Kaia and I went apple picking yesterday at the Long Branch Environmental Education Center, about 30 minutes north of us. They have 57 varieties of heritage apples! But they also had a ton of blueberries ripe and ready for picking. So, we ended up getting ~a gallon of blueberries and ~35 pounds of apples! I have no idea what kind of apples. We just hopped from tree to tree picking the best looking ones. Then we came home and did some canning!!
We made Spiced Apple Rings, Spiced Apple Berry Syrup, and Caramel Apple Butter!!!! MMMmmmmmm
Here are the recipes:

Spiced Apple Rings
6 pounds of firm tart apples
2 cups of sugar
6 sups of water
1 1/4 cups vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar)
3 Tbsp. Whole Cloves
8 Cinnamon Sticks

Combine sugar, water, vinegar, cloves, and cinnamon in a large pan. Heat to a boil and simmer 3-5 minutes.
Core, peel, and slice apples (I use one of those apple slicer thingies that does it all at one time). Place apple rings into wide mouth pint jars and fill with hot syrup, leaving 1/2 inch head space. Tighten lids and process in a hot water bath for 25 minutes. Makes 8 pints.

Spiced Apple Berry Syrup
6-8 cups Berries
Apples, cored, peeled and in little chunks
8 Vanilla beans
Big pinch of Chinese Five Spice Powder (you don’t have to have this for the recipe, but I do, so I used it 🙂
pinch each of nutmeg and cardamom
2 cups honey

In a large pot, put 6-8 cups of berries (I used blueberries, hawthorne berries, and rose hips and cover with water 2 inches over the top of the berries. Add to this vanilla beans, Chinese 5 spice, nutmeg and cardamom. Simmer until berries are soft (about 30-40 minutes).
Strain out berries and vanilla, pressing out as much juice and pulp as possible (if your berries have no seeds, you can keep them in the syrup! Just remove the vanilla beans.)
Put the juice and pulp back in the pot and add honey, stirring well to mix.
In your 4 or 8 ounce jars, put cored, peeled apple chunks.
Cover apples with syrup, leaving 1/4″ head space, and seal the jars.
Process in a hot water bath for 25 minutes.
Makes 18 four ounce jelly jars!

Caramel Apple Butter
8 pounds Apples
1 cup water
3 cups sugar
2 cinnamon sticks, broken into pieces
8 whole cloves
2 Tbsp. peeled, minced ginger root
2 Tbsp. lemon juice

Core, peel, and chunk apples and put them in a large pot with the water. Simmer for 30 minutes, stirring often.
In another pan, heat 2 cups of the sugar over medium heat until it melts/caramelizes.
When apples are soft and mushy, pour the liquid sugar into the big pot of apples, as well as the last cup of sugar. Tie the spices in a muslin cloth and add to the mixture. Simmer for an hour, stirring often. Remove the spice bag, add lemon juice, and put into jars, leaving 1/4 inch head room. Process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. Makes ~9 half-pint jars.