This year, Laurie and I are each heavier one baby boy, and it didn't seem feasible for us to sauce together again. But as I watched my apple sauce supply dwindle (as it did quickly the day the shelf fell), I began to wonder what I would feed my children, or use to bribe my little boy to eat his chicken. There seemed no other option but to undertake a saucing and canning day of my own.
My dear sister in law Becca summed it up well when she commented recently, "When you take on a project, you go all out!" Yes, yes I do. A la my first knitting project, a blanket that I enlarged from the pattern because if I was going to knit a blanket, it was going to be the biggest, most coziest blanket ever. Five panels of the blanket are sitting knitted in my attic, waiting for me to finish the border. It has been at least three years. (Optimistically, I am thinking that since I am not pregnant this winter, I might finally get to finishing it!)
In true form, then, when I decided to sauce, I knew it would be enough applesauce for the year. A bushel of apples, I said, and then impulsively sprang for an extra half-bushel at the farm stand. I didn't count them until later, as I processed them in batches of 24. If I had, I might not have loaded them all into my trunk quite as eagerly.
I bought a canner and some extra jars. With the new jars and another package of lids, I was set up for 24 jars total to can, plus extra jars and plastic lids if I had more sauce to contain. The jars went through the dishwasher the night before, and I googled the Ball canning website for tips on making and canning applesauce. I was so ready.
The festivities began at 8:30 a.m. on the dot. The kids and I had breakfasted and I had set up a few stations around the kitchen and dining room. Knowing this would be just me and the apples, I prepared myself for a relatively inefficient day. With Laurie, we processed all the apples and got them into several big pots to cook. We sauced a gigantic bowl, and then canned more then 30 quarts in shifts, keeping the canner hot the whole time. On my own, however, and without the gigantic bowls and pots we had used together, I had to move about 36 apples through the whole process at a time to make room for prepping, saucing, and canning the next batch. Why 36? Initially, because that's about how many would fit into my sink to wash at one time. Scientific, I know.
So at 8:30, I loaded my first apple onto my Pampered Chef corer/peeler/slicer. Or tried to. One unanswered phone call to my mother and a YouTube search later, I learned how to work the darn thing. Wouldn't you know, it is actually pretty slick! Turns out one of my apple varieties was just a little too soft to work properly on the corer, so I had to slice many of those by hand. But overall, that little gadget made my day move twice as fast. A gigantic thank-you to my sweet mom, who thoughtfully gave it to me about a year ago. I have been waiting all year to put it to good use, and it did not disappoint! A thank-you as well to my dad for sharing his expertise in maximizing stability and efficiency (he is the designated corer/slicer when my mom sauces).
See what a pretty ribbon of peel it gives you? I wish there were some crafty purpose for long ribbons of red and gold apple peel, but I doubt it would stand up to the rigors of hot glue.
Next, the apples went into my stock pot. My 36 apples didn't quite fit into my pot, so I texted my next-door neighbor Laura to see if she had one I could borrow. She is such a gem - she messaged me back to say she was washing hers out and would bring it over in a few minutes! What a blessing, without which I would surely still be saucing today. I used one of the more helpful aspects of my OCD to ensure that each pot of apples had the same blend of apple varieties to give me maximum consistency in my final product. (A dozen of each type in the big pot, half dozen of each in the smaller pot. All of it into the big pot for saucing once they had cooked down. Bam.)
Turns out I don't have a photo of my saucing station, probably because there lots of splattering and very little waiting going on, so no opportunity to grab my phone to snap a shot. I used the Cuisinart stick blender (should they pay me for the advertising plug?) that Joel's mom gave me to sauce the whole big pot at once. It gave me such a lovely, smooth sauce, even with the little bits of peel that made it in with my apples. So much easier than putting all my apples through a saucer or blender!
Next came the jar prep. Out of the dishwasher, swirled with hot water to warm them up, and filled with apple sauce. A hot canning lid out of a saucepan for each jar, secured with a canning ring and into the canner rack. I quickly discovered the challenge of getting that huge canning pot to reach, and maintain, a rolling boil on my cooktop stove. Just when it sounded like it was getting there, the burner would turn back off the way electric burners do. Argh! I finally moved the pot so that it was on both the front and back burners. It wasted some heat because neither burner was fully covered, but at least one of them was on all the time as they flipped off and on. It still took a sweet forever, but I got that thing to boil!
The final product. The lids all sealed within about three minutes of coming out of the canner, every time. I felt like such a rock star hearing all those little pops. Channeling my inner Mennonite diva, that's me. Per my count, I processed about 180 apples and ended up with 24 quarts of applesauce on the nose. And the last jars came out of the canner at 8:30 p.m. almost on the dot - an even twelve hours, including a two-hour break to rally the troops for dinner. I don't remember the last time I felt so exhausted! I helped myself to a cold malt beverage and handful of Ibuprofen, because my lower back swapped out for a hundred red-hot pokers after being on my feet for the first six hours. Channeling my inner 70-year-old Mennonite diva, apparently.
Highlights of the day include Isaac motoring around the entire first floor on his belly while I worked, more ground than he's ever covered before, and Mikayla's initial response to fresh homemade applesauce. At one point, Isaac located the garbage can lid on the dining room floor. It is one of those swinging lids, and he delighted himself for a solid eight minutes flapping it mercilessly against the wall. I came out to see what the ruckus was, and didn't he just beam up at me with that toothless grin, and those eyelashes! Look mom, I've got a skill!
And for lunch, I offered Mikayla what I thought surely would be a huge treat: applesauce, which she had "helped" to make (hey, she rolled a few apples around on the floor), fresh from the pot! I kid you not, she took one look at the bowl and said, "No! Away!" I even offered to put it into a *pink* bowl, to which she agreed at first, but then continued to turn up her nose. Granted, she is accustomed to taking her applesauce cold rather than piping lukewarm, but seriously?! Can you picture the look on my face and the chagrin in my heart as my daughter refused the applesauce of which I was about to process 24 quarts? Oh good, Mikayla can snub my hard work every day for the next year!
She did eventually have some for dinner, but only because it came from the general direction of the refrigerator. That girl certainly knows her own mind!
In the end, the applesaucing was kind of like childbirth for me. Tons of work with more payoff than pain, and I'm glad it only comes round once a year!
**This project made possible by the expert tutelage of one Laurie T., the generous pot-lending of Laura H., the thoughtful gift-giving of two wonderful mothers, and the unfailing distraction of the Wonder Pets. Truly a collaborative effort. Soli deo gloria!
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