McAbees' Apples

McAbees' Fruit Stand near Hendersonville, NC is our favorite place to stop to buy apples if we happen to head to the mountains in the fall. 

They are located right off I-26 in Flat Rock and can be seen from the interstate. It's a very convenient stop for travelers. 

According to the people at the stand, they should have apples to sell through the winter, until April, I think they said!  

They have a big variety of apples. My favorite thing here is the shelves at the back of the stand that are filled with 1/2 bushel bags of seconds for only $5 a bag. Seconds are typically smaller than first quality and are likely to have some bruising. That is what I usually buy for applesauce and apple butter since it really doesn't matter what they look like because I'm going to cook and smoosh them anyways.    

But first quality apples are still only $8 for a 1/2 bushel so still a great deal in my opinion! 

We filled the van up with apples when we stopped there this year. 

Yum! Homemade applesauce to eat all year long! 

Curried Green Tomato Sauce

After a frost, I ended up with a collection of green tomatoes from my garden plus a bag full from the children's garden at work. A few turned red after setting out for a few days!

What to do with them?

I finally decided to make Curried Green Tomato Sauce because I had all the ingredients on hand! Plus it sounded interesting.

I just poured the sauce into freezer containers to freeze rather than can.

The sauce is a different type of flavor combination for us. It's tasty though and on the spicy side! We ate it with fish and rice the other night and it was quite good.

I loved making something yummy out of these tomatoes instead of throwing them away!

Apples and Sewing

We stopped in Hendersonville, NC and bought five bushels (10-1/2 bushel bags) of apples on our way home from Pigeon Forge. So my evenings have been spent doing apples. My goal has been to do a 1/2 bushel (1 bag) most evenings and so far it's working well. I'm sure there are faster ways to accomplish this but this goal is attainable and not too overwhelming. 8 bags down, 2 to go!

I've been making applesauce, apple butter, dried apples and will also freeze some apples for pies and apple crisps. I think I'm done with apple sauce now; I have over 40 quart. We love homemade applesauce and eat a lot of it!

I've spent an hour or two each morning working on a big Etsy order--5 of these Christmas gift sets. They are packed and ready to ship off today-- I didn't get a picture of them before I boxed them up. But my sewing room looks like this...

Etsy by day; apples by night!

Housework beyond clean dishes, laundry and cooking hasn't been my top priority during this season as you can see. I'll get back to it soon! Starting to drive me a bit crazy as I really like things in order.

Our fall seasons are always jam-packed and super busy. This year is no exception!

What have you been up to?