I agree with RiddleRaven, the miller’s daughter was terrified that she could not preform the task of turning straw into gold, she was not obsessed with gold but the king was.
As for the apples it just goes with what we know about the evil queen from Snow White. Snow does say to Charming in the pilot “She poisoned an apple because she thought I was prettier than she was, you have no idea what she is capable of.”
We also know that the evil queen told the genie “The tree and I share something in common, neither one of us can leave nor do we truly belong.” She also mentions in StoryBrooke that she is better with plants than with people.
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