Fall Bounty

We made our annual trip to Hood River yesterday to get apples (no pumpkins this time). These beauties are the "Spartan" variety; crisp and tangy-sweet. I'd decided to put some apple pie filling in my freezer this year to make holiday dessert preparation a little easier and these apples seemed the perfect candidates.
This baby makes it easy; an apple corer/peeler/slicer. Yay. One of those things that makes life a little sweeter, no pun intended.
Next, there's a bubbling pot of apples on your stove, filling the kitchen with the smell of spicy goodness. Enough filling here for 4 pies. Easily. I fiddled around with the recipes here and here and came up with this one:

Apple Pie Filling

16-18 Cups of thinly sliced, peeled apples (about 6 lbs.)
3-4 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 Cups white sugar
1-1/2 Cups brown sugar
1 Cup cornstarch
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tsp. salt
7-8 Cups water

Place apples in large mixing bowl and toss with lemon juice to keep apples from browning.
Combine sugars, cornstarch, spices and salt in stockpot, then stir in the water (if your apples aren't very juicy, use 8 cups of water). Bring to a boil over med-high heat and stir frequently(be careful not to burn mixture after it starts thickening up), boil for 2 minutes. Add apples and bring back to the boil, then turn down heat to simmer. Cover pot and cook 6-8 minutes (if apples are really firm you might want to cook a little longer but keep a close eye on them; you don't want applesauce). Remove from heat and cool 30 minutes to an hour. Ladle filling into gallon-sized freezer bags. You'll have about 4 heaping cups per bag. Freeze, will keep one year.