Apples, Apples, Apples!

Jesse and I made a trip to the Center Grove Apple Orchard today! They have a ton of activities for families and quite the lovely shop. Since Jesse and I didn't want to pay the nearly $8 admission fee to enter The Farmyard, we kept it to the Country Store to sample some tasty tidbits!

They have soooooo much inside the shop to sample and buy. It was awesome! We were simple expecting the usual apples, pumpkins, honey, and anything that can be made from the above but we were in for more! They also had salsa, salad dressings, mustards, coffee, and soups! It was great sampling items that I would never dream of buying... jalapeño jam or mustard anyone?

We left with a medium sized pumpkin, three gourds, onion tomato basil salad dressing, 1/2 a peck of Honeycrisp apples to munch on, and a whole peck of Jonagold apples to use for baking. That's an insane amount of apples!



Why buy a whole peck of apples for two people to bake yummy desserts? Well, that would be because I've found six recipes that I want to test out. Quite the feat for me, but my goal is to attempt to make all six in the next four weeks. Hint: Keep apples in a drawer in your refrigerator with a cup of water to keep them moist and they will stay fresh for 4-6 weeks.



As soon as we got home, I got to work on recipe number one: Apple Crumble Squares. As with all of the recipes I plan to make, I cut the recipe in half. This is a pretty simple dessert to make as long as you are willing to take the time to grate the apples.

Confession: I didn't read the recipe completely through before I decided to put this on my "Must Make List" or before I started preparing to make it. :)

So, grate the apples I did. It is even easier to make if you have a happy helper to measure and mix up the dry ingredients for the crumble part of this treat. It took just under an hour to prepare and bake our apple crumble.



Naturally I couldn't wait to test it out. So I may have cut into the bars a bit too early, which is shown by the bars that aren't cut very well. Maybe my next serving will taste better when it has had more time to cool. But my initial reaction is that it's not the greatest apple treat I've ever tasted. After my first bar, I'll grade it at a B-. If I decide to improve its marks later, I'll let you know! ;)

An added bonus to having some dessert around our place is that while the bars were baking our apartment was filled with a glorious smell! No candles needed around here in the next few weeks!