint disappeared in the car on the way home)
1 head red romaine letuce
1 bunch cilantro
2 heads broccoli
1 large bunch beets
3 medium cucumbers
3 small zucchini
1 small bunch kale
Well, the sweet cherries and blueberries were put out on the table and eaten as they were.  We had green salad all week that was a mix of the last of the Romaine hearts from last week, this week's red romaine, and kale. I kept it chopped in a plastic bag for easy use. The cucumbers were eaten on salads and the kids ate one of them cut up themselves.

I still don't have a plan for the broccoli (I'm working on it!).
The Zucchini will be turned into  Ur Oma's Zucchini soup for dinner tonight.

The Sour cherries were pitted and made into really gorgeous scones by my husband. He substituted 1 1/2c fresh cherries for the usual 1 c of dried.  We brought them to a Summertime Wine Party (you CAN dip them in wine if you have a big enough glass!).



The beets were made into Borscht which we had for Sunday dinner, along with ham sandwiches on marble rye and a green salad.

And that leaves the cilantro.  Guys, I hate to admit it,  but nobody in our house likes cilantro.  I think it tastes like soap... I've read that this is an inherited taste preference.   Soap scent, however, makes great SOAP!   So, I'm making a Cilantro Vinegar surface cleaner out of it, once I collect enough.

Enjoy!!

Our second CSA box arrived with a heavy dose of fruit, which was much appreciated! 



What you see here is 1 quart of cherries, 1 quart of strawberries, 1 pint of raspberries, 2 pints of peas, and 1 quart of blackcaps (the blackcaps were from our garden).  This side of the box disappeared within 2 days, and without any prepwork needed!   uuhh... sorry there's no recipe ideas other than set the boxes out on the table and let the family have at it.

Now, since I'm on the topic, lets talk briefly about blackcaps.  I have a huge patch in the backyard that grows wild.  The berries are smaller than blackberries and have no pit, much like raspberries.  They make amaaaazing wine, and jam, if they don't disappear immediately upon being picked.

These little berries ripen every year on the 4th of July and keep producing LIKE CRAZY until the end of the month.  For the next couple of weeks, I'm expecting to pick about a quart PER DAY.   I freeze a good number of them and they work just fine for cooking and fermentation projects. 

She took a break from bike riding to help (EAT) pick blackcaps

There was actually 2 of these containers full today that I picked, and probably at least 1 more out there on the bush.  It'll have to wait until tomorrow!

Now that we've discussed fruit, how about the rest of the bin?

We  got 1 head of red romaine lettuce, 1 head of red leaf lettuce, 1 small bunch of kale, 2 crowns of broccoli, and 2 small zucchini.  The heads of lettuce and the kale quickly became  a raw green salad for a family get-together on Sunday night (with some leftover for lunches during the week... I just keep it sealed up in the fridge, ready to go).  The zucchini was sliced and grilled up with some of the leftover garlic scapes and some asparagus I got from the store.

That leaves the broccoli.  I'm going to be making a broccoli/cauliflower (non-dairy) cheese bake later this week which I will share the recipe and photos for in my next blog post.

** One note from this week:  I wasn't all that impressed with the volume or variety of veggies in our CSA share this week and I actually ended up buying stuff in the produce section at the grocery store to supplement!  We also ended up going to a local orchard and picking up an extra quart of cherries and a pint of raspberries...aaaand a half dozen friedcakes for the girls and hubby.