Hot Apple Pie!

Evidently planting all of those tomato plants last spring paid off. No one in Vernal was able to grow them this year because of something called, "blight." A couple of my plants, (the free one's from IFA) got it, but all of my Costco plants survived and thrived! So I have been able to share with all of my friends and neighbors.

Last weekend, Lori Johnson told me about this recipe for homemade apple pie filling. Apples were cheap at the grocery store today so I decided to try it. This is a huge deal for me because I haven't ever baked a pie before. Okay I cheated and used the premade pie crust, but still, I made the filling from scratch and even tried canning some of it. That's another thing I don't do, canning. In my view, it ends up taking too much time and money when you can go to the store and buy a can of the same thing for a dollar. But I decided to gave it a whirl anyway. After spending all afternoon peeling fourteen apples, I decided I was right about the too much time stuff, and then when I dipped my second jar into the cold bath after it had boiled for twenty five minutes, I heard a "crack" and watched in horror as the contents of the jar started leaking into the water from a break in the bottom. I have no idea what I did wrong, but obviously something didn't go quite right.

I had big aspirations to make peach pit jam and fresh salsa today, but this dampened my adventurous spirit and I just called it a day. The true test will come when my family tastes the apple pie if my time was really worth it.

Lori's Apple Pie Filling

Mix 5C. sugar, 1 heaping cup cornstarch, 1/2t. nutmeg, 5t. cinnamon, 1t. salt and
10C. water in a saucepan and cook until bubbly and thick. Remove from the heat and add 3T. of butter and 3T. lemon juice.

While this is cooking, prepare fourteen apples (5Lbs.) - by peeling, coring and dicing. Then put the apples into hot sterile jars and fill with the syrup mixture to within one inch from the top of the jar. Cold pack process for 25 minutes.

Makes 5 - 6 jars of pie filling.

To make the pie, put the filling into a ready made crust then sprinkle with a little sugar in the raw and bake at 400* for 50 minutes.