This has been a fantastic year for apples here in MN, and our front-yard apple tree is no exception. Not only did we get a much larger-than-average yield, the individual fruit have been enormous - some nearly grapefruit sized. We don't do much to the tree other than to thin the fruit in mid-June (and keep it more-or-less trimmed), so I hadn't planned on dealing with so many apples.
Fortunately, our neighbors and friends have been enthusiastically helping with both picking and processing. I think in another few weeks we'll be finished.
Last weekend, we harvested our first fruit with our next-door neighbors. Those apples turned into several batches of apple butter (I started them in the evening, took off the lid before I went to work, and then canned the resulting butter the following evening). I mostly followed the recipe from Not Your Mother's Slowcooker. I also put up a batch of Apple-Mango Chutney from The Joy of Pickling.
This weekend some other friends came over and helped with both picking more apples and peeling/slicing/coring (truthfully, my friend Niki liked this so much she did probably 90% of the processing).
In addition to applesauce (which I pretty much just winged - one batch was sweeter and had an orange in it; another was unsweetened; a third was lightly sweetened with honey), I also put up apple pie filling. I'm especially pleased with how it came out, and am very much looking forward to a winter of delicious apple pies. (Recipe from this Better Homes & Gardens cookbook.)
Mostly just putting this here for myself.... to make a pie using this filling:
Preheat oven to 375F. Pour a quart of the filling into a 9" pie crust. Dot with butter and put on the top crust (I love a lattice top). Seal and flute edge. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until crust is golden and filling is "singing."
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