Fall has fallen. Is that a saying? When it becomes Spring, you hear people saying “Spring Has Sprung” all over. Whether it is a saying or not (which we all know it isn’t 😉 ), I feel as if it has. The air is crisp and cool in the mornings and then it warms up to the mid – high 70s in the afternoon. The perfect weather. The perfect season. The skies are clear blue, no clouds in sight. Ahhhh…… So when my MIL asked yesterday if I wanted to go pick apples with her and Hannah, of course I jumped at the opportunity. What a “fally” thing to do! I love the pumkin patch, but I have never done the apple orchard before. I could barely contain myself for the next 24 hours.

We headed out around 9:30 this morning. We had plans on going to Lynd’s Fruit Farm, but ended up somewhere else that was much closer. It was also called Lynd’s, but apparently is owned by the brother of the guy who owns the one we intended on going to. I don’t care, I got to pick apples! We picked Winesap, Jonathan and Cortland apples. We also purchased some Honey Crisp inside, but weren’t able to pick those. They were delicious!! Very crisp (like their name) and sweet! I also came home with some Cashew Brittle….oh boy…..that stuff is GOOD!! It has 3 ingredients: Butter, Sugar & Cashews. You can bet that I will be making some of this for Christmas this year. Hannah had a blast picking apples with Grandma and I had fun picking and taking pictures.

Hannah went back to Grandma’s to make caramel apples and I came home to make some applesauce. I had seen that Stephanie over at A Year of Crockpotting had made crock pot applesauce earlier in the week and that inspired me to make mine that way too. I modified her recipe to be close to what my Grandma makes. Here is the recipe that I ended up using:

Crock Pot Applesauce

**Inspired by Stephanie at A Year of Crock Potting

8 med-large apples
6 TBSP lemon juice or the juice of 2 lemons
½ cup water
¼ cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp nutmeg

1. Peel & core apples. Slice into quarters.
2. Place in crockpot and add lemon juice & water; toss apples with this mixture, it will keep
the apples from turning brown.
3. Add remaining ingredients and cook on low for 6-8 hours. (I ended up only doing 5 hours)
4. Stir and apples will basically fall apart. If you want it really smooth, you may need to put it
in a blender, but I think even a fork may work.

I didn’t get any pictures of it when it was finished b/c I gave some to my neighbor (she was giggling when she found out I was making applesauce from scratch; she asked why I would do that when I could buy it at the store??? LOL). I put the rest in some small containers in the fridge. This probably serves 6-8. If you want more, like I do, double or triple the recipe. I used a 4 qt crock pot and had plenty of room for more. I plan on making a significant amount over the next week now that I know the spices are right where I want them.

Here are some pictures of the apples that I still have left:

Some pictures of Hannah & Grandma picking apples:

It was a beautiful way to kick off the fall season. On tap this coming week, more applesauce, apple crisp and maybe some Sour Cream Apple Cake, recipe by Karina from Karina’s Kitchen.