At the first of this month, Nolemana and I drove up to Hood River (blog entry coming later, with photos!) to get some apples. Hood River apples are so yummy, and a drive up the Columbia River Gorge isn’t to be missed in the fall when the colors are changing.

We drove up to our favorite apple orchard, Mountain View Orchards. There were apples in abundance, and what I was delighted to find were these tiny “Lady” apples. I have been wanting to make pickled crabapples for a long time, since we have just reached the end of the jars I canned years ago. Those jars were filled with real crabapples, the ones so tart you don’t even try to eat them raw.

However, I have been unable to find them here in NW Oregon, so I decided to try the Lady apples instead. Beside, they are so dang kewt it seemed a same to leave them in the bin. The mega bin. They are delicious to eat out of hand, so I’m not sure how they’ll taste pickled. But today was the day to try.

Here are the little beauties just after getting washed.

Some of them aren’t much more than 2″ in diameter. Aren’t they just beautiful?

As I was heating up the pickling solution, the windows started to get all steamed up.

Outside, the rain steadily came down. It rained all day long without stopping. But inside the kitchen, it was warm and pickley. (Is that a word?)

When the pickling solution had boiled for 5 minutes, I dropped in the apples, one layer at a time.

Nolemana kindly washed the next batch for me. Each one had to be hand-washed because they had sat outside at the orchard and had who knows what on them.

Even though once they’re pickled the apples won’t have this lovely color, they’re sure pretty to look at now.

Another bowl ready for the stove.

Close-up of the apples. I sure hope this works! The apples are soaking in the solution tonight out in the garage where it’s cool. Tomorrow I will pack them into quart jars and process them. Yum! I hope.