Well, that was a total fail
Remember those crab apples I wrote about last week? How I was going to try turning them into crab apple jelly? Well, the whole adventure was a bust.
First, I didn't have a chance to get the original bowl of crab apples that I had picked cooked. They sat on the kitchen counter for several days, getting less and less appetizing. Well, to humans at least; the fruit flies found them more and more irresistible. Into the garbage they went.
Not quite ready to give up the whole enterprise, I took advantage of a beautiful afternoon to go pick some more and give it another try. I mean, the entire tree is covered in them. How terrific would it be to get a bunch of jelly from them? Picking them was the most successful part.
Armed with a large bowl of crab apples, I set to work doing the next step. According to the recipe I was using, I was to take off the stem, cut off the blossom end, and cut them in half. First of all, have you ever tried to get a step off a crab apple? It cannot be done. At least I couldn't do it, not could any of the family members I asked to try. OK, I'll just cut it off I decided. I did this for about a dozen crab apples, cutting off the stem, cutting off the blossom end, and cutting them in half. Based on how long that took me, I figured to get through the entire bowl, I would be cutting and halving for at least two hours.
I am a lazy cook. Pretty much, in following any recipe, I will follow it until I get tired of doing something, assume I've done enough, and then move onto the next step. (The only exception to this is making sure meat is cooked through as it should be, I'm lazy, not crazy.) So, based on my personal idiosyncrasy of not liking to be bored when I cook, I decided there was not way I was making it through the entire bowl. If I was just going to cook them down and put them through a jelly bag, what difference did a few stems matter? None, I decided. I felt the same way about the blossom end, and as far as cutting them in half... Well, the boiling water was probably just going to make them burst anyway.
So, I moved onto the next step. Adding water and cooking the fruit. The recipe made of point of saying to only add water to cover, so that's what I did. The fruit did burst, and I gave it a good mashing for good measure. This was the only other successful moment. The crab apples cooked, they smelled good, and it looked as though I had liquid to turn into jelly.
Well, I discovered something. Crab apples are very, very dry. While there was liquid when I looked in the pot after they had boiled a bit, but the time I turned off the heat, transferred the pot over to the jelly strainer, and started to scrape the mixture into the jelly strainer, the crab apples had completely absorbed any liquid and nothing was dripping into the bowl.
But there was all that good fruit pulp, just sitting there. On a whim, I wondered what would happen if I added some boiling water through the mixture in the jelly bag. I'll tell you what happened. Boiling water with a hint of crab apples drained into the bowl. Currently, as a last ditch effort to salvage something, the bag with the fruit pulp is sitting in the bowl with the water with hint of apples. I don't really expect anything to come of it, and it is sitting there because by telling myself that maybe waiting a bit will give me something is just a good sounding excuse from cleaning up the mess right now. I'll face it tomorrow.
I think I will give up the crab apple jelly making business. They are too small, too fiddly, and I'm not even sure we will enjoy the results. I'd rather spend my time making something else.
First, I didn't have a chance to get the original bowl of crab apples that I had picked cooked. They sat on the kitchen counter for several days, getting less and less appetizing. Well, to humans at least; the fruit flies found them more and more irresistible. Into the garbage they went.
Not quite ready to give up the whole enterprise, I took advantage of a beautiful afternoon to go pick some more and give it another try. I mean, the entire tree is covered in them. How terrific would it be to get a bunch of jelly from them? Picking them was the most successful part.
Armed with a large bowl of crab apples, I set to work doing the next step. According to the recipe I was using, I was to take off the stem, cut off the blossom end, and cut them in half. First of all, have you ever tried to get a step off a crab apple? It cannot be done. At least I couldn't do it, not could any of the family members I asked to try. OK, I'll just cut it off I decided. I did this for about a dozen crab apples, cutting off the stem, cutting off the blossom end, and cutting them in half. Based on how long that took me, I figured to get through the entire bowl, I would be cutting and halving for at least two hours.
I am a lazy cook. Pretty much, in following any recipe, I will follow it until I get tired of doing something, assume I've done enough, and then move onto the next step. (The only exception to this is making sure meat is cooked through as it should be, I'm lazy, not crazy.) So, based on my personal idiosyncrasy of not liking to be bored when I cook, I decided there was not way I was making it through the entire bowl. If I was just going to cook them down and put them through a jelly bag, what difference did a few stems matter? None, I decided. I felt the same way about the blossom end, and as far as cutting them in half... Well, the boiling water was probably just going to make them burst anyway.
So, I moved onto the next step. Adding water and cooking the fruit. The recipe made of point of saying to only add water to cover, so that's what I did. The fruit did burst, and I gave it a good mashing for good measure. This was the only other successful moment. The crab apples cooked, they smelled good, and it looked as though I had liquid to turn into jelly.
Well, I discovered something. Crab apples are very, very dry. While there was liquid when I looked in the pot after they had boiled a bit, but the time I turned off the heat, transferred the pot over to the jelly strainer, and started to scrape the mixture into the jelly strainer, the crab apples had completely absorbed any liquid and nothing was dripping into the bowl.
But there was all that good fruit pulp, just sitting there. On a whim, I wondered what would happen if I added some boiling water through the mixture in the jelly bag. I'll tell you what happened. Boiling water with a hint of crab apples drained into the bowl. Currently, as a last ditch effort to salvage something, the bag with the fruit pulp is sitting in the bowl with the water with hint of apples. I don't really expect anything to come of it, and it is sitting there because by telling myself that maybe waiting a bit will give me something is just a good sounding excuse from cleaning up the mess right now. I'll face it tomorrow.
I think I will give up the crab apple jelly making business. They are too small, too fiddly, and I'm not even sure we will enjoy the results. I'd rather spend my time making something else.
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