Orchard Day

Today is Overton's Community Orchard Day! My better half has been organising this for weeks, so this morning we completed the last tasks and then loaded the car to the brim and set off across the village to set up in the Community Orchard.

We arrived about 10 minutes later than planned so we were late to set up and the journalist/photographer from the paper was early, but we still managed to stage a picture for the local press. My job for the day was to let people taste apples (displayed on this blip) and then for those we had lots off give them away.

At the allotted start time there was just one visitor - the journalist - which is always unnerving, but after half an hour or so I was rushed off my feet and never stopped slicing apples and giving apples away to well past the end of the event! Sadly we don't know the names of some of the varieties we had to give away which is always a bit frustrating, but even so it's still fascinating and what you think is a universally popular apple isn't. There is always someone who likes the acidic apples, or doesn't like the sweet ones, and so on. By the end of the day I managed to give away about half the apples, which is good as they won't keep long enough for me to eat them all myself over the next few weeks.

After the event we went home and I stewed up all the damaged or wind-fallen apples had that wouldn't keep and made apple/nut crumble with it:
For the base stew you apples with as little sugar as you can tolerate remembering that desert apples are a lot sweeter than Bramley apples and take a long time to soften,
For the topping chop up almonds, Brazil nuts and oats or oat bran, add a little brown sugar,
Put the stewed apples in an oven/grill proof dish, and spread the topping on top - finally sprinkle a little brown sugar on top.
Bake until thoroughly hot and then grill to make the sugar on top melt/caramelise.


Lots of people add cinnamon to apples but not everyone likes that. ground nutmeg is an alternative.