Crabapples

To most people when you mention crabapple trees, the image that comes to mind is the beautiful flowering trees in the spring. Fewer people are conscious of the little fruit on the trees in the fall, which are a messy nuisance for the most part.  However, on the family ranch there are old crabapple trees that not only have beautiful spring blossoms, their red fruit reaches much larger proportions which makes them worthy of canning. This last week while we were at the ranch, we went to check the trees to see if crabapples were ripe yet.  This early spring with no frost brought on all sorts of fruit earlier-- apricots, chokecherries and the crabs.  When we got to the garden, the red fruits peeked between the leaves in abundance and littered the ground as well.  We were not the first to check out the fruit as it was evident that deer and bears had already feasted on the bounty of the season.  Thankfully on this morning we were alone to harvest some of the prolific crop.  As we gathered the fruits into buckets and a large cooler, apples pelted us as they fell to the ground, ripe and ready for consumption.  The sweet fruity fragrance wafting in the air prompted thoughts of  fall.

 Crabapple jelly used to be the end product of apple picking, but what I enjoy the most now is making applesauce from these tart gems.  The Victorio Strainer squeezes every usable portion of the apple out producing a tantalizingly rich colored sauce into one bowl and pushing the seeds and peel out into another. This bold flavored and colored sauce makes a vivid contrast to the bland pale commercial sauce.  I freeze the sauce and add it later to the regular applesauce I make from Jonathan apples in the fall.  This mixture makes a beautiful rosy red sauce with an extra zing that my family loves. A by-product of making crabapple sauce is the extra juice drained from the cooked apples before putting them through the strainer.   This deep vibrant red juice with a sharp tang makes for beautiful flavor-packed jelly.

 With gallons of crabapple sauce tucked in the freezer for future use and jars of sparkling jelly on the counter cooling, I felt the satisfaction of making good use of the fruits and providing enjoyment for my family.  Although I was weary from the work of making the applesauce and jelly, I made biscuits for supper that night so we could taste the fruits of our labor--delicious!