Crab Apples - Bringing Neighbors Together

Our town has many, many crab apple trees! So many, that neighbors will leave bags or buckets of them on your doorstep, or call you repeatedly to come "please, PLEASE pick as many as you can!" This year, my wonderfully generous neighbor offered her tree for my use, while they were at the lake. I had just pinned a yummy looking canned apple pie filling I wanted to try, so I jumped at the chance of free apples! I ended up making 2 batches of pie filling, and 2 batches of spiced applesauce. Both are HUGE hits in my house!! Here are the recipes I used, and how I used my apple pie filling :)

Apple Pie Filling
6 cups prepared apples
1/2 cup water
1 TBSP flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 TBSP lemon juice

Steam apples & water until apples are soft. Remove from heat & stir in remaining ingredients, until sugar is dissolved. Ladle into hot jars, or Ziploc bags, & freeze. Easy peasy!!

I had 2 jars of filling that didn't seal, so I decided to make apple tartlets, with a twist. 30 tarts were gone in 2 days!! With many, many requests I make them all them time! Here is what I did!

Caramel Apple Tarts
Tart shells (I cannot make pastry to save my life, so I use packaged ones)
Apple Pie Filling
Caramel sauce (I used ice cream topping)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter

Put filling & caramel sauce in tart shells. Mix together sugar & butter, and sprinkle on top. Bake at 350*F about 25 minutes, or until shells are golden brown.

Cheery, Chocolate Cherry Cookies

Mmmm. These are super yummy, moist cookies. They are PERFECT for Valentine's Day too! I just used a cherry chip cake mix I had in the cupboard, tossed in oil, eggs & vanilla, then chocolate chips, of couse. Sadly, I burnt the first 2 dozen :( But the good news is, I still have 2 dozen to enjoy!!

1 box Cherry Chip cake mix (I used Betty Crocker)
1/2 cup oil
2 eggs
1 TBSP vanilla
6 oz chocolate chips

Mix half of the cake mix with the oil, eggs and vanilla. Add remaing cake mix & stir in chips. Put a tablespoon of dough on cookie sheets, & and bake at 350F for about 8 minutes.