And I have plans for every single one of them. We ended up with five 30-pound bags of apples and we packed them full! (It's probably closer to 160 pounds, considering how full the bags are.) We picked three 30-pound bags of Granny Smith apples. Most of them will be turned into apple sauce today, some smooth and some chunky. I'm going to start making sauce while Rick is at church and when he comes back home, he'll help me finish up. We'll be in the kitchen for a while. I want to keep some of the Grannies, too, just to take an apple to work every day for a while. Love my Grannies.
The other two 30-pound bags are a mix of different varieties of pie apples: some Grannies, Winesap, Rome, Golden Delicious, Jonagolds, Ida Reds (a very old apple), etc. There were more varieties, but I don't remember what all they were. I picked ten of each pie variety and stuck five into each of the two bags. We'll weigh out each bag before we take any apples; that way, we'll know how much total weight we have. (Although I did munch on one Granny when we got home.)
I will make apple dumplings (I found some really nice apples for dumplings) and a couple pies later on this week, probably on Thursday while he's bowling. And Rick definitely wants a pan of apple crisp. I've been dehydrating grapes to make raisins every time our store has grapes on sale, so I have raisins to mix with my syrup to poke down through the holes of the apples. Yum!
The Mutsus were done, so I wasn't able to get any. That happened last year, too. Darn it. The chart said they would be binned, but there weren't any.
It's $20 for a 30-pound bag and you have to be able to actually tie the bag shut. So we get the bag fairly full, tie it shut, then pile more apples into the bag. Lift it up to get any air out, and stuff more apples in. As many as we can. Once the bags are tied, they don't care how many apples are in the bag. It just has to be tied shut. Ours are always just barely tied. If we don't tie the bags, the clerks will. And they can't do as good a job as Rick can, so they take apples out of the bag in order to tie them. Rick just does it....then we just stuff.
They have bins and bins, each holding a different apple. There's a sign on each bin, naming the variety and then explaining what each type of apple does best in what, whether it's applesauce or pie or cider or what. Which apples are the best just to eat out of hand.
I didn't know it at the time, but there was a man standing there watching me sort through and count my pie apples. He told his wife to watch me and they stood there for quite a while. Finally he came over to me and asked me what I was planning on doing with the apples. I told him about making applesauce for Rick and that the two bags I was working on would go into pies and dumplings for the freezer. He said he figured that's what I was planning....he said that the best pies are made from a variety of apples and that my pies must be really good. My brother walked over, put his arm around me and said, "She makes great apple pies!" That made me feel good.
I want to make some apple butter this year, too, and will probably do that in the crock pot. And then I'm going to experiment on making apple butter BBQ sauce. I bought some last year (at that store, in fact) and it was delicious; we tried it on chicken, pork, and ham. But I think I can make the BBQ sauce, too.
The other two 30-pound bags are a mix of different varieties of pie apples: some Grannies, Winesap, Rome, Golden Delicious, Jonagolds, Ida Reds (a very old apple), etc. There were more varieties, but I don't remember what all they were. I picked ten of each pie variety and stuck five into each of the two bags. We'll weigh out each bag before we take any apples; that way, we'll know how much total weight we have. (Although I did munch on one Granny when we got home.)
I will make apple dumplings (I found some really nice apples for dumplings) and a couple pies later on this week, probably on Thursday while he's bowling. And Rick definitely wants a pan of apple crisp. I've been dehydrating grapes to make raisins every time our store has grapes on sale, so I have raisins to mix with my syrup to poke down through the holes of the apples. Yum!
The Mutsus were done, so I wasn't able to get any. That happened last year, too. Darn it. The chart said they would be binned, but there weren't any.
It's $20 for a 30-pound bag and you have to be able to actually tie the bag shut. So we get the bag fairly full, tie it shut, then pile more apples into the bag. Lift it up to get any air out, and stuff more apples in. As many as we can. Once the bags are tied, they don't care how many apples are in the bag. It just has to be tied shut. Ours are always just barely tied. If we don't tie the bags, the clerks will. And they can't do as good a job as Rick can, so they take apples out of the bag in order to tie them. Rick just does it....then we just stuff.
They have bins and bins, each holding a different apple. There's a sign on each bin, naming the variety and then explaining what each type of apple does best in what, whether it's applesauce or pie or cider or what. Which apples are the best just to eat out of hand.
I didn't know it at the time, but there was a man standing there watching me sort through and count my pie apples. He told his wife to watch me and they stood there for quite a while. Finally he came over to me and asked me what I was planning on doing with the apples. I told him about making applesauce for Rick and that the two bags I was working on would go into pies and dumplings for the freezer. He said he figured that's what I was planning....he said that the best pies are made from a variety of apples and that my pies must be really good. My brother walked over, put his arm around me and said, "She makes great apple pies!" That made me feel good.
I want to make some apple butter this year, too, and will probably do that in the crock pot. And then I'm going to experiment on making apple butter BBQ sauce. I bought some last year (at that store, in fact) and it was delicious; we tried it on chicken, pork, and ham. But I think I can make the BBQ sauce, too.
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