RECIPE: Easy Homemade Apple Pie Filling

Over the past couple of weeks we've been to 3 different apple orchards and I think I've peeled, chopped, and sliced over 6 bushels of apples. Holy cats, I think my right arm could actually win an arm wrestling match which is saying a lot if you know me personally.

I've made crockpot after crockpot of homemade applesauce (using my favorite crockpot recipe here), plates of apple crumble, dishes full of baked apples overflowing with raisins and cinnamon, and jar after mason jar of my homemade apple pie filling. Yum, Yum, and YUM! And this is why I love fall so much in case you were wondering!

I thought today I'd share my super simple but oh-so-tasty recipe for Homemade Apple Pie Filling. It is a winner through and through. We love it in pie form, of course, but it also goes great with a big 'ol scoop of french vanilla ice cream.  If you want to make it for ice cream may I suggest that you decrease the cornstarch by half so that you have a nice runny cinnamon-y flavored apple syrup in which to douse your ice cream with.  Not something you'd necessarily want for an apple pie...unless you like your pie soggy! Enjoy!

Easy Homemade Apple Pie Filling 

(makes 3 quarts or 6 pints, one quart makes one pie)

12 cups sliced apples (which is about 15 medium-sized apples)

2.5 cups water

4 cups sugar

2 Tbsp lemon juice

2/3 cup cornstarch

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp nutmeg

In a large bowl, toss apple slices with lemon juice and set aside. Combine water, sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg and add to a dutch oven over medium heat. Stir well and bring to a boil. Boil 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add apple slices, cover dutch oven and let return to boil, about 8 minutes. Cool mixture for 30 minutes and then place into freezer containers leaving about 1/2 inch of headspace. Can be frozen up to 12 months. 

Ready? Let's make some apple pie filling!

Slice up your apples first...get about 12 cups worth if you can! Toss the apples with 2 Tbsp of lemon juice and set your bowl of lovely, delicious apples aside.

In the mean time, mix together the water, sugar, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg, and cornstarch in a dutch oven over medium heat and get that mixture to boil, stirring often. Once it boils, let it do so for about 2 minutes. It should look nice and frothy and light caramel colored!

Then add in the apple slices and mix well. Place a lid over your dutch oven and let everything cook for about 8-10 minutes. Then turn off your burner and let everything cool for about 30 minutes. 

Once it's cool, ladle your apple pie filling into freezer safe containers if you wish to save it for a later date...ummm, maybe Thanksgiving or Christmas? Or put it in jars if you plan on eating it right away. 

Mmm...deliciousness!

If you're feeling gifty you can package the pie filling all nice and purty and share the apple love with someone else!

I made a few fun tags and used some fabric scraps, twine, and paper doilys to pretty up a few jars for giving!

Hope you enjoy making your own apple pie filling, it is too easy not to now that you know how!

Thanks for stopping by today!

XOXO,

Homemade Applesauce Mason Jar Gift Packaging

We went to the apple orchard last weekend for the first time this fall, ahhhh one of my most favorite activities :-) It was the perfect weekend outing, the weather was cool and crisp and the apples were plentiful which is exciting in itself as last year the apple crops here were a total fail due to an earlier than normal heat wave and then a horrible frost that killed off so many of the buds. 

Of course we taste tested all the varieties to find our favorites...Jonagold, Snow, Honeycrisp, Lustre Elstar, and Mutsu were definite winners in our book, so we picked and picked and picked some more. And then, as we carried our bushel of apples back to the barn we stopped by the big wagon of windfall apples. They were calling to me, really.

Did you know that windfall apples make the best applesauce? Yup, they do! They are usually all the apples in the orchard that have dropped to the ground but are otherwise in good condition. That randomness means you are getting a nice mix of sweet, tart, acidic, sharp flavors as well as a variety of white, yellow, soft, crisp, and buttery flesh. So basically, the makings of the perfect applesauce!  And since I was itching to make my Crockpot Applesauce (recipe here) as the kids eat a container full of applesauce almost every day in their packed school lunches, the windfall apples (at half the price of pick-your-own) were a calling my name...another bushel of apples it was!

I feel like I have been making a crockpot full of applesauce everyday this week. Our house smells so good! And if you have ever had homemade applesauce you know it is one of the best things in the world to eat. I thought it might be nice to package up some of that apple-y goodness and share it with others.  Why not share the love, right?

I ladled some into pint-sized regular-mouth mason jars, the perfect size for sharing, and decorated them all cute cause the only thing better than getting a little gift is getting a cute little gift, am I right?! 

I used my 2.5" circle punch to make a label for the top of the mason jars out of kraft paper.

Then I grabbed some felt and cut out little apples by hand and glued them on the center of the label with a regular Elmer's glue stick. I hand-stamped "Applesauce" underneath.

I added a doily, wrapped the jars in twine, and clipped on a tag decorated with washi tape for each of the recipients :-)

Easy peasy, apple squeezy! 

Such a fun and simple way to dress up some homemade goodies.

Thanks for stopping by today!

XOXO,

TUTORIAL: Ruffled Mason Jar Cozies

I love mason jars. In our home we use them for everything :-) 

Need a vase? Grab a mason jar! 

Need a container for pens, pencils or crayons? Grab a mason jar!

Need a habitat for all the worms my kids dug up in the garden? Grab a mason jar!

You get my drift...we use them for everything.

But the thing we probably use them for the most is to drink out of, they sure do make the handiest glasses. You too? And they are even travel-worthy if you own a few cuppows too, such a cool invention.

Remember how I told you in my Mommy/Daughter Picnic post, found here, that I made my daughters some Ruffled Mason Jar Cozies for their drinks and that I would share the tutorial with you...well, I'm here to tell you that today is that day, woooot!

You are going to love making these, they are made with one layer of insul-fleece too so they will keep your hot drinks hot and your cold drinks cold. And they are a really nice quick project. You could definitely make a handful in an hours time. I'm thinking I will be making a few more for Teacher Appreciation Week...or maybe as part of the kids' teachers Christmas gifts? Decisions, decisions! 

Ruffled Mason Jar Cozies (directions will make one cozy)

two 3.5 x 12 inch piece of fabric for the cozy

4 x 22 inch of fabric for the ruffle

3.5 x 12 inch piece of pellon insul-fleece 

elastic hair tie

button

Gather your supplies. Cut your fabrics and insul-fleece to size.

First we'll make our ruffle. Fold the longer 4 x 22 inch piece of fabric in half the long way, with right sides facing. Sew the long raw edges together using a 1/4 inch seam allowance (picture at the right) so that you make a long tube. Using a safety pin, turn the tube right side out. Place the seam in the center of the tube and iron flat, this will be the backside of the ruffle.

Now to ruffle the tube. I like to ruffle by increasing my thread tension to 9 (the highest number my machine will go). Then I increase the stitch width and length to the highest numbers they will go. Start stitching down the center front (the side opposite the seam you just ironed) making sure to backstitch after the first stitch. This way my machine ruffles the fabric for me as I sew and there is no need for me to pull threads, etc. I love doing ruffles this way!

Once your longer piece is ruffled you are going to center it on top of the right side of one of the 3.5 x 12 inch pieces of fabric and pin it into place. Sew it on with any stitch you like (I prefer the look of a zig zag stitch) making sure to go down the center over top the stitch line you just made while ruffling it.

Now to put the cozy together. You will need to do this step in very careful layers so make sure you pay attention!

Your layers will go like so...insul-fleece at the bottom, then ruffled 3.5 x 12 inch piece of fabric right side up, then at one end you will place your hair elastic with just a bit sticking out over the edge, then you will place the other 3.5 x 12 inch piece of fabric right side down.  You've got yourself one heck of a cozy sandwich happening now, don'tcha.

Here's a look at the top of that sandwich...see that little bit of the hair elastic sticking out (and some of the ruffle too!) You want that bit sticking out as it will help you make sure your sewing machine catches that elastic when you are sewing this sandwich together.

Alright, so next you are going to sew all around the sandwich using a 1/4 inch seam allowance leaving the end opposite the hair elastic open.  So, if you are looking at the picture above, you will start sewing at the bottom right corner across to the bottom left corner, then up to the top left corner (backstitching a few times over the hair elastic, and then sewing across to the top right corner.  The complete right side will remain open for turning the cozy right side out.

Clip your corners, making sure not to clip the seams you just sewed up! Then turn your cozy right side out using the opening we did not sew together. You may need a chopstick to push out the corners.

Then topstitch all the way around the cozy starting by folding the open end edges inward to close up the opening we used for turning the cozy right side out. 

The last thing we need to do is place the cozy over a mason jar and pull the elastic to see where you will need to place the button. Place a pin in that spot so when you take the cozy off you will have the area marked. Hand sew your button in place and you are done!

So pretty!

And totally functional...the best kinda project!

PS. You can also add another button onto the cozy so that these will fit the narrower Starbucks-type coffee cups...I love a multi-functional piece, don't you!

Happy sewing my friends!!

Thanks for stopping by today!

 XOXO,

Mommy/Daughter Date: Picnic in the Park

At the end of the summer I was asked by Davidson's Organics and the Missouri Star Quilt Company to be a part of their Ultimate Picnic! program and to create a fun picnic theme to share. What fun, right! I love a good picnic. Remember this post here? Well, last week I decided it was high time I took my girls out on a little mommy/daughter date. It had been far too long since I had done anything with either of them that was just us. You know, without any errand running, after school activity pit stops, soccer games, heck, not even a brother in sight.

Since we've been having the most amazing fall weather, I thought a picnic at the park would be the perfect little getaway for us. I packed our picnic basket with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, animal crackers, apple slices, and some iced tea (caffeine free of course...my kids love when I let them have iced tea, I think it makes them feel grown up!)

I was sent a few boxes of Davidson's Organics have been loving all the fun brewed iced tea flavors they offer. I chose the Te de Hibiscus for my girls as it's caffeine free and they really enjoyed it, especially in their own little mason jar!

I was also sent an adorably happy fat eight bundle from the Missouri Star Quilt Company. I used the fabric to make each of my girls a cute Ruffled Mason Jar Cozy (tutorial found here!) to use at our picnic in the park.

We had so much fun. It was so nice being able to talk to them without the interruptions of any brothers. Since school started it seems that they have both grown so much. They had so much to tell me about school, their routines, their classmates, their favorite parts of their days. I loved it all and relished every bit of the fact that they were both such open books :-)

Ellie seems so much older now that she is in preschool. She is learning about the weather, the calendar, days of the week, she loves all the songs they sing and giggles as she tries to teach them to us.

And Penny. Wow! I knew she loved school, but hot dog, she downright adores it. Every. Bit. Of. It. She soaks it all in and remembers every detail of every day. Right now her favorite class is art, she is learning about money and loves the fact that there is a song about the penny (which she thinks is about her :-) ), she memorizes everything her teacher does and is so pleased with herself to share the minute by minute action with us. 

I'm not sure who had more fun on this picnic date, me or the girls. I do know that I cannot wait to carve out time to do this with the two of them again...as well as I am trying to find something special to do with my boys. Even if only for an hour, it ends up being such a special time and such a great memory for all of us!

Thanks for stopping by today!

XOXO, 

How to Bake: Cupcakes-in-a-Jar

I've been getting lots of emails ever since I posted a picture of our take home gifts, Cupcakes-In-A-Jar, for the Girls' Vintage Birthday Party (seen here) so I  thought instead of writing my answers over and over in emails I would just do a post about it.  Saves me a bit of time since answering emails with one hand while I nurse Oliver is a task I still have not perfected, even after 3 kids!

Many of you wanted to know if I baked the cupcakes separately or baked them in the jar and if I could share a recipe for the cupcakes and the icing.  Lots of you wanted to know what kind of jars these were, what size they are, and where I bought them.  Along with where I bought the wooden spoons and how I made the decorative tops.  Phew!  I think that was most of the questions anyways :-)

Well, first off I used the tiny 4 oz mason jelly jars to make my Cupcakes-In-A-Jar.  You can buy them at many places from Walmart, Target, Hobby Lobby, and even online.  They tend to be lower on the shelves than the more popular sizes but I have seen (and bought) them in all those places one time or another.

I baked my cupcakes directly in the jars.  I saw in some places where people would bake the cake (or bought the cake) and then used some type of biscuit or cookie cutter to cut out a circular piece of cake to fill the jar.  Nope, that was just too much work for me.  Did you know you could bake with mason jars?  You totally can...and I did.  It was so much easier and took out the middleman.

To answer the recipe question...I used a store bought mix!  I love making cake from scratch but to be honest 'cake in box' was just easier this time.  My time isn't really my time these days since I'm nursing on demand as the little man sees fit so I never know if any given day is going to be one long nursing session where getting other things done around the house, mind you party prep, is going to happen.

I used a simple yellow cake mix, followed the directions on the box and filled each mason jar only 1/3 of the way full with batter.  This way there would be room for lots of frosting and sprinkles after the cake baked up.  I baked the cupcakes according to the 'cupcake baking time' but checked them early in case they baked faster in glass, and they did.  So watch out for that!

My frosting...store bought as well!  I decided to buy these aerosol spray cans of frosting and let me just tell you they were soooo good!  Who knew?  I used both cans to complete emptiness to decorate 24 cupcakes.

Half vanilla frosted and half chocolate frosted...Yum!  And some were half black and half white...I love me some frosting choices!

The girls picked out the sprinkles and we went to town prettying the cupcakes up.  I highly recommend decorating with sprinkles...so happy looking!

See how nice using 1/3 full batter bakes up!  There's plenty of room for lots of swirly frosting that won't get ruined when you put the lid on!

To make the decorative tops I just bought some cute scrapbook paper and used a paper punch, super easy and quick.  Aaand a 2.5" paper punch fits perfectly onto mason jar lids, sweet!

I bought the cute little wooden spoons at Hobby Lobby.  I thought they were the perfect size for the jelly jars...so cute!

So that's it.  Let me know if I missed any other questions you might have had...I think I got them all!

Thanks for stopping by today!!

XOXO,