I use my big electric roaster pan for cooking up my apples. I just wash and quarter them, and cut out the bad parts and dump them in the pan with a just bit of water. Put in the cover and check on it once in a while until they are ready - then I run them through the food mill. If I want to make juice for drinking or jelly, I add a lot more water. I'd also like to add that if your pan on your cermaic stove takes forever to boil water, you don't have the propery size/type pan. I had a few big stock pots that took forever, and this fall I spent the money and got a good heavy, flat bottem 12 qt stock pot that is just the right size. I am amazed at how quickly I can heat thing up now. Once it is boiling, I turn the burner down to about 2.5 to maintian the boil for water bath. I started paying attention, and with a slightly warped pan, or one the wrong size, the burner well keep cycling on and off. No wonder it took for ever to heat up. I was seriously thinking about getting a different stove, but with getting some proper pans, I really like my stove again. I've been using the Presto 16 qt canner on it with great results. Just have to make sure the heat plate is centered on the burner correctly. I'm down to my last 20 lbs of apples - I am so glad to be getting done! Cathy

I've also made applesauce with the peels and cores on, just quarter them, cook them and run them through the Squeezo. That makes a lovely light pink and very smooth apple sauce, which can then be used to cook down for apple butter if you prefer. I prefer to use my old style peeler and just toss apple slices into water with a couple of vitamin c capsules broken and stirred in, that prevents oxidation. Dip out the slices and put them into my big Nesco roaster. It'll hold at least a quarter of a bushel. Add some liquid, I use apple cider, put on the lid, and stir a couple of times when you think about it. When the apples are tender, mash them up with a potato masher for nice, chunky applesauce. Sweeten and season to taste, of course. That same roaster is used to make apple butter, turn it on about 250F and just let it cook all day while you're doing other things. When it's as thick as you like, can the apple butter. I've also done apple butter in the oven in a big roasting pan, much easier than doing it stove top as you don't have the constant watching and stirring and little volcanoes of applesauce popping up on your arms. I've also used the peels and cores to make juice, which I then strained for apple jelly, but my old style apple peeler just doesn't leave me a lot of peel and we prefer the Apple Maple Jam, so I don't do that often. The peeler/slicer also makes thin and even slices for the dehydrator, those slices also get put into the Vitamin C treated water. No lemon taste (my mother is allergic to lemons anyway), and far cheaper than Fruit Fresh. Annie

If we are talking canned beans, bushes vegetarian beans taste better than their orinal pork & beans To make my own I begin by baking a 12 or 15lb ham,, When the ham is baked I remove the skin and save it for my beans. After we have finished the ham I put the ham bone in the crock pot, then I take all the skin that I saved and cut it into 1" squares and put those in the crock pot. I then put two 1lb bags of dried navy or pinto beans in the pot (prefer one bag of each) and chop two or three large onions and toss them in. Add a 1/2tsp of chili powder, 1tsp of course black pepper and a cup of molassass. Turn the crock pot on high and cook for three to four hours (till the beans are done.) Sometimes I add a couple small cans of tomato paste too. Note: when the beans cook down all those pieces of the ham skin will soften and have the same flavor and texture as the chunks of meat in cambels pork & beans.

I just tried a simmering potpourri for the first time and it made the whole house smell so Christmas-y! I had fresh peel from my breakfast orange, so I put it in a saucepan w/ water, a couple of broken up cinnamon sticks and a spoonful of whole cloves & put it on the stove over low heat. It's still going right now & I'll definitely do it again. I also get the free trimmings from HD and arrange them around the house, since our tree is vintage aluminum. They don't sell balsam, though & that's the most fragrant, IMO.