Fall and All Things Good - Applesauce

My sister-in-law, Kendra, and her mom are amazingly crafty and homemakers extraordinaire. From hand crushed wheat bread to wedding dress tailoring, they are my go-to if I need to know where to begin on a project.

So a few weeks months ago, I asked Kendra for her and her mom's secret to their awesomely delicious applesauce. She said it was really easy to make and they even had a hand-cranked machine they used to process it. The only problem? The real secret to the applesauce? The apples. As in fresh from the autumnal orchards. Did I mention it was Spring? Womwommmp...

Hence, when Kendra told me that her mom was heading to the orchard to pick up some boxes of apples, I almost cried with giddiness! If you have never tasted truly homemade applesauce, you really do not know what you are missing. My first experience was at Grandma Horners in  Timbuktu Kansas. When driving back to school after a visit to my parents, I stopped halfway between Missouri and Colorado, just to stretch and take a look at the small red shop that I had passed at least a dozen times in the past. Inside, "grandma" had just made a fresh batch of applesauce and was offering samples. Forget everything I thought I knew, this was nothing like the tasteless beige stuff sold in the grocery store. With my move back to Missouri, I thought I would rarely, if ever have such delicious apple sauce again. But then, at dinner one night, Kendra busted out a partial frozen bag of applesauce she had made and my world was complete once again.

A few days after the initial applesauce-makin-time phone call, we had our apples, our applesauce-makin' machine, and our sleeves rolled-up! Actually, our sleeves were off due to the incredible warm Indian Summer we were having. Whew... 80 degrees and 90% humidity makes for some hot moments of applesauce making. And by hot I mean sweaty, grossness. No cute aprons and sexy pictures for us.

So, here are a few snapshots of the process. I felt an antique look was approriate due to the fact that applesauce making is pretty much an endangered art in American kitchens. Oh ye days of old, how I would have love to have seen thee...

Anyway, we started by simply rinsing the apples. Even that was exciting. (Note the beautiful imperfections of the apples. I love nothing more that a few spots and blemishes so I know my fruit is real!)

How about them apples?! 

Forget my goofy grin here. Just note how incredibly excited I was when this process began. Slicing, boiling, mashing, and repeat! I was fun, really fun, for the first couple of times. I mean, don't get me wrong, Kendra and I were working the apples and loving it (and I ate about a pound of applesauce before it even had time to cool). But let's just face it: it was a long, hot, humid day.

But I digress... Back to the happiness! 

See this pile? One of many. Ya, we do work. But not that much because of THIS:

Ah, this is the lovely machine that did the dirty work. I had made applesauce before and had to hand peel and core Every. Single. Apple. But this thing made our two and a half bushels a breeze. All we had to do was quarter, steam in a big covered pot, and dump into the applesauce machine. No peeling required. The REALLY fun part was the mushing. See for yourself: 

Mush. Mush. Mush. There was more mushing going on in that kitchen that in the Alaskan Iditarod! After mushing once through, we mushed the shmushed stuff again. And once more for good measure. Mmm.... 

After letting the much mushed applesauce cool in a bowl, we ladled it into freezer-safe baggies for later consumption. You can just left that stuff thaw and eat it ice cold, or even defrost it in the microwave for quicker applesauce ingestion.

Here is the gold! I an convinced that in an apocalypse, this stuff would be more than it's weight in gold... speaking of, maybe I should go whip up some more...