Applesauce

Recipes posted a year ago:

• Berry (or Cherry) Crisp
• Bacon-Wrapped Stuffed Turkey Breast
• Roasted Fennel Summer Squash

I have three tiny apple trees in my yard.  They are too small yet to produce fruit.  Maybe I would have gotten a few apples this year if the deer hadn’t taken a few (understatement) nibbles?  I don’t know.  Hopefully they will be more established next year and the deer will stay away? I can dream, right?  So, I need some apples to make applesauce.  What is a girl to do?  Get on Facebook and make an announcement, that’s what!  Therefore, because of Uncle John and my friend Jim down at the gym, I was able to get some nice, crisp apples for my applesauce.  They in return get some applesauce and/or a delicious apple treat like crisp or pie (you just keep this in mind for next year if you are finding yourself with some apples you want to part with) 🙂

Gather Up:

• Lots of apples
• Apple corer/peeler (or a peeler)
• Knife
• 1 large canner with lid (also with a metal rack in bottom or a wood rack so that jars do not sit directly on bottom of the canner)
• Jar tongs (if you don’t have these, it’s okay) and regular tongs
• 1 medium sized saucepan
• Masher
• 1 large stockpot
• Pint jars with lids and rings (you can also use quart jars), Mason or Ball brands are great. Make sure they are free of cracks.
• A plastic knife for burping (don’t use metal)

Begin by filling the canner half full of water.  It will take a while for this to get hot, so turn your stove on med heat.  (Note that I have a gas stove.  Some stoves like the flat surface types may not get hot enough for canning.  Make sure to check).  Fill your medium saucepan with some water and add lids and rings and heat to a boil.  Once boiling, turn off heat.

In the meantime start peeling and coring some apples.  I use the Pampered Chef brand apple corer/peeler which works great! It cores, peels, and slices all with a few turns of the handle.  It will form your apple into a spiral making it very easy to just cut them into smaller chunks. As the spiraled peel comes off the apple as you turn, it is a good idea to put your garbage can or compost pail under the peeler so that it will catch the peel.

Of course, you can just use your trusty peeler and a knife. No one will know the difference 🙂

Put about a 3/4 cup or so of water into your stockpot and add the pieces of apple.  Turn on a med-low heat.  As the apples warm up, begin to stir and mash them.  Don’t get the water too hot as you don’t want the apples to burn.  Keep mashing and adding until you get the desired amount and the consistency of sauce that you would like (chunky or more smooth is up to you).  Then, spoon the applesauce into the jar.  Using a plastic knife, run it down the inside of the jar, getting rid of any air bubbles.

With a clean, wet rag, wipe away any applesauce on the mouth of the jar and around the top of the jar.  Using tongs, grab one of the lids from the saucepan and place onto the jar.  Keep doing the above process until you have the amount of jars needed to fill the canner.  Mine takes 7.

When you have the right amount of jars, place then into the canner and then fill the canner until water is about 1/2″ over the jars.  Put the lid on the canner and turn up heat.  Once water is at a rolling boil, set the timer for 20 minutes.  While these are cooking, you can continue to peel and mash apples, putting them in jars for the next batch.

When the timer goes off, turn off the heat and using a potholder, hand towel, and the jar tongs, take out one jar at a time. If you do not have jar tongs, dump out some of the water until canner is half full and then using a towel or potholder, grab one jar at a time.  Place them on an old towel.  Once all the jars are on the towel, cover with another towel so they can cool slowly (you may hear some popping going on as the lids seal to the jar).   Once they are completely cool, press down on the tops of the lids to make sure they have sealed.  If you are able to press them, this means they did not seal.  If that is the case, use this applesauce right away.

There are, of course, variations to this.  You can add cinnamon or sugar to the batches.  I like to just make mine without anything but water and apples.  I can add cinnamon when I am ready to eat it or add it to other recipes in place of sugar, etc.  Enjoy your delicious applesauce!