....tastes delicious! :-)
Apple picking has been a long time fall tradition for me. It was a little bittersweet this year though. I have had a tradition with two of my very dear friends since we were in college where we would have an apple picking weekend in a place I deemed "Cow Town." Really it is in Washington County, NY not too far from Lake George.
Here we are in 2003 at the orchard.
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| Please don't judge my TERRIBLE haircut! I was trying to grow it out after some horrific trims! |
And here we are enjoying some yummy treats from our harvest.
Fast forward to 2009 where we are all married and keeping the tradition alive!
There were even 2 little ones joining in the festivities!
Man I miss those days!
I was absolutely going to make sure that the tradition lived on even if I couldn't be with my favorite apple pickers. I guess this guy will have to do: :-P
Apple picking farms aren't as common in GA as they are in NY so we had to drive an hour and a half to find the first one. It was a bit more commercialized than I am used to, but it had what we were looking for and that's all that mattered!
So we brought our dozens of apples home, scrubbed them clean,
We ended up making:
2 apple crisps (not pictured):
Recipe comes straight off my old Hick's Apple Orchard picking bags:
Peel and slice 4 or 5 large apples into a baking dish. Sprinkle with a crumb topping of 1/2 cup flour, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup butter, 1 tsp cinnamon. Bake at 350 degrees for 1/2 hour. Serve warm with whipped cream.
Note: I often find that the amount of butter in this recipe is too much for the flour, sugar, and cinnamon amounts so I will often double the amounts of sugar, flour, and cinnamon...because really, the crisp is all about the topping!
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apple dumplings (too yummy to remember to take a picture and I highly recommend you giving this recipe a shot!),
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3-4 apple breads (it is a zucchini bread recipe but they give you the option of making it into an apple bread), 3-4 apple cranberry breads (follow the same directions as the apple bread and add some cranberries),
apple sauce,
Recipe: (I will warn you, it's a typical Dr. Bob recipe...Megg you can start cringing now!)
Chop apples, put them in a pot with a little water on the bottom, add sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg (and cranberries if desired; use whole berry canned sauce). Cook until softened enough to mash. Taste and adjust spices.
apple chips. They totally didn't work out for me which is sad because I was excited to give them a try. I think I cut them too thin because everyone else that has tried the recipe has had great success. I will have to give them another go next year.
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| Pre-baking disaster |
And 5-6 bags of apple slices all seasoned up and frozen ready for a fresh apple pie or crisp on those dark, dreary days of February.
Directions:
Cut apples into desired size as you would for a pie or crisp. Measure them out to fit in your baking dish. Put in freezer bag. Add a hearty "splash" of lemon juice (helps apples not to brown in freezing process), cinnamon and sugar. Mix so that all slices are covered. Pop in freezer.
We specifically made some breads for the freezer so that we could enjoy them in the months to come, so we wrapped them in paper towels and put them in freezer bags. We will eventually take them out of the freezer, let them thaw on the counter and then enjoy as we would had they just come out of the oven. Yum!
So that was our apple adventure for 2011. All this apple talk is making me crave some apple bread. It might have to happen soon!
What are you favorite apple recipes??
