Apples, Apples, Everywhere

Yesterday we canned applesauce. I purchased 5 bushels of apples and made 88 quarts of sauce. It took us 10 hours from start to finish and we realized, It. Is. Not. Enough. Sigh. So back to the orchard I go for two more bushels sometime this week or next. We use applesauce for sweetener around here. My children love it in their oatmeal, on their pumpkin muffins, for a snack, and I use it in cooking in place of oil in some recipes. We go through a LOT of sauce and they will not eat store bought sauce, even the organic no sugar added. Food snobs they have become. :) Thankfully they love making applesauce, it is one of the things they look forward to doing all year. It ranks right up there with Christmas and birthdays! I'm still trying to figure that one out, I mean making sauce involves a lot of work and a lot of sticky mess! First we wash and cut the apples into pieces. This was Fiona's first year to cut. She was quite excited to be able to share this job with the boys.  We then cook the apples until they are soft in large stock pots. Then we put them through the food strainer.  Yummy applesauce comes out one side and the skins and seeds come out the other. We run the skins through a couple of times to make sure to get out all of the sauce.  This is by far one of the best tools for sauce, without it the process would take forever to make this much at once!  Many hands make the work go faster and more enjoyable. You can wee we pulled in the kitchen table to be close to the stove. It also helps to contain the stickiness to a smaller area. Here are all the jars waiting to be washed and put on the shelf for winter. Such a wonderful sight! I love looking at all that work lined up waiting to be eaten.