River Walk

after the pumpkin patch we headed to the swannanoa river for a walk and time to relax.

catie waded in the water and built carins while jessie took pictures and played with zoie.

we walked a little further down the path to zoie's favorite spot. she found the same hole where she dug a couple of weeks earlier and dove right in again.

so content, with a mouth and paws full of soft, sandy riverbank dirt.

no clouds at all! a beautiful day on the farm and by the water.

more apple treats? yes!

after our first adventure to hickory nut gap farm, we had a quarter peck of crisp, tasty apples ready to be eaten in any way we could think of.
a couple were sliced up and enjoyed with peanut butter, some were diced and mixed into a gluten-free cinnamon muffin batter, others were pressed into cider that we also picked up at the farm, and two select apples got the most important job of all.
they were sliced into little half moon slivers, sauteed with butter, cinnamon and brown sugar, and cooked down to a state of almost-melted apple bliss.

here's my best attempt at a recipe:
. 2 apples, preferably a little tart and firm, but you can have one tart and firm and one sweet and soft, if that's what you like
. 2 tablespoons of butter or something butter-like, like earth balance
. 3 or 4 shakes of cinnamon, more if you want
. probably about 1 or 1.5 tablespoons of dark brown sugar, or 3 good size pinches

slice up the apples, and heat the butter in a saute pan until it's melted. add the cinnamon and the apples and stir to coat. sprinkle the brown sugar on top and stir to mix, and then let the apples sit for a minute or two, and stir again.
i left the heat on about medium-high, and it probably took about 10 or 12 minutes until when i stirred the apples, a bit of stringy delicious caramel started to form. at this point the apples were getting soft, so i took them off the heat, but if you want to make the caramel thicker and richer, you could keep cooking the apples.
just be aware that it's a thin line between slightly crisp sauteed apples and the beginning of applesauce (always good, too).

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unfortunately, the apples didn't last long enough for us to take a picture, but just imagine something like this:

(thanks to thezoeblog.blogspot.com for the picture!)

next cooking adventure......pumpkin!

-catie

How to Find a Pumpkin in Apple Valley, NC

we'd been talking about getting some pumpkins for awhile now, but it just didn't seem close enough to pumpkin carving and seed roasting time to get a little orange buddy for the front doorstep or my windowsill. today was the perfect day - no clouds in the sky, an orchard where we could bring zoie, and lots of energy.

the drive to hendersonville was about 40 minutes, and on the way to Stepp's Hillcrest Orchard we passed a handful of other orchards, all boasting the best apples, cider, and more.

following the directions and as we got closer, the hand-painted wooden signs, we arrived upon rows and rows of apple trees. after being handed a map with the names of about 30 apples and their corresponding rows throughout the orchard, we headed to the pumpkin patch.

a little lookin' and we found two perfect orange globes - a bigger one for jessie's front step and a little one for my windowsill. can't wait to carve them and roast the seeds! mmm!



-catie

(Photos Copyright JR 2010)

An Apple Festival- Almost

This past weekend my girlfriend and I went searching for an apple festival. It's that time of year, and we were craving something past our standard east-west borders of Charlotte Street and French Broad Ave. So, we grabbed a Mountain Express and she started flipping the pages as I set my foot to the gas.

We were headed towards Bat Cave, NC, a town I've heard from reliable and more aged sources is a "cute little place". "You should go there!"- that was the advice I received from my work supervisor my first year of college. She informed me that, yes, there really is a cave, although she wasn't quite sure where it is. I mentioned my love of both bats and caves, but kept my comments about running into Bruce Wayne to myself. Three years later and I was on the way.

Off of I-240 we exited onto 74-A. I was very quickly reminded of how thin the lines between city and farm country are here. A ten-minute drive and the landscape opens up into pastures filled with rolling hills on which cows somehow find a way to balance themselves; their mottled black-and-white or smooth, deep brown fronting the backdrop of mountains that actually have blue-tinted tops. Needless to say, it was and always will be a magnificent and humbling sight.

It was a journey that really needs no end-point, but we were, after all, searching for trees laden with a certain red fruit. At a point along the road, a modest sign pointed us left. "Apples" was all it said, and all it really needed to say. A few yards after was a sign for a place I've come to know through numerous restaurants in Asheville, but never actually seen: Hickory Nut Gap Farm, known for its sustainable practices and healthy, happy livestock.

"Is this it?"

"Well, I guess so. It says 'apples'. And I've always wanted to see this place and meet the animals."

"Meet the animals?"

Yes, I prefer to know the meat I eat. A reassurance that they are as happy and healthy as advertised.

We parked the car and watched as people carried bags full-to the brim with apples across the road. We checked out the farm store first thing. I wanted to get an idea of the selection and prices of meat products before we got to picking out our lighter fare. Ground beef at $5.00/lb, a whole chicken at $3.50/lb, among about forty other beef, pork, and poultry items. Not bad for the quality.

We then set out to do what we came here for. Bins and bins of delicious-smelling apples: MacIntosh, Gala, Rome Beauty, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Staymen Winesap, all from the 10-acre Hickory Nut Gap Farm orchard. We decided to get a quarter-peck, the smallest option, probably about fifteen fruits.

After filling our little bag past full, we walked around the farm, although we opted out of the corn maze. Well-groomed horses, goats and two baby cows were surrounded by doting children, including myself. The baby chicks in the chicken coop were being chased, picked up, and inevitably dropped by a group of about five 5-year olds. Given that the fall was all of one foot, none of them really seemed to mind.

On our way out, the bus/food stand served me up the best hot dog I've had in my entire life, hands-down. It must have had little or no casing, as it was grayish in color and practically melted in my mouth. Covered in kraut, ketchup, and a line of mustard, it was so perfect that I don't know if I can ever bring myself to eat a hot dog of any other kind.

Satiated and loaded up with apples, we deemed our adventure a success. "We should do something like this every weekend."

"Absolutely."


It was a few days later, after a good portion of those apples were no longer even in our digestive tracts, that we found out the real apple festival, the one in Bat Cave, was actually a few miles past that left turn. I guess we have another weekend adventure coming up.

-JR