Apple Picking!

Why didn't anyone tell me it's so much fun??     Now that my oldest is getting big enough to really enjoy doing things we decided to go apple picking while my DH was on vacation last week.  I pictured huge trees you'd have to climb to get to any high up apples.  But they weren't!  We got to take a tractor ride to the orchard and everything was easy to reach.  DD loved it and asked to go back the next day. She was adorable picking out what ones she wanted, letting DH pick them and dropping them into the bag.  We could easily have come home with a few bushels!  Since it was a Friday; we were the only ones there!  The tractor took us as soon as we walked up and brought as back as soon as we were done!

They had Braeburn the last few weeks, Granny Smith this weekend and then after that they have Pink Lady listed as the rows to pick.  I'm really debating going back.  The only downside were the yellow jackets and bees everywhere.  No one got stung; and I guess you should expect that in a fruit orchard. 

After we picked apples they had their fall festival going on at the main store so we took DD there.  She was not impressed with the corn maze, but they had a ton of other kid friendly activities.  She was worn out afterward and I loved that alone. 

So what are you going to do with all the apples now? :lol3:

I love picking apples! We usually come home with about 100 pounds of Mutsu apples and we make applesauce, apple muffins, apple bread, apple dumplings, and apple pies. We're going apple picking on Oct 13th this year.

Your daughter had a great time! Bet she was one pooped little girl til you were done! Think of the memories you're creating.

The claim is frequently made that illegals are doing the agricultural jobs no American would do, but I don't believe that, at least not completely.  Some of my earliest memories are working in the fields with my mother on her father's farm and in the orchards that belonged to their neighbors, the Eagles.  Apples, cherries, asparagus, corn, all that stuff. 

I'm not sure I'd call apple picking "fun," but I've done worse jobs, believe me!
 

I didn't get to pick them.  But my friend who lives in the mountains of NC came here two weeks ago.  She brought me 22 pounds of Jonagold and Fuji apples.  Oh my, I wanted to cook some for applesauce, but I am having too much fun eating them.
 

AbbysMom said:

So what are you going to do with all the apples now?

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So far we are eating them.  You know what they say about an apple a day!  Apple slices with almond butter are my new fav snack!  They had apple cider slushies too....I want one right this very minute....not sure I can figure out making cider at home.  *sigh*

Winchester said:

I love picking apples! We usually come home with about 100 pounds of Mutsu apples and we make applesauce, apple muffins, apple bread, apple dumplings, and apple pies. We're going apple picking on Oct 13th this year.

Your daughter had a great time! Bet she was one pooped little girl til you were done! Think of the memories you're creating.

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I typically go to this orchard to buy from the store when I make pies for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I always mix a sweeter and a tart apple.  I really need an extra freezer (and a little more time) if I'm going to get into making a bunch of extra.  I hate buying a bunch this early in the season because it's too warm to store anything in the garage and we don't have a basement.  My MIL does a lot of canning and I'd love to learn that sometime too.

Memory making was the primary reason I wanted to go.  I didn't do strawberry picking with her; it's not really my thing.  She did blackberry picking off my Mom's bushes with my Mom.  But DH was on vacation last week so it was something the 4 of us could do together.  I hope to do it every year.  In a few weeks we'll visit the other farm for a hay ride and pumpkin picking.  Having both kiddos so sleepy afterward was a plus for DH and I to get some quiet time! 

mrblanche said:

The claim is frequently made that illegals are doing the agricultural jobs no American would do, but I don't believe that, at least not completely.  Some of my earliest memories are working in the fields with my mother on her father's farm and in the orchards that belonged to their neighbors, the Eagles.  Apples, cherries, asparagus, corn, all that stuff. 

I'm not sure I'd call apple picking "fun," but I've done worse jobs, believe me!
 

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Around here; it appears to be true.  My Grandpa always talks about spending his summers picking beans and peas.  Even there at the orchard I saw a group of migrant workers sitting together.  Also there are a lot of farms and chicken plants near my house.  Working in the medical field I had A LOT of people come in that spoke little to no English.  Sometimes little kids (like 6 or 7) would have to try to translate for their parents.  If they were here illegally or not I can't say.

I'm sure it's not something I'd love to do all day long, especially in the heat!  The Realtor that sold us our house has a peach orchard and she does most of the picking while her husband mans the peach stand...hard...hot work!!

blueyedgirl5946 said:

I didn't get to pick them.  But my friend who lives in the mountains of NC came here two weeks ago.  She brought me 22 pounds of Jonagold and Fuji apples.  Oh my, I wanted to cook some for applesauce, but I am having too much fun eating them.
 

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That sound delicious!  I haven't gotten to try making applesauce yet.  Someday!  I don't know if it would last long; but that is one thing I want to learn to can.  Right now my DD is really into applesauce so we've been going through it like crazy!  It would be awesome to give her home made!

Do you have a food mill? How about a Dutch oven? If so, you're halfway there! You don't have to peel them, you don't have to seed them. Wash them, quarter them (or slice thinner, depending on how big they are), throw them in the Dutch oven or stock pot with barely enough water to cover. Cook until soft, then put the apples through your food mill into a big bowl. Sugar to your taste, maybe add cinnamon, and whoosh! you've got sauce! Applesauce freezes beautifully, BTW, and will last in the freezer for a year in freezer containers.(Don't forget to mark your containers with Applesauce - 2012 or something like that.

For a chunkier sauce, then you have to peel, core, and slice the apples. Throw them into the pot, barely cover with water and cook til soft. Mash to your liking just to get some chunks of apple with your sauce.

We do both because Rick likes both. He's a big applesauce person.

I've never canned applesauce because it's easier for me just to freeze it. But you can can apples for pie filling; I think there's a recipe in my Ball Blue Book and will post it for you if you'd like.

Don't forget to make some Applesauce Brownies while you're at it!!

Applesauce Brownies

2 c. flour
2 tsp. baking soda
¾ tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. cloves
¼ tsp. nutmeg
½ c. soft butter
1 c. sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1½ c. applesauce
1 c. chopped nuts
Confectioners’ sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 13 x 9-inch pan. Sift flour with soda, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg and set aside. Cream butter with sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and beat well. Beat in flour mixture just to combine. Stir in applesauce, nuts and raisins. Turn into prepared pan. Bake 20 to 25 minutes. Cool on wire rack, then sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar. Cut into squares.

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Iced Apple Softies (I dry apples in the dehydrator for this recipe....this is a good cookie!)

1-1/2 cups peeled and finely chopped Golden Delicious apple (about 1 large) Grannies work well, too
1/4 cup finely chopped dried apples
1/4 cup apple jelly
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
2 cups all-purpose white flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/8 tsp. salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, slightly softened
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 large egg yolk
Icing:
2/3 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted after measuring if lumpy
1/2 tsp. light corn syrup
2-3 drops vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease several baking sheets or coat with nonstick spray.

In a large saucepan over medium-high heat, stir together the fresh and dried apples, apple jelly, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Cook, stirring frequently, until the jelly melts and the fresh apples are softened, about 5 minutes. Do not burn. Let stand or chill until cooled to room temperature.

In a medium bowl, thoroughly stir together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. In a large bowl, with an electric mixer on medium speed, beat together the butter and brown sugar until well blended and fluffy. Add the egg yolk and beat until mixed. Gently beat in half of the flour mixture. Add the cooled apple mixture until mixed. Stir in the remaining flour mixture until mixed. Let the dough stand for 5 minutes or until firmed up slightly.

Using a 1/8-cup measure or coffee scoop, drop the dough onto the baking sheets, spacing about 2-1/4 inches apart. With a greased hand, pat down the cookie top until flat.

Bake one sheet at a time, in the middle of the oven for 9-11 minutes, or until lightly tinged with brown all over and barely firm when pressed in the centers. Reverse the sheet from front to back half through baking to ensure even browning. Transfer the sheet to a wire rack and let stand until the cookies firm up slightly, 1-2 minutes. Transfer to wire racks. Let stand until completely cooled.

In a small bowl, stir together the sugar, corn syrup vanilla, and enough drops of warm water to yield a thin icing. Spoon the icing into a paper cone or a small pastry bag fitted with a fine writing tip.

Set the wire racks with the cookies over wax paper to catch drips. Drizzle the icing back and forth over the cookies to form thin, decorative lines. Let stand until the icing completely sets, about 30 minutes.

Store in an air-tight container for up to 1 week or freeze for up to 4 months.

Pam's Note: When I'm making icing to drizzle over cookies, I spoon or pour the icing into a plastic bottle that I bought just for this purpose. Remember the old plastic ketchup / mustard bottles you could buy? You still can. Buy one or two and when you need an easily washable container for your icing, it works beautifully. And when you're finished, throw it in the dishwasher.

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Apple Coffee Cake (this is delicious)

3/4 c. shortening
1-1/2 c. sugar
2 eggs
2-1/2 c. sifted flour
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. cinnamon (I use a full teaspoon)
3/4 c. warm coffee
3-4 Golden Delicious apples, pared & diced for 3 cups (I love Granny Smith apples for this recipe)
1/2 c. chopped walnuts (I use pecans)
Mixture of 1/3 c. packed light brown sugar and 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In bowl, cream shortening until light. Gradually beat in sugar. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Sift together flour, soda, salt, and cinnamon. Add to creamed mixture, alternating with the warm coffee. Fold in peeled and diced apples and the chopped nuts.

Transfer to a greased and floured 13 x 9-inch baking pan. Sprinkle with the mixture of light brown sugar and cinnamon over the top. Bake 45 minutes. Cool pan on wire rack. Cut in squares to serve. Makes 15 servings.

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That apple cake sounds delicious! I've definitely got to try it. We've got an orchard with mainly apple and pear trees, so new apple recipes are always welcome. I do applesauce the lazy way - peel, core, slice and throw everything in the microwave with a teaspoon or two of lemon juice and some cinnamon. We like it tart, so I don't bother with sugar. I make baked apples in the microwave, too - core the apples, put a brown sugar cube in the hole, arrange them in an uncovered pyrex bowl and zap them.
We don't can them, though we do dehydrate quite a few.

OMG, Pam, THAT Applesauce Brownie has me drooling

We love to go apple picking in the month of October each year. We have a wonderful apple orchard up north and make a whole day of it. Come home with about 50 pounds. We LOVE apples and I love to bake simple apple pies!!!!!

Some good-looking recipes there!

Before the American Revolution, the most common daily drink in the US was hard cider. You can make it from any unpasteurized apple cider, I've read. And, I hear, from that you can make harder cider by putting it in the freezer and removing the thin ice layer on the top every little while.

Hard cider ("Most") is really popular in southwestern Germany, and this time of year you can sell your apples to the local cider mills for cash and/or credit; the latter will be paid in the form of hard cider or apple juice over the course of the year. There used to be a lot of people who made their own, but that seems to be dying out because it's so much easier to drop your fruit off at a cider mill. Every little town seems to have one or two of them around here, plus there are some huge bottling plants in the county.

Apples keep for such a long time, though....

I used to pick blueberries with my grandmother in the summer. The local university had an experiment going on, testing different crosses of blueberry types. We got up at six o'clock to start picking, and we had to promise not to eat any until we had picked the test bushes clean and turned in those berries for analysis by the graduate students; and then we were allowed to pick all of the other bushes around the edges of the field and keep the blueberries we got from them (that doesn't sound like a lot, but was actually the majority of the bushes). We usually came home with bags and bags full of blueberries, and we froze them. Usually they disappeared from the freezer because my sister and I would sneak in there and grab handfuls to eat frozen. You ever had frozen blueberries? Best thing ever. Better than ice cream, and that's saying a lot because ice cream is pretty dang yummy. I think in terms of getting our money's worth, we were being paid in blueberries about what we'd have earned working at a fast-food place, which is pretty good pay for picking blueberries.

Oh I hope I can try that Applesauce Brownie recipe soon!  My Mom isn't able to have chocolate these days so we've been looking at other recipes.

Callista said:

Apples keep for such a long time, though....

I used to pick blueberries with my grandmother in the summer. The local university had an experiment going on, testing different crosses of blueberry types. We got up at six o'clock to start picking, and we had to promise not to eat any until we had picked the test bushes clean and turned in those berries for analysis by the graduate students; and then we were allowed to pick all of the other bushes around the edges of the field and keep the blueberries we got from them (that doesn't sound like a lot, but was actually the majority of the bushes). We usually came home with bags and bags full of blueberries, and we froze them. Usually they disappeared from the freezer because my sister and I would sneak in there and grab handfuls to eat frozen. You ever had frozen blueberries? Best thing ever. Better than ice cream, and that's saying a lot because ice cream is pretty dang yummy. I think in terms of getting our money's worth, we were being paid in blueberries about what we'd have earned working at a fast-food place, which is pretty good pay for picking blueberries.

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My Mom always freezes some blueberries for baking; but I often buy frozen berries (blueberries, raspberries or blackberries) to put on icecream and cereal...or just by themselves for a snack.  I love frozen grapes too!  My Grandpa used to put some in a bowl with a little sugar, freeze them and then that was a snack in the summer.  It always seemed like such an amazing treat as a kid.