I've been trying to find the perfect trailmix, the grocery stores have a few different ones but they are either all nuts, berries or too much chocolate. I tried mixing some together to get the right blend but it's a PITA. I think I found the one I'm after at Trader Joe's. It's called Happy Trekking. Almonds, cashews, pistachios. chocolate, cranberries and cherries. Just the right amount of nuts, fruit and a bit o chocolate. The one improvement would be dried bananas, luv me some nanners.
Every once in a great while you stumble upon an awesome treat and wonder why it took so long to find out. Thanks to my friend Kellie in St. Louis for turning me on to Bionic Apples. Bionic Apples are a green caramel apple rolled in walnuts. The first store to sell Bionic Apples is Merb's Candies in St. Louis way back in 1945. Everyone has tasted a caramel apple rolled in peanuts but woo wee them walnuts are even better.
Thanks to Mom at Mom's Country Orchard for taking the request. Om, nom, nom. My apple didn't survive the drive down from the mountains.
The fall leaves turning bright colors means it harvest time. Harvest time means it's apple time. Time for apple cider, apple butter, apple anything. Here are a couple videos of my recent trips to Stetson Creek Ranch apple orchard near Seven Oaks CA and to Emmaus Homes in Marthasville MO where Thierbach Orchards was making some fine apple butter.
This was a trip tp pick some apples at Stetson Creek Ranch, near Seven Oaks CA. Every autumn the desire to pick a fresh juicy apple right off the tree calls people to the country, to the mountains, to the orchards. It is here that the best and most flavorful of falls fruits can be found. Apples picked fresh have a depth of flavor that makes grocery stores apples green with envy!
The ranch dates back to at least 1865, when Mr. W. O. Taylor used the ranch for grazing livestock. In 1885 it was owned by the notorious cattle rustler James McHaney. He used his various mountain properties to hide cattle that had been stolen from other ranchers.
In the late 1800's it was acquired by Richard Stetson, who with his family planted the many magnificant apple trees you can see there today! Fred Hill later owned it and also grew apples here.
The ranch has also been a Boy Scout camp, and an equestrian camp. However the owners have respected the natural beauty and the history of the ranch, and it remains much as it has been for the past century.
Grandma made her apple butter by grinding it first before cooking it. In this video the folks at Thierbach Orchards had peeled, cored and sliced the apples into 8ths. This takes a little longer for the apples to break down but it's less labor than grinding the apples into an applesauce first before cooking.
This was a squirrel hunt with my friend Bob C. in his pawpaw patch near Washington MO. We just saw one squirrel and ended up looking for pawpaws most of the evening.
The pawpaw tree, Asimina triloba, yields 3- to 5-inch-long fruit, the largest fruit native to the United States. Pawpaws taste like a cross between a banana and a mango and look like pears. The huge black seeds, big enough to choke a horse, take up a lot of space where the fruit is located. If the gods ever do a redesign of the pawpaw I hope they shrink the seeds down a bit for more space for the delicious fruit.
The name, also spelled paw paw, paw-paw, and papaw, probably derives from the Spanish papaya, perhaps due to the superficial similarity of their fruit. Pawpaws have many other common names such as prairie banana, Indiana (Hoosier) banana, West Virginia banana, Kentucky banana, Michigan banana, Missouri Banana, and Ozark banana.
The earliest documentation of pawpaws is in the 1541 report of the de Soto expedition, who found Native Americans cultivating them east of the Mississippi River. The Lewis and Clark Expedition sometimes subsisted on pawpaws during their travels. Chilled pawpaw fruit was a favorite dessert of George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson was certainly familiar with it as he planted it at Monticello.
As kids we used to sing a song about pawpaws.
THE PAW-PAW PATCH
Where O where is pret-ty lit-tle Su-sie? Where O where is pret-ty lit-tle Su-sie? Where O where is pret-ty lit-tle Su-sie? Way down yon-der in the paw-paw patch
CHORUS Where O where is pretty little Susie? Where O where is pretty little Susie? Where O where is pretty little Susie? Way down yonder in the pawpaw patch
Pickin' up paw-paws, puttin' um in her pockets, etc. (CHORUS)
I do honest reviews on gear, services and trips that are sometimes given free to JHO in compensation. I report the good AND bad from my perspective. Your mileage may vary.
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