Applesauce!

Scenery on the way

Gill and I just celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary (!) and when he asked me what I wanted to do I told him that I really wanted to go to the orchard and get apples. We headed down to Cosby, visited 2 different orchards and came home with 7+ bushels of apples. I chose 2 bushels each of Winesap and Granny Smith and 1 bushel of: Jonathan, Rome and Mountain York. We also picked up a peck of Arkansas Black and another of Cameo, 2 varieties that were new to us.

And, I also picked up some pears, at $.50 a pound I just couldn't resist.  :-)   My plan is to sauce most of the apples, the children eat a few every day and we'll bake with some, but the lion's share will go into jars. I've really missed canning this summer and am thrilled to be back at it. This is how I sauce this many apples without killing myself.

1) Wash apples and rinse. Cut apples into quarters and throw in a large stockpot. Seeds, skins, stems, all of it.

2) Add enough water to not scorch apples, but not too much as to make the applesauce soupy.

3) Cook until the apples are fork tender. It won't look anything like applesauce yet. Don't panic.

Fork tender apples

4) Run the whole mess through a Victorio Strainer. Honestly, this was the single best kitchen gadget I ever bought. It's worth its weight in gold.

5) Add sugar and cinnamon to taste. Can for 25 minutes in a waterbath canner.

For the first batch I put in 42 apples and got 9 quarts of sauce. It was a bit soupy as you can see in these pictures. I don't mind that because we bake with it as well as eat it. For the second batch I got 7 quarts of much thicker sauce from the same amount of apples.