Shanda SLAVING away over the apples.....Avery was our apple tester
Jo was a helpful tester, too. The best part was picking the apples...all the kids got in on the action. too.
Our apple tree has given us such an amazing harvest so Shanda and I decided to can it! I've never done canning without my mom, so this was venturing beyond my comfort zone....but I had Shanda...so I knew we could do it!
We managed to get three laundry baskets worth of apples....and there are still more on the tree that aren't quite ready. We did LOTS of peeling, coring and slicing. Everyone got involved....even go-dad! He was a peeling machine!
With all these apple peelings and cores, I didn't want to just waste it. Dad said, "You're mother would be thinking of ways to boil this down" To which I replied, "That's exactly was I was thinking." I'm turning more and more into my mom...which is NOT a bad thing. As it began to boil down, Shanda casually said that she loved the smell of the boiling apple carcasses! (there is always a chicken carcass boiling away on my mom's stove)
Instead of using water to cook the apples, we used the juices from the apple "carcasses".
Using a hand blender, we pureed the cooked apples, which is what we used in making the apple butter and apple jam.
This is the TASTY applesauce! Duce LOVED it!
This is the juice that we ended up with after cooking the apples. We used this in all of the canning....for the apple butter, the apple jam and the apple pie filling. There was even enough left for drinking....the kids all loved the fresh sweet taste!
This is the finished apple pie filling! 
This is the apple jam. Its a little runny. I didn't follow the recipe to a tee and I ran out of pectin....but it also is DELICIOUS as a syrup. I made french toast for breakfast and we used this on it and everyone LOVED it!
We bought teeny jars for the apple butter (did you know apple butter actually doesn't have any butter in it at all) It is the perfect size fore giving away as gifts. Next time we make this, I think I will experiment with using butter so it has more of a buttery flavor....think honey butter...just with apples instead of honey.
3 comments:
Last time I did applesauce, I left some of the skins on and it turned this really pretty pink color. Another use for the skins. Maybe homemade cider for the rest?
oh wow! i love apples and all of the great things you can do with them- but the whole canning thing is a little intimidating to me! good work!
i really really wish i was eating one right now.... i'm so jealous!
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