Apple Picking

It's funny that I lived in Washington so many years and never went apple picking.  While Washington is known for it's apples I never heard about any orchards where you can go and pick your own apples.  But here in Japan I got to pick apples for the first time.

Over the weekend some friends came and picked us up and drove us to go apple picking.  It was so nice of them, two different people had to come with their vans to bring us.  I'm grateful.  

The obligatory kids photo.

Bob and I were there too.

The way this place worked was you paid 500 yen to enter and then you get to eat as many apples as you wanted.  Once finished  they weigh any apples you want to bring home and then you pay for those as well.  I think we brought home about $25 worth of apples.  They were very similarly priced to the ones at the store, but these were more fresh, and it was fun.

While some things are hard about where we live, I do love the friends we've made here.

We all left stuffed completely full of apples.  At home we already had caramel apples, and next we are going to make an apple crisp.

Apple Cider Squeeze

Last weekend we went with my parents to a fall festival where we got to make our own cider.  They were practically giving these pumkins away so we got another one.   We now have four.  It was kind of hard to choose one together as a family so I just picked.  I almost broke down and let them each pick their own.  But then I knew they would each want to carve their own pumkin and that would have taken hours.

Leon was munching on an apple that was supposed to be made into cider.

We had to wait a bit for our turn but when it came I thought it was worth it.

The kids especially loved throwing the apples in to be smashed up.

Bob made turning the wheel way easier than it actually was.  I kept getting it stuck on the hard green apples.  Everyone had to wait while I wound it back and tried again.

Next we had to smush the apple pieces by turning the top.

And lastly pouring the apple cider into the containers.

It was amazing how many apples it takes to fill up one gallon.  That night we all enjoyed a warm cup of cider while watching Hotel Transylvania. 

How to Can Apples

For my first time canning anything I would say it went pretty well.  I made a couple mistakes one being the baby was awake.  But all in all I think it went well.  My kitchen was a sticky disaster afterward but Bob and I got it all cleaned up.  There might be better ways to can but here are simple step by step directions on how to can apples in a light syrup.  Perfect for pies, cobblers, or just eating plain.

Materials needed:
Jars and lids
giant pot or canner
apple slicer
jar lifter
lid tightener
funnel
air bubble getter/lid lifter
Bob wanted me to say that the first step in canning is to get your mother/mother-in-law to buy all supplies like we did :-).

1) Sanitize and heat up your jars and lids.  I boiled mine but the dishwasher would have been a much easier way.  It is important that you keep them warm right up until you use them or they might break.






 2) Cut and peel your apples.  I borrowed an apple peeler corer slicer and it save me tons of time.  I did about 15# of apples and it filled 6 jars.

 3) Blanch apples.  Boil them in a light syrup for one minute.  I used water and sugar.  I think I did six cups water for every one cup of sugar.

 4) Use a funnel to put the apples into hot jars.

 5) Fill the jars with the same syrup the apples boiled in.  Get the air bubbles out with this tool.  Then fill them up again with the syrup.  Make sure you fill it up within a half inch of the top.

 6) Tighten the lids on.

 7) Boil the jars in large pot for 20 minutes.  It took a long time for us to get the water to boil in the giant pot.

Enjoy!  I haven't eaten any of the apples we canned yet but I am pretty sure they are going to be good.

Apples!

Apples Apples Apples!  I feel like I'm up to my ears in apples and I love it!  On Saturday I bought a 25# box of apples from "The fruit Lady".  I used quotes because I'm not sure who she is.  The whole thing could be a little shady (j/k).  I never saw her face or learned her name and only had contact with her through email and one short phone call.  I dropped my money in a box and went around back to pick up my large cardboard box of apples.  I didn't see a soul.  These must be some kind of delicious black market apples or something. ;-)

Seriously though, I dehydrated apples, canned apples (which I might do a tutorial on), made and apple crisp and just plain ate the apples.  We still have a few left.  This all seems very fall-esk.

 Just talking about it makes me want to get some more apple crisp!  Yum!