I'll be hitting the farm stand in the next couple of weeks to pick up a load of apples for preserving.
Sluggy
So what do you do when you go to the farmstand and there's a half bushel of homely apples priced at only $5.00 calling your name?
You buy them!
And that is just what I did.
I brought home a huge sack of Ugly Apples last week.
These are the less than perfect looking apples that nobody wants in their Peck or half Peck Bag of apples. You know....scarred skins, not quite the perfect color, not quite the perfect shape &/or bruised. The kid working at the stand said that after you picked over them and got rid of the bad ones, at least they would be good for one pot of applesauce.
Ha!....little did he know!!
So I set to peeling and coring these babies to make some applesauce. Making homemade applesauce it so easy too!
First thing is to select your apples and wash them thoroughly. I chose enough apples to fill my crockpot...about 17 apples.
Next you peel(if you want to peel them)and core them.
Since my ugly apples might have been riddled with bad spots, bruises, I chose to peel them first.
After about half I realized that my ugly babies did NOT have any bad spots. They were just "skin challenged" with ugly scarred peels. So I didn't peel the last part of the batch. It's better if you leave the skins on, as most of the vitamins and "stuff that is good for you" is just under the peel. Your applesauce will pack a bigger nutritional punch this way.
Then came the coring...
I LOVE my little apple corer. It cost me $1.00 at the discount outlet. It makes this job go so quickly too!
After coring/peeling, put your apple slices in a bowl in which you've put some water and lemon juice(you can used bottle juice, it doesn't have to be fresh squeezed). The lemon water helps them not to brown while waiting to go into the crockpot. Actually, since it really doesn't matter if the slices brown, you don't have to put lemon on them. It's just a force of habit for me to lemon the apples. lol
Spray your crockpot with a spray oil to make cleaning easier. This is optional however.
Then drain the lemon water off and put your apples in the crockpot, put on the lid and turn it on.
Don't add water!
That's it.....just walk away!
Now you can cook them down on LOW or HIGH. Low will take about 5 hours, while High will cook them into sauce in about 2-3 hours.
You'll know when they are done when the house smells heavenly and they look like this....
(The large pieces in the photo are peel, not apple.)
When your apples are finished cooking, turn off the crockpot, stir it up and taste for sweetness. If it's a bit tart for your taste, you can add some sugar or other sweetener at this point. Also add cinnamon now if you want some in your batch.
If you didn't peel your apples and don't want the peels in the finished product, just fish them out after your applesauce cools. Your applesauce at this point will be a bit chunky.
If you want it fine and smooth, get out a food mill.
Pour the sauce in and start milling into a bowl or pan. If you are going to mill, don't bother fishing out your peels beforehand. The mill will keep your peels from winding up in your finished product.
And speaking of finished product, here it is....
Ready for eating!
If you make a lot you can water bath can applesauce or put into freezer-safe containers and freeze any excess for later.
It will keep in the refrigerator for about a month.
My 17 medium-sized apples made a 6 Cup container(48 oz.)of applesauce.
If you wish to make Apple Butter at this point, just put your sauce back into the crockpot, add spices according to any good Apple Butter recipe you have/find and continue to cook it down until you have the consistency and the brown color of apple butter. You can also water bath can your Apple Butter to store it longer.
I'll get out both Crockpots & do another 2 batches tomorrow of Chunky Applesauce. That should keep us in applesauce for a couple of months.
The rest of the apples will be made into Apple Pie Filling later this week.
Sluggy
