Apple Pickin' Good Times

What with the rampant agriculture in this area of the world, it only made sense that there should be some place to harvest a slice of this bounty and take it for ourselves. I was not one of those who went a-lookin', but thanks to the hard work and dedication of Mrs Megan and every-one's favorite, Kari B, we found plenty of feral apples to gather for applesauce, and for the yummy canned and preserved Cinnamon apple goodness shown below.

Look anywhere you can think for a fruit tree that is no longer maintained, or one in someones yard that you can help maintain for a payment in fruit. Megan was lucky enough to hiking on a hillside overlooking... oh, one of these little German towns, and stumble across just that: a tree or two outside the fence, unkempt, unmaintained as their brethren, and left to drop apples to the ground.

Well, we can't have that now can we?

It took 2 trips and several buckets to gather enough apples, and then about 6 solid hours of peeling and cutting to end up with enough apple meat for two recipes. If nothing else, you can figure that too much is way better than not enough... and you'd be surprised at how much the little buggers shrink in the cooker.

The first thing we made was Cinnamon Apples, or canned apple pie filling, though I'm not sure we have any immediate plans to make a pie. I'm thinking this could be marketed as a revolutionary topping for everything.

We found a simple recipe on allrecipes.com, and modified it as follows:

4 1/2 cups white sugar* (We used 3 cups white sugar, 1.5 cups light brown sugar)
1 cup cornstarch
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon* (Okay, we might have doubled or tripled that... we like spice!)
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons salt
10 cups water
3 tablespoons lemon juice* (Omitted)
2 drops yellow food coloring * (Omitted)
6 pounds apples

We doubled the quantities and used 12 lbs of apples for a total yield of 12 quarts of apples in cinnamon sauce. The sauce is prepared by combining all ingredients except the apples, and cooking over a constant heat until thick and bubbly. I learned the hard way that it is best to dissolve the cornstarch in a liquid before combining with the mix, just like making gravy. Yes, that is "cooking common sense" (come to find out), but I have never denied my lack of stealth before the stove.

At the same time the sauce is bubbling, your jars should be getting sterilized in boiling water and filled to the top with apple chunks. It is important to fill the jars while they are still hot, and this really takes a couple of people, so I'm sure even my fumbling hands were appreciated by Megan and Kari. Once the sauce and jars were ready, each was filled with hot bubbly sauce and capped.

I cannot go into preserving detail, as I was not present for this step, but the general process can easily be found online or in your kitchen cookbook.

And that is that. I am looking forward to winter and the un-capping of our little jars of delight. I might have to crack one to sample before then :) Maybe I will make a pie!

Go make a pie!