Our Apple Annie's Haul, 2015

Near the end of August, our family took our (almost) annual trip to Apple Annie's Orchard and Produce Garden. I say "almost" because we didn't make it in 2014 (to our sorrow!). Two years before, we had a super-sized Apple Annie's trip, that involved not just picking produce and fruit, but taking a hayride, running a corn maze, and visiting a pumpkin patch as well! It was very fun...and apparently so exhausting that it caused us to skip the orchard altogether for a year. But this year, we would not be denied our trip!

We decided to visit Apple Annie's in late August this year, to avoid the busier fall season (although we definitely haven't ruled out another trip to Apple Annie's pumpkin patch in the future). In addition, we wanted to get some peaches and pears this year, which are usually only available before Labor Day. I would come to regret getting the peaches (more on that later), but the orchard had Bartlett pears available this year, which was definitely worth it. Their fresh-picked Bartletts are some of the best pears I have ever tasted.

The misters were already hard at work when we arrived!

As usual, though, our first stop was at the produce garden. We wanted to get our vegetable picking done before it got too hot!

Both the vegetable garden and the orchard have large stores, filled with a variety of delicious canned items. Syrups, jams, jellies, salsas, barbecue sauces, and more were all on hand to tempt us and to lighten our wallets.

This year, I planned on canning a little salsa...but not too much, as we had a fair amount left at home. So after getting the salsa ingredients, I encouraged the family to get creative and pick whatever they wanted! It would be fun to use the fresh-picked vegetables to make some delicious dinners, and it would encourage me (and hopefully all of us) to try some new things out.

We ended up with a pretty good haul, particularly with the cucumbers. My daughters love cucumbers for snacking, and they also wanted to try and make some homemade pickles too. We also got plenty of green beans, a variety of bell and chile peppers, a few eggplants, lots of zucchini and yellow squash, and even some black-eyed peas (which sadly spoiled before I could use them). Of course, we also piled lots of tomatoes into our wheelbarrow as well...both red and green tomatoes! The only disappointment was that there were no spaghetti squash grown this year. Our girls discovered spaghetti squash on our last Apple Annie's trip, and now it is one of their favorites. Oh well, hopefully they will be growing some next time we visit.

 

Even though the day started out hot, a bunch of storm clouds rolled in by late morning. It was really amazing (if a tad ominous) to see the cloudburst form several miles away, then slowly crawl towards us as we were busy picking produce.

After loading all our vegetables (and some canned goods) into the car, we headed over to the orchards to get our fruit. We had lunch first; it is always a treat to eat grilled hamburgers and the pie a la mode for dessert! Then it was time to get peaches, pears, and apples.

Sadly, my camera decided to die at about this point, so I don't have a lot of pictures. But we didn't get a ton of fruit; about a bucket each of peaches and pears, and two buckets of apples. The types of apples available were Jonathan apples and Golden Delicious apples, so we got one bucket of each.

Here's what the trunk of our car looked like after all our picking was done:

After getting home, all the fresh-picked goodies made our kitchen a little cramped.

Here's all the goodies we couldn't resist at the country store. Three different salsas, blueberry syrup, jam, honey mustard...mmmmmm....all so delicious!

I was up late that night putting a lot of those vegetables to good use. First, I made dinner...

Fried green tomatoes, squash gratin, and cooked green beans. I'd never tried to make fried green tomatoes before, but I thought they were incredibly delicious. I will definitely plan on making them again next time we go to Apple Annie's.

Fresh-from-the-vine tomatoes makes the best homemade salsa (here's how I make it, in case you care); unfortunately, it also means you can't wait too long after picking the tomatoes to get started. In the time it took us to load up our car and drive home, I'd already lost several tomatoes! Some already had a little mold on them; others were squished underneath other tomatoes. So I worked into the wee hours, canning my salsa for the year:

I only made a single batch this time. I still had lots left over from last year's canning. Plus, Nathan has lately enjoyed buying and trying out unique salsas from stores, which has slowed down our consumption of the home-made stuff. I'm a little worried that this year's batch was too tomato-y; hopefully it will still suffice for the future!

The bounty lasted us into the next couple of weeks (as of this writing, I still have a few peaches and apples waiting to eat in our refrigerator!). Here are a few other things I made:

Chocolate zucchini bread. It was delicious; very moist and flavorful. I gave some away, and froze another loaf.

Peach salsa. I'd never canned any before, so decided to give it a try this year. I bet it will taste delicious on chicken or fish later on.

Canned peaches. I only did a few cans; I always forget how tiresome canning peaches is! I hate blanching/peeling the peaches; it takes forever and never works as well as it's supposed to. Plus, the peaches at Apple Annie's are fairly expensive. I know I say this every time I buy peaches from them, but I am definitely done buying peaches at the orchard! Next time I want to can peaches (whenever that is; they aren't my family's favorite), I will probably buy them in bulk at the store in a crate when they're on sale.

Eggplant Parmesan. Now that's what I'm talking about! I love this dish, but until now, I've had to order it when we dine out, because the family has been afraid of it. But those times are now past! I bought three small eggplant and finally "subjected" my family to this dish. And they ended up liking it after all...hooray! I can't wait to make it again.

Spiced ginger pear preserves. I made this once last year, then gave it all away as gifts. But this year, I'm eating it for myself! Yum yum; it is delicious!

Canned pears. Our family, oddly enough, prefers canned pears to canned peaches. That said, I wish I'd been able to can a little more of them. Maybe next time!

We mostly ate our apples fresh; they are a favorite in my daughters' school lunches. But this year, we tried out something new with the apples:

We dehydrated lots of them! Our generous next-door neighbor has a dehydrator, and she has dehydrated apples for years for her family. I thought I would give it a go this year.

I also borrowed her apple peeler/corer to speed things up. It made prepping the apples fast and fun! The girls all took a turn coring apples, and they helped gobble up lots of the leftover apple peel.

We ended up doing three batches of apples in the dehydrator. About half the dehydrated apples were the Golden Delicious apples, and half were Jonathan apples. I added cinnamon to most of them, because cinnamon and apples go together like mac and cheese...or peanut butter and jelly!

The girls absolutely loved the dehydrated apples. I will definitely try this again someday!


As you can probably see from the pictures, I don't can very large amounts of anything. Deep inside, I desperately want to be an awesome pioneer woman, who cans 80 quarts of fruit in one sitting! I still have a few friends who do that, in fact! As I've gotten busier, though, I've found less and less time to do any canning. In fact, this is the most canning I've done in more than a year. I miss the days when I canned more in one day. But lately, we haven't been eating as much of our canned food either (sadly!), so I am hesitant to do too much more than what I'm already doing.

I suppose I also am too much of an "experimenter" to do too much of any one food item...as you can see, I like to try out new recipes. However, I don't think I am done canning yet for the year. I am definitely doing applesauce in the next month or so; my kids wouldn't forgive me if I left that out of our rotation! I also want to try canning some more plums (I did a few jars a few years back, and the girls have always begged me for more!), and possibly some more apricots or another type of jam. That's all in the future, though...for now, I'm grateful for Apple Annie's to get me in the "harvest season" mood that kick-started my canning. Here's hoping I get more done by the end of the year!