Apple Pie filling

Apples were on sale again & I picked up a 5 Lb bag of Fuji apples for $3.99.  
Over at One Acre Homestead was a recipe posted for Apple Pie filling in a jar, perfect!  I altered the recipe as I figured I would have enough apples for half a recipe.  I increased the sugar, water, cinnamon, nutmeg & added cloves (the recipe did not call for), & increased the canning time from 20-30 minutes.  Below, you will find a posting for a full recipe, so don't be confused when you see the pictures  :-) 

Apple Pie filling                  (7 Quarts)
10 Lbs Apples - peeled, cored, & cut into slices
5 1/2 C Granular Sugar (1/2 C less if the apples are sweet)
12 C Water - COLD
1 1/3 C Cornstarch
1 Tbsp. Cinnamon
1/2 tsp. Nutmeg
1/2 tsp. Cloves
3 Tbsp. Lemon juice
 
In large sauce pot combine cold water, corn starch, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, & cloves. Stir well to combine & break up any clumps.  Bring to a strong boil, constantly stirring, until thickened (5-8 min).  Remove from heat, & add in lemon juice.

Fill clean & sanitized quart jars with apples.

Pour sauce over apples, use a knife or skewer stick to get rid of any air bubbles, fill jars leaving a 1/2 in. headspace.  Wipe rims clean before placing lids on top.  Water bath can them for 30 minutes. 

All the apples floated to the top after being canned.  I think these will be great with ice cream, & I am planning on using the small jar for crepes; fill them with the apple slices and drizzle some of the sauce over the top, yummy!

Heavenly Apple Butter

Apples are on sale for .88c a lb. through Wednesday at Carr's grocery, & I thought I'd take advantage of the great price to try my hand at making homemade Apple Butter.  This is my modified version of an apple butter recipe, the original does not call for apple cider mix or apple pie spice. 

Apple Butter
4 Lbs Apples
1 1/2 C Water 
1 Packet Apple Cider mix
2 3/4 C Granular Sugar
1/2 tsp. Cinnamon - ground
1/2 tsp. Apple Pie Spice (if you don't have, just use more cinnamon)
1/4 tsp. Cloves - ground

Peel, core & large dice the apples & place them in a large pot with water & apple cider mix.  Bring up to a boil, stir and let cook 30 minutes or until soft.  Puree apples & water in small batches, into uniform size but do not liquify.  Place puree mix in large pot, add in sugar & spices.  Bring up to a good boil, reduce heat to medium, continue to boil, & stir until it thickens.  To test for doneness, take a chilled plate, put a small amount of mixture on plate & if it holds its shape it is ready to can.  If it seperates, and a ring of liquid forms around the solid, it is not ready yet and continue to cook!  Once done cooking, ladle into hot sanitized jars and water bath can them for 10 minutes. 

Here's the spices for my apple butter & the next picture is of the apples getting all soft and smooshy before I can puree them. 

Now they are pureed and the spices added in, the whole house smells great!   And the final product, I had some leftover that wouldn't fit in the canning jars so we each had a slice of homemade bread with homemade apple butter, yummy!

This recipe made 6, 1/2 pint jars with a little leftover. 

Gourmet Grape Jelly

I posted a while back how I had been on the lookout for grape juice for jelly, right HERE, well I ended up making blueberry jelly and being very content with that, that is until this that weekend...
I was picking up strawberries and such in the produce section and lo & behold I spotted 100% pure grape juice!  Just my lucky day :-) 

Grape Jelly
3 Cups Grape Juice - pure juice no additives
4 1/2 C Granular Sugar
1 Pkg. Pectin

Combine grape juice and pectin in a medium/large pot, whisk until combined, bring up to a strong boil.  Then, add in all of the sugar at once stirring well, bring back up to a rapid boil and let cook 1 minute,don't forget to stir!

Ladle into sanitized jars and water bath can them for 10 minutes.  This recipe makes 6, 1/2 pint jars. 

I purchased the juice in the Syrah & Chardonnay varieties, but this would work well with any pure grape juice that you can find.  Good luck!

Sweet Bread & Butter Pickles

Sweet bread & butter pickles are my favorite pickles. I found a recipe for making them, and since I have been a crazy canning lady this year, I figured I would try making them at home. Be forewarned, it is a lot cheaper to get store bought pickles, that being said, feeling proud and a bit giddy making your own definitely wins over the cost factor any day!

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The recipe states to let them sit 2-3 weeks before opening up, to develop the flavor, I'm not sure if I can wait that long!

Summer Solstice Preserves

I had Friday off from work, so I spent the morning camped out on the living room floor surrounded by my Pugs, with the sun shining in the windows as I enjoyed a bowl of cereal while I browsed through my canning book, ahh...I love my days off!

I found a recipe for Summer Solstice Preserves, sounds very tasty and I think it will make a great topping for waffles, & ice cream. As always, I change up the recipe a smidge. The recipe says it makes 5, half-pint jars and I ended up with 7, half-pint jars.

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Summer Solstice Preserves

1 C Blueberries - washed & packed well

3 C Cherries - washed, pitted & halved (I used Rainier variety)

2 Tbsp. Lemon Juice

4 1/2 C Granular Sugar

1 Pouch Liquid Pectin

1/2 tsp. Butter

2 Tbsp. Cherry Flavoring (is optional, I used some Maraschino Juice)

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In large pot combine berries, lemon juice, and sugar. Stir to mix well & let sit 20 minutes. Meanwhile prepare jars, lids, & canner.

Bring pot of berries to high heat, stirring constantly, bring to a strong boil that cannot be stirred down. Stir in full package of pectin. Boil hard, stirring constantly, for 1 minute. Remove from heat, stir in butter & cherry flavoring. Skim off any foam. Ladle into hot sanitized jars & water bath can them for 10 minutes.

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As you can see from the top picture, I have quite the stack of canning jars, this doesn't include the 3 cases I've already gone through.

Ode to the Blueberry

I've turned into a crazy canning lady, I can't be stopped!!!!
I'm not sure whats got into me this year, but I've really taken a liking to canning stuff. So far I've canned Raspberry Jam, Chili Sauce, Marinara, & now I can add Blueberry Jelly to the list. I really wanted to make homemade Grape Jelly, one of my favorite jam/jellies, but I found it very difficult & expensive to locate unsweetened grape juice. After much debate it seemed only logical to make something more Alaska themed and I opted for Blueberry Jelly instead, plus blueberries are in season and easy to get, so a no brainer!
Did you realize that blueberries aren't blue inside?!? Well I didn't know that until I made this recipe. It is based on a berry jelly recipe in a canning book that I have, but I changed it up a bit based on other recipes I read involving the use of blueberries. This recipe makes 5, half-pint jars.
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Blueberry Jelly
3 1/2 C Blueberry Juice (2 C blueberries = 1 C blueberry juice)
*you will need to boil fresh berries in order to get the berry juice you need, this recipe is for 3 1/2 C juice so you will need 7 C fresh berries* You may be short/over the needed juice, if you are short the juice needed you can add in water to make up the difference.
1 Pkg Pectin
2 Tbsp. Lemon Juice
3 2/3 C Granular Sugar
1/2 tsp. Butter (sub margarine)
1 Jelly bag or Pkg of Cheesecloth
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Carefully wash berries, remove stems, and place in a large sauce pot. Add 1/2 C water for every 4 C berries to avoid scorching them. Turn heat to medium/high and stir constantly until brought to a soft boil. Drop temperature to medium and cover, let simmer 10 min., occasionally stir breaking up berries. Once softened and broken up, remove from heat. Pour into jelly bag or a strainer lined with several layers of cheesecloth and let drip into a large pot 2 hrs or overnight until all of the juices have left the berries. If you force the juice out of the berries, the end result could be cloudy jelly!
Once the juice has been measured out to 3 1/2 cups, combine berry juice and lemon juice in large sauce pot, whisk in pectin until combined. Bring up to a rolling boil and continually stir mixture. Once at a rolling boil, add in all of the sugar, mix until combined. Add in butter (not necessary but will keep foaming down). Mix well and bring back up to a boil, continue to stir and let boil vigorously 1 minute.
After boiling vigorously for 1 minute, you can remove from heat, skim off any foam. Ladle into hot sanitized jars and water bath can them for 10 minutes.

A little strange on the inside, blueberries are only blue on the outside, you should've seen my hands when I was done with the recipe as they were stained a lovely shade of blue for a good day and a half!

Simmering berries getting all saucy in the sauce pot! Here they are straining in some cheesecloth, it took way over 2 hrs for all the juice to be extracted, overnight would probably be best, just lightly cover the top of the pot to keep the bugs out.

Measuring the freshly made blueberry jelly into canning jars. You can see that I made a double batch, I ran out of jars and had to pour the excess into a leftover container, oops!

Yummy Yummy Yummy, fresh blueberry jelly for breakfast, makes me happy!

Sunshine in a jar

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It might sound strange, but berries make me happy, I mean really make me happy.

I haven't met a berry I didn't like, their eye popping color and fresh flavors remind me of summer time. One of my favorite berries is a raspberry. These are quite expensive at the regular stores but I find that I can get them really affordable at Costco.

So, what do you do with lots of tasty beautiful raspberries? Besides eating them fresh with a light sprinkling of sugar, you turn them into yummy jam!

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I went a bit crazy with the jam and ended up with a dozen jars of ruby red sunshine in a jar. Now we can enjoy summer time year round and have enough jars to share some too.

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Raspberry Jam

5 C Berries

7 C Sugar

1 Packet Pectin

Wash berries, crush one layer at a time in a large pot. Bring pot to a medium/high heat and slowly stir in pectin. Bring to a boil and add in sugar, stir continually to avoid scorching and allow the sugar to dissolve. Let boil 2 minutes, then remove from heat. Ladle into clean & sanitized jars leaving 1/4 in. gap (the width of the lid threads on the glass). Process 10 minutes in a water bath canner. Remove from canner & let cool 12 - 24 hrs. Test tops for doneness, if they pop up/down, remove lids & bands, replace with new ones, and re-can for same amount of time.

*This recipe will fill 8, 8oz jars.*

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