When I think of buying canned apple pie filling at the store, it makes me shudder. $4 a can? Overpriced. An entire potful could be made for less than that. Thankfully, we have a few apple trees in our yard that have been good producers this year. We headed out as a family and plucked bagfuls of the perfectly ripe fruit and seeing as it’s now autumn, decided to make (what else?) from scratch apple crisp. Happy Fall!
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| Katherine “helping” pick apples. |
Ingredients:
Apple Pie Filling
2 1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups water
10 cups apples, peeled and sliced
1 Tablespoons lemon juice
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| The apples in a sea of cinnamon sauce. |
Toss apples with lemon juice and set aside. Bring the sugar, starch, cinnamon, salt and water to a boil until thick. In a separate pot, boil apples 5 to 7 minutes until tender but not mushy (or your pie filling will turn out as applesauce). If you’re out of freezer space, half this portion of the recipe–otherwise freeze the extras for later apple crisps, pies or ice cream toppings.
Crisp Topping
2/3 cup flour
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups oats
2/3 cup melted butter
Preheat the oven to 375F. Combine flour, brown sugar and oats. In a 9×9 pan, spoon in a generous amount of apple pie filling (put the rest in Tupperware and freeze for later). Sprinkle the oat mixture over the apples and coat evenly with melted butter. Place in the oven for 30 minutes and serve warm with ice cream, caramel or whipped topping if desired.
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| The horses cleaning up the reject apples. |
