Preserving Apples

So we are in the throws of apple season. I’m making my way though about 50 lbs or so. I’ve already made 8 quarts of apple sauce. In the past I’ve made apple butter and the apple ginger jam from Food in Jars. I know they keep forever and I could always dry some apple slices, but I want to do something new this year. Any suggestions???

Canned apple pie filling

Piggybacking on gourmanda, you can freeze fresh apple pie filling and toss it straight into a prepared crust before baking. Just slice the apples, add your lemon juice, flour, cinnamon, sugar, whatever, until coated and seal up in freezer containers or Ziplocs. No need to thaw before adding to your pie crust.

Maybe some kind of a savory apple chutney would be interesting?

Apple juice? Boiled apple cider? Not sure how to preserve these though.

Wow, 50 lbs of apples. I don’t envy that, but would gladly take a few lbs off your hands!

People sometimes forget the obvious: baked apples. To make prep speedier, I’ve mixed softened butter with brown sugar, spices, raisins, etc., then formed it into a bar, which I freeze. I then slice the bar into a french-fry shape so when I want to bake an apple or two, I can quickly stuff a piece into the cored fruit.

I was lucky enough to run into the woman who’d created the yummy apple condiment that accompanied the roast pork I had at a restaurant. All it was was peeled, diced firm apples, gently stirred with (grade B) maple syrup over med heat in a wide, shallow pan until the juices/syrup reduced to a thick glaze. If you want it for a strictly savory application, you can add mustard, herbs, etc. But left as is, it also works well over ice cream or pound cake.

The crazy parent is 50lbs of apples isn’t even a lot for me. I usually get 2-3 bushels but I thought with the baby this year I should cut back.

I like the idea of freezing fresh apples for pie. It never would have occurred to me to try that. I thought about making hand pies and freezing them before baking but it seemed like a lot of work.
I’ve canned tomato juice before I bet I could do the same with apple. I thought about making cider. But then I started to describe constructing a homemade press to my husband. The look I got suggested I might want to try something else…
Chutney or some sort of apple condiment for meat sounds good. Now I’m wondering if I have enough apples!

They freeze well in wedges. I worked in a bakery for a time in my 20s and as a shortcut the owner would sometimes buy frozen apple wedges in a 10-lb. bag. Great way to make a crumble in mid-February! No need to defrost, either.

Take it a step further - freeze the filling IN A PIE PAN. Line it with (wrinkle free) plastic wrap or a teflon baking sheet cut to fit. Then pop it out, and into a freezer bag, and you have pie-pan shaped frozen filling. Much easier to put in the pie pan to bake that way.

You CAN also freeze the bagged filling this way, but be careful to pull out all the wrinkles at the bottom and sides - otherwise you may end up tearing bits of bag off and leaving them behind when you try to remove the frozen filling for use.