I’ve been wanting to take Julie apple-picking for a couple of years now, but for one reason or another, we hadn’t gotten around to it. Okay, we hadn’t gotten around to it mostly because Joe is allergic to apples unless they’re cooked, and he’s also allergic to the dust in hay, which would make a hayride downright miserable for him. Where’s the fun in that?
Lucky us, then, when a good friend e-mailed this morning to invite us to come pick Haralson apples off the trees in her yard. We drove right out there for a little apple-pickin’ fun.
This is what we saw when we drove up.
The girls loved the idea of picking apples off the tree, and they had a hard time waiting to eat them till after they were washed.
Julie took ownership of “her” bag of apples and really wanted to carry them to the car herself even though the bag had to weigh at least twenty pounds.
Sophie said “apple” for the first time this afternoon.
There were so many big beautiful apples just dangling there, I had a hard time stopping even when our bags were heavy with more than I knew what to do with.
We came home and the girls well…
Look at those cute happy faces as they enjoyed their crispy sweet-tart apples.
Luckily, my awesome neighbor M has one of those hand-crank apple peeler-slicer gizmos and she loaned it to me in a heart beat. I know what I’m going to be doing tomorrow night. Because, you know, I could really use another project. Now the question is slice and freeze for pies, apple sauce, apple butter, something else?
Here’s to awesome, generous friends and neighbors!
One of my little tricks- I make up apple pies (crust, filling, everything) and freeze it, unbaked, in a glass pie plate. When frozen, pop out of plate and baggie up! Then in the middle of winter and you want fresh baked apple pie, there it is in the freezer!!
I was going to say exactly what StaceyK said! That and apple butter.
Not sure where you’re located – but you might want to try this place out their apples are FANTASTIC!
http://www.victoriavalleyorchard.com/
I’ll second (third?) the vote for apple pies. Last year I made apple butter and it took freaking FOREVER to finish cooking. Applesauce is a great way to get a bunch of apples taken care of in a (relative) hurry. You could also try apple jelly. I just made some this week, although I would suggest using a recipe that calls for no added pectin. Mine set so hard it rips the toast!
Apple Butter totally.
We just finished our yearly raid of the Gravensteins in our yard and our neighbors for a ton of homemade apple butter.
Your girls are adorable.
Apple sauce is pretty easy too.
I second and third the applesauce one. It’s too easy to just peel them up and let them sit in the crock pot all day. We use a baby seat sized crock pot, and then have applesauce until it’s coming out our ears. We eat it plain, put it on pancakes, french toast, use it to dunk things in, like cheese cubes and cookies, and use it as a topping for ice cream. I also do small freezer containers or baggies, and reuse it in the crock pot with pork and chicken. Best thing is…no added sugar. I just put in the apples, a bit of cinnamon, sometimes ginger, and that’s it. Sometimes we add raisins too. One more thing…you can do apple bread just like banana bread, just put the apples through a shredder or something. Or muffins, or cookies…great, now I’m hungry.
PS. Thanks for the WW motivation…I lost 3.2 lbs last week.
I want a friend with apple trees! I’m so jealous! lol Looks like so much fun!!!
Tina J.
I vote for apple crisp!
Our dinner the other night was apple slices with slices of cheese. Dessert was apple slices with peanut butter. Super easy and so yummy.