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Saturday, October 18, 2008

MAKING & CANING Applesauce

THIS IS ANOTHER
DO AS I SAY NOT AS I DO POST
.

SO GET READY TO LAUGH AT ME,

If you are new to my blog. You need to know.
I am learning to live a simple life.
I am learning to be a greener person.
I am learning to can & preserve.
I am learning to live off the land and shop local.
But you can learn from my mistakes.
This is my first adventure in making applesauce
and my 3 rd attempt in caning.
1.I have canned one time with my sister in law.
We made peach jelly and froze the peaches. about 20 years ago.LOL
2. I made my own nectarine jelly by my self this year.

Now that you have my resume.
Here is my story.
It is so much easier to have a person who knows what they are doing teach you.
But it looks like a piece of cake. Till you do it by your self the first few times.
First I need to say:
Thank you to { R & V fARMSTEAD.} She posted step by step how she did her apple sauce for me.
This is how I started last night.
Washed the apples used the core and cut tool. Then placed the apples in a pan of watter with a solution of 2 tablespoons of salt and 1 gallon of water and a few dashes of lemon juice. To keep apple flesh from turning brown

By the end the apples were floating above the water so I put a lid with weight to hold them down, while I took a break. This was a 1/2 bushel of apples. And I needed to read again what to do next. .

I learned the hard way have every thing set up.
Set up includes.
Have all pots you need ready.
on the stove.
1.caner with water boiling
2. pan to cook apples in.
3.pan to boil jars. or have them in dish washer to sterilize.
4. pan with water to boil lids and rings
Have the food processor ready
Have the tools to remove hot jar
Have some heat protection for you hands.
Have towels hot pads etc.

Cooking was just add then to boiling water for 6 minuets.

OK now I am rested I will skip to the processing as
cooking the apple sauce was the easy part .
Use a slotted spoon to transfer apples to processor
Remember to leave the spout open to vent the hot apples.
I processed them on speed #2 about 1-2 min.till they were the consistency I wanted.

I ended up with 2 of these bowls full that is 16 cups or 4 litre's or 4 qt's or 8 pints.
At the time I was doing this I was so overwhelmed. I did not figure this out right.
Her recipe was ( a cup of sugar to five quarts of sauce.)
I am not going to tell you how much sugar I used.
Next time: I will not use any sugar so it can be stained and used for my daughters new baby due in Jan 09.


Now for the canning process.
R & V Farmstead uses a pressure caner. So I have a new never used one.
I got out the instructions to use step by step for this caner and there was a
Warning
on {#3 of 13 warnings} {NEVER COOK APPLESAUCE, CRANBERRIES, ETC IN A PRESSURE COOKER. THESE FOODS TEND TO FOAM, FROTH, AND SPUTTER, AND CAN PLUG THE VENT TUBE.}
SO with my mind not working. I looked up water bath caning on the web to find that you process them in a water bath for 15 min for pints. 20 min for qt's.
I FAILED TO UNDERSTAND THIS WAS ABOUT MAKING APPLE SAUCE NOT CANNING. DUH
IF I ONLY HAD A BRAIN.

I was successful with this adventure but.

It was ouch owl ooh hot.{?.,;'.,l;/'//,;l;}That part was at the end when I used the lifter to get the hot jars out of the water.The lifter will not fit on the first jar or I do not know how to get them out . So I used tongs to light and grab with lifter.. So of course I was not good with the left hand. I had some fall back in water. I grabbed one with my bare hand to save it. wh wh wh. Then I grabbed the inside rack that had some of the jars removed it was aaaa

Now if you want to do this the right way refer back here for cautions and avoid mistakes.

Go to { R & V fARMSTEAD.} to use a pressure cooker to can.

I WOULD LIKE TO GIVE R& V HOMESTEAD AN AWARD FOR ALL THERE INSPIRATION AND HELP
CLICK HERE TO CLAIM YOUR AWARD ON MY IT'S GREEN DAY BLOG. THANKS


But you can open and save this pdf file on how to do it with a water bath canner.

Conclusion
Was it worth it.
YES, it will be better next time.
I know this is organic.No chemicals added.
WITH THE OVERDOSE OF SUGAR I USED. I WILL NEED LESS IN MAKING APPLE CAKE OR BREAD WITH THEM, LOL.
I WILL BE VERY PROUD WHEN THIS IS USED.
KNOWING I PUT LABOR,SWEAT, BURNS, MIND LOSS, HOURS OF LEARNING & LOVE, IN EACH JAR. THEY ARE PRICELESS MEMORY'S OF OCT 18, 2008

I had hubby try it he said it was good just need a bit of cinnamon.
Photobucket

7 comments:

Wendy said...

Can't say you didn't put a lot of work into this! I'll bet it's really delicious!!
Your daughter is due in Jan? Mine is due in Feb and also my daughter-in-law. If you haven't seen the baby floating upside down in the side-bar of my blog, check it out. Click on it and fill in your daughter's name if you want and her due date. It will "count down" the days until the baby comes. It's fun!

Anonymous said...

Grammy - what an educational post. Thanks for the information.

Unknown said...

Grammy,

Thanks for the award, but I certainly do not deserve any awards. We all have to go through the learning curve, by the way. I have my share of horror stories, too. LOL! But, I am so glad that you thought it was all worth it. It really is! Keep up the good work! :-D

Anonymous said...

This looks yummy! What a great idea :) We will definitely be trying this soon!

CompleteLee Blogger said...

Good for you! Learning new things is awesome!

Thanks for visiting my blog. And, sorry, but I have no idea why donuts don't digest well. Who knows whether or not my mother fabricated the entire story! She may have been just trying to scare us away from donuts--didn't work on all my siblings. ;)

Zaroga said...

I can remember learning such things. One thing I learned "back in the day" was that not all types of apples make good applesauce. We (my children or husband were usually involved in the process) made applesauce one time that tasted a bit like 7 Up was one of the ingredients... a bit different, but not bad. I can't remember the variety of apples now. We lived in VA Beach VA at the time. I enjoy your adventures in canning :-)

Anonymous said...

What on Earth are you doing with all that water?! Use apple juice instead (good stuff, from a fruitstand, that that crap in the stores,) and only enough to cover the bottom of the pan. Apples produce water when they are cooked and if necessary you can add more juice. Cook them gently.

Get yourself a food mill. If you are going to be making a lot of your own stuff you will have lots of uses for it. (Think world class tomatoe sauce.) I don't know what mine cost but it was worth it, whatever it was.

Then just quarter your apples and cut the stems off. No peeling or any of that tedious stuff. After they have cooked use a potato masher a bit and then put them through the food mill. (I leave the skins on some because that's where the nutrition is and I sort of like the texture.)

Instead of sugar, throw in some sweet apples, I use Golden Delicious. You can taste it as you go and modify as you wish. Use different pots for different types of apples because they cook at different rates.