Making applesauce from scratch is so much more delicious than the store-bought stuff. Also, you don't need to add anything! No extra sugar or spices (although cinnamon is tasty). Did you know that the number 2 ingredient in some of the most common conventional brands of applesauce is High Fructose Corn Syrup??? Now, that's just crazy when apples are soooo sweet on their own. Making a large batch is great because then you can enjoy the taste of fall apples all year. Applesauce is delicious on it's own for a snack or dessert and I love to mix it with oatmeal, cottage cheese and yogurt. You can also make a smaller batch of applesauce to enjoy the fall goodness, making a large batch iiiis quite time consuming but it is definitely well worth it. Also, a byproduct of making a lot of applesauce is the most amazing apple juice ever!
APPLESAUCE FOR CANNING
-A lot of apples
1) Core the apples and cut into wedges with the skin left on.
2) Put all apple wedges in a large pot with about 3 inches of water in it.
3) Bring the water and apples to a boil and then down to medium heat and simmer until the
apples are tender (this will take 30 minutes or so for a large batch).
4) Run the softened apples through a food mill to remove the skins. The result will be
your applesauce.
**Make sure to reserve the water at the bottom of your pot, this is tasty apple juice! I also can this apple juice for later drinking.
5) Fill hot sterilized jars with applesauce, leaving 1/4" headroom.
6) Screw sterilized lids on top of jars.
7) Place jars of hot applesauce in a boiling water bath canner for 20 minutes.
APPLESAUCE FOR CANNING
-A lot of apples
1) Core the apples and cut into wedges with the skin left on.
2) Put all apple wedges in a large pot with about 3 inches of water in it.
3) Bring the water and apples to a boil and then down to medium heat and simmer until the
apples are tender (this will take 30 minutes or so for a large batch).
4) Run the softened apples through a food mill to remove the skins. The result will be
your applesauce.
**Make sure to reserve the water at the bottom of your pot, this is tasty apple juice! I also can this apple juice for later drinking.
5) Fill hot sterilized jars with applesauce, leaving 1/4" headroom.
6) Screw sterilized lids on top of jars.
7) Place jars of hot applesauce in a boiling water bath canner for 20 minutes.
Yesterday I went over to pick some more apples with Becca and her friend Danny. We then took these over to Open Hands Farm where they have an apple press that they allowed us to use for the afternoon. It's very cool because 5 families in town including Ben and Erin (the owners of Open Hands Farm) went in together to buy an apple press last season that they now share amongst themselves. Very very cool. We got about 5 1/2 gallons out of a whoooole lot of apples.
After pressing apples for awhile I went over to join the SEEDS farmers for their final CSA pick-up day. I presented the Junior Farmers with their official "Junior Farmer Certificate", it was cute. Here's a photo of plenty of jack-o-lantern and pie pumpkins at the pick-up: