From peaches to apples

I bought a bushel of apples from the local orchard last week. Saturday I decided I was ready to do something with them. I'm not big on canning apples, but the nice man at the orchard gave me his daughter's recipe for Apple Pie Filling. I thought, "what the heck" so I bought the apples and took the recipe home with me. So, now we have 18 quarts of apple pie filling all canned and down in the cold storage.

Well... hmmm, actually I guess it's 17 quarts because last night I dumped the contents of one of those blessed jars into a baking dish, covered it with a crumble topping and baked it right up. A scoop of vanilla ice cream on top and voilá -- Apple Crisp!!! So fast, so easy.

Yep, it's going to be a yummy winter at our house this year.

Apple Pie Filling (for canning)

4 cups sugar
1 cup cornstarch
1 heaping tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp salt

Mix all together. Heat 10 cups water to boiling; add sugar mixture and stir till dissolved. Then add 3 Tbsp lemon juice and 3 drops yellow food coloring. Heat until thickened. Pour into 6 quart jars filled with sliced apples. Process jars in a water bath canner for 20 minutes. (I used a combination of Jonagold and Jonathan apples.) Note: if you have an Apple Peeler/Slicer/Corer, getting the apples in the jars is a lot quicker and easier. Like I said, I did a whole bushel's worth. I was done in about 1 1/2 hours total time. I ended up with 20 quarts -- gave 2 to the neighbor that loaned me her canning equipment.