Martin's Hillside Orchard

Explore the Orchard

Last Weekend of the Season – 10/27-10/28

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Join us for the final weekend of this year’s harvest.  We will be picking our late season applies – Pink Lady and Fuji. Pre-picked apples and apple butter available in the Apple Barn.

Cider too – We also plan to make our last batch of cider this week so should have plenty on hand for the weekend.

What to expect AFTER this weekend?  The orchard will be closed as we’ll be working to tuck in the trees for the winter, prune back the raspberries, oil & grease the tractor.  You know, the usual off season stuff.  And, of course we’ll be planning more fun for next season.

The touch of cold and snow we had earlier in the month is no problem for our late season apples. 

Storing apples – Whether you pick EverCrisp or another variety, follow these tips and you’ll have nice crisp apples well into the holiday season

Pumpkin Love – Don’t forget about the pumpkin patch. The pumpkins aren’t thrilled to have apples intruding on their time in the limelight.  I mean, the month of October has pretty much been their domain for a long time.  But, happily we’ve convinced them to share the stage with the apples. Show them some love and plan a trip to the pumpkin patch today

 

Favorite fall recipes – coming soon!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Caramel-Apple Brownie Cheesecake

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(Quite a mouthful that name. Recipes calls for Grannys but we used Jonathans. Any good baking apple will do.

Find the complete recipe at Southern Living

Trials and tribulations of an occasional baker (one of the orchard kids) — So, I decided that I needed to make this decadent dessert because my father, you know him, Alex (he drives the tractor), was having a birthday in September. He told Barb, you know her too, that he definitely did not want her to make this desert. It sounded too complicated to be good and/or he knew my mom had too many other things on her plate. Enter me, 250 miles away and with more time on my hands. I am all about spoiling my parents when I can. Yes, me, here to save the day even though the recipe calls for a springform pan which seemed a bit intimidating.

So what they don’t tell you is that you need to make sure you save the parts to your springform pan in one place. Seems logical, but apparently, not something I adhere to in my kitchen. After an hour of searching, the baking fever had left. This cheesecake business is more involved than I thought.

Two days later: Next tip — Probably best not to test the spring on the springform pan after you line it with the toasted pecans. They call these “spring”form pans for a reason and mine got SPRUNG. There was a scream or two of anguish and my pup came to assist with the cleanup as she chowed down on the tasty pecans strewn all over the floor. Luckily, I had a hidden stash of extra pecans in the fridge. Things were looking up until I realized I didn’t have any sugar in the house. I sheepishly ventured over to the neighbors with my trusty red measuring cup. I explained what I was up to and that it wasn’t going well. They laughed with me and were happy to help me out.

I then packed up the dessert in a new cooler that I bought for the occasion and trucked it home 250 miles to the orchard for the big birthday weekend. Very involved, I know, but I was on a mission. And, the cheesecake was quite yummy. My father agreed. How fun to get to spoil the ones you love once in awhile.

Hope your baking adventures are smoother than mine!

Pumpkin Love

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Pumpkin Love – We kind of have a thing for pumpkins. We love poring over seed catalogs in the off-season and checking out new varieties. We carefully map out the patch each year, it’s always different because we are always trying something new. And, we have so many varieties, we end up planting them by hand. One year we used a pick because the ground was so muddy. This year we planted them at 5:30 am the Sunday of Memorial Day to beat the heat. 

Fast forward: The plants bolt from the ground and send runners carpeting the patch in a dense jungle of green.  We weed, water, repeat and the rich Nebraska soil and sun do the rest. Four months later, we peek under that green foliage and it’s like striking the mother lode but it’s not just gold, it’s orange, white, blue, green and pink.  

Why do we like pumpkins so much? We need to do a bit of self-assessment to answer that. I suppose just ‘cuz or just ‘cuz they are awesome doesn’t entirely answer that question.

Mini Apple Pies

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Fun concept – use a muffin tin as the form.

Oops – I overbaked my crust a bit but still think these turned out cute. And, whether crust is a bit too done or not, they still taste great.

Mine aren’t exactly mini muffins as I didn’t have standard size muffin tin, but rather a larger muffin tin.  Probably more appropriate for serving size.  Or I guess one could eat about 5 of the minis 🙂

I went with Jonathans in this recipe trial but any good baking apple wood do, including Honeycrisp and Haralson.