Making Applesauce

Last week we set aside a day four our annual sauce making. The children love applesauce day, and love to help make the sauce. They are now all old enough to help cut, stir, crank, and fill the jars. All of their help really makes the process go fast, or at least compared to when I used to do it by myself when they were to little to help very much.

We started with six bushels of apples this year. I had decided that I need at least 100 jars to get through to the next season and we eat sauce almost every day. I do have about 35 quarts left from last year. Hopefully it will be enough. With the boys eating more I am not sure how we will do this year, only time will tell. 

I bought 4 varieties of apples. Golden Delicious, Smokehouse, Empire, and McIntosh. We like the sweetness of this combination best. I don't have to add any sugar.

This is our set up. I found this table at the thrift shop last year. My plan is to refinish it, but we use it all the time I can't imagine taking it out of the kitchen to work on it. It's perfect for clamping the strainer to.I use a Victorio Strainer strainer and love it. I made sure to wash all the jars ahead of time so I wouldn't have to take any time away for that. 

The first thing we do is wash the apples in the sink. To keep the flavors even we select 8 apples of each variety dup them in the water and then begin cutting them. I found that this is the perfect amount to fill my pots for cooking. All we do is remove the stems and cut into about 12 pieces.

  

I have a 22 quart stock pot and a 16 quart pot that I use. Just make sure your posts have a thick bottom to prevent burning. When a pot is full of apple pieces I add about 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup of water to the bottom and cook them down on medium heat. Since one burner has the canning pot I rotate the pots so one is cooking while one is getting strained and then we fill a bowl with cut apples until a pot is free. This keeps the process going smoothly and without breaks, unless we get ahead of the canner! 

The strainer makes it so easy! Put the cooked apples in the hopper turn the crank and out comes the applesauce. Hot fresh applesauce has got to be one on the best foods on this earth! 

After we have sent one pot full of apples through we then take the peels and sent them through two more times. By the time they are pressed that many times they look like paper. 

I have a stainless steel bowl that holds 8 quarts. I know when it is full that it is time to start filling the jars. I keep my jars war in the oven at 170 degrees until I need them. Then I pull them out and fill at the end of the little table. After doing this for so many years I have found out the most efficient way to make sauce in this kitchen. From here they can go right into the canner. 

Applesauce processes in a water bath for 20 minutes. I ran out of my Tattler lids and had to use the metal ones. I was quickly reminded why I love Tattler for applesauce. With the metal lids I have seepage that runs down the jars and makes them sticky. With the Tattler due to the tightening after they  come out of the canner I don't have this problem and cleaning the jars for storage is so much easier! There you have it one really long day and 108 jars of sauce for the pantry. 

I left them on the table for a few days before I washed and moved them all downstairs. They are so pretty all lined up in rows. 

Pardon the Dust

I'm coming back! 

Please pardon the dust as I make some changes to this poor neglected blog of mine. 

I have missed being here. It may take a few days but I hope to be posting again in the next week or so. 

I have so much to share. 

A lot can happen in fourteen months. 

Stay Tuned! 

 

How to spend a chilly afternoon

 

Earlier this week I was downstairs doing some cleaning when I realized it had gotten really quiet upstairs. While my children may be older that the age of creating major messes, they still can get into mischief.

When I came upstairs to check this is what I found and the reason for the quiet. They ended up spending almost two hours reading stories together. Such a pleasant afternoon.

Christmas Pajamas

 

I realize that Christmas was exactly one month ago, but I thought I would share the jammies I made for the children. I ended up not being able to finish the tops for the boys and purchased t-shirts that coordinated. It worked out fine, but I wish I could have gotten them done.

The children picked out the fabric they wanted, choosing green because they had never worn green before for Christmas. I just loved listening to them work it all out between themselves in the fabric store.

I finished them two days before Christmas, just in time for them to wear them for all of the festivities! Don’t they all look so excited?  This is what they think of pictures before opening presents. Then I remind them that the more they smile the faster we can be finished.

 

 

Pajamas are very easy to make, especially the boys pants. They only took me about two hours to put together. The gowns require a bit more work but are also very simple and I enjoyed working with the flannel. Much easier to work with than some other fabrics. Despite the fact that I was working like crazy to get them done I can’t wait to make some more and have all ready purchased fabric for next year!

What to do when it rains

 

Today it rained, and yesterday it rained, and yep it rained the day before that one too. The forecast for tomorrow? More rain. Now normally I love rain, it makes me want to curl up with a book, bake cookies , and generally lounge around the house all day. Especially if it’s a chilly rain. But this? This is during the harvest and I am busy. I don’t have time to do all those things the weather making me want to do. I must dice up those tomatoes that are sitting in boxes, string the beans, freeze the broccoli and some how try to keep the house clean in case someone wants to look at it.

The children are very helpful but there is still only so much I will let them do when working with boiling water and pressure canners. So after asking me about a million times to play in the rain, I finally said yes. After all there was no lightening or thunder and it was warm. They played outside for 3 hours, building dams, moats, and filing the boat with water.

They were quite resourceful in their playing and wore themselves out!

The girls? Well they didn’t want to get wet so they played inside under umbrellas.

Sometimes saying yes is worth all the extra work.

Portraits

One of the things on my rather long list of things to do is take more pictures to learn my camera better. I find so many times i don't take the time to practice. So when we went away I took all of my books and manuals with me. Not that it helped, but I did take a lot of pictures to practice with the different settings. I'm not brave enough for manual yet, especially since I can't see clearly enough to focus properly. Yes, getting my eyes checked is also on that list. :) Anyway I did learn some things, but I have so much more to learn. Here are my meager attempts at portraits on a chilly morning in the mountains.

    I set out all prepared to take a family shot until I couldn't find my tri-pod attachment. So my father-in-law took this one for us. He only took one shot, thankfully we are all looking in the same direction.  One must not forget the hundreds of outtakes to get that perfect shot. :)And one more because it's so hard to pick and choose. 

The last days of summer

A little bit of swimming, A little bit of bike riding,A little bit of watching the cars drive by, and a sweet treat to end the season. Good by summer, it has been another season full of great memories!

Opa's are the best!

Lest you think all we did was work when my parents visited here is proof we had fun too! My Dad was only able to stay a few days, he is a veterinary pathologist at Virginia Tech and was running out of vacation time. The children love having him here, they rode bikes that he fixed up for them, pulled them around in the wagon, read stories, made them breakfast, played games, and listened to all their ramblings and silly stories. What more could you want form an Opa? He is the best!Can't wait to see you again at Thanksgiving!

Taking a break for fun

These past few weeks have been crazy busy around here with all the projects and canning going on. So I decided a day of fun was in order. Although being my very practical self I combined it in with a trip to the grocery store. We headed out to Amish county to grocery shop and play in the creek and the park. Here they all are before getting dirty.Love this one of my girls. It so so peaceful and pretty at this park. We love going there as much as we can. It's not very deep and the boys love to catch crayfish. The girls collect rocks and everyone gets dirty. We then stopped for ice cream on the way home.      Miles was determined to catch at least one crayfish before we left. He worked hard at it the whole time.  I gave a 5 minute warning and he still hadn't caught one. Then just as I was getting the girls out and toweled off he caught a big one. He was so excited!! It's always nice to take a break when working hard. It makes it seem more special. It's back to work for me now. My parents are coming tomorrow and the tomatoes are filling up the counters again.