Last Sunday, Hubby and I and his parents went to an orchard and did some apple picking. It was a beautiful, crisp, sunny fall day and we had a lot of fun. We got there and took a hay ride out to the orchards, where we found SO many kinds of apples! Some of them, I had never even heard of, so that meant lots of taste-testing! In case you've never been apple-picking, taste-testing is acceptable, and you'll see that most people are walking around the orchard with an apple in hand that they're munching on. We chose our favorites--some really sweet, some pretty tart, some in between--and filled our bag (which was supposed to hold 10 lbs, so I weighed mine at home and it was 11.5 lbs... score!).
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| Hubby, not wanting his picture taken. |
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| Hubby and myself |
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| Hubby and his parents on the hayride. |
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| The orchard--there was much more to it than this picture shows! |
Now, what do I do with 11.5 pounds of fresh-picked apples? Make applesauce! I don't love applesauce--it's a texture thing, I'd rather just eat a fresh, crispy apple--but Hubby sure does! So I make it for him every now and then. Usually I use my 4 quart crockpot and it makes a good amount, but since it has to be eaten within 3 weeks of cooking, some of it usually gets thrown out. This year I had the thought that I would try my hand at canning and make enough applesauce to last us a while.
So this time, since I still happen to be living with my parents (we've had a setback with our house, but we're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel... more on that another time), I decided to use my mom's--used to be my grandma's--6 quart crockpot and fill it up to the brim to make as much as I possibly could in one batch.
Now, I have one of those fantastically awesome apple peeler/slicer/corer things, and I used it the last time I made applesauce. It makes the process go so much faster! The problem? It's currently buried in a box... and that box is in a sea of boxes... somewhere in my storage unit. So I decided that I was going to suck it up and peel and chop the apples by hand.
I sat down at the table with my station all set up--crockpot stoneware in front of me to toss the apples into, trashcan beside me to toss the peels/cores into, and a cutting board in front of me--and began to peel. I got about 3/4 through peeling one apple when I decided that it was time to go out and buy a new peeler/slicer/corer. Seriously. I am HORRIBLE at peeling apples. I think it took me a few minutes just to not even peel 1 apple. So off to Kitchen Collection I went (they have them on sale for $13 right now if anybody out there needs one). Once I got home and started on the apples, I think I filled the crockpot in about 10-15 mintues. That magical little machine cut my time waaaaaaay down! And it slices the apples so thin that it cuts down your cooking time, too.
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| If you're making anything where you need to peel/slice/core apples, do yourself a favor and buy one of these. Definitely worth the money. |
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| My crockpot stuffed as full as I could get it! |
I was surprised that it only took a little over half my apples to fill up my crockpot. After it was filled to the brim, I added 3 small cinnamon sticks, the juice of 1 lemon, a slice of lemon peel, and 4 tbsp brown sugar and set it on high. Every 30 minutes or so I would go check on it and stir it up, but I don't think it's necessary to do that often. I just love the smell that punches you in the face when you take the lid off! After about 4 hours my apples had cooked down to mush with some big chunks. At this point I dug out the cinnamon sticks and the lemon peel. I used to just take a whisk to the apples at this point to get most of the chunks out, but that was before I got my handy-dandy immersion blender! I stuck that thing in there and it blended up beautifully! It was as smooth as what you would find in a store. Perfect-o!
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| It's amazing that all of those apples cook down to that small amount! |
Next is the fun part. Time to can my creation.
I have never canned anything before, so I went to Pinterest and did some research on canning applesauce. Here's what I came up with: I washed my jars in hot, soapy water earlier in the day and let them dry on a kitchen towel. Then, right before the sauce was ready, I sterilized the jars, lids, and rings in boiling water and pulled them out right before I filled them. I used a funnel and a soup ladle and filled my pint-sized jars, leaving about 1 inch at the top. I had enough applesauce to fill 4 jars. I then put the lids and rings on and tightened them as much as I could. Literally right as I was about to put them in the boiling water bath, a family friend who happens to can things came over and told me that she doesn't do the water bath when she does applesauce and that my sauce was hot enough that they should seal on their own. If they didn't seal, I could do the water bath later. Sounded good to me!
So I let my jars sit over night and.... they didn't seal. Boo. So I tried the boiling water bath that morning and.... they still didn't seal. Oh well. Now we have half a gallon of applesauce to eat in the next 3 weeks. It's like a new challenge for us. The lesson I learned? Next time I try canning, I'll do the boiling water bath as soon as the jars are filled, even if I think I don't need it.
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| Fresh, homemade applesauce almost makes me want to eat it... almost... |
Overall, it was a good experience, and maybe later on this winter I'll try canning again... maybe.
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