Its apple time again.

This is the third year I have bought apples by the box to put up.  I have plenty of apple sauce left and pie filling. Last year we ran out of dried cinnamon slices right away so I am doing a lot of those this year.  Now that I have two dehydrators I can do about three times as many at a time since my new dehydrator is so much larger.

I use my apple peeler, corer, slicer on the apples, then I drop them into a dish pan that has water and lemon juice in it.  I put the peels and cores right into my crock pot with a few whole cloves. When the dish pan is full, I take a few apples at a time out and place them on a tray.  I slice once down through the slices to separate the rings and place them on the drying trays.  I hold the tray over the crockpot and sprinkle cinnamon over them, moving the tray so that the extra cinnamon drops into the crockpot.  Once the dehydrators are full I set them to the correct temperature and add clean water to the peels and turn the crockpot to high. 

Its pretty humid where I live so it takes about 48 hours to dry the slices to my liking.  With the peels and cores in the crockpot set on high it only takes about 6-8 hours for them to become soft.  I turn my crockpot off and let it cool for a while.  Then I put a big strainer or colander over a large bowl and pour or ladle the apple scraps into it.  This sits for thirty minutes or so to drain.  I carefully discard the now used up peels by putting them into a container and placing them into the trash.  I may bury the rest in my garden in unused areas.

Then I use the resulting spiced apple juice to make spices apple jelly.

Last year I made several gallons of apple cider vinegar so I don't need any more right now.

I think I may also make some cinnamon spiced apple rings and can them.  I have been easing up on the quantities of my canning since there are fewer of us at home and I don't like to throw out old and spoiled food.

I hope you are having a productive fall.