Apples, Apples, Apples!

Every Autumn, we go a little Apple Crazy at The Homestead. How can we not? September and October in New England are all about apples! There are so many apple farms within a quick, easy drive of our home, and apples are plentiful, fresh, delicious and cheap this time of year. We make the most of apple harvest time by getting our hands on as many apples as we can, to can and freeze for thewinter months. In addition to all the Pick-Your-Own apple we get, we are also lucky enough to have a farm near to us which sells bags of “seconds”… less than perfect apples, which are still perfectly fine for cooking. “Seconds” are extra cheap… generally about half the price of perfect apples. Last week, we got a whole bushel of “seconds” which we turned into 9 ½ quarts of applesauce, 3 pints of apple butter, some apple compote and an apple cobbler!

Today… the children and I ended up at three different farms, and came home with a TON of apples… two pecks from our homeschool group’s apple picking field trip, a ½ peck bag we got when we picked up our farm share from another farm, and then another bushel of seconds from our favorite “seconds” farm.  Most of the fresh-picked ones will be eaten fresh, and then there will be pie, more applesauce, more apple butter, and who knows what else!

So today we are utterly surrounded by apples, in the fridge and on nearly every surface of our kitchen! It’s hard to believe that in just a week or two, the apples will be all picked, and apple season will be just a memory.