Maple Apple Cider

 

Hello all!  First things first, I hope all my American readers had an awesomely fun- and family-filled Thanksgiving, complete with Turkey, stuffing, pie, pie, and more pie!  I also hope y’all have made a killing in Black Friday sales; those who partake in the craziness, that is.

Second things second, the new Gilmore Girls episodes are finally here guys!!!!!!  I’m currently in the middle of season 7 having re-watched the entire series over the past couple of weeks and re-remembering just how much I’ve loved it every time. (Am not gonna lie…being distracted by GG the past few days has been part of the reason for my later-than-usual post.  Sorry guys).

I have to say that I think my favourite line of all time is Lorelai describing childbirth as being like “doing the splits on a crate of dynamite”.  I’ve never given birth, but from what I’ve seen and heard, I’m pretty sure there isn’t a woman on earth who wouldn’t agree with that description.

Now, I can’t say that I have the highest hopes that the new Netflix 4-part series will even approach the awesomeness that is the original series (Rory’s voice just isn’t the same), but I’m 100% streaming my way on over to the new series the second the credits start rolling on Season 7, episode 22.  No spoilers from any of you!

Ok… now that that is out of my system, I can continue with the original purpose of this post.

I have to say that the past few days aside where Montreal has been covered in snow (and ice) I feel like I’ve gotten more into fall this year.  It may be because I’m now looking at the world through the eyes of a blogger and foodographer, but I think it actually has more to do with the fact that this year’s fall was much longer than the three days it seems to have been in years previous.

I have amazing memories from childhood where weekend after weekend, my brother and I would go destroy the pile of leaves my parents had just raked up, before realizing we had just rolled through a bunch of the neighbour’s dog sh!t.  (I swear we weren’t ALWAYS sh!t disturbers #nopunintended).  In more recent years, however, it has felt as if fall was limited to two days of beautiful colours (thankfully, usually around Thanksgiving) followed by one day of the leaves on the ground before people scrambled to rake as many as possible before the imminently-forecasted snowstorm hit.

I realize that’s a bit of an over-exaggeration, but it still means that this year’s marriage between El Niño and global warming has resulted in a beautifully-extended fall.  While I’m not all that stoked about what this means in the grand scheme of our impending environmental apocalypse, I can say with absolute certainty that I’m happy I could at least capture the colours and beauty of fall in Montreal while I’m here to see it!

And speaking of fabulous fall in Montreal…guess what I found walking home last Saturday with the BF?  A tree star!!!  As in ‘The Land Before Time’ Littlefoot, Duckie, Petrie, Sarah, and Spike type-of-tree star!  Best fall EVER!!!  Yup yup yup!

Last Saturday, I had been struggling all day with how to style my maple apple cider shoot, when I found this baby and inspiration struck.  I LOVE it when that happens.  The BF laughed at me all the way home because I was holding this and another giant leaf in my fist and shaking it around like a 4 year old.  Given my already-vertically-challenged stature, my ever-present childish level of enthusiasm for things, and the sheer size of this leaf (it actually IS the size of my face), I guess I kinda get where he was coming from…

Another reason I think I’ve been soaking up the fall-ness this year is because I have recently discovered that it is possible to make apple cider at home.  Say what?!?!?!?!?  What’s more, it’s so freakin’ easy to make and SO MUCH TASTIER than store-/market-bought that I now no longer understand why people buy it (apart from the possibility that they, like me, didn’t know how easy it is to make at home).  Honestly, I think it takes more effort to carry the awkward jug of cider that will never fit in your fridge home than it does to toss those now punky apples you bought weeks ago into a crock pot with some water and spices. Seriously.

AND the recipe I’ve thrown together for you guys has maple syrup in it.  How much more Canadian can you get?!

 

What’s EVEN better is that while Apple Cider is a child of fall, you can drink it all through the winter; thereby making it the perfect culinary bridge to the next season on our itinerary (even if I have a fall-ish dish for next week before transitioning into full Christmas prep mode).

All week, I’ve been trudging home through the fallen and falling snow thinking only of warming up some more of this apple cider on the stove with a cinnamon stick in it.  I can safely say that I finally understand why real estate agents insist on baking apple cinnamon goodies to make people feel like they’re at home in the house they’re viewing.  There really IS something relaxing and homey about sitting at your desk or on the couch warming your hands with a mug of cider while tendrils of cinnamon-scented steam grace your face. (Don’t get me wrong….hot cocoa is totally rad!  It’s just different.  I will 100% be tossing some cocoa recipes your way this winter, but it’s still fall-ish so let’s not get ahead of ourselves.)

While I love winter, and have already taken some pretty cool pictures of Montreal’s wintery-ness, I love it more from the perspective of watching the snow fall silently on a Sunday morning from the comfort of my couch. When I’m trudging 2.5 km to school and back every day with 40 pounds of food, gym gear, and a computer on my back, I’m less-than-thrilled.  I’m more or less of the opinion that unless I’m skiing on it, I’m pretty much over winter once Santa Claus has gone back to his North Pole hidey-hole.

The good news is that if it has already snowed, chances are we will get one of the oh-so-romantic white Christmas’ I crave yearly…right? Just as Kevin McAllister believes that Christmas isn’t Christmas without a Christmas tree (and it isn’t, by the way), I believe Christmas also isn’t Christmas without snow on the ground.  It just gives everything a soft magical glow.  Without it, the world outside looks kinda dead and dreary.  Frankly, it is.  But for that one day which is inextricably linked to the magic of Santa Claus (for me at least), things are infinitely more magical (and quiet) when covered in a blanket of snow.

For the past few years, and especially last year, we got screwed out of a white Christmas.  So if it has to start snowing early this year, we better get a white Christmas. That’s all I’m saying.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Montreal and Montreal culture.  But while their typically-Quebecois ‘joie de vivre’ spills over into many uniquely awesome realms, one thing it does not spill into is clearing sidewalks in winter.  Given the MASSIVE amount of snow that Montreal gets, you would think that Montrealers would clear their sidewalks, if only to make their own lives easier.  Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen.

What’s even more unfortunate is that this snow, once trudged upon by many a frozen, sometimes strangely scantily-clad Montrealer, turns to slush which then freezes into an ice sheet.  And if Montrealers aren’t going to clear snow, you can safely assume that they’re also not putting salt on the sidewalks.  So what does this mean for everyone else? Ice EVERYWHERE!!!

Now, I get that for much of the winter, it’s too cold in Montreal for salt to work.  That’s a legit excuse.  But when it’s still hovering around -5 degrees Celsius, I still don’t understand why folks would rather skate precariously to work in the mornings than just toss some salt out the door before taking a step.  Then again, maybe that’s why Quebec churns out freakin’ awesome hockey players…

How all this ice sheet business applies to me centres around the fact that my program is at the base of the Mountain, and my classes are at the top of some pretty frickin precarious hills (which sometimes feel as if they’re half way up the Mountain).  On many parts of campus, the university LEGIT puts rebar in snow banks and ties rope between them so that people can hold on for dear life rather than surrender themselves to their fate and slide directly into oncoming traffic.  Not kidding.

The snow only hit Montreal this past Sunday, and I’ve already had an epic tumble down one of the many hills of death surrounding my campus.  It was so epic in fact, that a guy on the road honked at me and gave me a thumbs up!  Thankfully, years of squats has provided me with ample padding in the backside region, so there was a certain degree of bounce to my spill down the hill.  Clearly, I don’t have my ice legs under me yet.

Having barrelled down an ice sheet on my a$s, the first thing I did after I got home and changed out of my soaked Lulus was warm up some of this Maple Apple Cider. Only then was I willing to see the humour of watching a chick’s feet literally sweep out from underneath her resulting in her landing squarely on her butt, and slide at least 15 feet, nearly taking her friends out like a couple of bowling pins along the way.  Amazingly, I didn’t bruise anywhere.  Thank you squats.

So…moral of the story:  between being wicked easy to make, tastier than store-/market-bought, economically and environmentally savvy, the restorer of nostalgic memories of happy fall days, and the warmer of hands and hearts (and egos) facing a potentially long and wet winter, I guess what I’m really trying to say is that there really is no good reason NOT to make this Maple Apple Cider.

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This recipe is also so easy that there are no extra tips and tricks which means that that is all for this post folks.   Per usual, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below!

Next week, I’ll have one more fall-like dish that is just TOO good to wait until next year to post.  After that, it will be Christmas goodies and vittles galore (mostly because, I need to figure out how I’m going to get through the Holidays this year without taking Benadryl night after night for two weeks).

Newho…Ciao for now folks!