Staring at a mountain of apples and pears...

Last weekend and this coming weekend, Portland Nursery was/is having their annual apple festival where you can buy some really good, some really rare varietals for 99 cents per pound. Yes you can get Honeycrisp for 99cents/pound.

So I got tad carried away.

20 pounds of Seckel pear. cute little thing but it turned into a big pile ooops.

Then today we went back and bought Concord pear. Wow was that yummy. Hosui pear well cause it's one of the best Asian style pear around.

then we bought blushing golden (apple) just to see how it cans/pies. big pile of Elstar (apple) because I want to make apple sauce and more pie filling, a big pile of Goldrush because we read that it can store up to 10 month and still be really really good. Going to try root cellar so we have a big pile to try out. Lastly Mutsu cause my partner really liked its flavor.

All in all I have well over 50 pounds of fruit. :eek:

I've already canned half of seckel pear. Canned them whole with syrup made of white table wine, sugar, lemon juice and Madgascar vanilla bean. very very yummy. And oh forgot about Jonasgold applesauce I made.

Other interesting apples I tried were Brock, Cox's Orange Pippin, RedWinesap, Rubinett, Swiss Gourmet, Jonathan... They had many other varietals but I was concentrating for canning, and for baking use or something that will keep a long long time in root cellar.

Regularly available apples I just skipped. Honeycrisp (one of the best eating around), Granny Smith, McIntosh, Fuji, Gala etc.

I also did my homework from a fantastic website called http://www.orangepippin.com

I'm getting tired just looking at the mountain of fruit I need to be canning. blach... shopping I can get into ... putting it away well. It's another thing altogether.

Maybe we'll get one or two Concord Pear tree. And maybe Norther Spy apple tree or two. Norther Spy apples were tart, sweet and so good... I love living here in Portland. So many more different things you can grow than in Southern California.

Do you have a good way to scrub the algae off apples? That is my least favorite part of the work, and the most time consuming. They're calling for frost tonight ... which means my apples will be ready very soon ...

Good luck with the canning.

Thanks for that orangepippin site. My knowledge of apples consists of: I like Granny Smith and I don't like Red Delicious. I've been wondering lately what other varieties might appeal to me. And now I can investigate...

How about drying some apple slices..? I know, lots of work still. :rolleyes:

Seriously, you might consider a little casual fall party with some friends,....with a central apple theme. I'm sure they'll appreciate trying different varieties of apple and pear. You seem knowledgeable!

I come from apple butter area of Ontario...apple cooked, pureed into a thick sauce and no sugar..that's the real version. Can be preserved like jam and nice topping on bread, crackers.

As you know, an apple or pear cookeded/pureed into a batch of butternut squash soup is lovely.

I'm pretty boring...Golden Delicious apples or Ambrosia. I'm more of a pear eater --bosc, Bartlett, Anjou, Japanese/Chinese (I'm sure there's a better name for latter.) My mother used to buy pears with me in mind because of my preference.

I hear ya. It's full on harvest time here in the Gorge and I've been making applesauce and canning continuously (it seems like it anyway) for the last several weeks. But it so worth it in the middle of winter when you crack open that yummy can of goodness.

I do a lot of fruit leather and dried slices too.

I love all apples; but Jonathan are the award winning pie apple in my family! YUMMY for pies. They don't seem to store real well so making apple sauce or pies is probably best.