For Your Blogging Pleasure....A recipe and pictures of pie!

While I don't often post about my culinary adventures, I really do love to cook. And interestingly enough, I never really liked baking very much until just recently. I don't know why it took me so long to like it and I have no idea why all of the sudden I started liking it. All I know is that sometime after the birth of Baby Girl, something just clicked.

Call it The 5th Child Baking Hormone if you like, but just know this...I really like to bake now.

I have made so many Banana Chocolate Chip muffins and Pumpkin Chocolate Chip muffins over the last five months I'm sure I have kept the Nestle Company afloat. And currently I am fermenting the batter for some Amish Friendship bread. It's puzzling to me that something so horribly stinky can end up being so delectably good. At any rate, I'm on day 8 of 10 and I am so excited about day 10!

Me? Excited about baking?

Miracles shall never cease.

And now on to the meat of my post.

I am a huge fan of Gooseberry Patch. Especially their cookbooks. They have normal, everyday recipes for normal, everyday people. Yes, I know I said normal, but for some reason I can still use them. Nothing in those cookbooks about Haricovert (pronounced hair-ee-co-vare with a snooty French accent, of course). Which is nothing more than a skinny green bean, y'all.

Anyhoo, I've been finding these cookbooks at Sam's Club and have grabbed a few there. Cracker Barrel sells them also. And just the other day I found some Christmas ones at Costco. I love the fact that they have "special" ones for certain times of the year. Which FINALLY leads me to my point.

I purchased their Autumn In the Country cookbook while on the way home from our trip to Michigan.

FOR HALF PRICE, YALL! This was big to me. Can you tell? Seriously, I read the thing from cover to cover. No joke. It was all that kept me sane while confined to the back seat with an unhappy infant.

See. Me staying sane while reading my cookbook. Bad hair, but good reading. You can't have it all.

Well, something that stuck out to me was a recipe for Homemade Apple Pie Filling. Cannned, Homemade Apple Pie Filling. Yes, I said canned. There were instructions for canning 6 quarts of apple pie filling.

Now, I have a confession to make. With all the cooking that I've done and all the baking that I've done...I've never made a pie. Nope. Not ever. I was pie shy. I had pie-aphobia. I was afraid to make pie. I was sure nothing short of an intervention and a 12 step program was going to cure me of my pie avoidance.

I was wrong. This recipe piqued my interest enough (or at least for the filling) to give it a shot.

However, since I've written the title of this post Monk has informed me that to give you all the recipe on my blog would be a copyright violation of epic proportions. And I wouldn't want the good folks over The Gooseberry Patch comin' after me. Or worse yet. Banning me from their cookbooks.

So. I'm not gonna give you the recipe. I'm sorry.

But don't you fret , for apparently either someone over at Cooks.com had the same recipe OR they have violated some sort of copyright infringement. Because if you want the recipe for Homemade Apple Pie Filling then go here. Ain't I sneaky? It's the same, exact recipe just minus a few intricate details. If you want to ask me questions then ask away and I will tell you. Just don't tell anyone you heard the details here or I might have to cyber-technically sabotage your computer or something else really mean and technical sounding.

Me and my techno-savvy terminology and all. I bet y'all are scared, huh?

Viola! The finished product!















5 jars of canned deliciousness. Why 5 and not 6? Because the bottom of the sixth jar broke off as I was putting it into the canner. A slimy mess followed. Along with a few choice words.

















Look! Apple pie goodness everyone! I did it! I made pie! It should have baked it an eensy bit longer, but overall it turned out well.
And the filling? Serendipity baby!
Now for those Martha Stewart types out there, let me just say that no, the crust was not from scratch. The fine folks at Pillsbury helped me out tremendously.

Baby steps, y'all. Baby steps.


And there you have it! My first adventures in homemade canned apple pie filling AND my first pie! It was a two-fer! What more can blogdom ask for? Uhh...content?

p.s. The final pictures of "The Trip" are coming. There's only so much posting one can do on the same subject before feeling like one might have to scream. Not me, of course. I'm just sayin'.