We are officially in the thick of fall season, folks! And I LOVE IT!

You know how some people feel about pumpkin — pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin pie, pumpkin roll, pumpkin everything? That’s how I feel about apples — apple fritters, apple pie, apple compote, apple bread, apple cider donuts [oh my god], apple sauce, apple cider…I could go on and on….

Caramel apples, appletinis, apple crisp, apple cobbler, apple cider sangria…

Anyway, I recently bought 20 pounds of apples from my MIL who went to a local orchard to pick [she and her friend together picked over 55 pounds of apples!] so I’ve been making apple goodness for the past week.

So when my apple bread was in the oven, I surveyed the damage —which was extensive because I am very messy in the kitchen—and saw the apple scraps.

I remembered a post years ago by my absolute FAVORITE zero waste blogger at Zero-Waste Chef about using apple scraps to make vinegar. You can find her whole how-to guide here. Basically you add the scraps with some sugar and cover with water and let it sit for several weeks.

So, I decided to give it a go.

Hopefully I have made the Zero-Waste Chef proud.

[Her name is Anne-Marie Bonneau, by the way and she has a great cookbook out which I of course own, and which also contains the apple scrap vinegar recipe and a gazillion others.]

Back to the vinegar. I’ll have to let you know how it turns out. Right now it is sitting on my counter with a few other fermenting goodies like hot sauce from our home-grown hot peppers and cabbage that is hopefully on its journey to becoming sauerkraut!

What do you use the apple scrap vinegar for, you might ask? I use it in [of all places] the dishwasher because it helps the glass dishes to come out sparkly. ✨ It is also good for cleaning and gut health. So don’t waste those scraps!

Ok, I’m done.

Happy Fall ya’ll!

🍎 🍏 🍎

Karis