Last weekend I went apple picking with my family.  We’ve done this for several years, always going to an orchard called Apple Holler in Wisconsin, since it’s the closest pick-your-own place to where we live.

This year, all I can say is, just get your apples and applesauce at the grocery store.  It’s easier, and probably cheaper.

The folks at Apple Holler must be making up for the money their retirement plans lost over the past year, because their prices were ridiculously expensive.  It was $39.95 to pick a peck.  That’s about 20-25 lbs, I’m told, which would work out to be about $2 per pound.  Same price as the grocery store.  But instead of paying someone else to pick the apple, wash & wax it, box it up, drive it to Jewel-Osco, and arrange it in an attractive display for me, I got to pick it myself.  Which was fun, yes, but not a $40 thrill. 

Since we also rented a wagon in which to haul our peck of apples, bought tickets for our son to ride the tractor and walk through the corn maze, purchased one caramel apple and six cider doughnuts, and parked, we managed to part with $70.  I feel a teensy bit fleeced.

So what to do with a peck of apples.  My husband and I dutifully ate our apple or two a day this week, and managed to make a decent sized dent.  But as of this morning we still had a most of our peck left.  So today I made applesauce.  Here’s the recipe, in pictures:

It’s just apples, no sugar or cinnamon.  And it’s good, but the consistency turned out super-smooth, like baby applesauce.  It has better fresh-apple flavor than applesauce from a jar, but I like the jar consistency better.  Was the flavor worth peeling and coring apples for an hour?  No.  Do I even like applesauce enough to care about fresh-apple flavor?  No.  Will I be going back to Apple Holler next fall?  Um, no.