Apples!

I’ve never made applesauce before, but when a couple from church said they had an abundance of apples at their house and to come pick as many as we wanted, I couldn’t say no.  It actually turned out to be a lot more fun than I thought it would be.

We headed over on Monday to pick the apples.  (Dan insisted on taking a picture of me so this is what you get.)

Averi was a big helper (and by helper I mean she didn’t like sitting and watching).  They had this really cool tool that helped us get the apples up high.  Dan used it but I didn’t need it seeing how I’m so tall.

There were some other families there as well and Kaili helped them make apple cider with the apples from the ground.  It was really yummy but I had no idea it was so labor intensive.

We brought home 40 pounds of free apples!  Brandy let me borrow her Kitchen Aide attatchment that is officially the coolest thing ever.  You cut up the apples (no need to seed, core, peel), cook them, and then dump them into this.

The applesauce comes out one end and the apple poop comes out the other.  It’s amazing!  I made over 25 pints of applesauce.  I even canned them, which was another first for me.

It was so ‘easy’ that I decided to try making pear butter with the 10 pounds of pears we also picked.  I had a little mishap when I added ground ginger and didn’t account for the 6:1 ratio of ground ginger to fresh chopped ginger, but I was able to get most of it out and it turned out really yummy!  I made 12 cups and canned them as well.

My recent homemakerness is a little unnerving, but at least it tastes good.