SNOW WHITE, EVE, AND ME

(October 1, 2011)

Concklin Orchards in Pomona, NY

I love fall.

I love the colors on the trees, the crisp chill in the air, wearing fun scarves, and the fall fruits and vegetables.

Fall marks the return of the pumpkin spice lattes, butternut squash soups, and apple pies. It also means it is time to head out to the orchards and do some apple picking. 

Miriam and I woke up nice and early so we could meet our friends, Stephanie and Josh, at their apartment on the Upper East Side. One necessary aspect to apple picking is having a car in order to drive to the orchard. Luckily, Josh’s parents lent us their car for our adventure.

Last year we ventured to Eastmont Orchards a couple hours away from New York City, where it offered a bunch of different apples ripe for the picking. It also had a big squash garden where we could pick a pumpkin or other weirdly shaped squash.

This year we were limited on time, so we headed to Concklin Orchards in Pomona, NY, about 45 minutes out of the city. The weather wasn’t the most “fruitful” for apple picking—it was chilly and sprinkling—but we put on brave faces and went for it!

At the orchard we were told there were only two types of apples available for picking: Cortland (my fave!) and Red Delicious. Sadness. We had hoped for a variety of apples. We soon discovered there was really only one available, as the Red Delicious were not quite ready—which was slightly disappointing.

We rented an apple picker, which is a long wooden handle with a metal cage on the end. The top of the cage is open and used to pull the apple off the branch and into the cage. It certainly came in handy for those apples too high for us to reach on our own.

Miriam using the apple picker

Apple picker success!

We entertained ourselves by meandering down the different lanes of trees, quickly picking our share of Cortland apples, at which point Josh decided it would be fun to chuck the rotten apples with the apple picker to see how far they would go. That was too tempting for Miriam to pass up so she gave it a try as well—it wasn’t as easy as it looked.

We then hiked it through the mud over to the Red Delicious trees, stopping briefly to glance at the section we thought might contain peach or pear trees, tempted to cross the barrier to get an up-close look…and then we continued on our muddy trek to the other apples.

Red Delicious

Red Delicious trees

We were practically alone amongst the Red Delicious, seeing just a couple other people. Steph immediately grabbed an apple off the tree and took a bite. Miriam did the same, and I stole a bite of her apple and promptly spit it out. I’m not a fan of Red Delicious to begin with, but these apples were not anywhere near being ready to eat. We ended up not picking any, and instead, Miriam and Josh decided to chuck the rotten ones over the fence to see if they could get it to the forest line. Steph gave it a shot, as well, but I just sat back and took pictures. I know my limitations…

After we got our fill of the apple picking, we weighed our bags and paid for the apples we picked (Miriam and I weighed in at around 20lbs). We then hit up the little grocery market they had. We grabbed some freshly picked pears, apple cider, maple pumpkin butter (yummy!), and fresh spices, and then walked around the picked pumpkin patch.

We found this incredibly amusing...

Once everything was paid for, we went to the nearby mall and grabbed lunch, after which we did some browsing in the stores before heading back to the city.

Over the next few weeks it was time to bake!

Here are some of my favorite recipes from this year’s baking. Click on the recipe title for the link to the recipe.

Apple & Pear Crisp

Fresh from the oven

This was a HUGE success last year; this year I tried a variation, which adds 3/4 cup dried cranberries. Both were quite tasty, but I may stick to the original just because the cranberries tend to over power the rest of the flavors. And I went a little heavy on the zest this go-around. That overpowered the apple and pear flavors, as well, so watch yourself if you make this one. Pair it with vanilla ice cream-- yum!

Apple, Pear, and Cranberry Crisp

Brown Butter Creamy Apple Pie meets a standard apple pie (find the recipe links in the paragraph)

I combined two different recipes for this pie, wanting to get a good crust but also wanting a juicy pie. Technically, the streusel is supposed to go on the top of the pie in lieu of a top crust, but I wanted to make a fun top crust while still getting the streusel flavors. I was out of shortening so I used an all-butter crust recipe I found on-line. I took the crust from this recipe and the streusel from this recipe. I keep my apple slices on the larger size-- more like wedges than thinly sliced. I find it keeps it more moist. I mixed the apples with the streusel, layering as I went, and then, in honor of my blog and my love for these animals, cut the top crust into elephants on parade, using my elephant cookie cutter. Very cute and very tasty.

Apple Pie Cookies

Stephanie found this recipe in the linked blog and shared it with me. These were too cute to pass up! They are very tedious to make, but taste great and look amazing if you take the time on them. And the blogger behind Smitten Kitchen has some great tips, too!

Apple and Cheddar Cheese Scones

These are phenomenal, a recipe again from the Smitten Kitchen blog. I find scones often too dry for my tastes, but these were just right for me, what with the moisture from the apples and the cheese. Very tasty. The perfect weekend breakfast.

Last year I also made Apple Butter in my slow cooker. Apple butter has a slightly thicker consistency than apple sauce and is great to spread on toast and waffles, to dip pretzels in—you name it. I sealed them up in jars and gave them out as gifts over the holiday and enjoyed a couple jars myself throughout the year. I really liked it but I felt the recipe I used added too much sugar. Apples are already loaded with sugar, so adding a whole lot more is really unnecessary. If I make apple butter again I may look for a recipe that doesn't use so much sugar. But, hey, don't get me wrong, it was quite tasty!

All in all, the apple picking was a success, even if the orchards weren’t exactly to our liking. We did plenty of baking and the results were delicious!

Happy baking!