There have been a few questions about The Apple-Azing Race that I want to clarify for everyone.  I may add to the post as more questions come up.  Thanks for being so understanding as this is the first year we’ve held this.

 

How EXACTLY will the race work?

In the typical “Amazing Race” Teams race to complete each task and make it to the finish line first.  In our version, we’re going to be timing teams at each station.  That way we won’t have everyone at each station at the same time – they will all be spread out but still have to complete each task.  This way we also won’t have people getting speeding tickets.

When teams come to sign in the morning of the race they’ll get a folder that will have the first clue for their first station and also a time sheet for each station.  When the return from all the challenges they will turn the sheets in and we’ll rank each team, award points accordingly and then determine the winner.  By doing it this way, teams can take time to eat lunch or take a little break – as long as they finish the race during the day of September 22nd. 

Isn’t Sassy Cow a really far from the orchard?

We went there the other day and I time it – eleven and a half minutes.  Now there are a few different ways you can get there from the orchard but I think 11.5 minutes is reasonable to ask for a super fun challenge that will definitely be worth the drive (trust me!). 

How many people can we have on our team?

Each team just has to have a MINIMUM of 2 people.  You can have as many members as you want and whatever ages you want. 

Would this be a good activity for kids?

I think this is completely up to you.  You definitely need at least one person that can drive but if you want your teammate to be your child that’s completely fine.  I would say that four would be the youngest child to bring along…and that depends on the temperament of the four year old.  There’s a chance my daughter, Capri, may do this with her aunt Karma and I think she’ll make it through only because it’s with Aunt Karma and she doesn’t see her very often.  I think my 5 year old Cedi would be fine regardless of who she did the race with.  It is going to be a LONG day for the child so it’s really up to you, what you want to deal with, and how you think your child will handle it. 

 

Please send me more questions!  I’d be happy to answer them!  We have lots of great sponsors but I still need some teams to SIGN UP! 

I am super excited that I have some new apples so I can continue my Sauce-sational Applesauce Experiment.  I’m going to start the season out with a brand new apple of ours – the Scarlet.  As you can see – it has a pink flesh!  We picked these a bit too late and there really weren’t many on the trees.  They are small (photo’d next to a standard size apple (Dandee Red) and a Yellow Doll behind it) and soft but I’m saucing them anyway!  These are the perfect kind of apples to bake with!
   
Since they were so small I just peeled them with a veggie peeler –seriously how awesome is that pink, and then chunked them up to make sure there were no seeds and plopped them in the slow cooker. It almost looks like a pot full of cut up strawberries.  I’m seriously in awe of the coloring of this apple!
In about two hours I had a beautiful pink, chunkier textured sauce.  I wasn’t the hugest fan on the flavor.  It has a ‘sharp, tart’ flavoring that made my jaw tingle.  My friend, Kaitra, on the other hand liked it.  I’m sure it will be wonderful in the few bags of baker’s mix that will be lucky to be packed with one of these apples.  It will definitely add a new flavor to the mix and make it a full flavored pie/crisp or sauce.

Past Apple Tests:

• Baker's Mix
• Braeburn
• Cameo
• Fireside
• Fuji
• Gala
• Golden Delicious
• Granny Smith
• Jonathan
• MacIntosh
• NW Greening
• Tolman Sweet
• Valstar

It’s hard to complain about any rain that we get these days but I’ll admit – it was a bit of a bummer that it rained on our last day of Kid’s in the Garden.  We had something really cool planned for the kids and were going to do it at the very end so the kids could just go home and dry off…but of course the thunder started.

So – members of Kids in the Garden!  There will be a ‘supplemental’ class next Thursday – August 16th at 5pm at the orchard.  We have something very special for the kids to do and it needs to be done in the next week.  If you can’t make it please email or call to schedule a different time to come out and we can help with our little *bonus* for our fabulous kids this summer.  Following the supplemental class at 6pm we’ll be having our ‘Mom’s in the Garden’ session to discuss how things went this summer.  I'll be making some beverages that use our Mojito Mint and Margarita Mint.

Other than missing out on our one big special plan…it was actually a pretty good week to have rain.  We all hung out under the lean and ate and ate and yup – ate some more!  So many wonderful fruits and vegetables are ready in our gardens we had to have some tasting for the kids!

We started out the day dipping chips into some Tomatillo salsa.  Diane made some Tomatillo-Cucumber Salsa right outside for the kids and I had made some Tomatillo Salsa Verde the day before (it had to be cooked and cooled).  The majority of the kids and mom’s really enjoyed both of the salsa – the Tomatillo-Cucumber Salsa being a refreshing hit and the Tomatillo Salsa Verde being the surprising ‘sweeter’ salsa. 

     

Next we tried something that also had a husk covering them – this time they were ground cherries.  There was a mixed reaction all around.  They are sweet like a cherry but with the texture of a tomato.  If you have texture issues with your food you may have to do a little something to make it more worth your while…like dip them in chocolate!?  Pip LOVED the ground cherries and Christian LOVED feeding them to pip!  It was great!  Pip also loved all the other fruit we had this day…we have to hide the fruit from her until the very end of the meal.  If she even sees it she won’t eat anything else but the fruit!

Hannah and Tyler got their hands cold rinsing out our beautifully colored baby tomatoes. 

Seriously – isn’t that just a gorgeous colorful plate of baby tomatoes!?  These are Capri’s favorites – she can eat them like candy!

We also tried cantaloupe (kids LOVED and I tried too…it was so amazing!) and yellow dolls (basically a watermelon with yellow flesh).  With the yellow dolls we discovered that we picked one a bit too early – it was good but the riper one was, as I like to say, “Better than chips.” 

In the picture above Diane is sauteeing sliced up summer squash, zucchini, and baby tomatoes in just a bit of oil and some Thai basil from our herb garden.  This was AMAZING!  I am definitely going to have to grab some Thai Basil more often while I cook!

 

And finally we had to try some new varieties of apples – scarlet, wealthy and sansa that they hadn’t tried the week before.  I honestly am not sure what the consensus was on them but I do know none of them were fed to the goats.

Above is a new variety of ours – the Scarlet apple (cut in half to show the ‘star’ apples can make).  I just went out to check out our Apple Variety page to see what it said about them:

Everything about this apple is rosy: red flesh, reddish leaves and bark, red skin. Tastes great, too.

It looks like we just planted these last year which makes sense as to why we only had about 20 apples total.  They were small and probably over ripe – but lots of fun!  By the time we have an actual crop of these we’ll figure out when we should be picking them for you all!  But don’t worry – I did snag a few to make some sauce with AND there will be one in Baker’s Mix bags until we run out so if you’re lucky you may get to try one too!

I had to end the post with this adorable picture.  This is one of the little ‘tag along’s’ since her older brother and sister are in the program.  Geneva was a joy to have with us and adorable too!  We were so excited to hear that she chose to spend part of our FOURTH birthday at the orchard with ‘Kids in the Garden’.  We hope you had a wonderful birthday sweetie!

I was first introduced to tomatillo’s when I purchased a ‘kit’ for this salsa.  I was in LOVE and am so excited that we are growing some tomatillo’s at the orchard this year.

Here’s a great website I find that talks all about growing and cooking tomatillo’s:  http://whatscookingamerica.net/tomatillos.htm 

When you peal the husk off the tomatillo you should rinse them with cold water to get the sticky residue off. 

Tomatillo Salsa Verde

1 pound tomatillos, husked

1/2 cup finely chopped onion

1 T minced garlic

2 ‘Fooled You’ Jalapeño peppers (use regular if you want a bit more kick – we made this for kids so I didn’t want it too be too hot)

1/2 cup chopped cilantro*

1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano*

1/2 lime – juiced

Pull the husks from the tomatillos and wash them under cool water until they no longer feel sticky. Boil them in hot water for 5 minutes. 

Put the cooked tomatillos into blender or food processor bowl.   Add the onion and garlic and process until smooth. Add the cilantro, oregano, jalapeño's, lime juice and process until the jalapeno is finely chopped

Scrape the mixture into a bowl.  Refrigerate to cool and let the flavors ‘mix’.  Serve with tortilla chips. 

 

*We grow both cilantro and oregano at the orchard along with many other fresh herbs.  Be sure to check out the herb garden between the two buildings and see our bountiful herb garden!