Yesterday was the day. The day to make apple sauce.  When I say ‘day’ I mean DAY.  This is not a 20 minute process. In fact I think in total I spent 8 hours. From cutting to cooking to milling, bagging and cleaning.  My feet hurt.  My back hurt but my house smelled like heaven and my baby girl had a wonderful time helping. So it was a win.

This past weekend we went to Paulus Orchard and picked a few apples. Plus we picked up a bushel of ’seconds’ apples.  I LOVE using seconds for apple sauce.

I don’t care what they look like.

I don’t care if they have a mark from the hail storm this spring.

I don’t care if they are not in proportion for the picture perfect apple.

I am going to cook it and puree it!  No biggie. Pictured below is our 2 1/2 bushels of apples.  It cost me $16. Well worth it. One is Gala and I forgot what the other variety is called. I like to mix up my apples when I make apple sauce.  Do what works for you!

**I was informed by the lovely people at Paulus Orchard that the second bag is ‘Ginger Gold’.  This was noted on their Facebook page when I posted a link to this blog post.  I LOVE when businesses interact with their customers!  I was also honored that they linked this post in their latest e-newsletter.  If you found this web site from that email WELCOME!!!

First thing is first.  Wash the apples. Get all the dirt off them and send any little bug that might be hitching a ride for a swim.

Now give them a rough chop. Don’t worry about coring and peeling.  The Squeeze-o will take care of the in a bit.

Now it is time to cook.

You can just put them over medium heat and sweat them down till they are mushy or you can toss a 1/2 cup of water in and get the steam rolling.

After about a half hour this is what you are going to have.  Boiling apples that are fork tender.

This is the squeeze-o.  My mom has had it since the 1970′s and it still works!

The deal is you put your hot apples in a hopper (not pictured..it is cut out of the picture top right.)

Turn the handle and through a cork screw will force just the apple pulp out that fine mesh cylinder.

The seeds, core and skins will be pushed out the center of the cylinder.

Here is a better shot of how that happens.

The apple sauce slides down the chute and that is it!

I do recommend to take the first round of seeds and skins and running it back trough the process again. This will force more sauce from your skins. This second pressing will be more fibrous so you will want to bled it in with your first pressing.

You have cooked your apples with the skins on and seeds in tact so all that nutrition is IN the apple sauce.  Apples are naturally sweet so no sugar is added.  The only water you added was at the very beginning and that probably evaporated through the boiling process. It doesn’t get more natural than this!

Now it is up to you to process your sauce in cans or freeze it.  I chose to freeze. It works for me. I hope this works for you.

Fall is now officially here in my house.  I have a years supply of apple sauce in my freezer and I did it!

How do you welcome fall to your house?

 

 

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