Easy Canned Apple Pie Filling - With NO Sugar

Stepping in quick from a busy day of applesauce making (again!) to share a new way that I found to make canned apple pie filling.

My usual method for apple pie filling called for cooking a glaze, tossing in the sliced apples, packing in jars and canning. This new method skips the glaze/sauce. It still takes quite a while to peel all those apples but I think the work of making apple pie filling is worth the convenience of having a quick apple crisp available at any time.

The other benefit of this recipe is NO sugar! It uses only honey for sweetener. I found the recipe in Healthy Choices - a cookbook with no white sugar or white flour compiled from recipes shared by readers of Keepers at Home magazine. I adjusted it a little, including cutting the recipe in half since I didn't have any bowls big enough to mix the full recipe in.

One note - DO NOT fill the jars full! The first time I tried this, over half of the jars did not seal. My mom reminded me that apple pie filling jars should not be filled full. With this method of using water, there is no air space and is even more important not to fill the jars full. The second attempt at this recipe, I only filled the jars with water up to the shoulder of the jar, not to the neck. This time the jars sealed very well.

The original recipe called for flour for thickening. Flour made the liquid cloudy. I preferred clear gel, a thickener similar to corn starch but better for canning.

This year, my apple pie filling was much softer then last year. But I'm assuming it was because my apples were very ripe. I used Golden Delicious apples and probably should have chosen a firmer apple. But no one in my family will complain if their apple filling is completely mush. We LOVE apple desserts.

Apple Pie Filling for Canning
Adapted from Healthy Choices

6 qt apples, peeled and sliced
1/3 cup flour or clear gel
1 cup honey
2 T cinnamon
1/2 T nutmeg

Toss dry ingredients with apples. Stir in honey. Fill quart jars. Fill jars with water - but NOT to top of jar. Water bath can for 30 minutes.

To serve, dump into a casserole dish and sprinkle with any apple crisp topping recipe. Or try this frozen crisp topping.  Then bake.

Or dump into a pie shell and bake.

October in My Garden

With many days of rain this past month, gardening has been about the last thing on my mind. Besides dashing out for a pepper or to check the broccoli, the garden has been rather abandoned.

I see from my September list, that I still have things to do this fall. The late potato plants are still green, I'm still picking the last few tomatoes, and nothing has been tilled under for winter. I told Ed that this is one year that the tomatoes cages will probably stand in the garden until spring.

And at this point, I don't really care.

But maybe it will dry out enough this month to do some garden clean up. It is always nice to leave the garden as a clean slate, ready for spring planting.

October's Garden To-Do List

1. Plant some pansies and spring bulbs.

2. Make compost with the withered garden plants and falling leaves.

3. Plant garlic, if it dries enough to till.

4. Dig potatoes.

5. Trim off the asparagus, manure the bed, and cover with leaves.

6. Plant lettuce and spinach in the hoop house. (Since I kept forgetting to plant seeds, I just started some plants in the house to give them a head start and plan to transplant to the hoop house. If I'm not too late already.)

7. Clean up all garden areas and mulch all the perennial beds with chopped leaves.

What are you doing in your garden this month?

Applesauce Making

Thanks for all your encouragement! After all my whining, I thought I should tell you about a good day! Yesterday, one of my sisters came to help me make applesauce. (You had a good idea, Suzi!) It is unbelievable how much another set of hands gives a lift!

We did 58 quart of applesauce. I'm choosing not to remember that is less than half of what we eat in in a year.

While waiting for apples to cook, we did some cleaning, completely caught up on laundry and even did some mending! I didn't attempt to do school. One of you said I should have apple days instead of snow days. Love the idea. We were ahead of schedule anyway.

I didn't take any pictures all day. If you want to read more about how we made applesauce check out this post or this post. Ed insisted on taking my photo last night with the applesauce. I look real photogenic at 9:00 at night after a big apple day under the orange kitchen lights!

After a "successful" day like yesterday, do I pat myself on the back? If my success is not dependent upon my accomplishments, I have no right to pride, any more than I need to beat myself on a "bad" day. If my worth is not dependent on what I "do" I am free to thank God for His blessing.

Because it was all God. He gave the willing help of a sister.  He gave healing to my back. He gives life and strength every day for what He has called us to do in that day.

Final Inspection!

The last time I wrote about our home addition was in August when we finished the mud room. I haven't written since then because we have not done anything. The project was at a total stand still.

Last week, Ed finished making the window seats. I loved the idea of using the two corners by the fireplace for storage. After deliberating over whether to have drawers, cupboard-like doors, open shelves with baskets, we finally chose a toy box style box, mostly because it was the easiest way to have a lot of storage.


I love the final outcome. The top is walnut left from other projects. I was planning to make a cushion, but this wood is too pretty to cover. For now, I just threw on a pillow. It is good there is two of them because this is hot real-estate! The children love to perch here with a pillow or two.


Now my only question is what to store here. I'm not planning to use it for toys. I hate toy boxes as the favorite toy is always on the bottom crushed under twenty other toys. I prefer shelving for toys and we already have a good place for toy storage.

For now, I am using one window box to store picnic supplies and paper-ware. I never had a good place to put these things and was actually storing them in the master bathroom closet! I think this spot, right inside from the picnic table, will be convenient.

The other window box holds all my table cloths, another item that lacked a good home. When I walked around the house gathering up the table cloths, I was surprised to discover how many I owned, and how many different locations I was storing them. I can still change my mind, but for now I am pleased.

On Saturday, Ed seeded grass. We had planted some grass in early summer. But it was right before the summer drought. The only thing that grew was weeds. Ed sprayed it all down and started over.


A couple loads of topsoil helped to smooth down some uneven areas.


Sprinkle on the grass seed (with Ed's grandfathers old grain seeder.)


Scatter some straw.


And hope it grows!

Monday night, my brother came back to finish one little area on the outside.

Then yesterday, the inspector visited. And gave his signature for final inspection! We are officially done seven months after making a huge dirt hole in the back yard. We have certainly been living and enjoying this addition for months but now I have permission to finish moving in furniture and hang things on the walls!

We learned a lot through the building process. Maybe my next post should be "lessons learned when building a home addition"!

Startling Discovery

"I can't do it all."

So what is so surprising about that? I know as well as anyone that I can't do everything.

But I don't live like I believe it.

I end every day in frustration on how many things are still undone. Never do I accomplish everything that I thought was possible in the morning.

I finally came to realize that I can only do one or two, maybe on a good day, three things in a day.

If I have a big project like applesauce, it is really hard to squeeze school in also.

If I have a great day of school, supper will probably be simple. (So thankful that Ed loves toasted cheese, bacon and tomato sandwiches!)

Maybe we get homeschooling and baking done - but the house will probably be a disaster.

Or if the house is clean, my children would have dealt with a mother completely lacking the "meek and quiet spirit" and more on the line of a drill sargent.

On the rare day that we seem to accomplish a lot, maybe the children were super helpful, before I can put on my super woman cape, I find laundry forgotten in the washing machine, or a phone call, that I had to make today, that completely slipped my mind.

And I am beating myself up again over how much I let undone.

I don't really truly believe that "I can't do it all". I keep thinking that after canning is over, and I finish some sewing projects, then, life will slow down and I'll have time for everything.

Or maybe I search for one more tip on time efficiency,  one more home organization gizmo, that will magically give me time to do everything.

It is a lie. I already have far too many interests, projects, and plain old work for several lifetimes.

I can't do it all. 

Last week found me battling back pain that put me on the couch. But, of course, I wouldn't stop. I hobbled through the day, and drove us all crazy.

Attempting super woman status isn't good for my health. I was far closer to total burn-out than I ever what to be ever again. Couldn't I take a hint from God that it is time to slow down and not try to do it all?

I'm not sure how to break a mindset where success is found in accomplishment. Not sure how to order my days to deliberately accomplish the most important, and blow off the chaff. Not at all sure where blogging fits in the equation.

I've been reading through some of the Christ's healings in the Gospels. I have faith to believe that an overwrought mom can be a recipient of the Master's healing touch. Not just from back pain (which is much improved) but in wrong thinking.

Maybe the first thing I need to do is dig out my neglected gratitude journal and start looking for blessings.

Because God IS good. I have just been too distracted to notice.

Make it Yourself - Liquid Hand Soap

I considered liquid hand soap, the kind in a pump dispenser, to be a luxury item, even though we used it constantly. Our grandmothers made out just fine with bar soap. When I started making homemade soap last winter, I figured we could adjust to using bar soap.

I bought soap dishes for every sink and the children thought the bar soap was great fun. But mom didn't. The purpose of soap is to make things cleaner. But with bar soap, the sink was a mess! There was globs of soap smeared EVERYWHERE. I was constantly searching for the bar of soap, returning it to the dish, and scrubbing the caked soap scum off the sink.

Bar soap may have been good enough for Grandma, but since I knew how simple liquid soap was for children to use, it was a source of frustration.


I turned to Natural Beauty at Home. She said that any soap can be made into a liquid simply by dissolving it in water. She uses one part soap to one part water, but said the amount of water used depended on how thick of soap you desired.

That sounded easy. I had a batch of homemade soap that didn't turn out well and was rather dry. I coarsely chopped two or three bars of soap, added an equal amount of water and heated on the stove. When it melted, I used a stick blender to thoroughly blend the water and soap together. But the mixture was far too thick. I added double the water and it seemed a nice consistency. Using a funnel, I poured the soap into an old pump soap dispenser. (Mistake #1.) The rest of the soap I stored in a plastic container.


Then the soap cooled. And hardened. It was far to thick to come out of the soap dispenser. You could barely push your finger into it. I needed to add more water. But now it was stuck in a narrow necked soap dispenser. I decided to microwave it to melt the soap. (Mistake #2.) The plastic soap dispenser melted in the microwave long before the soap melted.

I turned to my bowl of "hard" liquid soap. I poured boiling water in it and blended with the stick blender until nice and smooth again. This time I had the smarts to allow the soap to cool before placing in a soap dispenser. And again it hardened as it cooled. Again I added water. Eventually enough water was added that it stayed a nice liquid soap when it was cool. By the time I was finished, I had a gallon of hand soap - all from two or three little bars of soap.

I thought the soap and water may separate in time. But after six months, it never has. I stored the soap in sealed plastic containers with a wide mouth. And it is good I did, after a few months, the soap was once again too stiff to pour. So again, I added hot water and blended it.

By this time I have no idea how much water I added, or how much soap I got from those couple bars. I'm not sure if  part of my problem was from using a failed dry batch of homemade soap. If you try this with your soap, add a little water at a time, allow it to cool in a bowl, and see if you need more water.

I use this soap for all our hand soap and even as bath soap for the children. The only fault I have with it is that the soap is "stringy". The soap dispenser is a little messier then regular soap. But again, that may be because of the soap I used. I would like to try melting other soaps - but I need to use this batch up first!

A couple bars of soap, a few minutes of my time, a melted soap dispenser = cheap soap, for a YEAR!

Have any of you tried making your own liquid hand soap?

Classic Picture Books - Part 2

More classic picture books for children! I loved reading about some of your favorites in the first post!


 
Henry the Explorer by Mark Taylor
The illustrations so perfectly match the story.


One Morning in Maine by Robert McCloskey
One of the first books I remember reading and rereading.


The Happy Lion by Louise Fatio
Some of the sequels are even better. I love The Happy Lion Roars!


Ferdinand
My daughter actually had a "Ferdinand" experience of sitting on a bee this summer!


Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans
I never loved the illustrations of the Madeline books - but the books are a classic favorite in our house.


Amos and Boris by William Steig
Steig's imagination cranks out many crazy but favorite stories.


Billy and Blaze by C. W. Anderson
Wonder how many times my brothers borrowed the Billy and Blaze books out of the library?


Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina
Don't read this book if you don't want to hear your pre-schoolers walk around imitating the peddler!

Just Me by Marie Hall Ets
Somehow this book captures a glimpse of childhood imagination.


The Biggest Bear by Lyn Ward
What can I say...it is another well worn favorite.


Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag
Tickles my children's funny bone.



The Moon Jumpers by Janice May Udry
This author must know children in summertime.

If your day is hazy and cool like mine...find a child and curl up together to read a book. Think I'll go take my own advice!