A Bushel and a Peck

Two weeks ago, the kiddos and I visited a 'pick your own' apple orchard. I gave each of the kiddos a recyclable bag with the instruction that they could fill it with apples. Finding a row of Cox's Orange Pippin apples that were ripe and sizable, Bop abandoned her bag in favor of a much larger wheelbarrow and proceeded to fill it. The wheelbarrow was heaped with a variety of apples before I knew what had happened! We left the farm with nearly 40 pounds of apples, and I cooked, baked, stewed and sauced the lot of them over the course of the weekend. I discovered that a crock pot produces lovely apple sauce that required no food mill; I used my immersion blender to good ends. We've also enjoyed apple butter, breads, muffins, cakes and stewed apples (with cranberries) as a sauce for pork. I was able to run through our bounty without having any of the apples go bad, and surprisingly the kiddos aren't sick of them yet!