An Apple Adventure at Carter Mountain

The view!!

One of the things that makes a regular appearance on our Fall bucket list is going apple picking.  Four years ago when I was pregnant with Benjamin, my friend Stacey introduced us to Carter Mountain Orchard in Charlottesville and we have been back every year since. 

 

This year the magic date happened to fall on Frances' birthday.  Henry had a soccer game that morning, then we piled into the van, stopped by Burger King for a quick lunch and headed over the mountain. We didn't actually tell the kids where we were going, so we endured quite a lot of "Where are we going?"s but it was a nice change from "Are we there yet?"

When we got to the orchard, we stopped for bathroom breaks and got a map to the trees that were ready to be picked.  We hadn't picked on this part of the orchard, so we had a bit of trouble knowing where to start, but once we found some apples, we found a LOT!  I had given the kids their own bags and hoped they would stop picking when their bags got too heavy. No such luck! They just started putting apples in my bag!

We finally picked enough, and headed over to pay for them.  We also picked up some frozen cider to cool off with and a dozen apple cider donuts (yum!) for the road.  Now I have 21.7 pounds of apples sitting in my kitchen, so I need to figure out what to do with them.  I have plans for apple sauce and a pie.  What are your favorite apple recipes?