Apples, apples, and more apples

Last year I learned that when it really feels like fall and you want to go apple picking...it's the end of the season. So this year, we started early. At the beginning of September Zack and I went and picked a half bushel of Gala apples. We're just finishing our last few.

Gala's are great eating apples but the good baking apples weren't ready to be picked quite yet. Zack and I headed back to the orchard last week and this time we brought our friends!

Zack, Evan, and Kelly with the baskets. These guys were worn out...we did a lot of walking that morning!

Zack and Evan

Kelly

With the help of my wonderful friend Cathy (Kelly's mom), I canned most of this second batch of apples. We now have fifteen pints of yummy, natural applesauce. It was surprisingly easy...thanks to the fact that she has this amazing (and low tech) contraption that does all of the work! We used our apple corers to section the apples, boiled them, and placed them in the funnel on top. Then you just turn the handle (over and over and over) and this device separates the skin and any stray seeds (or other yucky parts) from the good stuff! Once the first batch of applesauce was made, Cathy showed me the magic of canning. So many people I know here in Lebanon can some sort of fruit or vegetable that this is something I've wanted to learn how to do for several years. I couldn't have asked for a better teacher!

I think we'll have to make one more trip to the orchard next week. We've run out of apples and we haven't gotten a chance to make any sweets! What is fall without an apple pie...or maybe some crisp...or bread...or...yeah, we're definitely headed back!