Canning applesauce

I love this time of year! While I didn't have a great garden year (bad weather, animals breaking in and eating stuff, zukes getting a fungus), I totally cheat when it comes to applesauce season:

I do love a good sale!

In Braving the Storm, those living at the cabin (I really want to start calling them the scooby gang for the purposes of this blog...haha) discover an apple orchard nearby where they're able to collect apples both to can and to use as a bartering item when at the trading post. While I'm not that lucky, $0.99/lb isn't too bad, either!

I follow this recipe whenever I can applesauce. Not only is it super easy, but there's no added sugar or any other ingredients for that matter; it's apples (and cinnamon, if you're so inclined) and that's it. In my opinion, homemade applesauce tastes a million times better than the store bought stuff. One drawback is, once the jar is open, it doesn't last more than a day or two. I can mine in quarter pints so that I can eat them in one or two sittings (mainly because I learned my lesson).

The apple was too neat looking not to take a picture of before I sliced it up.

If you're looking into getting into canning, this is the best way to get your feet wet besides canning peaches.

The recipe really is this simple:
1) Slice up your apples (make sure there aren't any cores or seeds).
2) Cook the apples until they're soft.
3) Turn the apples into applesauce.
4) Can your applesauce.

I usually get at least 4 different kinds of apples, as I think this makes it taste better. You want to use the sweet ones, not sour (so no granny smiths). I usually use red delicious, fuji, gala, and mcintosh.

Slice those bad boys up and add them to a pot with an inch of water at the bottom.

Once they're good and soft, I run them through my food mill so that all the peels are out. Some people use the electronic ones, but remember that I wrote books where there is no power available; I like to learn how to do things without electricity. 

(Yes, I have an electric stove, so I am cheating a bit, but I'm not making a fire to cook apples unless I have a lot more time on my hands, and it was already 8pm when I decided to start canning.)

My Food Mill hard at work, about halfway through the batch I made.

All that's left after that it to ladle the applesauce into jars and process them in a water bath. The recipe above has really great, in-depth instructions on how to use a water bath canner if you're just getting started in the wonderful world of food preservation.

And voila! A dozen quarter pints of applesauce and a half pint of apple juice (ran through a strainer to get all the bits out). I know that others who have pigs, horses, etc. will feed the scraps to their animals. Since I don't think Lars or Kaylee would be too fond of snacking on peels, I'll be putting all of the scraps into my composter. Hopefully with the apples' help, my garden will be more successful next year!

Breakfast tomorrow will be delicious!

I have an adventure to post soon. I have all the pictures, I just got to organize them. Hopefully I'll be posting that soon!