My sister Lorna (left) and I have a turn at peeling. If you don’t have one of these peeling gadgets, do yourself a favour and invest in one. Inexpensive (about $30) and easy to use even if you don’t have bushels of apples to process. I use mine even if I’m only peeling half a dozen apples for a pie. It peels, slices and cores all in one easy operation.
Days are getting shorter, weather is changeable, and the few flowers I had have turned brown, but fall is still my favourite season. It’s time to harvest and get ready for winter. There are ten apple trees at Idyllbeck. Fortunately five are in the horse paddock (so the horses take care of harvesting those) and the other five are ready at different times. Yesterday (October 12) we picked and started processing the first tree. I don’t know what kind they are because the tree is decades old and we’ve only been here six years, but we do know these are good for pies. Apples on the next tree to harvest are smaller and red, also good for pie. We have an embarrassment of riches, in the apple department anyway.
Apples freeze well, but with limited freezer space and frequent power outages, our favourite method of preserving them is canning. Getting pie filling made and into jars was our work for the day. We barely made a dent in the first wheelbarrow load and quickly realized there will be a lot of apples sent to the cidery (which makes Tiffany very happy). We did the peeling and coring outside because it can be messy. Our horses didn’t leave us for a second. I think fall is also their favourite time of year!
Here is the recipe we use for pie filling:
6 cups of peeled, cored, sliced apples
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons minute tapioca
1 /2 teaspoon cinnamon
Combine apples and sugar in large, heavy pot over low heat. Stir. You can increase heat when juice starts to release. Boil for a minute or so, and when there’s enough juice, add tapioca and cinnamon. Boil until juice begins to thicken, then pack into quart jars, put bands/lids on and into the canner. We use a pressure canner, 15 pounds (250 degrees F) for 20 minutes.
If you’re using the water bath canning method, you’ll need to add a teaspoon of lemon juice to each quart. Make sure water covers the jars and boil for 20 minutes.
This makes a 9″ pie with nice, deep filling because who eats pie for the crust, right?
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