Have you heard of crab apples, or crabapples? No? Well, they are tiny apples that grow wild, or planted for decorative purposes. They are edible, but really sour and sometimes bitter.
There are a lot of crab apple trees in our neighbourhood. The trees are not too tall, and when the flowers are blooming, they look so pretty.
Around two weeks ago the crab apples looked like this…
We picked one fruit and took a bite… Oh! Sooo sour…. Had to spit it out!
Today they looked like this…. So red and juicy!
We tried one, and it was still sour, but not too bad. It had a stronger apple taste and it was juicy. We thought we could use the crab apples to make a yummy pie.
So, Carla, Renan, Oma and Opa got to work immediately, picking a lot of crab apples. It was fun!
Usually no one picks the crab apples, so in Fall they’d just drop to the ground and rot, making a lot of mess. What a waste! They are totally safe to eat, and residents are actually encouraged to pick them to reduce waste and keep the neighbourhood clean.
Ok, so… when we were done, we had lots of crab apples….
We washed and cut them up, then Carla made a pie filling. It was pretty simple… just crab apples, brown sugar, white sugar, a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg powder, some corn flour, a bit of butter….
Carla at work… with Renan and Carla’s friend Maggie watching…
We had a ready made pie crust, so we just put the filling in the crust, baked it in the oven for haf an hour, and… voilà!
Yum, yum, yum! We ate the pie with some vanilla ice cream. It tasted just like a regular apple pie, with sweet, sour and savoury flavours all mixed together. So delicious!
We still have a lot of crab apples left, so we are going to make another crab apple pie tomorrow. We might pick more crab apples before they get too ripe. Maybe we’ll make crab apple jelly.
So, if there are crab apple trees in your area, pick them and cook them… Get creative and try different recipes… but if your recipe fails, well, at least the crab apples are free!
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