Apple Foods and Fun... International Style

We're just crazy about apple season in our household! You might have noticed from my APPLE-themed facebook FREEBIE, my Spanish kindergarten APPLE packet, and my FREE Life Cycle of an APPLE Pop-Up Book. I just love this season, and this fruit, so much that I asked a few international blogo-friends to share their apple experiences and ideas.

Glittering Muffins' Valerie remembers childhoods in Quebec where farmers and neighbors would let you just pick apples right off their trees. (Valerie admits that was a few decades ago. It might not fly today!)

Now in Alberta, Valerie keeps the apple-picking tradition alive with her husband and their young son (who has been picking apples since infancy!). Inspired by her mother's Austro-Bavarian "scheiterhaufe" recipe, Valerie and family share their recipe for a delicious looking crock pot apple pie bread pudding. Find it here. Mmmm.

As a Polish woman with a German husband, Olga (aka The European Mama) has not one, but TWO great recipes to share. The first one I'm going to taste-test will be "szarlotka," or Polish apple pie (recipe here). With a crusty bottom, a meringue top, and apples in between, you can't go wrong!

Check out that same post for Olga's German MIL's recipe for a German covered apple pie. I feel myself embracing the German side of my Alsatian heritage at this very moment!

On a less international note (and less calorie-ridden, too... because, yes, there is more to life than food... who knew?!), Jaime has about a buzzillion ideas for apples and kids on Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails.

Painting with apples, apple scented dough, apple books, apple crafts, apple treats... you name it, and if it's about kids and apples, she's got it! I'm kind of intrigued by the apple volcanoes, but I'm pretty sure I know which one Mag will want to try first: apple sparkle slime!

If you have great apple ideas and recipes of your own, you know I want to see them!

Until then, happy picking. And baking. And eating...