Picking [and Cooking] Apples

We've brought the gang to the apple orchard before, but we have never actually gone out and picked our own apples. It's a bit overwhelming to drop close to $40 for apples and we could never quite get over that fact. [The per apple cost is actually fair - but that's just a lot to spend on apples] As part of my company picnic, we were provided bags to do some picking. Score!!! We took four bags and left with probably close to 70 apples.

We decided to take the wagon out to the orchard and were very glad we did. Although the walk wasn't that long, it was - as established in the last post - a million degrees out and we have a lot of small humans who would have wanted to be carried. Add the four bags of apples on the return trip and we would have been a walking disaster. Literally.

Each of the kids got their own bag and we chose a row of trees where we were pretty much on our own. Mike held a short training session on 1) not picking rotting apples off the ground, 2) not picking rotting apples off the trees, and 3) proper apple twisting technique. They had such a fun time searching for the perfect apples and putting them in their bags. On the wagon ride back to the barn, they each picked an apple and sampled their hard work!

The night we got home, Quinn, Dec, and I made apple butter. It was my first time making it and we had to do a little extra reduction work to get it to the right consistency. But it tastes delicious. Today we made homemade applesauce. And had a teachable moment when I discovered a worm in one of the apples. We were all terribly intrigued and disgusted by the discovery. Note: we did not use that apple in the applesauce!

Besides our couple cooking experiments, we've just been enjoying the plain apples. Because if there is something the V family loves to eat any time of year, it's apples.