An Apple A Day Keeps The Doctor Away

Two years ago we were very fortunate to have a customer who had a pear tree in her yard and we had a chance to pick all the pears we wanted from the tree as she only picked a few for herself. The pears that we picked, most of them were canned to be enjoyed at a later time and they were simply delicious! Dear Dottie had since then sold her house and moved out of town.
A few months ago we finally finished the last jar of the canned spice pear.

Well, it's apple picking season in upstate New York and I got thinking "why not try canning some apples?" So, that's what I did last weekend. I didn't pick my own apples, I bought 3 lbs of apples from our local apple orchard(just down the street from me, how convenient!).

The recipe I used came from Pick Your Own. This is a site I love visiting. I have learned a lot about canning and freezing from here. She has step-by-step detail instructions and pictures. If you have never done any canning and preserving before and would like to learn how, this is the site to go to.

I used a light syrup solution for these apples. You can get a list of how much sugar and water to use according to your taste(light, med. heavy syrups or with fruit juice and so on) from here. Because I only had 3 lbs of apples, I had leftover syrup that I just poured out.

1) Peel and core the apples. Slice the apples to 1/4" - 1/2" thick. If you have a corer/slicer, it would make your job easier.
2) Blanch the sliced apples for about 5 minutes. Drain the apples.
3) Make the syrup.
4) Fill the jars with hot apples and hot syrup, leaving 1/2" headspace. Wipe off the reams, place lids on jars and process in hot water bath for 20 minutes.

I'm planning to buy some more apples and this time I'll try to can some apple pie filling.