Found Apples for Five Cents per Pound!

Old juice bottles were just waiting
to be used. Some were frozen,
some consumed within hours.
Still others occupy our middle
refridgerator rack.

I have no fruit nor citrus trees in my yard. Oh, Wifey and I talk about it every year. There's a corner of our backyard that is nothing but dirt. We dream of having peach, apple, orange and apricot trees planted there for our enjoyment...someday.

But I was more than pleasantly surprised to find apples on sale at my local grocery store. They are these little bitty apples that most people probably don't buy because they'd be too much trouble to eat. I'm talking almost the size of a large egg. I questioned the produce guy about these little apples and he said he was about to throw them out!

I told him that if he'd lower the price a little I was likely to buy them all. So he marked them down to $0.05 per pound! I should mention that I have been frequenting this store for almost ten years. I have gotten to know many of the employees over the years. I wholeheartedly think we should all shop local and get to know everyone.  It makes for a much tighter community. So...I filled a shopping cart with just over 70 pounds of apples. I kid you not! All tallied, it was a mere $3.67 or so and I went racing home to break out my juicer.

I've blogged about the movie Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead by Joe Cross and how it persuaded Wifey and me to start juicing.  We couldn't wait for a product to ship from Amazon so we raced down to Walmart and bought a Jack Lallane model for around $99. There are much better options on Amazon like:





These are all good choices. Breville is what Joe Cross used in his movie. I enlisted the help of daughter #3 (she peeled the little labels off the apples) and ended up making around 15 2-quart bottles of pure apple juice...all for $3.67.  I put several bottles in my freezers for later. I have enjoyed drinking it on a daily basis all week. I juice the entire apple, seed-stem-rind, the whole thing.  Makes for a super easy juicing experience.  Seeds and stems don't stop up my juicer. It grinds right through it all. I am pretty happy with my find and the outcome. I not only got to stock up on some great juice super cheap, but I also practiced my juicing skills.

Can you see the froth building up?
I am awaiting delivery on a
strainer from Amazon to try.

I'm still looking for a good strainer. The juice comes out of the juicer with a decent amount of froth. I bottled the juice froth-and-all for the first couple of bottles and it did not dissipate in the bottle. I began to spoon off the froth after that. Next on my prepping list is to get a good compost going and use the pulp in my composter.  I also mentioned to Wifey that the pulp would go good mixed in with her homemade bread dough. Mmmm...apple bread.  Tell me the house wouldn't smell heavenly baking THAT in the oven!

PS, here's the nylon mesh strainer that I ordered from Amazon. It should be here soon and I'll have plenty of apple juice to try it out on. I have one strainer but the mesh is so fine that it clogs up super fast and just takes too long to use efficiently. I'll try to post my results with the new strainer.

Once I get a good finished product, one that isn't all gloppy with froth and pulp chunks, I'll attempt to barter with the family two doors down. They have terrific orange fruit growing in their back yard.  It isn't oranges but I have forgotten what they are called.  We knew the prior owners and they used to give us bags of their fruit for juicing. Back then we did it by hand with one of those little juicers you squish the fruit down on a spinning masher.

These are the types of things we aim to do from now on.  Make something on our own to save money and if possible, trade with others for their goods.  Natural products, no taxes or cash transactions, and everybody wins. Does it get any better than that?

What have you made lately?