Not much stitching due to 3 apple trees in my backyard
and tons of beautiful apples.
This year's apple harvest is the best my trees have ever had.
What to do with all those apples? I've only ever made apple pie with the few apples I got each year. I thought about apple pie filling, but the thought of peeling all those apples was just too much. I can hardly stand to peel apples for one pie and there was no way I was going to peel hundreds of apples.
A little research on the web led me to several applesauce recipes that don't require peeling of apples. That sounded great to me and I pulled out all the canning stuff that's been tucked away under the stairs for the past 20 years.
My nightly ritual has been washing, coring and cutting a 5 gallon bucket full of apples. I put all the cut up apples in my large 22 quart electric roaster and let it cook on low overnight.
In the morning, the soft apples were ready to be turned into applesauce. Some recipes say to use a potato masher or immersion blender to create the applesauce leaving the peels to get chopped up along with the apples, others say to put the applesauce through a strainer that separates the peel from the apple flesh. I sort of did a combination of the two.
First, I used the potato masher to combine the soft apples with the juice and then I ran it through the food grinder attachment on my mixer.
There were still pieces of peel that weren't small enough for my liking, so I put the food strainer attachment on and ran the mixture through. The result was perfect for me.
After the applesauce was made, it then had to be heated on the stove to boiling before it could be put in hot jars and processed in the water bath canner.
Just so you know, I did make a few apples pies too. Hubby and my future son-in-law were very pleased.
I won one of Nancy's giveaways. Instead of picking my own colors, I asked Nancy to pick out her favorites. I love the colors Nancy sent.
Nancy is having another giveaway on her blog Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe so hop on over there and check it out.
All your apple goodies look wonderful!
ReplyDeleteI'll bet that applesauce is yummy! Lovely flosses, I really enjoy stitching with Nancy's floss.
ReplyDeleteLots of hard work and food prep. The new threads are lovely.
ReplyDeleteI made my apple butter similar in that I didn't peel them. I cooked them down in my crockpot and then used the immersion blender. No signs of any peels.
ReplyDeletePretty floss colors!
Ooh, you've made me hungry. Great idea having Nancy chose your colors; they're gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteCongrats on your harvest - we never had that many - I would have been overwhelmed! Now, tomatoes.....!
ReplyDeleteAlso looked at your Hall/Fall Ornament exchange gift - very pretty!
Yum! All that applesauce looks delicious. And congrats on winning the giveaway! :D
ReplyDeleteLovely apples and lovely threads
ReplyDeleteSo good to hear your apple crop was in abundance this year, Pam!! Your applesauce looks delicious. My mom used to make her own, too, but I never learned...
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness! You are so blessed to have your own fresh apples. When I lived in NH, we would go apple picking every fall. Down here, we have to travel about six hours to get to the nearest apple orchard. Needless to say, most of our apples come from the grocery store now.
ReplyDeleteI have won some beautiful threads from Nancy in the past and just love all her beautiful colors. I love the colors she chose for you as well.
Yum!!! Looks like a lot of work but worth it. :)
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing like homemade applesauce!! My mom makes that and apple butter ~ love it!!
ReplyDeleteYour applesauce looks very impressing. Don't envy your work though.
ReplyDeleteI too liked the color of the yarn you won. :-)