I'll take seconds

One of my favorite local orchards, Center Grove Orchard near Cambridge, sends out and weekly e-newsletter, which recently announced that the orchard store was going to stay open this year until Christmas.  I love snacking on the dried apple chips we've made thanks to our handy-dandy food dehydrator.  So I decided to drive over to the orchard to see what apples they still have for sale.

I told the orchard staff that I wanted apples for drying, and they offered to find some apple "seconds" in their back room for me.  I only recently learned that "seconds" are bruised or otherwise unattractive apples, which I discovered from a recent post on one of my favorite blogs, Home Joys.

So I agreed to buy a few bags of seconds, although right now, I can't quite remember what variety of apple they were.  I think it was a Mutsu apple, which looks a bit like a Golden Delicious.

To my surprise, the clerk returned from the backroom with four 10-pound bags of apples for me to take home.  She offered to give me two bags for free.  So the next thing I knew, I was navigating a wheelbarrow-full of apples out to my truck.

My husband, who was happy to have an indoor project now that fishing season is over, immediately got to work sorting through the bags, looking for any, ahem, "bad apples." 

Yes, we use our microwave as a TV stand.  Leaves us with more counterspace :)

All the apples were in pretty good shape, except for a few soft and sunburned spots.

He cut them up, sprinkled them with cinnamon and sugar, and stacked them in our food dehydrator.  (Note: This is an old picture from last year, just to give you an idea of how we use the dehydrator.)

I fed a few dried apples to my sister last time she stopped for a visit.  She replied, "I want these for Christmas!"  So I've saved a gallon-size bag of dried apples just for her Christmas stocking.  But I had to hide the bag, because I've been eating the apple chips faster than we can make them!