Homemade Awesome Sauce

Today was APPLESAUCE DAY.  The great thing was that Bekah had off school because of flooding (which affected us in no way at all, so it was basically a free day for her and a bonus for me).

Our creek is high, but it's not even over the road, which is not flooding in our neck of the woods.  Very fortunate for us!

On APPLESAUCE DAY, I load up my best big kettle and my jars or freezer boxes and head off to Mom's house.  She has already bought the apples and lovingly washed the pesticides off of them and dragged out all her big kettles, pans, cutting boards, knives--- and Victorio.  But I am getting ahead of myself.  Here's the apples.  The variety is Summer Rambo (which Mom insists makes the bestest of all applesauces, and she's Mom, so she must be right.)  They don't remind me at all of Rambo though-- they don't look sweaty and mean and like they have a vendetta in mind.

Now this blog today is also a tutorial (just for you, Emily!  And anyone else who wants to know how we do it).

So, after the apples are washed, cut them off the core.  Don't peel them, don't slice them.  Just whack big pieces of apple off of the core.  Watch these experts at work:

Put 1/4 to 1/2 inch of water in the bottom of a large kettle.  We like stainless steel.  And if you have a rack to put in the bottom, that's nice.  It helps keep the apples from sticking and scorching.  Then, as you cut up the apples, toss them into the kettle until it is full to the top.

Well, I forgot to take a picture of "full to the top"-- but I think you can handle that.

Then put the kettle on the stove, put a lid on and turn the burner to high.  Once they start cooking, STIR THEM FREQUENTLY.  I emphasize this because you don't want to scorch your apples, believe you me.

As they cook they'll start to get mushy.  When they get completely mushy, you're ready for the next step.  You have to remove the peels from the cooked apples and make them into... sauce!  You can use a foley food mill for this.  We used to.  But it's slower and messier and once you've met Victorio, you will cast Mr. Foley aside without even a qualm.

Here's my Dad assembling our magnificent Victorio for us.  I don't know exactly what this apparatus is actually called, but it says Victorio on it, so we just roll with that.  You should probably get one.

You pour the molten hot apples into the hopper in the top, trying not to let any cascade onto the floor or onto your own tender skin.  (Good luck with that).  Then you simply wind the crank and voila!  Applesauce comes out one chute and peels come out the other and you're coming down the home stretch.  We just love Victorio.  He is so efficient!

That is STEAM coming off of that stuff!  Be careful!  Then you have to IMMEDIATELY stir in however much sugar you want.  Mom likes hers sweet.  I like mine slightly less sweet.  Today we used 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups of sugar for each kettle-full of apples.  Ya just hafta taste it numerous times until it gets how you like.  You must do this expeditiously because the sugar prevents your applesauce from turning brown.  I nice light color is what we strive for in our family.  We're picky about such things.

Now, if you are going to put this in the freezer, pour the sauce into a container that you can sit in a sink full of cold water to cool it off.  If you're going to can it, don't worry about it, hot is good.

Once it has cooled off a bit, you can dip it into freezer boxes...

Let the boxes cool some more, refrigerate them to get them cold, then eventually put them in the freezer.  Done!  (I know, put the lids on first).

If you're canning (which I decided to do with mine this year.  Mom froze hers), pour it into clean jars, heat the lids, wipe the jar tops, put the lids on, screw the band on, and put in a hot water bath and process for 10 minutes.  I'm going to need my own hot water bath after this is all over.  (You'll have to look up more details on how to can food if you've never done it before).  Then take the jars out with your special jar lifter, let them cool, hope the jar lids pop indicating that they are sealed and then you're done.

Well, almost done.  Then you spend an hour and a half wiping applesauce off every surface of the kitchen and washing all those pots, knives, measuring cups, more pots, spoons, spatulas... you get the idea.  We did 2 bushels of apples today: we started at 9 a.m. and were completely done cleaning up by 2 p.m.  And we even stopped for lunch.  Mom makes the best chicken corn soup ever.  It had rivels in it!!!  We had snickerdoodles too.  Mmm.

All done!  Guess what we're having for supper tonight??  :)  After all-- it is AWESOME SAUCE, I mean APPLESAUCE DAY!