Apple Picking and the Bounty of Our Harvest

After picking peaches at a local orchard in August we decided it would be fun to go back and pick apples as well.  So bright and early on a Saturday in late September Matt's parents and sister as well as my younger sister set out with the girls and I in a caravan to do just that.  It was pleasantly cool that morning, perfect weather to get you excited for fall and all the tasty things you can make with apples.

 The picking patrol gets started with a vengeance!

 Just like when we picked peaches, the apples were just the right height for the girls to be able to join in on the picking.

 That doesn't mean they didn't get some help reaching some of the higher spots, too.

Stacey and Katie reaching for a particularly enticing looking apple.

 "What's gonna work?  Teamwork!"

 Claire and Aunt Amber

 Melanie and Gramps

The girls with our haul.

 Like I said before, the weather was perfect for picking and lulling you under the spell of fall with thoughts of apple crisp, apple pie, apple butter, apple sauce, caramel apples, cinnamon spiced apples, apple chips... so needless to say we got a bit carried away.  14 bushel boxes carried away to be exact.  Seven each of Jonathan and Jonagold apples.  Over 200 pounds of apples.  Whew!  My in-laws have done most of the processing of the apples, but I've gone over and helped with a couple recipes as well as making a few batches of different kinds of applesauce on my own at home and helping a friend make some pie filling.  And I must say, when you have that many apples to work with, an apple corer/slicer/peeler is your best friend!   I should know, I did my first batch of applesauce by myself just using the hand peeler I had.  With the girls running around/needing my attention it took me over three hours to get 12 pounds of apples ready to make applesauce. I quickly decided I wasn't going to do that again and waited almost two weeks for Bed, Bath and Beyond to get more of those handy 3-in-1 gadgets in before I tried any more apple processing.

Claire really enjoyed the apples, which she called "balls" for quite a while until she added the word apple to her vocabulary a couple weeks ago.  Many of the apples at our house became applesauce simply due to the fact that Claire liked to play with them and transfer them from box to box, thus bruising them and making them less pretty than I would have liked for pie fillings.

Both girls really enjoyed getting to help peel the apples.  Here Melanie is demonstrating how she uses her "strong muscles!" to turn the peeler.

Claire actually cried when I told her we were done peeling apples.  She tried to bring me more from the other room so we could keep going!

The fruits of our canning labors

(apples and other produce combined)

3 kinds of salsa (we did 5 kinds total), 2 kinds of dill pickles, cinnamon and unsweetened applesauce (I also did some rosy applesauce that's in bags in the freezer as well as some sour cherry applesauce), apple pie filling, peach jelly, canned peaches, peach jam (my personal favorite), peach butter, sandhill plum jam, blackberry jelly and pepper jelly.

This only includes the stuff I actually helped with. My in-laws have done wwaaaayyy more than is pictured here.  And our canning efforts are not done quite yet.  We picked pears a couple weeks ago and I think they are destined to be canned as well, and possibly made into pear butter.  Waiting for directions from my father-in-law on that one.  It's been a lot of work, but we're already enjoying the fruits of our labors.

 Claire's preferred method of eating salsa

Freshly canned salsa really is best!

And for those of you wondering just how I always get my girls to behave while I do all this stuff in the kitchen (which believe me, they don't!), aside from letting them help from time to time or relying on the help of family to keep them busy, here are a few distractions that work for us:

 Playing with random kitchen utensils/food scraps from whatever I'm working on (all mom-approved items, of course.  No knife juggling going on here.)

 Claire transferred the ends of the cucumbers back and forth from that measuring bowl to the canning funnel for a good 20 minutes.  If I remember correctly Melanie would "cook" with the cucumber scraps and then give them back to Claire to play with some more.  The magnetic lid grabber and can tongs are favorite toys as well.

 Playing drums on top of the *cooled* jars was an activity they both enjoyed.

 Packing the jars back into their boxes was a helpful chore they were both eager to get in on.

(and unpacking, and packing again...)

They were very proud of their "participation" in the jelly making process.

Melanie wanted her picture taken with the jelly, so needless to say Claire wanted in on the picture too.

(This is all blackberry, sandhill plum and pepper jelly, by the way)

And when all else fails, there's always videos on PBSkids.com for when mom really wants to get something done without four extra hands wanting to help.