that "massive amount of boilover" is no joke. I make sure my apples come to a full boil, at which point the batch will do a serious foam up in the pot. Once that happens, I know they got hot enough to release all the air in the fruit. If you don't do that before you pack them, it will happen while processing. When you open the canner and find your jars floating because the release of air pushed all the liquid out of the jar . . . I've even had it happen with apple sauce if I did not make sure to get a good boil going ot release the air from the fruit. Apples are really prone to this. Though I don't do a wide variety of fruit, apples are the only one I know of that have a serious air retention issue. It is also why when you bake a double crust apple pie, as it cools and settles, you end up with a big hollow under the upper crust because the apples lost all thier air. That is one advantage of using canned apples for filling. Since they are already cooked, you can pile them high and when the pie is done, you still have a full pie as the apples did not have all that air to release. BTW - you don't need to cook the pie near as long with already cooked apples as you would with fresh.

If I had leftover apple pie in the evening, I would eat it for a bedtime snack and then for breakfast in the morning. No more apple pie! Fresh apples are appearing in the stores and I am on the lookout for 20 ounce apples--my favorite for pie. Another Nancy

I made another pie on Tuesday (because I had made enough pie dough for two 2-crust pies) and brought it to work for our product development meeting. Two people were absent from the meeting, and so I have two pieces left over, and I'll probably refrigerate those this evening, if we don't eat them. Next time I'll consider freezing part of it. BTW, Tuesday after work we went to BBB and I bought a rotary device that peels, cores, and slices the apples in one fell swoop. This saved immeasurable time from having to do all the apples by hand, as I am very slow at peeling and coring otherwise. So now I am ready to make another batch of pies! I might freeze one raw and freeze part of another one after baking. I really do want to make good use of the huge amount of apples we have, but I was not up to the task until I got this device. I enjoy making pie crust, but peeling and coring apples was another story. Thanks for the advice! It's going to be nice to be able to have pie that can hang out in the fridge or freezer without getting moldy. I like to heat it up in the toaster oven before I serve - it tastes better warm to me than cold, but my co-workers eagerly ate it cold. Lars

Mamapinky, it doesn't taste "porky", but it does have some kind of chemical they add to make it whiter and some preservative or another, BHA and BHT. The brand most often available here is Armour and it has a list of chemicals, as does Tenderflake. If you can find a refrigerated brand that might be better. If not, try a local Hispanic grocery, they use a lot of lard and it tends to at least be fresh. There are brands available like Proper Foods that are just pure lard. There are also many brands on Amazon, but you'll pay dearly for them. If I didn't have pure lard, I'd probably take a page from AnnT's book and just use butter. It's actually easy to render lard, but the real reason I do it is because if I put all that time and work into a pig, I'm using it ALL. I think it's disrespectful to the animal to be wasteful of it. I do often use this recipe from CanaryBird, who used to post here before her death. It's easy to handle, more malleable than my Grandmother's old pastry recipe! It does call for lard, but I've used butter instead. Like Rusty mentioned, Crisco is worse than it used to be, so I try to avoid it but if you have a good all vegetable shortening you like, it could be used here, I'm sure. I do know that Madonna/bcskye used this recipe in her food processor. It does make a lot, so there's enough crust there for an entire half sheet "slab" pie, that's a plus, but if you don't use it all you can freeze a couple of discs for later use, it freezes well. I find it easy enough to work with that I don't even refrigerate it before I roll it out, that's a plus for me. NATHAN'S NEVER FAIL PASTRY ********************************** These quantities make enough pastry for 3 double-crust pies or 3 1/2 dozen tart shells - muffin size. 5 cups flour 1 teasp salt 2 teasp baking powder 1 lb (454 grams) Tenderflake lard 2 teasp white vinegar 1 egg - slightly beaten. Add water to vinegar and egg to make 1 cup 1) Mix together flour, salt and baking powder. Cut in lard until crumbly (using two knives.) 2) Add liquid and mix gently with hands. (I use a fork to help me here.) Roll into a ball. 3) Roll out amount needed on a floured board. Refrigerate or freeze remainder. Source: 'I've GOT To Have That Recipe' Doubleday Canada - Victoria, B.C. 1986 sharoncb's tip: After step two I often put it in the fridge for an hour to make it firmer and easier to roll out. Good luck and Happy Thanksgiving. Pie is always good, especially if you're like me and the filling is the best part! Annie