Preserving Food ~ Apple Pie Filling
Today I am sick. This nasty cold has gone viciously through our family this last week, starting with Logan on Tuesday and all the way through Don and I these last two days. It is only a three day thing... but wow. It's a killer. We have spent many an evening all laying on my bed, watching movies, eating popcorn or pasta for dinner.Getting sick really isn't a mother's prerogative. It seems as though it should be, but when I actually get sick, it is more like something I have to push through than 'recover from'. This week was no different. The worst day of my cold I was delivered 5 boxes of beautiful apples.
No stopping apples. So no stopping applesauce and apple pie filling. Being in Washington, I have honestly never bought apples for canning before. I have always had trees, or known people that have had trees. So this is the first time I have ever paid for boxes of apples and I wasn't about to let them go bad as I sat conversing with my tissues.
Sarah Jean's Apple Pie Filling
Granny Smith Apples
4 1/2 cups of sugar
2 Tbs cinnamon
1/2 tea nutmeg (I liked 1 tea)
1 tea salt
1 cup corn starch
10 cups water
Mix all ingredients, except corn starch. Mix the corn starch with a little water and then add it in. Boil all ingredients.
Being that this is the first time I bought apples, I forgot to ask if they were organic. Just to be on the safe side, I washed them all.
Peel and core a large bowl of apples, and cut them into halves or fourths (I like fourths, they are easier to stuff in the jars, but halves look better in the pie.)
I am saving aside the peels for Callista's Apple Pie Jelly. :)
The recipe calls for cramming as many apples in as you can up to the rim of the jar, but I found that if you fill the jar half full with apple slices, and then add a bit of the sour over those, then cram the jars with the slices it worked much better to get the sauce to the bottom of the jar. 
Work bubbles out with a knife. Sauce will settle and you will want to add more in a few minutes. Add lids and submerge in hot water bath for 20 minutes.
Happy Canning!
Happy Canning! 
Comments
I made some Caramelized Apple Marmalade with Thyme last week from "Preserving the Taste" and I'll be making more of that for sure, it's delicious!
Tricia: This recipe for the pie filling only ends up to being abuot a little over 1/2 cup in each pie. When you consider that is way less than a large soda, it doesn't seem that bad. ;) Jelly is the only thing that I haven't been able to figure out cutting the sugar as much as I would like to. My applesauce doesn't usually have any sugar at all. I use fruit juice for sweetening. When I used Golden Delicious apples it was the sweetest applesauce I had ever tasted... and no sugar! It was amazing. I had never tried those before, prefering the texture of the braburns or gravinstiens. Anyway... link for that:
http://goddesshobbies.blogspot.com/2007/09/strawberry-applesauce-ingredients.html
Blessings,
Val
Hope everyone's feeling better.
Holly @ 504 Main
I was intent on making 14 quarts of pie filling. And I left 7 in the canner for twice the amt of time (with my sicky brain I was lucky it wasn't worse) and when I pulled them out, they were totally ozzing all over the place through the rings. So my first assumption was that they wouldn't seal. So while I was still in the mode, I made up another 7 correctly. Wouldn't you know, all but one sealed. Meaning I have 20 quarts of apple pie filling now!! lol! What will I do with two pies a month? I thought 14 was over doing it. Sigh... oh well. We will just have to have cobbler and tarts too. Maybe give some away as gifts? Who knows. But it gave me a big laugh to put all of those on the shelf.
Tricia: I do use raw, organic sugar. It is spendy, but I get it from Costco and so it is $4 less than anywhere else. I have never used Arrowroot. I will have to look into that. :)
Blessings,
Val