Buried under an avalanche of apples ...

Well, it's that time of year again. We've harvested what apples the deer, coons and jays didn't abscond with, and I'm ( yet again ) pondering what to do with the bins of fruit staring accusingly at me whenever I step onto our porch. I've made multiple apple crisps and stored them in the freezer, I've made apple chutneys, apple bread, apple butter and tons of applesauce, I've dried more apple slices than I'm ever likely to use, and I still
have more to process. I feel a bit like the Sorcerer's Apprentice, desperately trying to keep up with magically multiplying chores.
Ah well. The upside to this is that I've allowed myself to get creative. With my most recent batch of applesauce I tried adding a couple of novel ingredients: crystalized ginger and dried cranberries, along with the usual cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar. Also, this time I left the peels on for added nutrient value and fiber ( photo above taken a few days ago during an applesauce marathon using peeled fruit ).
I put the apples, ginger and cranberries  through our VitaMix blender first, with enough water added to allow the mixture to blend smoothly, then simmered the resulting liquidy pulp for a few hours to reduce and thicken it, adding the sugar and spices when it had reached the desired consistency. Finally, everything was put through the blender a final time before being ladled into jars and processed in a boiling water bath.
The resulting sauce was thick, smooth and sweet, with a lovely little bite from the ginger. My husband ( who, admittedly, is biased ) claimed that it was the best applesauce that he'd ever tasted. I have to admit that I'm very pleased with it myself. Now I just have to try to remember how many handfuls of each ingredient I tossed in during my culinary daze, so that hopefully I can recreate the magic next time around.

The Great Apple Heist.

The past few days I've been thinking to myself that it's time we got around to harvesting the apples. I put it off, however, because we had other projects on the go ( fencing in a new garden space for next year, topping off our winter wood supply ).
Apparently I'm not the only one who noticed that the apples were ready for picking ... I found this little bandit in one of our trees this morning, trying his best to look inconspicuous...
THE MUGSHOT:

Pretty hard to look innocent, though, when you're sitting right beside the evidence ( gnawed apple in foreground ).

Impossible to be annoyed with those cute, button eyes staring at you. Poor little guy was probably wondering how long he was going to be stranded up there, so I put all the animals in the house, took a couple of photos, gave him a gentle chiding about his delinquent behavior, and left him alone. Ten minutes or so later he made his way apprehensively down the tree and loped off. Good thing we don't really mind sharing.   ;)