Today’s Recipe: Caramel Apples

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  1. Winnie Nielsen says:

    Ohhh, just in time for Halloween! Caramel apples are the best. I also like the idea of what to do with the left over caramel. Yum, homemade candy bars!

  2. Lisa Livingston says:

    Made my mouth water in a delicious way just reading the recipe! I will be making these for my hubby! He loves caramel apples & I love this recipe ( and Mary Janes Farm !)

  3. Janice says:

    I have been looking for a stratch recipe forever thank you so much for sharing this recipe. I can not wait to try this. Blessings with love Janice

  4. Bonnie ellis says:

    Oh yummmmmmmm. Great recipe Ashley!

  5. christy says:

    I’ve been telling my kids we will make caramel apples for the past couple of weeks. Seeing your post has reminded me to do it! Do you know if dairy free milk, such as coconut milk or cream, still works the same? We have 2 children that have a dairy allergy. If you know, I’d love to hear a response. Nevertheless, I am game for trying it ourselves and maybe I can let you know how is goes. :0)

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  1. Winnie Nielsen says:

    Fir this is our Apple Pie Sunday tree, it sure is a beauty full of big red apples!!!!

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  1. Winnie Nielsen says:

    What beautiful colors and delicious flavors all grouped together. I love stuffed peppers and those yellow ones seem to be calling my name!

  2. MaryJane picked a peck of peppers……….

  3. bonnie ellis says:

    Yesterday looked like the picture. Today it looked like it was going to snow. Went from 85 to 50 degrees this morning. Frost by Saturday. Wonderful picture.

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  1. Cindi says:

    Apples fresh off the tree ~ those look positively luscious! One of my favorite times of the year while growing up was fall campout time. There was a wonderful apple stand tucked into a small turnout from the highway on our way to camp. Mostly I spent entire trips on the floor of the car when I was a child (carsick, ugh) so Dad would take breaks as often as possible when traveling winding roads. He found this little stand in the Santa Cruz mountains that had everything apple that you could think of. To this day, fresh, crisp apple cider is my favorite fall drink – hot or cold – it’s the best!

  2. Winnie Nielsen says:

    Perfection!!

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  1. Winnie Nielsen says:

    Oh gosh, those look mouth watering!

  2. bonnie ellis says:

    Those are so fresh looking they look like they were just picked and washed. Wow!

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  1. Winnie Nielsen says:

    I have never seen beans with such beautiful red flowers. Are the beans red? Are they the kind you dry?

    • MaryJane says:

      My grandgirls planted these. They are runner beans and the pods’ flowers are both red and some are pink. When small we ate them as green beans but last week the girls harvested the big ones and broke out the big multi-colored beans to dry for winter chili. They were a riot of different colors, beautiful little gems each one.

  2. Cindi says:

    Scarlet runner beans!!! My favorites ~ multi-duty beans to eat fresh when young and tender and dried to cook up for winter, plus the vines make a beautiful screen for an ugly old fence. These beauties never fail to get comments from visitors. Oh, and another purpose that I discovered just this summer ~ hummingbirds love the flowers 🙂

  3. These are often called ” jewelry beans” coz the dried inside beans in pods are so lovely. The locals say in PA German dialect ” feuer bohne” or ” fire beans”. And they are real hummingbird magnets too. I always have grown them and sell several different sorts on my website:

    http://www.amishlandseeds.com/beans-lima-runner-yard-long.htm

  4. Oh and some more local PA Dutch history . The locals here in Amishland in the early 1800’s used to serve runner beans “whittled” into long shreds called in dialect “Schipple,” and made them into a pickled form like sauerkraut called “Schipplebuhne.”

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Young Cultivators Merit Badge: Make It Fruity, Beginner Level, Part 2

The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with 6,691 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far—9,460 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! MJ 

Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life   

In my pursuit of all things farmgirl, I set about helping my neighbor, Nora, earn herself a Young Cultivator’s Make It Fruity Merit Badge. Read about Part 1 here. I was nearly killed in several interesting ways during the whole process, but I digress. This is about Nora, not about me.

Me and my blackberry-thorn-scratched body.

Me and my sunburned skin.

Me and my twisted ankle and bruised knees.

Me and my shadow.

Wait. Not that last one. Sometimes I slip into Perry Como lyrics when I’m stressed or anxious. Ignore me.

Women picking evergreen blackberries in western Oregon, 1910, OSU Special Collections & Archives via Wikimedia Commons

Anyway, all terrifying bug sightings aside, my time with Nora was well spent and I learned a lot about my wee, preteen neighbor: She has a ferocious appetite (made evident by the lack of blackberries in her basket after an hour of picking), she can’t seem to put her phone away for longer than a moment (and the pinging was getting on my frazzled nerves), she enjoys flinging four-, six-, and eight-legged critters my way (Haha, Nora, very cute. I’m telling your mother!), and she uses a peculiar form of slang this farmgirl needed an interpreter to … er, interpret.

After an hour of broiling in the hot summer sun (my skin was getting crispy, and if you were to stick a fork in me and sprinkle me with garlic salt, I think I’d be done), I began to realize why Nora’s family hadn’t made this an annual family excursion. They were wise beyond their years. Taking a preteen out in public, even if it’s just to a local blackberry patch, is an exercise in patience, long-suffering perseverance, and a test of your sense of humor. Also, it’s kinda frightening.

Turns out preteens have teeny-tiny, itty-bitty, hardly noticeable mood swings. And of course, by teeny-tiny, itty-bitty, and hardly noticeable, I mean extreme, severe, and terrifying. It was like picking berries with a tame Disney woodland creature one minute and a growling, Jane-eating-shark the next. Sharks don’t growl? Yeah, so says you.

Luckily, I have ninja skills with which to ward off said mood swings, so I was not completely unprepared. We ended our excursion with lots of fresh, purple berries, telltale mustaches from sampling, a few injuries, and a sense of bonding.

Midway through our journey back to the car, Nora’s cell-phone battery died, and I had a premonition of my own demise when I saw the crazed look in her blue eyes, but we made it home intact, her first Young Cultivator’s Badge earned.

Her mother met us at the door. “Apple picking next weekend?” she suggested, brightly.

I mumbled something intelligible as Nora raced for her phone charger.

“Camping?” Mother went on, her face cheerful (and well rested, I might add). “Road tripping?”

“I, uh, I think I hear my phone pinging!” I stumbled back to my car in a panic.

Earning my own Merit Badges had been challenging and enlightening enough. Helping my young whippersnapper neighbors and family members earn theirs?

“It will be fun,” they said …

“It will be an adventure,” they said …

Gulp.

  1. Winnie Nielsen says:

    Hahahahaha!!!!!! Oh my gosh, you have this so well put. And the hard part? It is part of my experience today with my Millenial girls in their early 30s. You forgot to mention how many times the word “like” was in EACH sentence!! My advice? Be unavailable for the next adventure. It is most likely , like 100% likely, to not be much different. This is when I want to get on my soapbox that cell phones have ruined our lives. Wait. Is that my phone pinging in my purse? Sigh. Confession time for me!

  2. Cindi says:

    Oh my gosh! I have been so busy this summer that I have missed some wonderful wonderful stories. (you do Perry Commo, I do Lawrence Welk.) This is priceless ~ and SO true! Just last night I received a frantic text from my daughter wanting to know how to survive a jeans-shopping trip with her preteen daughter. Payback can be so sweet. It’s funny … I know we were that age, but I sure don’t remember being like that, do you? Oh and don’t get me started on the cellphone’s contribution to the frustrations of raising .. uh, people. There isn’t a soapbox big enough for all of us.

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  1. Winnie Nielsen says:

    Yum, I wish I had a slice of this pie right now here in the Comfort inn at Sapulpa OK!!

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