I love canning. I have so many good memories of canning as I grew up. We passed a farm on our way to and from town so we’d stop by whenever they had seasonal produce for sale. We’d come home with bushels of apples, tomatoes, cucumber (although we weren’t very successful at pickling those), peaches, pears, etc. Is your mouth watering yet? Apple butter, pear butter, peach slices, whole tomatoes, diced tomatoes… the list goes on. We listened to audio books (Pilgrim’s Progress and Anne of Green Gables) while we were busy in the kitchen. Canning was a time where we’d come together as a family (small as we were) and talked or listened while we filled jars with produce.
Now that I have my own family, I still love to can. I haven’t found a farm where we have access to so many wonderful fruits and vegetables at cheap prices so I do what I can, when I can and from where I can (that’s a lot of “cans” isn’t it?). I also haven’t done a variety like we did growing up but maybe one day, I’ll find that farm with prices that will make canning worth it and that I can afford. ๐
Last month, I was getting ready to place my Azure Standard Co-op order. It was one of those weeks where I waited until the last minute… and I do mean the last minute. My order has to be placed by 4PM on a certain day. Well, I had waited until around 3PM to order and was finally finished around… 3:48PM. Yes, procrastinator here. lol Anyway, this time it paid off as Azure had their “juicing apples” in stock. Who can pass up 20 lbs of organic apples for $10? ha! Not me! So I ordered 4 boxes. Yep, 80lbs of apples. You probably know where I’m going with this…
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The leaning tower of Fuji apples. ๐ These are the “juice grade” from Azure Standard.
Pretty, aren’t they? Shall we start?
Cut your apples into quarters. You’ll need to skin and core them if you don’t have a food mill. Place in a large pot and add enough water to cover the bottom to keep them from scorching.
Cook the apples until tender.
Hello KitchenAid Food Mill. Trust me, you will want to invest in a good food mill if you plan to do canning. I โฅ my KitchenAid and their food mill. You can see the two bowls. The darker bowl is the one catching the applesauce and the lighter bowl is catching the skins, etc. It’s all so easy this way and you’ll use the food mill for more than just applesauce.
The KitchenAid Food Mill will make the applesauce consistency about that of what you’d find in the store. ๐
Dump the applesauce back into your big pot and add the sugar (if you’re adding any). The Fuji apples I used were almost sweet enough without sugar but I did toss in a little bit of our organic cane sugar. Ohhhh so yummy. ๐ The sugar amount is really going to vary by taste and the kind of apples you use. Do you like sweet applesauce? Maybe you like tart?
Bring your sauce back to a boil and start filling jars, add your lid and ring and place it in the water bath. Applesauce needs to process in a water bath for 20 minutes. Remove from the canner and place on a dry towel. Let sit and allow the lids to ping (it means they’re sealing)… music to a canner’s ear. ๐
I started off with close to 80 lbs of apples (a few went bad). I ended up with 18 quarts and 1 pint of applesauce.
Before you go start on your apples, you might be like me and have really juicy apples. I decided to save the juice instead of making the applesauce so runny. You can go here {Canning Apple Juice} to see what I did.
Hello fresh homemade applesauce! Enjoy! ๐
Ingredients
- Apples
- Sugar (recommended 1/4 cup per pound but totally optional)
Instructions
- Wash, peel, core and quarter apples.
- Place in big pot; add just enough water so it doesn't burn on the bottom; cover and let simmer until tender.
- Puree through food mill or mash by hand masher if you like chunky applesauce.
- Return to pot and bring to boil. Ladle into hot sanitized jars leaving 1/2-inch headspace; place lid and ring on. Place in water bath canner.
- Process in boiling water bath for 20 minutes.
- Remove from canner and place on a dry towel. Allow to cool down before storing.
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tlover tonet says