CANNING APPLES

APPLESAUCE
(found this on-line)
Start by washing the apples thoroughly and cutting out any bad spots. If you cut the apples in half, you will find any rotten-centered ones that you should just throw away. Put a few cups of water in the bottom of a heavy stock pot and then fill the pot with little apples. Heat on medium heat, mashing the apples down as they soften. When the apples are really soft, ladle them into the apple mill that is sitting over a large bowl and start turning the wooden masher. The cooked sauce will ooze out of the sides of the mill into the bowl underneath (make sure not to splash, very hot). As the bowl fills up, empty into another bowl or replace it with another bowl. Mash the apples thoroughly and get as much sauce out of them as possible. Keep milling until all the apples in your stock pot are made into sauce.
Rinse the stock pot out and put all the milled applesauce back into it. Reheat the applesauce until it’s boiling. Add sugar to taste and cinnamon if you wish (added 1/4 c. + 1/8 c. sugar (added 3 tsp. of cinnamon). Now, ladle this sauce into clean canning jars and water bath them for:

Saw this on a blog for no sugar added applesauce - haven't tried yet:
http://www.melskitchencafe.com/slow-cooker-applesauce-no-sugar-added/

• 2 Honey Crisp apples
• 5 Golden Delicious apples
• 7 Gala apples
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (from about 1 large lemon)
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Pints - 15 minutes
Quarts 20 minutes

The skins and cores should not be put into a compost pile because they won’t compost after cooking for so long. I’ve heard that pigs like these leftover, but I don’t have pigs, so I really don’t have first-hand knowledge of that. This version of homemade applesauce is, admittedly, a little more time-consuming, but it still is just delicious. One of the nice advantages of cooking the apples in their skins is that often the red apples will produce pretty pink applesauce. Usually, large quantities of little windfall apples are very cheap and often free. Because of that, I’m usually willing to do the extra work that the apple mill method takes to process them.

CANNED APPLE PIE-FILLING
This makes 7 quarts of filling.
Ingredients:
4 1/2 cups white sugar
1 cup cornstarch
1 T + 1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. clove
1/4 tsp. all spice
10 cups water
3 T. lemon juice
6 pounds apples
(can add 2 drops yellow food coloring)

1. In a large pan, mix sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add salt and water and mix well. Bring to a boil and cook until thick and bubbly. Remove from heat and add lemon juice and food coloring.

2. Sterilize canning jars, lids and rings by boiling them in a large pot of water.

3. Peel, core, and slice apples. Pack the sliced apples into hot canning jars, leaving a 1/2 inch headspace.

4. Fill jars with hot syrup, and gently remove air bubbles with a plastic knife or handle of spatula or wooden spoon.

5. Put lids on and process in a water bath canner for 20 minutes.

Someone left a comment on how they did it - I did try it this way instead of the above. Might try the above next time.
1. Put sugar/spices in 8-81/2 cups of hot water. Stir until dissolved. Place over low heat.
2. Mix 2 cups water, 3 T. lemon juice and corn starch. Set aside.
3. Fill jars with apples.
4. Bring sugar mixture almost to a boil.
5. Stir in cornstarch to sugar mixture and stir with a whisk. When white of cornstarch disappears ladle over apples (continue with step 4 and 5).