After minimal deliberation, Neema and I decided that beans and pickles provided the biggest "bang for our effort" with regard to our annual pickling activities. So, we passed on the radishes, diakon (don't try it), beets, and carrots and focused on the favorites. Together we made about 40 quarts of the provisions - the small jars of the "spicy" dilly beans had at least a full jalapeno in each jar yet don't seem to have that much fire.
A couple weeks later Craig and I tried our hand at applesauce. After discovering that we could pick a 1/2 bushel of "dropped" apples (translation: due to the crummy New England weather, tons of apples have fallen off trees and orchards are doing all they can to keep them from going to waste) for $8 bucks, be bought a full bushel (about 80-100 apples), a coring/peeling machine, and went to work. Who knew that making applesauce was so easy? Just core, peel, chop and let cook down. They were so sweet they didn't need anything added to them. We deliberated about adding some spices but decided to be purists and keep it simple. We have since given several quarts to friends with small children in the hopes that they will like it as much as we do.
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