2024, Family, Food, Nature, Uncategorized

No Bad Apples Here!

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YA and I had one of “traditional” weekends.   We spent a day at the Zoo (new zoo), mostly to see the baby tigers.  Two Amur tigers were born in the end of May, one little girl and one little boy.  They’ve been out on exhibit for three weeks and are a cute as can be.  We started there, at Tiger Lair and after walking through all the rest of the zoo, we circled back and watched the babies some more.   Packed our own lunch and ate outside in the sunshine.  Lovely.

In what is our most enduring tradition, we headed out to pick apples as well.  I picked apples even before YA was born; she was three when she went for the first time.  We’ve done this almost every since then.  No apples picking in 2019 when she broke her foot and had survey for plates and pins.  And no apples in 2020 when most of the orchards didn’t open for ‘Pick Your Own’.  Even her first year at University of Wisconsin Eau Claire we did apples.  She called me the end of September and asked if I could come visit the next weekend and could we find a place to pick apples.  No problem!

So now we have a peck of Connell Red, half peck of Honeycrisp and half peck of Kinder Krisp.  Since I refused to go down the pumpkin spice trail, which is rampant at this time of year – time to ramp up apple recipes.  I’ve already made an Apple Manchego salad – apples and Manchego cheese sliced into matchsticks, tossed with a bit of lemon, olive oil and chives.  The crumble topping for Apple Crisp is done as well – two recipes of it – in the fridge for use in the next week or so.

I have some really cute molds to make hand pies.  The pie crust is thawing in the fridge.  If I’m remembering correctly, one package of pie crust should make six hand pies.  Just the right number for the two of us.  Mixed Berry & Apple bars are in the running, although the recipe doesn’t use too much apple.  I found two savory dishes.  The first is a Brussel sprouts apple salad with a citrus maple vinaigrette and the second is an apple cabbage sausage back (using vegetarian sausages).  Not sure if I’ll be able to tempt YA with Brussels sprouts, but I might try.   We’ll probably end up freezing some of this stuff, otherwise we’ll both start looking like apples ourselves!!

Any favorite apple recipes?  Or have you succumbed to pumpkin spice this year?

26 thoughts on “No Bad Apples Here!”

  3. It’s been so warm up until this week I haven’t really made the mental shift from summer, and the recipes we prefer in summer, to fall. We made soup last night for the first time in months. Apples and squash have not been on my mind. I have not been aware of any pumpkin spice, though since I’ve never succumbed it’s not on my radar.
    Apple-wise my preference is for later apples like haralson and prairie spy if I can find them.

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  4. There is a German Apple Pancake recipe that I’ve started thinking of, since I just thawed the last jar of last year’s applesauce. One big pancake in a large skillet, baked in the oven – it puffs up, but calms down fairly quickly… Then spoon on the fruit compote, fold over like an omelet. Top with more of the compote sauce…

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  6. Husband likes Haralson and Courtland apples if they are available. I haven’t baked with apples for a while, but one if my favorites is a a Normady apple tart with a creamy filling flavored with Calvados. I need to figure out how to use up a boatload of pears I have in the freezer from last year, probably in crumble or kuchen.

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  8. Roasted pork tenderloin with apples and onions.

    I’m getting more into apple cider, especially mixed with brandy. Found a tasty recipe last year, can’t recall it at the moment, but I’ll certainly make a few after we get up to our local orchard and buy some.

    Chris in Owatonna

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  9. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    I love apples and cider, which is one reason that I love Autumn so much. One of my favorites is a recipe I never make because it is too big–Apple Dumplings. Grandma used to make large pans of those for a family gathering. They were delicious!

    Mine? Apple Crisp (with raisins and walnuts in the crisp and Breyer’s Vanilla Bean ice Cream.
    Apple pie–I like the combo of Haralson and McIntosh apples for a really good pie.
    Pork chops and fried apples.

    Then there is always a polished apple to eat under the tree. My neighbors have a Haralson tree full of red apples and a Golden Apple tree so loaded that there are sticks supporting the branches.

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  10. I have a wonderful book whose author grew up next to an apple orchard… – Apples: a Country Garden Cookbook – with nothing but apple recipes & great photos…
    https://poshmark.com/listing/APPLES-A-COUNTRY-GARDEN-COOKBOOK-by-Christopher-Idone-630396971fd5e3d916afb16a?gclid=b36d9656a7e11dca1609f0a288b9c389&gclsrc=3p.ds&utm_source=bdm&campaign_id=412848048&utm_campaign=412848048&ad_partner=bing&msclkid=b36d9656a7e11dca1609f0a288b9c389

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      1. I have a couple of Apple cookbooks, two of which came from Apple orchards over the years. But I’ll always take a look at another one so I have both the Apple and Pear cookbooks requested from in Library loan. Thanks.

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