October 10, 2010
Pick, pick, pick… we’ve harvested a record number of apples for our annual Cornish apple juicing event next Sunday.
Our team of adults and children filled every container available with this year’s huge glut of fruit from our adopted orchard in St Mabyn.
Some of the apple trees in the garden and old orchard are really quite unusual. They include delicious dessert varieties like Lord Hindlip and Gascoyne’s Scarlet as well as the familiar cooker Bramley’s Seedling and the cider apple Tom Putt.
Many thanks to apple pickers Aimee, Brooke, Charlotte, Fiona, Jerry, Lani, Lily, Mark M, Mike S, Paul, Ros, Sammy, Shayne and Teresa, whose joint efforts were rewarded with large quantities of homemade Westcountry apple cake.
The best of the dessert specimens and some of the cookers will go in Camel CSA’s veg boxes next week. The rest will be turned into apple juice at our juicing fest.
This is happening next Sunday 17 October from 10 am – 12.30 pm on Camel CSA’s vegetable plot next to St Kew Harvest Farm Shop, at St Kew Highway in north Cornwall.
It follows the success of last year’s event which involved lots of families. Everyone will be able to join in washing, cutting up, crushing and pressing the apples. Age is no barrier!
You’ll also have the opportunity to taste the different varieties of apples on Sunday. It’s just one of many Apple Day events taking place across the country.
This year we’ve managed to borrow three traditionally-made Vigo hand-operated apple presses and crushers, all of which require a team of volunteers to operate them.
It’s a great opportunity to get to know fellow members and local food enthusiasts. So please do come along and join in the fun.
January 15, 2023
Volunteers of all ages worked together to plant the apple trees in our new orchard at Treraven Farm on Saturday.
It’s early days, but we’re so looking forward to putting our own apples in Camel CSA’s veg boxes. We’re planting nearly 40 trees, including traditional Cornish varieties like Pig’s Nose, Tregonna King and Cornish Aromatic.
Last week we held our very first Cornish Wassail to celebrate planting the first fruit tree and to thank our donors for their generosity.
Grateful thanks to all our volunteer tree planters – Alex, Catherine, Charlotte, Claire, Damian, Francesca, Freya, Jack, Jane, Jen, Jo, Jowan, Julie, Kate, Kevin, Marcus, Mark, Nick, Susan + Wadebridge West and St.Mabyn Cornwall Councillor Robin Moorcroft.
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October 6, 2017
Ever tasted fresh hand-pressed apple juice? We made plenty to sample and take home on our Apple Day. Thanks to everyone who got together at our community event on the annual CSA Network UK Open Day.
September 29, 2016
As it’s our annual Apple Day on Saturday, we all have some apples this week.
In all the boxes: –
*apples (Mark Norman / Bridget Gould)
*chillies / *basil
*tomatoes – red, golden
*spring onions
*chard – Swiss, rainbow
*calabrese / tenderstem (Camel CSA / Restharrow Farm, Trebetherick)
potatoes ‘Wilja’ (Restharrow)
Standard boxes also have: –
extra potatoes
*aubergine
*cucumber
*mixed salad leaves
* = grown to organic principles
All produce grown by Camel CSA unless otherwise indicated. Please wash all vegetables and fruit.
September 18, 2016
We’re holding our annual Apple Day to coincide with the CSA Network UK’s first-ever Open Day.
Community supported farms like ours all over Britain are opening their gates to visitors on Saturday 1 October.
Come to Camel CSA’s Apple Day and join in chopping, crushing and pressing the apples. Enjoy a free glass of delicious juice.
Take a tour of the growing beds and polytunnels and see what’s growing for our veg boxes. Admire our bumper crop of squashes.
There’ll be light refreshments, including soup. Try a slice of our homemade apple cake and some vegetable cake! Or bring your own lunch to enjoy in our picnic area.
November 6, 2015
This is from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall‘s book River Cottage Veg Every Day. He recommends using a good, fresh, firm celeriac, ideally an early-season one.
Serves 4
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Ingredients
200g celeriac (peeled weight)
1 eating apple
50g raisins
a good handful of flat-leaf parsley
For the dressing
1 tsp English mustard
1 tsp sugar
1 Tbsp cider vinegar
2 Tbsp sunflower or rapeseed oil
2 Tbsp olive oil
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method
For the dressing, shake all the ingredients together in a screw-topped jar to emulsify. Tip into a bowl.
Cut the celeriac into matchstick-sized pieces. The easiest way to do this is to use a mandolin, but you can use a large, sharp knife. Transfer directly to the bowl of dressing and toss them in, so they don’t get a chance to brown. Peel, quarter and thinly slice the apple and add to the salad with the raisins. Taste and adjust the seasoning if you need to.
Serve straight away, or leave for an hour or so, which will allow the celeriac to soften slightly. Toss in the roughly torn parsley leaves just before serving.
October 11, 2015
I am going to make this cake for pudding tonight. It’s from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Fruit Every Day! The recipe calls for eating apples but I’m trying it with the veg box apples which are cookers. If you have a nut allergy leave out the ground almonds and substitute with an extra 5 g flour.
Serves 10-12
Preparation time: 40 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Ingredients
3 tbsp whisky
100 g sultanas
100 g ground almonds
175 g light brown flour
2 tsp baking powder
a pinch salt
500 g apples, peeled, cored and cut into thick slices
200 g butter, softened
200 g dark muscovado sugar
3 large free-range eggs
150 g thick-cut orange marmalade
25 g demerara sugar
Method
Preheat the oven to 170°C/Gas mark 3. Grease a 20 cm springform cake tin, line the base with baking parchment and lightly butter the paper. Warm the whisky in a small pan, then remove from the heat, add the sultanas and leave to soak while you prepare the cake.
Put the ground almonds, flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl, combine thoroughly and set aside. Beat the butter and muscovado sugar together thoroughly until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, adding a spoonful of the flour mix with each, and amalgamating each thoroughly before adding the next. Add the remaining flour mix and fold in. Beat the marmalade to loosen it, then fold into the cake mixture. Fold in the sultanas and whisky and finally the slices of apple.
Spread the mixture evenly in the prepared cake tin and scatter the Demerara sugar over the surface. Bake for about 1 1/4 hours, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Let the cake cool slightly in the tin for 15 minutes, then turn out and leave to cool completely on a wire rack.
April 19, 2013
There are lots of variations on this quick, healthy salad which uses raw kohlrabi and a crunchy apple.
Serves 4 – as a side dish
Preparation time: 15 minutes (max)
No cooking!
Ingredients
60ml double cream or full-fat yoghurt
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 heaped tsp wholegrain mustard
½ tsp honey
Salt & pepper
1 kohlrabi, peeled and cut into julienne strips (keep the leaves to use another day)
1 crisp apple, cored and diced
Method
Whisk the cream in a bowl or simply place the yoghurt in it. Whisk in the lemon juice, mustard and honey. Season to tast. Then stir in the kohlrabi and apple and serve immediately.
Kohlrabi, potato and spinach gratin + tips on cooking kohl rabi
Kohlrabi, apple and walnut salad
October 15, 2010
This is one of those Cornish cake recipes that I’ve been making for years but can’t remember where it came from.
I remember baking it for tea on my older daughter’s first birthday. She went off to university earlier this month and I’ve continued to serve this cake up regularly in the intervening years – including last Sunday at Camel CSA’s apple harvest.
Use cooking apples or dessert apples with attitude – like the Lord Hindlip variety in Camel CSA’s veg boxes.
Serves 8
Preparation and cooking: 1 hour 20 minutes
Ingredients
175g butter or margarine
175g soft brown sugar
3 large eggs
225g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 large cooking apples
½ teaspoon vanilla essence or ground cinnamon
lemon juice
Demerara sugar for sprinkling
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas 4. Lightly grease a square or round 18cm tin and line the base with baking paper.
Peel, core and dice the apples into small pieces. Sprinkle them with a little lemon juice to prevent them discolouring.
Mix the butter and sugar together in a bowl until light and fluffy, then beat in the eggs. Fold in the sieved flour, baking powder and vanilla or cinnamon. Then carefully stir in the diced apple.
Scoop the mixture into the tin and sprinkle the surface with a dessertspoon of demerara sugar. Bake in the oven for 55-60 minutes until golden brown on top. Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning it out on to a rack.
It’s delicious served lukewarm – maybe with some Cornish clotted cream.
It’s apple harvesting time in north Cornwall! All the veg boxes contain a bag of delicious Lord Hindlip apples from our adopted orchard in St Mabyn.
This unusual old English dessert variety can be stored in the bag in a cool place for a couple of weeks or eaten straightaway.
We’re looking forward to this Sunday when the rest of our bumper apple harvest will be crushed and pressed at our annual apple juicing fest.
You’ll also find a large spaghetti squash in each of this week’s boxes. The name derives from the cooked flesh. This resembles spaghetti when you pull a fork lengthwise through it to separate the strands.
Spaghetti squash are a novelty as they’re quite difficult to get hold of in the UK. So be grateful that Jeremy Brown of St Kew Harvest Farm Shop has grown these to go in our boxes of locally-produced food.
This week’s small boxes have:
* apples – Lord Hindlip (Camel CSA)
* carrots (Camel CSA)
* spaghetti squash (St Kew Harvest)
* calabrese (St Kew Harvest)
* celeriac (St Kew Harvest)
potatoes (Benbole Farm)
Standard boxes have all the above as well as extra potatoes and:
* garlic (Camel CSA)
parsnips (Rest Harrow Farm, Trebetherick)
cauliflower (Rest Harrow Farm, Trebetherick)
* = grown to organic principles
