Week of apples

Our apple trees are loaded with some really good apples. Because there's no way we can eat that many apples fresh, despite Java's help in working her way through the tree next to the pasture, we need to do some canning. This isn't just a few jars, but major apple sauce production. 

Knowing this, I scheduled the rest of this week off from school so we can get through them all. I think Friday, Saturday, and Sunday will be solely dedicated to apple sauce and apple butter. Today was dedicated to caramel apple pie filling. 

My goal was 14 pints, figuring I'd do the recipe twice. At least that was the plan. I'm both annoyed at the Ball recipe book as well as myself. I've made this recipe before; several times, in fact. No where did I write down the yield for how many apples. (I've done this in nearly every other canning recipe I routinely use. I know exactly how many cucumbers I need for 7 quarts of dill pickles, for instance, because I kept copious records.) With no notations, I assumed the recipe as written, with one whole apple giving a cup was correct. 

L. and G. we're super helpful getting the apples all peeled and cored. (They like to use the tool that does this.) I got everything else ready and then I set to work, dividing the apples in two batches because I was going to do the recipe twice. 

While I did end up with some pie filling, it was exactly half of what I expected and took twice as long because I had divided things up. I find the Ball book notorious in over estimating the yield, so I don't know why I believed it this time. 

You can bet that there are now detailed notes written on the recipe. And we did end up with seven pints of our favorite apple pie filling.


I saved the extra liquid which should be enough for seven more pints. I'm hoping that children are as eager to process apples tomorrow as they were today. I'm being optimistic that I can do the extra pig filling and the apple chutney that was already on the schedule tomorrow. 

And I promise that all the posts thus week won't be about canning.

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