An apple a day keeps the doctor away!

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”

Well I hope so anyways because we are all finally healthy. (Smiling big)

This little lady loves apples. On the rare occasion that we go to that fast food place that starts with an M, she orders apples instead of fries. And she usually eats half of my salad. She loves all the healthy foods that we eat. I know…she’s kinda strange. Don’t let that fool you though because she loves candy with a capital L. She will even ask to have it for breakfast. Little man? Not so much. He does like apples but he loves his fries with a capital L and doesn’t care much for salad or candy. I know…he’s kinda strange too.

She is crazy about apples.

It’s  a good thing we all love apples because recently, we went to help my parents with the apple harvesting. And we came home with lots of juicy red apples. Thankfully, it was one of our sunny days so it was a perfect day to spend outside. They had a very good crop of apples on their tree’s this year.

We picked lots and lots of apples.

We picked until the tree’s were bare except for the few we left for the birds.

Little man was excited to go up on the loader on Grandpa’s tractor.

And of course little lady had to have a turn too.

We filled pail after pail…

…and made lots of trips on Grandpa’s golf cart, to haul the trailer full of apples, up to the garage.

  

We took breaks from the work to pretend that we were the drivers…and of course to eat some apples.

Once we picked all the apples, we sorted through all the apples…

… some for apple pies and apple sauce…and of course for sharing…

…the best apples… were kept for eating just as they are.

My job was sorting and it really was hard because many of the apples were perfect huge crisp apples. Perfect for eating. In my sorting I came across the cutest little baby apples so we kept a bucket of them for the little people to eat. In my sorting I found these twin baby apples that shared the same stem. So cute!

The apples that are bruised or damaged in any way, get washed and then cut up and then go into this apple press that my dad built a couple of years ago. It makes pure apple juice.

Once all the apples were put through the press we hauled the 5 gallons pails of juice into the house. We poured the juice through cheese cloth to strain it and then it goes into containers that we freeze.

Of course, then it’s clean up time. Makes for a long day but there is nothing like hard work in the fresh air of autumn. I like that the little people got to take part in all of this and be such helpers. After such a long day of working and playing the fresh air, I thought they would fall asleep on the drive home. Instead they talked and talked about all the fun they had helping.

We came home with lots of red juicy apples for eating and freezing for pies, crisps and sauce and we have lots of fresh apple juice in our freezer.

And of course I had to take some pictures of my happy apple eaters with our apples and pumpkins we got from Grandpa and Grandma.

My husband made an apple pie already…yes, I have a husband that bakes and cooks and I must say he does it wonderfully. I love the example that this sets for the little people. Actually he spoils me rotten but that’s a whole nother post for another day.  Anyways, the pie tasted wonderful made with these apples. Now that the pie is gone, I was wondering what we could make next. I wanted to make something different, that we haven’t already made.

I didn’t have to wonder long, because Jan from Jan’s Sushi Bar posted a wonderful sounding recipe for Apple Upside Down Cake. If you have never been there you must go visit. If you like to cook or bake and like honest funny people, you will love her like I do.  This isn’t a cooking blog per say because she does write about daily life stuff too. She has a heart of gold and a lot of wisdom that you don’t learn in a book. She posts the best recipes and I seriously think she needs to either write a cookbook or have a cooking show along with her husband, Beloved. They both crack me up with their antic’s so between their good humor and mad cooking/baking skills I think they should take it on the road!

We were going to make them right away but need to go to the store first. So, this weekend, my little man, whom pretends to be “Emeril” when we cook and little lady, whom pretends to be “Rachel Ray” when we cook together, are going to make Jan’s cake.

They pretend to be Emeril and Rachel even when their pretending at their play kitchen or pretending to make food out of play dough. They love watching the cooking channel with us. When we watch shows in which a husband and wife are cooking together, they get excited and say “Their just like you guys cooking in the kitchen!”

I bet you can  guess who their favorites are? You’ll never guess who I am when we cook?  I’m  Emeril’s  and Rachel’s mom of course!

Do you have any favorite apple recipe’s that you would like to share?