The 2009 Crab Apple Harvest

Crab apple butter and jelly

It's mid July already, and for Eric and I along with the Maryland Sled Dog Adventures' sled dogs, it's time to do our annual harvest of crab apples from the big crab apple tree out front.

Sobo and the other sled dogs enjoy sitting under the crab apple tree

Eric harvesting the crab apples

Eric and his bucket of crab apples

For years, we did nothing with the crab apples that would fall from the big crab apple tree on the front of our property. One year, we decided that it might be fun to harvest the apples and make crab apple jelly and crab apple butter (a jam like spread).

Crab apples fill our prep sink in the kitchen

The finished product: crab apple rosemary jelly

This year we whipped up two batches of crab apple jelly from the juice and one batch of crab apple butter (made with the sieved crab apple pulp left over after extracting the juice). The first batch of jelly was Rosemary (also harvested fresh from our herb garden) crab apple jelly (a Martha Stewart recipe) while the second batch was plain crab apple jelly. The crab apple butter is flavored with cinnamon and nutmeg. Eric used some of the "halfies" (the jars that only end up half full) to make up a batch of crab apple butter pancakes for breakfast this morning. Delish!

Sobo says: Crab Apple Jelly is yummy!