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

Applesauce

Whereas my grandmother canned everything from the garden and orchard, two of the few things my mother canned were applesauce and apple butter. Both were really good, but too sweet for my tastebuds, even as a teenager. I've always liked fruit to taste like fruit. These days, I want fruit products with no chemical additives. The best way to achieve this is to process my own.

Having obtained a very small amount of apples, I cored and sliced them, cooked them in the roaster, then ran them through a food mill to remove the peels. Once the apples were milled, I added the juice of one lemon so the applesauce would retain its color and one cup of sugar to add a hint of sweetness. I'm sure when the spousal unit eats his serving, he'll add more. Adding extra sugar and salt is something he's learned to deal with over the years. 

I think next time, if I have a larger amount of apples to process, I'll use the Kitchen Aid to peel the apples and toss them in the Ninja blended after they've cooked. Using the food mill on a large batch would be tiresome.

Applesauce is something that can be processed using a water bath. It's rather straightforward. To follow in my foremother's footsteps, one would core and peel a bushel of apples, boil them down to a mush, drain off the excess liquid, add copious amounts of sugar, and water bath for twenty minutes. 

I had about nine pounds of apples which yielded nine half-pint jars of applesauce. If I'm gifted with more apples, I'll make some apple butter. 

Eating food we've preserved is going to become a bigger part of our eating here on the manor. We both want to cut down on food additives, and for us, this is the best way to do that. Buying organic applesauce would be fine, but having learned a lot of the "old ways" from my grandmother, those are the ways I want to practice. 

For me, it's coming full circle and coming home. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor