Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. Eleanor Roosevelt

Friday, September 30, 2011

Fall Harvest

What does fall mean to you? Cooler weather? Sweaters? Halloween? Fall fruit?
All these things are what I think of as fall approaches.

In my neck of the woods, we also have a celebration commemorating Fall, Johnny Appleseed Day. This is the oldest harvest celebration in the state. We started this apple festival back in 1888. There is some speculation about Johnny Appleseed even getting this far west, but us hicks will celebrate anything and this weekend it's going to be all about apples.

I've already started with my own 1/2 bushel of Gala's. I went to a local family farm who have been growing apples for the past 9o years in Paradise. These days they've even started growing peaches in all varieties. And for more trivia, Paradise is the last area to produce peaches in the year. So if you still need a taste of peach in your mouth, come on up to Paradise.
I figured with my half bushel, I'd make apple pancakes, applesauce, apple pie, apple cake, apple crisp, baked apples, eat a few naked apples and maybe even cover a few in caramel.

You thought my half bushel looks like a lot, check this out.
This box holds 18 boxes of 100 apples each. So all together this big box can make over a 1000 apple pies. Pretty impressive!
Not only do they look pretty, you should smell them. There was a scent of apples in the air that was better than any candle you can buy.

So where ever you are, I'd like to be the first to say, "Happy Johnny Appleseed Day". Have a great weekend and eat an apple or two to celebrate.

Take care, Brandie

6 comments:

sunny said...

I have never celebrated Johnny Appleseed Day before, so thanks for cluing me in! My dsd and dgd were here the other night, and I gave them some homemade applesauce and they thought they were in heaven! It's time to make more!

Carrie P. said...

Happy Johnny Appleseed day to you too.
I love gala apples. I have been seeing more apples at the farmers market lately.

Wilma Lee said...

I had purchased 2 pecks of apples at Alta Pass Orchard on the Parkway, and yesterday canned 10 pints of applesauce. I used gala and another sweeet apple as I don't like to add sugar, that way it is 0 weight watchers points. 20 apples cooked down into 5 pints, so I did 2 batches. I still have some left so I think some small cobblers might be in the making for today.

Jean(ie) said...

Yay for apples!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anita said...

Mmmmm, we love apples! A local chocolate shop has what they call an Apple Pie Apple. It's a granny smith that they dip in caramel, then in white chocolate then roll in cinnamon sugar. It's to die for, the perfect combination of tart, sweet and spice.

M and M plus 3 said...

Oh, the apples look so good. I only wished we had an orchard closer to us. Someday our trees will be ready to bear. Our fav apples to dip into caramel is Honey Crisp, just to eat plain are Fuji's.