At-home apple fest!

It's an exciting night at our house. My sister stopped by to watch the Vikings-Packers game. She's a Packers fan, my husband's a Viking fans and I just love to watch Bret Favre. Luckily, I made plenty of snacks this weekend to keep them both happy and content, although they still yell at the TV every once and a while as if they were fans in the stands at the Metrodome.

This last week, the temperatures dipped close to freezing. I realized that there are only a precious few days left in Iowa's apple season. So I woke up early and drove to a local apple orchard, which is located about 20 minutes from home. The orchard's country store offered nearly a dozen different varieties of apples. I came home with Cortland, McIntosh and the beloved Honeycrisp apples. I can't get enough of the Honeycrisp. I've been eating two a day, sometimes dipped with peanut butter. They are so sweet, crunchy and juicy!

When I walked into the orchard store, there was a family standing on the porch eating apple cider donuts. I couldn't resist the sweet, cinnamon aroma, so I broke down and bought a half dozen donuts. I'm so glad I did. I don't think I've ever tried homemade donuts. They were so moist, and I could actually taste the hint of apple cider. I brought the donuts home, and they were gone by the end of the day.

Inspired by my trip to the orchard, I settled into the kitchen and started peeling apples. My first recipe: red-hot applesauce. It's one of my husband's favorites; he remembers his grandma serving this at Christmas.

The not-so-secret ingredient -- red hot candies!

I have to admit, I was a little doubtful about this recipe. Why ruin perfectly good apples with melted sugar candy? But let me tell you, I'm a believer now. This was by far my best batch of applesauce this year. The sauce was sweet and wonderfully packed with cinnamon flavor. And you got to love the rosey red color.

The applesauce went immediately from bowl to my cup.

Mmmm...so good and cinnamon-y!

I could have stopped at the applesauce, but no, I kept going. A few weekends back, I tried to can apple pie filling for the first time.

Unfortunately, when I put the jars away for storage, I noticed that the rims were sticky, a sure sign that the jars didn't seal properly. So I was forced to turn this beautiful filling into an apple pie -- ASAP!

I'm still trying to perfect the whole pie-making process. I've had to learn from scratch, and I've tried nearly a half dozen crust recipes with varying degrees of success. I finally settled on a lard recipe, which I found on the back of the lard box.

The apple pie filling was good, although not great. It was a little bland, and the apples were softer than I'd like. Next time, I'm going to try Granny Smith apples, even though that means the apples probably won't be Iowa grown.

Martha Mondays: Vanilla apple cider

I had the honor of choosing the Martha Mondays assignment this week, and I decided on the warm apple cider recipe in the October issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine.

I can't get enough of apple cider this time of year. I'm lucky to live relatively close to an orchard with an old-fashioned apple-cider press. Deal's Orchard in Jefferson sells their apple cider in Hy-Vee and Fareway stores in central Iowa. The cider is so good, especially served cold. But I usually warm up a cup of cider in the microwave, with a little brown sugar and cinnamon mixed in, when the weather turns chilly.

So I was looking forward to making a batch of spiced apple cider on the stovetop for a change. I found the nutmeg pods and vanilla pod called for in the recipe at a local spice store near my office. Whole nutmeg and vanilla pods aren't available at my small-town grocery store.

The cider smelled wonderful as it simmered on the stove. The little vanilla seeds floated within my favorite mug.

But it looks, and tastes, even better with the fresh whipped cream. I added brown sugar and vanilla to the whipped cream to match the flavors in the cider. I couldn't find walnuts or honey in my pantry, so I used pecans and maple syrup.

This cider was so rich, I couldn't finish the whole mug. But I enjoyed the combination of cool whip cream and hot apple cider. It almost reminded me of apple pie a la mode. Made me think of another local orchard that offers cider shakes during the fall. I might have to drive over to that orchard and give those shakes a try.

Can't wait for next week's challenge on Martha and Me!

Walk on the wild side

I recently took a week vacation from work, and I spent a free morning at a local state park. There's a 10-plus mile trail around Big Creek State Park and Saylorville Lake in central Iowa. No, I didn't run 10 miles. Instead I took a 3-mile run/walk and brought my camera along to find some fall colors.

The leaves weren't turning colors just yet, but the squirrels were out in full force, storing walnuts in the ground to prepare for the long winter. I tried to get a good picture, but the buggers ran away whenever I got close.

A few vines and trees were changing color. These red leaves caught my eye.

There was literally a rainbow of colors just waiting to be discovered. I love these three shades together -- red, green and yellow.

As if the squirrels weren't entertaining enough, I found a possum curled up in the grass, obviously frightened by the bicyclist who just whizzed by.

That's about as close as I wanted to get to that critter. It was very ugly.

The sky was misty, so it was hard to get a great picture of the scenery. I took advantage of a break in the trees to snap this photo of the reflection on the Big Creek Reservior.

The grass was wet from the rains that moved through early in the morning.

It was a misty, wet morning, but so beautiful, I didn't want to stop walking down the trail. I spent over an hour at the park. Always wonder why I don't do this more often.