Emilia's Apple Tree and Apple Recipes

When Emilia was born, Wilson and I decided that we wanted to plant a tree for each of our kids on their first birthday. We loved the idea of being able to watch that tree grow with them over the years. On Emilia's first birthday we bought an apple tree! Unfortunately, that apple tree didn't survive our move but we replaced it, and this year is its first year producing apples! I was so excited to see it flower in the spring and now that it has apples, we're all ecstatic! All summer Jacob continually picked and ate its apples even when they were terribly sour.

We've been a little behind on getting Jacob a tree but our plan is to get another apple tree in the fall (when the fall plant sales roll around)! I didn’t realize that you typically want to have two of the same fruit tree or bush in your yard so that they can pollenate each other. This was our deciding factor on which tree to get Jacob, otherwise we probably would have tried a different fruit tree.

Anyways, back to the apples! They have been so delicious freshly picked from the tree but there are a few people in our family that LOVE apple pie so that is my go-to with the abundance of apples! So here are my two secrets for making apple pie:

1. This recipe I use for the filling is amazing!

2. I don't make my own crust...I buy the store bought and it makes the process SO much easier!

I also like freeze apple pie filling, it's a great way to use up the apples and then have the filling ready to whip up a pie whenever you need it. And I‘ve used this recipe in the past for freezing.

But if you’re looking for other recipes to use up those apples, here are a few great ones to try!

1. Apple Crisp

2. Apple Jelly

3. Apple Fruit Leather

4. Apple Cinnamon Muffins

5. Apple Dump Cake

I had to add this next link because it's just SO good! I'm always looking for different breakfast recipes to switch it up a little bit and this was a GOOD one!!

6. Breakfast Apple Crisp - this recipe obviously calls for peaches, I just substituted apples and left out the vanilla!

We were at a restaurant patio the other night; it was a beautiful, sunny evening shaded by a big tree in the middle of the patio. Little did we know that, that tree was an apple tree with RIPE apples! The apples randomly dropped on a few un-expecting people throughout the night. We luckily dodged those apples but watch your heads and happy apple picking!