Apple Picking Time

We are very lucky to have a few orchards around our neck of the woods. We visit one in particular about three times in the fall to gather and devour our fair share of their wonderful crop, apples. This past weekend we took advantage of some time in between football and baseball games to make our first visit. We picked and tasted and picked and tasted and tasted and tasted and picked......


Now that we are home and the apples are all washed, it is time to get to work. Here is what I did with 1/2 bushel which is about 75 apples of the small to medium size.

Apple Pie:
I always make an apple pie with the apples. It is usually the first thing I do when we get home :).




Apple Pie Filling:
In order to ensure we have some little part of summer in the middle of winter or at our Thanksgiving table, I make a few bags of apple pie filling. Basically, you just make the filling like you were going to dump it into a pie shell, just DON'T dump it in. Dump it into a ziploc bag. Try to get out as much of the air as you can. Label it and throw it in the freezer for a nice surprise in the dead of winter.


Applesauce:
We go through jars and jars of applesauce every month. Between the kiddos eating it for snack or lunch and me using it in place of oil in alot of my bread recipes, we need it :). So with majority of the apples we made applesauce. This is a great way to get the kids involved. Let them throw the apple slices in the pot, dump in the other ingredients, and with your help of course, they could help stir. There are TONS of recipes out there for applesauce so there is no excuse for not giving it a try!


After all of that we still have about 25 apples left. I will leave them out for us to snack on and they are a great addition to my lunch shakes. These are just a few ideas for what you can do with apples. I think my favorite apple cake will be in the works later this week! I hope everyone had a great weekend!!