Another Day Out At Moondance (Homestead) Apple Orchard

We went back to Shelia and Jerry’s orchard this last weekend late Sunday afternoon for another bushel of apples. The wind had cleaned a lot of apples off of the trees, and I had to be careful not to lose my footing, but as always it was a great time.

Nearly all of the apples we got were Regent.  Not anywhere near as large as Fireside apples, but there are a lot of them, and did not have the insect issues we ran into with a lot of the Firesides this year.  They are really a nice apple, being firm, sweet and tart all at the same time.  I grew up with a Regent apple tree in our yard and the first bite brought back happy memories.  Has been a long time since I had eaten a Regent apple.

Many of the Regent apples are just the perfect size for the baby.  Too big for her to get too much of a bite out of it, but small enough that she can get her teeth through the skin.  The whole time we were there she worked on these apples, and made fair progress with no ill effects.

Shelia and Jerry were close to closing things up when we got there, and traffic had slowed down enough that Shelia hung out with us and helped with the windfall gathering.  She also introduced me to Honeygold Apples.  Had never had one before.  Not as crisp of a texture, but really sweet with a taste that seems a cross of an apple and a pear.   I gathered about a dozen windfalls of those, and Shelia gave us a bag of perfect ones to try as just fresh eating apples.  The windfalls ended up with the Regent apples in the apple sauce.  The perfect Honeygold apples were all eaten by us in two days.  We are up to 24 quarts of apple sauce and I would like to do at least one, and maybe 2 or three more batches.  With all these girls in the house, I really cannot imagine making too much.

We are going to need to get even more creative on shelf space.  Running out here.  <grin>

 

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One Response to Another Day Out At Moondance (Homestead) Apple Orchard

  1. Gua says:

    Dayna – Yes, I did. I found that some pumpkins were a real trial to peel so, raotsing not only added to it’s flavour, it made it much easier to prepare.I checked the pumpkin while it roasted for tenderness. Once done, maybe a little softer than al dente9, I removed it.As soon as it was cool enough to maneuver, I discarded the skins and roughly chopped what I had before dropping it into the risotto at the very end.Note that there are recipes that will call for peeled, cubed pumpkin to be added at the beginning once the leeks have softened. This will leave a firmer pumpkin to cook along with the rice.I guess it depends what you want your end texture to be.