The apple pie filling fiasco

Just after lunch yesterday, I decided to continue with apples, but I shifted my focus to try canning some apple pie filling.  My mom had left me some jars (quart size) and the recipe, so I thought I’d be able to handle it without too much difficulty.  I was wrong.

First, I wasn’t sure how many apple slices it would take, so I called my mom (we talked for 20-30 minutes…not just about apples, of course!).  Then I mixed up the sugar/water solution and got it heating through while I talked on the phone and sliced more apples.  After the water/sugar solution boils, you are supposed to add corn starch.

I hate corn starch.

I understand that corn starch is a natural and (sometimes) effective thickening agent, but I have nothing but trouble with the stuff.  By the time it was time to add the corn starch, I had hung up with my mom.  This was a problem. I mixed the corn starch with a bit of water so make a slurry and poured it into the sugar water.  I ended up with sheets of gelatin floating in my water, but not much thickening.  So I called my mom back.  It turns out that I needed to stir the slurry into the sugar water as if I was making gravy.  Oops.  So I fished out all the gelatin, and tried to mix up another, smaller batch of slurry.  It turned into a rock hard block of corn starch.  (Now I was getting annoyed.)  I tried again, managed to spill corn starch all down the front of myself, but finally got a decent slurry by adding more water until the rock-hard corn starch turned liquid.  Then I tempered the slurry into a small amount of the sugar water and then used that portion to thicken the whole.  It worked much better. Whew.

Now I had to wash the jars, though, so they would be ready when the thickening sugar water was ready.  I went to get the quart jars from the bag, picked up the first two, and realized that I don’t have lids for that size of jar.  Grrr!  So I grabbed pint jars instead and started to wash them, and I managed to slosh water all down the front of myself.  ARGGGHHH!

So, finally, the jars were ready, the slurry was ready (hot corn starch really smells, BTW), and the apples were ready.  I started filling them, burned my hands slightly on the hot lids, and finally got a canner full of apple slices boiling on the stove.  They all sealed and not one boiled over.  But by the time I was done with one canner full of apple pie filling…I was done.  I cleaned up myself, cleaned up my kitchen and went and did other things for the rest of the day. 

I may never make apple pie filling again…until next year anyway!

So Eric took some pictures of his penguin pumpkin, but they are still in raw format (not jpg), so I can’t upload them yet.  His new camera is a little more complicated than mine is…but hopefully I’ll be able to post them soon!

Yesterday was busy.  Before my classes, I did some bookkeeping for Basic English, and I discovered that, with a little focused effort on their parts, over 20 of my students would be able to finish between now and Thanksgiving.  That is very good news (for them and for me!).  The rest of the students should be able to finish this term, but not before Thanksgiving. 

Anyway, then I had classes, lunch, and classes.  I spent all my spare time finishing the revision of the PowerPoint presentation for my Writing Center workshop, which was at four.  I purposely let them go a little early so that I wasn’t late getting to UD, and then I left for class.  I talked to Karen on the way there, went to class, and drove home.  I took 675 to 70 tonight, and for the first time, there was no construction on the way home.  How.very.nice!

Anyway that was yesterday.  Today is going to be focused on grading Comp and working on grad school (perhaps with some apples thrown in for good measure!).  But we shall see!  Sorry I don’t lead a more interesting life…but there it is.  Have a happy Tuesday!

Crock-Pot Apple Butter Recipes
Here are 2 apple butter recipes for those who are interested:

All-Day Apple Butter (from Allrecipes.com.  I tried this one last weekend…it works)
5.5 lbs. apples, peeled/cored/finely chopped
4 c. sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp. salt

Combine all ingredients in slow cooker; mix well.  Cover and cook on High for 1 hour.  Reduce heat to low and cook for 9-11 hours more, or until thickened and dark brown, stirring occasionally.  Stir more frequently as it thickens to prevent sticking.  Uncover and cook on low for 1 hour longer.  Spoon into containers; cover and refrigerate or freeze.

Apple Butter (my mom’s recipe…I’m trying it today)
8 c. sliced apples
3 c. sugar
1/4 c. vinegar
1 tbsp. cinnamon
1/2-1 tsp. cloves

Mix together in crock pot.  Cook overnight (or all day) and until desired consistency.

I spent all day on Saturday working with apples.  I made apple butter in the crockpot first, then some apple bread (which was yummy!), and then began making applesauce.  I worked all day on it, spending a few minutes on other minor chores when I had a chance, but for the most part, I spent from 11-7 making and canning applesauce.  And when I stopped to clean up (I’d run out of jars), I was beat!

Thankfully, I had planned to stop to watch the OSU game at 8:00 anyway, so I spent the rest of the evening relaxing on the couch with my husband, watching the Buckeyes beat Penn State.  It was a very nice way to end the day!

Sunday was church, lunch, grad school reading, Basic grading, a stroll in the beautiful sunshine, a meeting at church, a trip to the store for pumpkins, and then a pumpkin carving party in the evening.  The social event was a great way to relax, and we had a good time.  Eric carved Tux, the Linux penguin, into his pumpkin.  I my geek!

Today is another full day of classes and grad school (sorry Terri!).  And I also am giving a Writing Center workshop on making good arguments this afternoon.  Should be interesting since I haven’t really looked at it since I did it last semester!    I’ll need to get to that sometime today…

Happy Monday to you all!

I am between Basic classes, and I just realized that I haven’t been on Xanga today…so here I am!

Yesterday, I graded Annotated Bibliographies for Comp, I made three batches of applesauce and canned two of them, and I ran errands/had meetings in the morning.  Eric got home about 10 from the hockey game with a strange pair of glasses that was their souvenir (something to do with a movie called Slapshot or something like that) and a pass to go bowling at the Bowling Palace on the corner of Cleveland and 161 (not likely to be palatial in any sense of the word…). 

So that was my day.  We also found out that our new cabinets will be delivered next Thursday, so this weekend, I get to work on more apples, clean/sort the loft in preparation for the arrival of our cabinets, grade, and go to meetings/rehearsals.  Wow…I’ll have a busy weekend!

Anyway…Happy Friday to you all!

I’m on my own today for the most part.  Eric is going straight from work to go to dinner and a hockey game with his brother. So I have the entire day to myself. 

On my to-do list today is to make lots of applesauce/apple things, clean up the house some, take the recyclables to the dumpster, and probably grade some.  I also have a meeting with our music minister at 11:00, so I will be getting out of the house…that’s a good thing, really. 

Yesterday wasn’t terribly interesting, sadly.  Just classes, lunch with Mom (shortened because she had a meeting), then class and home.  Karen called on my way home to share their “news” (see her site for more info).  After supper, Eric went to orchestra rehearsal, and I hung out until about 8:30.  Then I went to the church for drama rehearsal and got home about 10:00.  Then…bedtime!

Okay, so I’m really at a loss for anything to say today. If I think of anything else, I’ll add them later.

Happy Thursday!

But I’ve gotten myself totally caught back up on my Basic English work.  I love that feeling!

Yesterday, I didn’t move very fast, but I did get some things done.  I ran to WalMart, put gas in my car, got Eric more coffee, finished the main loads of laundry, and made enough applesauce to can 5 jars.  We also had pork chops, applesauce, and green bean casserole for dinner.  Yummy!

Other than that, I goofed around a lot, which was nice but sadly not terribly interesting!  Oh well.

Now I’m off to classes for the day.  Happy Wednesday!

Some highlights from the last few days:

• I found my car charger for my cell phone!  It was in the Jeep (would’ve never thought to look there!) and has probably been there since last fall when we drove to Connecticut.  So now I can talk all I want in my car!
• My friend Ghena let me go through her maternity clothes over the weekend and bring home whatever I thought Karen might be interested in.  Having been pregnant 5 times in the last 5 years, Ghena had lots of clothes, and I brought back 40 lbs. of clothes for Karen to look through.  She’s coming over tonight to see them.  How fun!
• Grad school wasn’t terrible last night.  The first half was actually interesting.  For the second half, we went to the Rare Books room of the library where a very old lady showed us around and ranted a lot about the things they didn’t have in their collections.  It was kind of strange!
• I slept in until 7:30 this morning.  I know that might not seem like very late to some of you, but with Eric getting up at 6:30 and leaving around 7:00, just not getting up was lovely!
• EDIT: I forgot one…my husband brought back apples from the orchard near their dairy farm for me.  I had 11 bags (5.5 bushels) of apples.  So far, I’ve given about 4 bags away, and today I’m going to try to focus enough to make (and maybe can) some applesauce.  Yummy!!  End Edit.

Anyway, as promised, here are some pictures from the weekend:

Here is a picture of the entire family (you can’t really see
the baby, but that’s okay).  The children are Eden (in the pink
blanket), Ave (pronounced “Ava”, the brunette), Thad (over by his dad),
Graecian (with the sprout, pronounced ‘gray-son’, but her nickname is
Gray), and Merce (the baby, pronounced “mercy”).

We spent a lot of time on the trampoline.  Eden and Thad enjoyed it the most.  Ave was avoiding it a bit because she fell off it on Friday.  This picture was taken on Saturday before Thad, too, fell off.  Notice the static in their hair!

And finally, some snow pictures for you all to enjoy.  Remember that the trampoline picture above was taken less than 24 hours before these snow pictures…crazy mountain weather!

See the full recap that I did not actually lose below.  I hate computers sometimes…

Wow…what a weekend!  I’m very tired, but I’m home, and I had a great time!  I will give a short version today and then post some pictures tomorrow.

Thursday:  The rain in the Midwest was causing problems in Chicago, so when the airline lady asked me to take a slightly later, direct flight to Denver (with $150 voucher added in), it worked to my benefit.  So even though I sat in the airport until noon and arrived in Denver an hour later than I’d originally thought, I didn’t have to worry about missing my connection in Chicago (which was looking more and more likely at 9:30 am on Thursday!).  Ghena (pronounced “Jenna”) picked me up at the airport, and we spent the rest of the day at her house.  We stayed up until 11:30 their time.

Friday: a trip to Cheyenne.  My friends just moved to Denver from Cheyenne, so we made an unplanned trip there so Ghena could see her chiropractor.  We had lunch at McDonalds, drove home, and played/talked/goofed off for the rest of the evening.  Ghena and I stayed up until almost 1:00 their time.

Saturday: French toast for breakfast, a “date” with just Ghena for lunch, bought gifts for the kids at WalMart, went to church with them, had McDonalds again after church, went home so the kids could open presents and then off to bed. The grown-ups chatted about the church, life (there was much laughter that night), and I went to bed at 10:30 (their time)!

Sunday: We woke up to 35 degree weather and 4 inches of snow.  I’m not even kidding.  The rest of the weekend had been close to 70 degrees, but between bedtime and breakfast, it started snowing.  So after breakfast, the kids bundled up and went out to play in the snow.  I took pictures of them, and then finished getting my stuff put together, and started the long trip home.  After gusty winds slowed everything down in and out of Chicago, I finally arrived in Columbus at about 8:30.  Eric picked me up, and we went home.  And that was my favorite part of the entire weekend!

I wasn’t sure I’d have time to write today, so I just typed
this up last night and pasted it into Xanga this morning.  Talk about creative blogging!

Yesterday was full with the preparations for my impending
vacation.  But I think I got everything I’ll
need into my carry-on (I’m sure Ghena will let me borrow something if I realize
I don’t have it when I get out there!), and I printed my boarding pass last night
(actually Eric printed it for me).  So
all I have to do this morning is show up at the airport, go through security and
find my gate.  Sounds so simple, right…

Other highlights of yesterday:

• Deb
  brought the girls over at lunch, so I got to see them.  They are too cute!
• I
  finished and printed my assignment for grad class on Monday already (sorry
  Terri!), so I shouldn’t have to worry about it when I get home.
• We had
  Greek food for dinner last night.  I
  love pita and hummus!

I might be able to get on Xanga while I’m gone, but if not,
I’ll be back on Monday.  And who knows…maybe
I’ll even have pictures!