Canned Apple Pie Filling

I love pie!  I know most of you have probably figured that out by now, but I just thought I'd emphasize it.  Moving on...

I ran across this recipe years ago and have used it since to can some wonderful apple pie filling that makes the holiday prep time go so much smoother since we make several pies at a time.

Canned Apple Pie Filling

5 lbs. apples -- peeled, cored, and sliced
5 c. water
2 1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. corn starch
2 1/2 t. cinnamon
1 T. lemon juice

Sterilize 6 quart jars, lids and bands.  You can either run the jars through the dishwasher and take them out as soon as the sterilize setting is done or boil them for 10 minutes.  I do the latter.  I also place the lids and bands in a saucepan and keep the water boiling until I'm ready to use them.

While the jars are sterilizing combine water, sugar, corn starch, cinnamon and lemon juice in a sauce pan and bring to a boil. 

Fill hot jars with apples and pour syrup through a funnel (keep your jar rims clean) to the tops of jars (leaving 1/2 inch head space).  Wipe rim and threads of jar to make sure it's free of sauce and then put on lids and bands.  (I dry my lids and bands real quick with a clean towel before putting them on my jars so they don't rust.)  Make sure the bands are tight, but not too tight!  Process in boiling water for 20 minutes. (Make sure the water starts boiling after you put the jars in before you start the timer. Also make sure the water is covering the jars at least an inch.)

You might have some pie filling left over.  If you do whip up a pie using either my Pie Crust Recipe or my Sour Cream Pie Crust.

Or place the rest of the filling into a baking dish and top with my fruit crisp topping recipe HERE.  Bake as directed.

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Green Beans and Bacon

I love fresh green beans out of the garden all steamed and sprinkled with a little butter, salt and pepper!  But what I really love is green beans cooked with bacon!   It's super simple!

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Green Beans and Bacon

Fry up one pound of bacon.  I usually bake my bacon, but for this recipe you are going to want to fry it!  Once the bacon is cooked to your liking (we like crispy but not so well done it turns into powder) place the bacon on a plate and drain most of the bacon grease from the frying pan.  Place 2 quarts of green beans (raw--we like fresh from the garden or frozen from the garden) in the skillet, crumble bacon over the top of the green beans, cover and cook on medium until the green beans are cooked (until they're bright green).  Once they are done you can serve them with your favorite main dish.  My favorite combo would be Easy Peasy Chops, Smashed Potatoes, Green Beans and Bacon, and Honey Yeast Rolls.  Mmm...yummy!

Applesauce

I've made applesauce each fall for years...with the exception of last year.  I didn't have the time or a good deal on apples so I skipped that last year.  Therefore a post was skipped on it...not to mention my home skipped on the yummy scent of apples cooking on the stove!  I recently got a note from a reader on Facebook asking if I had a recipe for applesauce.  Boy, do I ever!  I love it! It's easy peasy! I think you'll like it, too! 

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Applesauce

8 pounds of apples peeled, cored, and quartered -- about 24 cups (I've used all kinds, but my favorites Macintosh and Jonathan.)
2 cups water
1 to 1 1/2 cups sugar
sprinkles of cinnamon (to your liking, if you like at all)

In a 10 quart pot combine apples, water, and cinnamon (if you like).  Simmer, covered, for 15-20 minutes.  Make sure you stir it often so it doesn't scorch on the bottom.  Now, you have a few options.  If you like it thin you can run it through a food mill or in a food processor.  We like our applesauce chunky so I take about half out and run it through my Norpro Sauce Master and the other half I'll use a potato masher to chunk up the apples in the pot.  (By the way...I peel and core the apples before starting.  Some people run the whole apple through the sauce master but I think the peel and core give it a bitter taste.)  Then I put the sauced apples back in the pot.  Stir in sugar.  If you find it's too thick and needs a bit more water you can add some more...about 1/2 cup.  Bring to a boil then you are ready to can!  (This recipe will make about 6 pints.)

To can it:
Sterilize 6 pint jars, lids and bands.  (You can either run the jars through the dishwasher and take them out as soon as the sterilize setting is done or boil them for 10 minutes.  I do the latter.) 

Funnel hot applesauce in the jars, leaving 1/2 inch head space (where the threads stop at the bottom of the lip).  Wipe rim and threads of jar to make sure it's free of sauce and then put on lids and bands.  (I dry my lids and bands real quick with a clean towel before putting them on my jars so they don't rust.)  Make sure the bands are tight, but don't get all Superman on them and crank it on...you don't want it that tight!  Process in boiling water for 15 minutes. (Make sure the water starts boiling after you put the jars in before you start the timer. And make sure that the water is covering the jars at least an inch.)

Well now I am all excited to go apple picking this month!  And I can't wait to make some yummy applesauce!

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We really like to use our homemade applesauce to make Cherry Cinnamon Applesauce as a side dish with fall and holiday dishes!  Yummy!

Refrigerator Pickles

Last year we made refrigerator pickles but they didn't have quick the "kick" to them that I had hoped.  They were good, but something was lacking.  The way the garden was going this summer I was hoping that all the produce would wait to ripen after our vacation. 

Well of course a bunch of pickling cucumbers ripened while we were in the midst of 4-H judging and packing for vacation.  

Hubby, the awesome hubby that he is, decided to help out. 

He bought a pickling concoction from Ball and had a few kiddos help us out.  

For every 2 quarts of pickles you need:
3 1/2 pounds of pickling cucumbers
2 cups water
1 cup vinegar
1/4 cup Ball Kosher Dill Pickle Mix
2 quart canning jars with new lids and bands  (I reuse my bands)

You can use a boiling water canner and the instruction are on the bottle, but we did the refrigerator method. 

Either way prepare your pickles by cutting the ends of the cucumbers and cut into spears.  Combine water, vinegar, and the mix in a medium saucepan.  Heat to boil.

1. Pour hot pickling liquid over cucumber spears in a large bowl.  Cool to room temperature, about 30 minutes.
2. Pack cucumbers spears into jars.  Ladle pickling liquid over cucumbers.  Place lids and bands on jars. 
3. Refrigerate pickles.  For best flavor, allow pickles to stand in refrigerator for 3 weeks.

They have to sit in the refrigerator for three weeks to soak up the flavor so yesterday (the first full day home from our camping vacation) was the first day we could eat them.  They were dilly and had a good kick to them.  Crunchy, too!  Perfect! 

We have more pickles coming on the vine and we hope to do the boiling canner method so we can store them for a year on the shelves.

Peach Jelly -- without a canner!

I bought a bunch of peaches last week. I made two Creamy Peach Pies, some peach jam, and a couple of gluten free mini peach cobblers (for my mom). (Don't get super excited...I haven't conquered gluten free cooking...the crust part was Gluten Free Bisquick.) So the peaches that were used for the jam and pies were peeled and pitted. I saved them! Did you know you could use them for something else? Yep. I'm super frugal. I happened upon the idea in an Amish cookbook.

Here's what I did. Don't worry, I won't bore you with a picture of every. single. ingredient, but I will share with you a few pics that are helpful. *wink*

Tools needed:  medium pan for making peach skin juice, large pan for making jelly,  medium large pan for boiling jars, smaller sauce pan for boiling lids and bands, wooden spoons, hot pads, towels and dish rags, ladle, canning jar funnel

Peach Jelly
4 cups peach juice (see below)
1/2 tsp. butter
1 package of pectin (I really like Kroger brand!)
5 1/2 cups sugar
canning jars, bands and lids (new lids!)

Get your jars in a boiling water bath to sterilize or you can put them in the dishwasher and run it on sterilize, but I think that uses a lot of electricity.

I just put a towel on the bottom of my pan, set the jars in, fill with water, then get them to boiling.  Turn it down to medium and get started on the jam.  They are sterile by the time the jam is ready to go in them (10 minute minimum).  Put the lids and bands in another small pot, cover with water, get them boiling and turn down on medium.

To make peach juice place the peach pits and skins in a pot and cover with water.  (I had about 15-20 peaches so this batch of juice made enough for two batches of jelly and then some.) Turn the burner on high.  Once it starts boiling, turn it down to medium/low and let it simmer for about 10 minutes.  Let it cool a bit.  (I had to wait for hubby to get back from running errands, one of which was buying more sugar for me, so my juice sat a few hours.)  Then strain the juice.  You'll need 4 cups of juice for a batch of jelly. (If you have less than 4 cups of juice...like 3 or so, it will work if you add water to it to make 4 cups, but I wouldn't use more that one cup of water.)

Place the juice, butter (keeps the jelly from foaming), and pectin powder in the pan.  See how big of a pan I use? It's a must or you are going to get splattered with very hot jelly later in the process.  Trust me, I know!  Stir it on high heat until it boils.  A full rolling boil.

Add the sugar all at once and stir.  Keep stirring until it gets to a full rolling boil like in the picture above.  You want it to boil like that for 1 minute.  (Keep stirring...you don't want the bottom to scorch.)  Then take it off the heat and set a timer for 5 minutes. During that time I take all my jars very carefully out of the water.  I use a long skinny wooden spoon and pair of hefty tongs to do this.  I set them on a towel on the counter upside down.  Then I set the pan of jelly on a hot pad right next to them on the counter.  I also set the lids and bands next to those. 

When the five minute timer is up I skim the top of the jelly.  There will be a bit of foam, but not nearly as much as if you hadn't put the butter in.  Set a jar next to the pot, put the funnel on, and funnel jelly into the jar leaving 1/4 - 1/2 inch head space.  Move on to the next jar until all are full.  (I usually have a little bit left over that goes into a jar that will go in the fridge for breakfast the next morning.)

Once the jars are all full I wipe the rims of the jars with a hot damp dishrag.  You may need more than one, depends on how messy you were filling the jars.  *smile*  Next take a lid out of the water and dry it off with a clean towel, set it on the jar, take out a band, dry it off, then screw it on the jar.  Make sure it's tight.  Set jars upside down on a clean towel.  Repeat until all jars are tended to.  Place the jars 1 inch apart.  Once the last jar is flipped upside down set the timer for 5 minutes. (This helps seal the lids.) After 5 minutes flip them right side up and in an hour or so you'll hear little pops.  Check all the lids in a few hours to make sure the lids are sealed.  If you can press on the lid gently and there's some give then you need to pop that one in fridge and use within a few weeks.  There's no need to process the jelly/jam if your jars, lids and band are sterile and hot and your jelly/jam is hot.  I know what some people say.  I have done this for a few years now and never had a problem with my jelly/jam.  And I make a lot of jelly and jam!  The instructions on the box of Kroger pectin even tells you to do it this way.  Why waste the time and energy when you don't need to? Trust me.  It works.  Enough said?  Good.  *smile*

Phew. That was a process, but let me tell you it gets easier each time you do it.  I would much rather do several batches in a row this way because it becomes like an assembly line.  When my jars are inverted for 5 minutes I take the time to wash out the pan for the jelly, wash the jars and get everything set up for the next batch.  It's so rewarding when you're done to see all those pretty little jars lined up on the counter.  I love it and I hope you do, too!