Apple Jelly

While we were in Oriental over the weekend, we strolled through the very small farmer's market there.

I picked up a bag of "mountain" apples for a donation to a charity. Duane was standing behind me already seeing that the apples were not very good....but, what the heck, seemed like a nice charity.

I picked some McIntosh, some Romes and the "last Arkansas Black" according to the nice lady. I took a bite out of one as we were walking away....yuck! Not crisp at all.

Anyhoooo, I did take the bag home and decided to make some jelly - hadn't done that in a few years, actually.

Turns out, they were from Tennessee....maybe that was what was wrong (our NC roots showing thru!!)

Chopped 'em up....boiled them down to a thick sauce.  I left the peeling on to try to get some nice color for the jelly.

Squeezed the sauce thru my food mill to separate out the peeling.

At this point, I usually put the sauce in cheesecloth and let it sit for hours to drain out all the juice....but I didn't have any.  I did, however, have some fairly fine netting.  So, I doubled it and left the sauce sitting.

Isn't that pretty, fresh apple juice.  A little less than clear, but I kindof like my jelly more like "jam" anyway!

After the juice was mostly drained, there is just a small ball of "pulp" left.

Boiled the juice down a bit and added tons of sugar until it "sheeted" off the spoon. Into sterile jars....now I need to bake me some sourdough bread and I'll be in heaven!!!