Frugal Friday - its apple season!

I love our neighbors here. One woman especially is always so nice and brings us apples from her orchard upstate! Our apple trees haven't been so abundant this year, so I was so excited when she brought us a bag! I knew we wouldn't be able to eat all those apples before they went bad, and in the spirit of apple pie's everywhere, I made one apple pie and then made an apple pie filling for later. I thought about canning it...but I got nervous about it and decided to just freeze the filling for later. I've been talking about learning to can for awhile and every time I think about doing it and get ready, I get too nervous and back out of it. (this weekend, I'm really going to do it. I'm going to can pears on Saturday. No fear!! :) Buying or picking apples during apple season can save alot of money and preserving them in different ways can save alot too. First, I peeled about 5 small apples, and chopped them up. I put them into a pan with alittle water, about 1/2 a stick of butter, some cinnamon, some nutmeg, and about 2 tablespoons of brown sugar. I cooked this until the apples were soft. Afterwards, I let the apple mixture cool. Once the mixture was cool enough to put into a plastic freezer bag, I scooped it into a freezer bag for later. The way I make my apple pie is to take this mixture, add it to a graham cracker crust (we love the lightness of graham crackers crusts), with some apricot preserve and cranberries on top. I cook it for another 20 minutes.  This is the perfect way to save homemade apple pie filling for the holidays! If you are a busy lady with work, and/or with children, and you have some free time to bake and not so much free time when you want to bake, this will help! :)  You can also use this filling for an apple crumb. Just place the apple filling in a baking dish, add 1 cup flour, 1/2 cup butter, 1/2 cup brown sugar with 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg. Yum!

Happy Frugal tip Friday! Hope you're having a great one!