We made Applesauce!

 

At the Apple Farm

We went to a local apple orchard last weekend and found a great apple peeler for a really decent price.  We also found their section of “Number 2″ apples that had a speck or two of black or bruise on them…for half price!  We came home with 1/2 bushel each of Gala and Jonathan apples for the grand total of $12.50. Time to make applesauce!

 

S. concentrates as he turns the crank

The boys helped a little bit.  The peeler also runs the apples through a coring blade and rotates them through a spiral slicing blade.  The end result, in 20 seconds, is an apple ready to simply cut in half and throw into a cooking pot.

 

H. peels one too

So, we peeled and canned a bushel of apples over the course of two days…probably 5 to 6 hours work.

After a stock pot was full of sliced, cored, peeled apples, I added a few cups of water (slightly less might have worked too, I had to cook some off) and boiled / steamed them with the lid on until they were mushy.

I smashed them down with our Pampered Chef mashing device tool thingy and then blended them to a chunky consistency with a handheld blender.  We still don’t have a food mill, but we wanted it chunky anyway…or so I was told.

At the end, we added a cup or two of sugar to taste, and cinnamon to some batches.

Home canned, homemade applesauce

Somewhere around 25 pints resulted, plus a few pints we ate right away in the kitchen.  I processed the jars for 20 minutes in a boiling water bath and every one sealed.

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