Apple Pie Filling for the WIN!

I need to face the fact that I will never get done canning homegrown and homemade foods for the pantry. I think it's some kind of addiction.  I had apples left over from making applesauce, but not enough to fill the canner with another complete batch of applesauce, so I made apple pie filling. 

No, I didn't end up with a complete batch of seven quarts of apple pie filling, either. I have a Presto 23-quart canner so a "batch" equals seven quarts, or nine pints if using the water bath method, or up to eighteen pints if pressure canning, or twelve half-pints in a water bath. Half-pints are usually jams and jellies or a specialty item like chutney. 

So...five quarts of apple pie filling. I'm happy with that and with the fact I have enough of the filling "sauce" left to open a jar of sliced apples from last year and bake a pie for Sunday dinner. Win-win. 

The apple pie filling was by far the most difficult processing I've done this year. You have to peel and slice the apples, blanch the apples, and drain the apples BUT KEEP THEM WARM! Yeah? Well, the best way to do that is to get them in the jars, get the sauce over them, and get them in the canner. And...the sauce. It's an easy recipe and it's delicious, but it goes from liquid to thick in three seconds flat. It needs stirring while the apples need warming. Holy crap! I brought out the old two-burner hotplate because I needed to spread out for this operation!

It worked and I guess that's all that matters. I had quite a sticky mess to clean up while the jars processed for twenty-five minutes. I'm five for five on the seals, and we'll have a few apple pies to keep our bellies happy this winter. 

I'm very pleased with my summer food preservation efforts. I don't know what next summer will bring, but I plan to spend the cold months reading canning books, making soups, and getting ideas for next summer. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor (The Hideaway)

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, home food preservation, canning, Presto, apple pie filling, gardening, soup, books, planning, simple country pleasures, rural lifestyle, a writer's life, applesauce, pantry prepping