Apple Picking and Fall Stuff

Seeing as how it looks like I am going apple picking again this weekend, I thought maybe I would share a bit about my apple picking adventures two weeks ago. A few friends and I headed to the lovely town of Hobart, IN for a day of apple donuts, apple cider, apples picking, pumpkins and other fall-type things.
The colors on the trees were beautiful!
M had to climb way into the middle of the trees to gather MacIntosh apples as her hubby was adamant about ONLY wanting MacIntosh!
The rest of us asked the mighty T-man to climb the trees for the best apples for us.
Baby brother happily acted as our official taste tester for the day. The nice thing about this place was that you could just pick what you wanted and then paid by weight for what you picked. I've been to other places where you have to pay ahead of time for huge bags and then deal with splitting things up at the end. This was much better for a group.

Of course, I picked more apples than I had intended to pick so I had to figure out what to do with them all. This past weekend I was up at my parent's house and on the advice of some friends I made a big batch of applesauce.
First, peel and chop a bunch of apples.
Put them in a pot with water, sugar and cinnamon (a little nutmeg is nice too) and simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the apples are soft.

Let them cool down just a bit and then mash them up with a fork or a potato masher. I enjoyed a small bowl immediately while it was still warm and it was tasty! The rest went in the fridge and I'm still enjoying it this week. I have always love applesauce but the nice thing about homemade is that you can make it a little chunkier and can leave pieces that still resemble apples. And, it makes the house smell incredible!


Can I tell you about a few things that I love in my parents' house? One of the best things in their kitchen is this: It sits in the middle and acts as a great work space. It's a giant butcher block. There are cutting boards that come out of the sides of it but the whole thing is a cutting board. You can cut on it, put hot things on it, roll out cookies, whatever. I really don't remember a house of ours where this was not somewhere. The current green legs are not the original legs though. It's first set of legs were the same height but were very basic and square. Then, in one house my mom decided to use this as a small coffee table and so the legs got cut down very short. Then they moved again and didn't have a place for it as a coffee table but still wanted to use it. So, off with the old legs and on with these! It's pretty much indestructible so I fully anticipate that I will be the owner of it someday!
You know what else I like? My mom has about a million dishes in her house! This is one closet filled with various dish sets and serving pieces. Guess what? It's not the only place in the house where dishes are hiding!