Apple season is in full swing, now, and many of our neighbors have more than they can use or store. They’re more than happy for us to take what they can’t handle. So we’ve been cutting and slicing, freezing, drying, canning, and making pies. I’m sure we’ll get sick of apples in a week or two… but come February, with nary a fruit in sight (that doesn’t come from South America) we’ll be thrilled to take a quart of apples out of the freezer for pie!
Applesauce is easy (click here).
So is freezing apples: just cook them, adding spices (cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger) as desired. They don’t need to be cooked as much as applesauce, and they don’t need to be mashed– but freezing applesauce works, too. We scoop the cooked apples into quart-sized ziplock bags, the perfect size for a pie. Squeeze the air out to prevent freezer burn, and place them flat in the freezer (so they don’t freeze into weird shapes that are hard to store).
