Can You Freeze Apples?

Sliced Florina apples straight from the deep-freeze

This past fall, my husband John and I had another insane apple harvest. 

Choosing apples for the crisp we planned, to use up some fruit, I gazed at our piles of Honeycrisp apples in consternation.

Our shop fridge was already stuffed with hundreds of apples, and every nook and cranny of the house fridge was filled too: William’s Pride, Akane, Tsugaru, and Red Gravenstein. 

Then came the Honeycrisp harvest: I’d picked about 150, many of them huge, bigger than John’s fist.

By October 1, we still had a tree full of Florina apples to go!

We did try to give some away. But our neighbors had plenty of their own apples. We’d already set aside two ginormous bags for my sister’s two horses.

Now, John and I had been to this rodeo before. Big, BIG harvests! But this year’s apple harvest seemed more overwhelming than ever.

Yet making that crisp led to a revelation. That sunny afternoon, as John methodically sliced up apples, I asked, “Honey, what are we going to do with them all?”

Not that I expected a solution. There wasn’t one.

“Well,” he said, not pausing in his task, “Cut ‘em up and freeze ‘em?”

Cubing butter for the crisp topping, I said, “I don’t think that’ll work. Won’t the apples just turn into mush?”

Still, I set my bowl aside to do a search—and had to eat my words (pun intended)!

My first click took me to a farm wife turned professional home cook, and her website had—ta-da—a perfectly doable recipe for freezing cut-up apples! “Actually, you’re right!” I said to John in amazement.

Suddenly our hundreds of apples didn’t freak me out quite as much as a few minutes before. 

The farm wife-cook’s recipe was simple: 1) wash the apples, 2) cut them up, and 3) swish them in a bowl of water that has a little lemon juice in it. (To reduce discoloration.)

I always assumed the frozen apples wouldn’t be good for fresh-eating, but my hopes were that they’d be fine for cooked apples, whether for sauce, pies, or crisps. 

John jumped in right away, and promptly cut up over a couple of dozen apples, mostly his favorite Queen Cox variety. I admit, I was skeptical, so I just did a couple of Florinas, my own favorite late-season apple. 

(As you see, we don’t peel our apples…whether for sauce or crisps, the peels add an extra level of flavor.)

Since we didn’t have any lemons in the house, we skipped that part. We simply packed our cut-up apples into plastic containers and stuck them in the deep freeze.

And there they’ve been sitting all winter. Until last week.

I was actually kinda reluctant to try out these frozen apples. What if I went to all the trouble of making the cooked apple-blueberry sauce I liked, and it was inedible?

But last week, the Foothills area was in the middle of a long freeze. Since John and I hadn’t been to town for a grocery shop for a while, we ran out of apples. So out I trooped to the deep freezer in our shop, and brought out the quart container of my frozen Florina apples.

They had maintained their color well—just a bit of discoloration—so that was a good sign. But as I simmered the slices in a pan for sauce, they definitely had a somewhat rubbery texture. 

I proceeded to make sauce anyway: I added about 1 1/2 cups of blueberries, let them simmer as well…

You can see the apple skin has sort of a weird shiny look

After the blueberries had softened, I sweetened up the fully cooked fruit with a handful of dried cranberries.

I dished up a small bowl for breakfast, and with trepidation, took a bite…

Apple-blueberry sauce: a success!

The apple-blueberry sauce was delicious! The texture of the cooked apples was as it should be, no hint of rubbery-ness. Even better: the flavor was great! 

In other years, with other harvests, we would store the apples in the fridge, using as needed. It not like commercial growers’ apple storage, where they can make apples stay crispy and blemish-free for many months. 

But for home orchardists like us, after two months or so in the fridge, the quality of the apples diminishes considerably. Even before the fruit start to decompose. 

Now, instituting a new program of freezing a good amount of apples right after they’re harvested, we’ll be able to eat yummy cooked apples winter into spring! 

By summer, it’s berry harvest time around here, so no need for apples…until fall rolls around again! 

You can find lots more homesteady recipes—mostly with fruit—right here on my Little Farm blog. All ad-free…just type in the search bar in the upper left corner!

Think Like a Raindrop…Or, The Roof Dilemma

Rotted roof materials!

One wet day last May, I woke up to find a puddle on top of the stove.

There was a gentle drip, drip, drip coming from what could only be the range fan vent. 

My husband John was away visiting his daughter. As I cleaned up the water and put a pan under the line of drips, I recalled the winter we were getting our city house ready to sell. 

Examining our failing exterior siding, Jake, the home inspector we’d hired, said the siding was pretty much a lost cause. 

“Couldn’t we just repair it?” I asked. 

“Think like a raindrop,” said Jake.

Oh, so Zen! A nice way of saying: any tiny drop of water, given any opening, will work its way into your walls or ceiling. And those small, damp spots you can’t see will only get larger, until you have a Really. Big. Problem: 

Dry rot.

Back to last May and the puddle: I waited until John came home before I told him about the leak. He didn’t look any happier than Jake the inspector. Especially when I showed him the damp shelf above the stove, and the water stains around the vent pipe.

We felt kind of helpless, though. We didn’t have the money for a new roof!

We had always planned to replace it down the road, hopefully in a couple of years, after we’d paid off our mortgage and could save the funds. Now, however, there was just no way.

So, John and I being sort of wait and see kind of people, we waited and “see’d.” 

Summertime, and our dry season came along, and we didn’t think about the leak. Or tried not to. 

Then came October, with a whole lot of rain. I mean, record precipitation. I couldn’t remember a rainier fall. And the leak was back. In spades.

The cupboard above the range was wet all the time. We piled towels around the stove vent pipe, which, after every rainstorm were soaked. So we’d have to swap in dry towels, and they’d get soaked too, before the wet ones could dry. 

After a couple of weeks of towel-swapping, I said to John, “We can’t keep doing this.” 

He looked bleak. We both knew winter would only bring more rain. More and more and more. 

We had to bite the bullet: get the roof repaired. And find the money somehow.

I did some research, and discovered our shingle roof only had a life of about 15-20 years, and we were in year 19. The cost new roof—we had our hearts set on a metal roof—would probably be at least $20,000.

I called my brother Ty, the Wood Guy, who’d just replaced the roof on his lakeside cabin. He advised that it was hard to get roof repairs, but if you ask for an estimate for a new roof, you might have better luck.

Replacing the roof underlayment

We found a reputable roofing company, and followed Ty’s advice. The company was up for a repair, and they sent their sales guy out that day for a new roof estimate. He took one look at our damp spot above the stove and shook his head. “That’s pretty bad.”

Okay, he was a salesman; of course he would say our leak was bad, but still. John and I could see the writing on the wall. We knew about this leak…what if there were more, that just hadn’t yet shown up as damp spots on the ceiling.

Did we want to find out the hard way, and have the ceiling fall in?

Long story short: we signed a contract for a roof replacement—the metal roof we’d dreamed about. The cost had to come out of the funds we’d saved for our old age. Meaning, our really, really old age. 

But what else could we do?

The repair was a gigantic tarp covering the leaking vent, attached to our existing, marginal shingles with special roofing tacks, and it extended all the way up to the roofline. The cost: $850. 

On the positive side, the tarp took care of the problem. 

But of course the company couldn’t guarantee this repair: a tarp was only a short-term fix, and even shorter, if a bad Northeaster came along, and blew the whole thing off!

The materials came in the first week of December. Four sturdy roofing guys showed up right away, who worked from early morning to the very last photon in the afternoon. They were a really great bunch of young guys, very polite and conscientious. 

The crew had to replace no less than 21 panels of rotting OMC (that’s the plywood-ish kind of wood product under your shingles or metal panels). Those 21 replacement panels, John and I estimate, added up to about 1/4 of our roof.

All those rotten spots in the existing OMC told the real story: that had we not sprung for a new roof, our old shingle roof would have surely sprung more leaks all over the place.

It was an interesting process—which came with some surprises. Like when John and I were making breakfast in the kitchen one morning. All of a sudden, there was a suction sound overhead, and the guys lifted out our skylight! Nothing but blue sky above us, like the song says. 

It was close to Christmas, but this isn’t Santa!

The next day, the guys took off the bathroom fan vents. It was very interesting, to be using the bathroom with a hole in the roof right over your head, listening to the rapid patter of Spanish coming from a few feet away!

Despite the huge hole in our savings, John and I are delighted with the new roof. No more leaks, wet towels, or worry. The cost was considerably higher than the $20,000 I was hoping for. 

Still, you can’t get away from the math: 20 k is a lot less than you’d spend having to rebuild the whole shebang.

Finished metal roof, with the cool new woodstove pipe flashing!

The alternative means John and I would have been singing another song: “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head”! 

All the activity with the roofing crew pretty much scared the local wildlife away from our yard. But shortly before they arrived, I had an unforgettable encounter with a barred owl. 

“An owl glided low across the lane, right in front of me, to a huge old Douglas fir next to the road. With a sweep of its majestic wings, the owl settled on a limb about 12 feet off the ground…” 

You can read “Of Owls and Empaths” in my December 2024 newsletter! 

Christmas Book Flood & O Christmas Tree

Here are the novels I lined up for last year’s Book Flood

Icelandic holiday traditions are my new Christmas jam. 

I love Iceland’s Yule Lad myths, and I wrote a series of posts about those troll rascals, starting here! 

Tonight, being December 20, prepare for the visit of the Sausage-Swiper—so watch any meat you’re cooking because this Yule Lad is on the prowl!

But even better than Iceland’s troll legends, is their tradition of the Christmas Book Flood. 

Sausage-Swiper and some of Iceland’s infamous 13 Trolls: the Yule Lads (Photo credit: Iceland’s Official Website)

Calling All Book Lovers

Celebrating the Book Flood is easy: line up a good book for Christmas Eve, snuggle in a warm blanket with a cup of cocoa at the ready, and prepare for a cozy reading binge! 

I am very lucky to have a book fairy—local librarian Megan keeps an eye out for novels I might like, and she recommended the one I’ve got for the Christmas Book Flood: history, mystery, and a touch of mysticism. It certainly ticks all my boxes for the holidays.

I can’t wait to start this one

O Tannenbaum

If you’re a regular reader here, you know my holiday secret: I love Christmas. The lights and sparkle, the celebratory pause before winter’s long, cold slog, and the spiritual aspects of the best Christmas stories.

And while my husband John and I focus on simple holiday traditions, I do have one requirement, no ifs, ands or buts:

A Christmas tree. A real one.

For the first decade of our married life, every December, around mid-month, we bought a seven foot fir. To me, Christmas wasn’t Christmas unless I had an oversized, fully decorated real tree in my living room, exuding that lovely scent of fresh fir.

We would set it up the week before Christmas—and there it would stay until Epiphany, January 6—at least! Happily, John was totally on board about keeping our tree around too, until the needle-drop became extreme.

We moved from a “they-cut” to a “U-cut” Douglas fir, but it was still purchased. Once every few years we would reallygo all out, and spend the big bucks for a noble or grand fir.

Then as the years rolled on, I managed to let go of the huge tree, and dialed it down… To a six-foot fir.

But three years ago this month, my usual holiday plans—including my precious tree tradition— were turned upside down. We were needed for an out of town family emergency.

Without a spare second to bake a few cookies or buy some gifts—and of course Christmas cards were completely off the table—I was forced to make do.

Just before we had to leave home, I managed to create a Christmas tree…of sorts.

I found a stand of baby cedar trees on our property growing too close together to thrive. I cut down three of the saplings, lashed them together, and stuck their spindly little trunks in a sturdy vase filled with water.

It was new, to have to pare down the lights and tchotchkes to decorate my little semi-tree. Yet in a way, this experience turned out to be quite rewarding—to use only the ornaments with personal meaning, including the ones my daughters made when they were little, and our prettiest angel ornaments.

Three little cedars almost = one Christmas tree

Curiously enough, while I was wringing my hands over missing out on a Christmas tree, a funny thing happened around our garden. Volunteer firs! 

If you’re at all familiar with the Foothills of the North Cascades in the Pacific Northwest, you know that firs and cedars grow like weeds.

So it should have come to zero surprise to me, that they’d turn up in our garden!

The last two Christmases turned out to be a bit topsy-turvy as well. Still, it was a perfect opportunity for my dialed-down Christmas tree. So decorating a little Charlie Brown fir I find in the garden but is now our new tradition. 

At the store the other day, I saw 5 1/2 foot Douglas fir Christmas trees for $45! I had no idea even smallish trees had gotten so expensive. A baby Christmas tree, for us, means having more resources to share with others at holiday time.

Refreshing Your Holiday Entertainment

For years, I’ve been watching the same old Christmas movies. I LOVE them, I mean, who doesn’t adore “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “The Santa Clause,” and “A Christmas Carol”? But really, I’ve been due for a refresh. 

As I don’t have cable TV, I don’t have access to all the wonders of the Hallmark holiday movies. However, I recently discovered “Last Christmas”—a feature film starring Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding. I actually didn’t much like the movie at first. Yet by the end, I was a tearful puddle, so touched by this tender, mystical story. 

Last night, my husband John and I had a special, unexpected treat: Ted Lasso’s “Carol of the Bells,” Episode 4 of Season 2. If you watch any Christmas TV this season (and don’t mind all the profanity!) I hope you’ll make room for this episode! Like “Last Christmas,” the story is a celebration of love and community, and the true spirit of the season. 

For any of you who don’t do streaming (our internet too slow), I borrowed both the film and TV series in DVD through my local library. You’ll find my latest news in my December newsletter, “Of Owls and Empaths”…I hope you’ll take a look!

St. Nicholas Day & a Simpler Holiday

One Christmas corner in our house

Has Christmas turned into a 3-month event?

Holiday advertising seems to be everywhere by mid-October, and the New Year sales don’t end until the middle of January. Each year, it seems that the holiday season gets longer and longer. The celebrations get more and more elaborate.

How can you create a simpler holiday when the commercial pressures are all around you?

I was amazed to recently learn that Advent calendars have become a big business. I mean, huge. 

Now, my old paper Advent calendar feels perfect to me. There’s lovely Nativity scene, a bit of glitter, and a Bible verse behind every door. When Advent calendars with chocolate behind every door came along, I, as a chocolate lover, was all for it. Still, while they seemed quite festive to me, I was always happy with my faded paper one.

But chocolate was just the beginning. Now you can get calendars with a whole world of stuff. Merch.

One item every day of Advent. Make-up. Skin care. Jam. Beef jerky. Toys. Coffee. Even wine. 

A young Danish homesteader wrote this week that she was so turned off by the commercialization of Christmas, she had pretty much given up on celebrating the holidays. No lights. No carols. No shopping. 

But somehow, her little girl, hardly more than a toddler, asked her about Father Christmas. How could she deny her child the pleasures of Christmas?

How can all of us experience more Christmas joy?

The Danish woman’s solution turned out to be exactly like mine: to focus on the basics. To enjoy the lights and music and rituals without a lot of shopping or fancy celebrations. As I do, she’s baking goodies to give as gifts and stringing lights around the house. And like me, she sings Christmas carols while she cooks and does her chores. 

Unlike her, I don’t have a little one to sing to, but I can enjoy the carols all the same. 

Today, December 6th, is the Feast Day of St. Nicholas—the patron saint of children, and the real-life inspiration for holiday gift-giving and Santa Claus. This year, I have promised myself to do something Christmasy each day of Advent. (That is, besides opening the little door on my Advent calendar.)

It doesn’t need to be much. Watching a gentle Christmas movie, reading about others’ simple celebrations, starting my Christmas letter, planning some festive—though simple!—meals during the season. Learning more about the religious aspects. Tonight, I’m putting out the first decorations, and baking some cookies. 

You may find, if you give up all the rush and bustle and present-buying and fancy celebrations, a much more meaningful holiday. 

I also celebrated St. Nicholas Day by harvesting the last of our fall carrot crop! Carrots are at their absolute sweetest if you wait to pick them until after first frost of fall. We had an extremely late first frost, 6 weeks after the average one. December 1st! 

We’ll have festive dinners all through the holiday season with these sweet carrots!

Sweetness in the meals to come!

 

New Christmas Book—Little Farm for the Holidays!

New Christmas book!

My new book is out this week!

Little Farm for the Holidays is a cozy, inspiring little read to bring more light and cheer to your Christmas. In these warmhearted true stories, you’ll find easy, down-to-earth ways to enhance your holiday gifting and celebrations—all with a homestead, country flavor. 

You’ll also find thoughtful, gentle guidance for making the most of the season. 

*Here’s an excerpt from the first chapter, “Cozy Season”…

As Christmas draws nearer, and the winter’s chill sets in, life seems to take on a whole new tenor. If you live in the Northern hemisphere, in the dark days leading to the winter solstice it seems natural to live more attuned to the slower rhythms of the season. 

At our little homestead, choosing calming, comfy—and simple—pastimes is how my husband John and I like to get into holiday mode: baking goodies, taking easy walks down our quiet little lane, and of course, reading books. 

If you’re a big reader like me, I think choosing something uplifting is both comforting and relaxing, and the reason I created this mini-ebook! 

This simpler mindset has served us well, given our ever-shifting home and extended family landscape. Like John and me, I’m sure you’ve experienced the many ups and downs of elderly parents, grown children and grandkids, and job and financial worries. Then there’s the vagaries of winter weather and power outages. 

All in all, those unexpected twists and turns have taught us that the best-laid plans often go awry.

So if I’ve learned anything about our holiday celebrations, it’s to stay flexible…and not get too invested in any single activity. Reflecting my own background and John’s, this little book will pretty much focus on the rituals of European and Western festive traditions. Yet there are so many joy-producing activities anyone can bring to the holidays…

*One activity I especially love is in this second little excerpt, adapted from the chapter, “A Season of Thanks”…

What if everyone decided to rebel against the Thanksgiving weekend shop-a-thon? 

Ignore all the Black Friday deals and come-ons, the opportunities to save big, and stop shopping altogether, from Thanksgiving into the next week? Turn our November holiday into something very different from the current shopping spree? 

As a book lover, I’m lobbying for something that you can do at home, is easy and it’s inexpensive or even free: a book celebration! How about swapping out shopping for reading…and you can spend your Thanksgiving weekend curled up with a book. (Or books!) Surely it’s the best time to be thankful for the gift of reading… 

Little Farm for the Holidays is available in ebook at all online bookstores, and in paperback at Barnes & Noble: Amazon, Kobo, Apple and Barnes & Noble. You can also read it for free, by requesting the ebook or paperback at your neighborhood library.

And on the subject of reading…The first box set of my Irish novels has been selected for Barnes & Noble’s Bestsellers Under $10 Promotion!

On sale for a great price!

This eBook Box Set of 4 novels includes The Hopeful Romantic, a tender holiday novel about reconciliation and following your dreams. 

It’s true, I talked about downplaying shopping over Thanksgiving, but I make an exception for books!

The Ballydara box set is available at your favorite online retailer at the sale price, now until December 3, 2024: Amazon, Kobo, the Apple bookstore and Barnes & Noble.

And like all my books, the box set also available by request at your neighborhood library.

So you’re game to make your Thanksgiving a weekend of reading…whether you like novels, non-fiction, kids’ books, or comic books, all you have to do is line up something to read before next Thursday…

Besides books…With Thanksgiving just around the corner, cooking and good food is also on my mind. If you feel the same, you’ll find “How Did You Learn to Cook? & Book Love” over at my Little Farm November newsletter! 

Book Event: Book Lover’s Dream Day this Sunday, Nov. 3!

Here’s my own “Little Farm Free Library” I’m bringing to the event!

If you live or are vacationing in the far northwest of the Pacific Northwest, USA, I hope you’ll check out “Open Book: A Festival for Readers” Sunday, November 3… 

It’s a “book-lover’s dream day,” sponsored by our local Library Foundation and stellar bookshop Village Books!

A Festival for Readers, Sunday Nov. 3, 2024!

Come to scenic Ferndale, Washington, from noon - 5 pm!

“Our second annual event celebrates readers, writers and bookish enthusiasm with presentations from bestselling historical fiction author Janie Chang and local writers and storytellers, a makerspace, and weird and wonderful hands-on book-related experiences at more than 20 booths and stages.” 

At this fun, free event, I’ll be signing all my paperback titles—my 3 adventure stories for tweens,              4 homestead books, and 4 Irish novels—alongside a dozen other authors writing historical fiction, thrillers, and picture books. 

Two of my books for kiddos

In keeping with a “book lover’s dream day,” I’m also offering special pricing for all my titles! 

Then there’s the most special pricing of all…free! 

At my table, you’ll find free books in my tiny “Little Farm Free Library”! To honor all the wonderful books I get to read for free through our library, I’m giving away two new print copies each of The Curse of the Corpse Bride, Little Farm in the Foothills, and my Irish novel It Only Takes Once. 

Three of my homesteading books

Plus some extra goodies for writers…Find more at the Open Book webpage!

Sunday, Nov. 3, I’ll be at Open Book all afternoon—I hope you’ll stop by to say hi! 

Free Halloween/Day of the Dead Book + a Romance for Girls Who Love Navy Guys

Are you or your kids looking for something spooky to read for Halloween? But nothing too ghoulish?

Well, you’ve come to the right place… And there’s no trick, only the “treat” of a free read!

Perfect for tweens, and fun for kids of all ages, Morgan Carey and The Curse of the Corpse Bride is a free ebook! Here’s more about the story:

Halloween and the Day of the Dead is just around the corner, and 5^th grader Morgan chooses the coolest costume ever—a dead bride. 

Prepared for a fun night of trick-or-treating with her best friend Claire, she definitely does not expect a trip to the costume store to be so…well, weird—setting off a series of strange and spooky encounters… 

Like the snarky, mysterious clerk at the store, a very curious bridal veil, and an even curiouser fortune-telling machine that actually works...when it's not plugged in!

But Halloween quickly takes a scary turn: a Day of the Dead curse, an old book of magical spells, and a dark and deserted cemetery force Morgan, with Claire’s help, to call upon all her courage—and face the powerful magic of this extraordinary Dia de los Muertos! 

This family-friendly magical-adventure, Book 1 of the Morgan Carey Adventure series, is suitable for all ages— and The Curse of the Corpse Bride is free at Kobo, Apple and Nook! 

Amazon.com has for some unknown reason, changed The Curse of the Corpse Bride ebook to its original price, a mystery which seems to frequently happen around Halloween. 

However, you can request the ebook at your local library. Also, the book is now available on Amazon as a budget-friendly audiobook with virtual voice!

As for the News…

I’ve just made a few tweaks to my Little Farm Writer newsletter—it’s now called “This Little Farm Life”! My monthly newsletter is still full of stories about gardening, nature, and wildlife (and gardening despite the wildlife!). But I’m really embracing my love of novels these days, so you'll also find a few more reading recs! 

My latest recommendation is Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell—it’s an unforgettable love story, and perfect for every woman who’s ever fallen for a Navy guy! 

As always, you’ll find more free reads at www.susancolleenbrowne.com !