This past Saturday was a super special day! Our family declared it “Autumn Harvest Day” and moms, dads, aunts, uncles, and cousins gathered for a day of apple-pickin’, pie-baking, and harvest-feasting. The weather was fabulous as we headed toward March Farm in the “beautiful, rolling hills of Bethlehem, CT”, where we found orchards abundant with big, red, crisp, juicy apples. Yum!
What a great place to PYO! The views from the orchard were breathtaking; nothing but gorgeous sky, lush green grass and apples, apples, apples. Some pumpkins too! There is a pond-side animal yard, a hayloft playscape, a corn maze and a farm market with home-baked treats, including fruit pies, cider doughnuts (which we couldn’t resist) and cookies.
Collectively, we picked about 60 lbs. of apples, and headed home to start baking.
Jen brought along her Williams-Sonoma Apple peeler/corer. Wow!! Where have I been?? This little contraption did it all. It peels, cores and slices the apples in a neat little spiral, all with the turn of the handle. (It’s very sharp, so kids need to be closely supervised.) Can’t believe that I wasted so much time with my peeler and old-fashioned apple corer. Not any more…within 24 hrs., I was toting the box out of Williams-Sonoma!
We assembled ten Betty Crocker French Apple pies, using Oronoque Orchard pie crust. We baked two of them for our “harvest dinner”, and sent each family home with a ready-to-cook pie and a bag of apples.
This was our kick-off “Apple Picking & Harvest Dinner”. I truly hope it becomes a yearly celebration of life, family and endless fun!
Y’all come back now, ya hear?
“A”
My babies and I loved the apple pie and the company even more! A million thank yous for your hospitality!