Fall is definitely here. The vegetable garden is pretty well done for the year and the stone fruit trees are losing their leaves. However, the harvest continues. Currently it is apples. The trees are still small and thanks to getting a better job done with respect to thinning the fruit, there have been a lot of very large apples this year. A few days ago, after bringing in the latest batch from the garden, it was time to consolidate with what had accumulated in the fridge. A couple dozen nice sized eating apples were picked out for snacking and went back to the fridge for the future.
Then there were the remainder. I was planning on making an apple pie. But this was a bit more than one pie. The three rows on the right in the photo are Granny Smith apples. The huge ones in the middle are Mutsu. The remainder are an assortment — mostly ones that were bruised, bird pecked or not very pretty for eating out of hand.
After a marathon session of peeling, coring and slicing, I had three large bowls overflowing with apple slices. It was then I discovered that the shopping list my last Costco trip should have included all purpose flour. I had only enough flour for at most three pies. Things went downhill from that point. The bowls with the apple slices and pie dough went into the fridge until I could get to the grocery store the next morning.
With the additional flour on hand, I lined up the six available pie plans, rolled out the crusts and filled them with the apples. For most, I used a streusel topping. (It is easier and faster than making a top crust.) When all the pie pans were full, there was still the better part of one of the bowls left with apple slices. I found a couple of other pans and made more streusel for two apple crisps.
The largest pie pan went into the oven for desert later that day. The rest received multiple layers of plastic wrap and went into the freezer. It appears we will be having a lot of apple pies in the coming weeks.
Next up — what to do with all the pears.