Apples

A few days ago I picked apples.  When I go to those pick your own places I find that I pick way more than I need.  Well indeed that is what happened the other day.  So what to do with all those apple?  I knew I wanted to make a  pie.  I bake lots of things but don't do pies but when you have apples what are you suppose to do.  Pies do not take a lot of apples so I still had a lot of apples left.   I decided to make applesauce and can it in my pressure canner.  I decided on applesauce because it doesn't seem very desserty (a new word) and it is really easy.

​Apple Pie

I don't make many pies so I make this as easy on my self as possible.  I have two worries when making pies, is the crust going to be to tough and will the pie be watery.  My solution for the crust is to use premade crust.  It saves time and no worries about bad crust.  Frankly, why not use premade items if it make sense for you.  I feel no shame at all.  If you are worried about a watery filling just put in a little corn starch in the filling.  That helps to thicken it up.  I didn't use the corn starch for the apple pie though.  So here is my pie recipe which I will also post in my recipe section.  

Ingredients:
1 box refrigerated pie crust (it should have 2 crusts in and you will need both)
3 - 4 apples of your choice.  I used Stamen as that was what was in season but there are a lot of other varieties that work great.
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
butter

Directions:
Take crust out of fridge and let sit while you are peeling and cutting the apples.
Peel, core, and slice apples
Combines 3/4 cup sugar and one tsp of cinnamon together
sprinkle sugar mix over the apples and tossed
Dump apple mix in in the pie shell
Top with a few dabs of butter on top of apples (you don't need to use much)
Place the top crust on, cut slits to let the moisture escape
Bake for 1 hour at 425.  

​Applesauce

This is even easier than the pie (no crust)  There are a ton a applesauce recipes out there and they are all about the same.  I just threw the basic ingredients together don't worry to much about the amounts.  If you want to jazz it up you can add ingredients like cranberries of other seasonings.


Ingredients:

12 - 14 Apples* (you can mix varieties) 
3/4 cup sugar (you may want more sugar depending on your tastes)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup apple cider (canuse water if you don't have cider)

Peel and chop the apples (a rough chop is good enough). 
Throw them in a large pot 
Add 3/4 cup sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon and apple cider   
Cook until softened
Mash with an immersion blender or food processor until you get the consistency you like. 

* if you don't have that many apples just reduce the amount of sugar and cinnamon to coincide with what you have.  
After that I followed my local extension service recommendations of processing times for canning.  It was really that simple.  You don't have to be exact about the amount of sugar or cinnamon for either of these recipes.