Makin' Applesauce

The great Autumn weather in our area this past weekend put my husband and I in the mood to make a bushel apples into of applesauce! He suggested I share how we did that.

First of all, we bought a bushel of Golden Delicious apples. We purchased seconds; they are the bruised versions that the orchard can’t sell for eating. We got them for a discounted price! Don’t be afraid of buying ‘seconds’! Ours weren’t in bad condition; both our toddler and I ate one on the way home and thought they were fine!

(Expect to pay around $16 for a bushel of seconds.)

We started by cutting the apples into quarters. We have a food strainer, so we did not remove the seeds or skins.

Next, we put the apples into a big pot. Since we made a bushel of apples, we ended up doing about six pots’ worth of cooking. Add about an inch of water to the apples to prevent burning.

Cook the apples down until they’re soft and the skins are starting to fall off. The total volume of apples in the pot will shrink.

This is what the food mill looks like:

To use the food mill,

[after your husband figures out how to assemble it for you!]

you just push the apples through the top bowl. The mill seperates the skins from the good stuff. The applesauce comes out looking like this:

My husband likes it extra smooth, so we put it through our blender.

This is the finished product:

A bushel of apples made a ton of sauce! For $16 and about 2 hours of work, this was our quantity of sauce:

It freezes well. I don’t know how to can food, but someday I would like to learn! This would be great to can.