Tuesday, November 02, 2021

Sweet Smelling Sauna

Our home has become  a steamy, sweet smelling sauna. That's what a day of running stock pots of apples and two canners will do to a home. It's a sticky, sweet MESS...but I decided not to do a deep clean up until I'm totally done.  Yes, today was about all things apples! 

I asked on Facebook to find which technique my friends thought would be the fastest....I could quarter, boil and sauce, I could peel, core, boil, blend ...I could use an Instant Pot or a Roaster....So many options... I finally could stall no longer and simply needed to get going.  

Wait - just at this minute I remembered it was VOTING day. This required a quick trip out with Michael. Seriously, I love working WITH people...and I think I was stalling for the girls to finish school. 


The girls FINALLY finished school. ::wink:: We put on Kenny G and Christmas Music and got to work. We  quartered, boiled and tried out our new sauce maker. The peels, pulp and seeds were put into the steamer/juicer. 
Don't feel bad about Allie's face -  all KNOW
they have the option to make faces - but I will 
still post. LOL 

Next we tried the peel, core, slice method. Michael came home yesterday with a new gadget...it was helpful. 
It's amazing how the new one doesn't "wobble." 

We put the slices in the dehydrator...
Holy snacking! 

...and filled our roaster and an Instant Pot. The 2nd Instant Pot STILL has the pear butter wanna be in it....some day....maybe...it will be butter.  Kareen had told me their favorite is BLUEBERRY applesauce. WHAT???? I added a couple of bags of blueberries from past picking adventures...

The girls were happy to mash it up. 

I thought I would love the roaster method, but stuff stuck to the sides. Maybe if I loaded it at night and let it slow cook that would be a good plan. BUT I wanted to do this specifically to add the blueberries. How do you can in a roaster? The sides get hot - but there's no liquid on the sides...just a bit scorched and the sauce itself was fine. Cleaning the pan however is a big bummer. Maybe I should spray the sides before filling it? Or maybe it's just for slow cooking when you make applesauce? 

It looks a bit odd in the picture below - but it's YUMMY. It's going to be great with yogurt or oatmeal. 

The Instant Pot wasn't much quicker than boiling quartered apples on the stovetop. It takes time to get to pressure, 5 minutes of cooking and then 10 min to cool down. I can boil them in 15 - 20 minutes. I threw the peels and cores from this method into the juicer as well. The roaster took about the same amount of time as the pot. I'm not sure how I would add blueberries using the saucer maker method. 
Seriously yummy hot drink

We began the day with 5 cases of Fuji Apples still to process...tonight there are 1 1/2 cases left...  This is today's haul...dried apples, 10 quarts of blueberry applesauce, 34 quarts of applesauce and it looks like I will have about a gallon of juice. I wanted to get 50 quarts of sauce and I'm at 44 with a case and a half to go...yes! 

These will sit overnight and I'll process them while the girls do school. I'm just too tired to boil, put them through the saucer and water bath them tonight. Tomorrow promises to be busy so I may save the last case for Thursday or Friday, but these are a priority tomorrow. 


The girls and I worked together for 6 1/2 hours. I'll empty the juicer one last time and be done for the night. I'm blogging to the pleasing sound of "pops" - it's so steamy and hot one of the new jars still wrapped in plastic sealed and popped. My memory told me we did 4 or 5 cases of apples last year in one day. Stacia told me it took her, Krista and I several days. That made me feel better. LOL 

Mr. Gingerbread joined Benny in learning about the ABC's at their house today. 
School is more fun with Mr. Gingerbread

Look at the snazzy dressers...ties for all. It turns out Danny didn't like sharing his bouncer with Mr. Gingerbread yesterday. LOL 

It's been a long couple of days....Grandpa was up 3x last night. I'm going to bed. LOL