Apple Butter

I've been curious about trying to make apple butter.  In theory, if the apples you cook are sweet enough, it shouldn't be necessary to use anything else to make it other than apple.  This post won't tell you how to make it, but I'll make some observations in case you follow the recipe I used.

I was inspired to make it, because one of the nearby roadside apples is very sweet tasting.  I had tried to buy a sweet apple variety in the past for my orchard, but the nursery who sells the more niche varieties had none at the time.

Anyway, I used a borrowed juicer which someone long ago bought for a juicing diet.

This gave a quantity of apple juice.  The discarded apple material was also dehydrated at the same time.

Next the space in a container that the juice occupied was filled with whole apples.  These were then peeled, chopped and added to the simmering juice.

And this in turn was reduced until it was thick and caramel-like, and set on a chilled plate.

After which it was poured into two sterilised jars, covered, labelled and stored in the cupboard.

This really needs a larger deeper pot, and a splatter guard.  The stove and surrounding benches, and to some degree other various things had spots of apple over them when it was done.

Dehydrating apples and peaches

The last of my peaches were ripe, so I decided to dehydrate them.  As with pears, I'm not sure that peaches really taste like anything special dehydrated.  I'll probably try and use them for cooking, otherwise they just get snacked on for the sake of snacking by anyone they are offered to.

These were roadside apples of various flavours and textures.

Then, there's the Blackboy peach tree I bought from Southern Woods nursery several years back.  Note that it looks to be a Golden Queen peach.  It was the first year this tree fruited, and I have to say that I'm glad it is a Golden Queen.  Who needs two Blackboys?  And they were fat juicy fruit.

The Blackboy peach tree was already present when I moved into this property.  It seems to have some pest problem, and gets marks which are filled with crystalised stuff.  Probably some obvious pest like codling moth for all I know.  I need to look into it for next year.

Got a decent amount of bagged dehydrated peach in the cupboard, and huge jars filled with dehydrated apple.

Bottling My Apple Cider Vinegar

I was a little hesitant to pick most of the reachable apples from the one of the better roadside apple trees last autumn, but I did it in small amounts, and no-one else seemed to want them.  Most of the roadside apples I gathered from that tree, as well as all the others were juiced and put into containers under the hot water cylinder.

There the most attention they saw, was the mice climbing on top and leaving droppings.  Yum!

I bottled one too soon, and it turned into rather undrinkable apple cider.  Not acidic in any way, just a bit musty in flavour.    The other, I left in there ignoring it, hoping it wouldn't get moldy.

Here it is:



And bottled up, turning out to be around 3.5 litres:



A huge success.  I reused the Bragg's bottles I bought, and they are still accurate.  They would indeed be organic raw unfiltered apple cider vinegar.  And the liquid inside looks pretty much the same as the original Bragg's vinegar.  Next year, I'm going to double the amount I make.  I just have to find a use for it.

Growing cuttings

Plants are not that expensive, but the cost adds up.  A blackcurrant bush costs around $12NZ I think, and I can get a range of other berry plants for around the same price.  But if I had access to existing plants, I would be able to take cuttings and grow more.  In this case, I've managed to acquire cuttings for black currant, black grapes with seeds and some apple trees that grow up as columns.  I don't know the names of any of the varieties.

Blackcurrant, grape and apple cuttings.

There's rules to this sort of thing apparently.  But at worst, these are free new plants.  Maybe I'll have a hedge of dwarf apple trees later on.

So, on to my unruly approach.  The long cuttings at the back are the apple cuttings, and are apparently cut wrong.  I need to make them shorter and perhaps snip off the top, I am told.  The grape cuttings in front of the apple cuttings (hard to see, I know) have been moved around between different garden locations. This doesn't seem to have done any harm - unlike the garlic cloves in the next bed, which have likely suffered from their move.  The blackcurrant cuttings, of which there are many, follow the rules.  What those rules were, and where I found them, I don't know!  But I do remember something along the lines of removing all but around three buds on each cutting.  I really need to be taking better notes.

Things are looking promising too, I was out there in the rain the other day, and I am pretty sure the currants and grapes are budding up.

Why, oh why, iPad/iPod?

I've never really been a fan of either my iPad or iPod. Each of them gets one use. My iPad is used for reading ebooks, and the iPod for daily Mandarin revision with a flashcard application. They're clunky, arcane devices, hidden behind the almost unusable and arbitrary experience that is iTunes. 

Something else I have been using them for is to take advantage of free internet bandwidth. Internet in New Zealand is metered, and a gigabyte can cost something like $2 NZ. It all adds up quickly. So when someone offers free internet, instead of using their limit of 100 MB a day, I can use 300 MB a day with my three devices. I can download a podcast over a couple of days, resuming the download on additional days.

Or I could, if Apple's iTunes downloading wasn't incomprehensibly badly designed or broken. Pause a download? Chances are that it will start downloading from the beginning again when you resume it. Download get interrupted? Chances are that it will start downloading from the beginning again when you resume it. This is basic functionality - I've downloaded iOS updates several times over, again and again, when it happens on the PC iTunes application. Search the internet, people have been complaining about it for years..

I look forward to the day I can replace these devices with something more user friendly.

Edit: And that day may come sooner!  I dropped my iPod on the pavement and the screen shattered - replacing the screen costs a good fraction of an Android phone..

Sansa Clip

This is how an "mp3 player" should be. Focused, tiny and flexible. The battery lasts for a week or two. I can copy arbitrary files onto it, like the iPod/iPad applications that I can't download at home because iTunes is so backwards and clunky. Weighs so little that when if it gets knocked off whatever I have clipped it to, I barely notice. No DRM to enforce arbitrary anti-usability restrictions (I do not mean that as a euphemism for piracy either). I'd like another, as a backup.


The more I use my iPad or iPod Touch, the less I want to use iTunes. Yesterday while doing some work, I started downloading the operating system update for the iPod Touch and after two hours the whole 600MB was almost finished downloading. But I needed the bandwidth to download something else, so I paused the download and proceeded to get whatever it was. Then I resumed the upgrade download and..


From the beginning, for another two hours.. What is this? Apparently, it is still 1994 where Apple live. Decide to download something and do not want it? You have to find out how to contact Apple support (no mean feat) and ask them to remove it from your download queue. Bought your device in China? Then despite having changed your language to English, the EULA screens (and only the EULA screens) are going to strangely be in Chinese. Then there's actually having to use the program day to day. I like the ideal of a "good enough" portable digital camera/phone/gps device.. but the idea of it being lumbered with iTunes destroys any possibility of me getting an iPhone.

Tried using Facetime over the iPod Touch in the office with a coworker. It was a nice gimmick. But it seemed rather.. what's the word? Token. It didn't seem like a natural action. The idea is good, but the device just doesn't make it feel natural.