Applesauce

This is usually the time of year my husband loves and I dread: Pear and apple canning time.  Don't get me wrong, I love having canned and frozen foods that we grew - or at least picked - ourselves*, and had total control over every ingredient added.  I just don't like all the prep work.  Peeling, slicing, washing jars, finding rings, waiting forever for our canning to boil, and so on.  About 3/4 of the way through the process, I get on board and get excited too.  Up until that point, I'm pretty much an unwilling participant.

We have about 13 quarts of canned pears at the moment - we filled a large laundry basket from a neighbor's Pear tree in exchange for some of our garden goodies - as well as peaches from last year.  (Never again - I hate canning peaches!)  We also grew our own pumpkins, which were roasted, pureed and frozen.  And applesauce.. oh boy, do we have applesauce!

About a month ago, Husband and I went to his aunt and uncle's house to pick their "leftover" apples (whatever is left after they and their kids get what they want - and we're happy to do it!)  We brought home about 35lbs.  I'm not exactly sure what types they have, but there's a tree with reddish apples and a tree with yellowish apples (helps, right?)  After I complained a bit about having to make applesauce, we started.  We got 9 quarts of applesauce from that batch.  I didn't want to can the applesauce, so I froze it in gallon bags - 6 cups per bag.

Then Wal-Mart had a sale on Golden Delicious apples that my husband couldn't resist.  So he bought more apples. They sat around for a while until we finally got motivated enough to make more applesauce.. which was last night.

Making applesauce is a lot easier than you may think.  Here's how to do it: