Homemade Applesauce

We made homemade apple sauce for the first time ever today. Not sure why I never made this before because it is SERIOUSLY DELICIOUS and extremely easy to make (only one ingredient!). We took a bunch of the apples we picked last weekend, peeled and cut them, put them in two large pots with a little bit of water and cooked over medium heat until the apples softened (which didn’t take long), then pureed them in the food processor in batches, returned to a “boil” and canned them. This was by FAR the best apple sauce I’ve ever tasted and it had nothing added to it. It didn’t need it. Which makes me wonder why most store-bought apple sauces have sugar in them… hmmm. Where are they getting their apples? We used a combination of Fuji and Golden Delicious to make ours. I had read that these two made good apple sauces, and they happened to be what we had on hand. We got about 8 or 9 jars (ate one and put one in the fridge, the rest are pictured here and will go on the shelves). They won’t last long, though. And we still have a lot of apples left in our box, so we may do round two tomorrow or sometime this week. A lot of apples went into these little jars, though. It’s surprising how many it takes to cook down to this. You probably don’t want to make this with $3/lb grocery store apples, but the $1/lb orchard ones instead!

This is a seriously simple recipe and is so worth trying if you’ve never made your own apple sauce. You don’t have to can it, you can just enjoy it now and freeze any extras you have. ‘Tis the season, folks!

Here's how the process looked!


All three pots going at once!


After the puree - a creamy dreamy apple sauce wonder!

Boiling in the canner.

Voila: the finished product!

Grandma Julie

Grandma Julie makes our kids all kinds of wonderful treasures! She knits and sews, and every time she comes to visit she has created some great things for them: sweaters, bags, stuffed animals, purses, dresses, hats and so on! Last time we saw her she gave the kids these magnificent knit hats for winter (among other treasures). They are so soft and so cute! It was actually almost cold enough on Saturday at the apple orchard to wear them, so the kids were happy to try them on and model.

Thanks, Grandma Julie!!!

Apple Picking

Just about every fall we make a point to go apple picking, usually during our fall mountain trip. This year we don't have a trip to the mountains planned, however, because we have so much already going on in October and we went to the mountains in July. So, we decided to go to an orchard about an hour from our house today for some apple picking. The rainy weather almost kept us from going, but Brett said the Doppler radar showed no rain in Ramseur, NC, so we decided to give it a go - even though our windshield wipers were on almost the entire trip. When we got to Millstone Creek Orchards, it was foggy, but no rain. We had a really great time picking. The trees were young, so the apples were really easy to reach. Picking apples is so much fun - we could have stayed all afternoon. We ended up with one bushel (about 4o pounds of apples) and one peck (about 10 pounds) of mixed Fuji, Golden Delicious and Granny Smiths. Sounds like a lot, doesn't it! Based on our past consumption, we'll eat them all! They keep well (at least a month in a cool place). Our family can easily eat 4-6 apples a day. Also, we'll make some pies and are going to try canning apple sauce for the first time! Hopefully we'll tackle that tomorrow.

In spite of the hundreds of low-hanging apples, Brett insisted that some of the "best" ones were up high... So, this was how he got them!


...which seems really unnecessary when you look at this picture where my 44" tall child's head is above apple level!

The apples were so dense on the branches that it was actually hard to refrain from picking even more than we did. They were so easy to get to and so beautiful!

The kids loved today's adventure! After picking, we enjoyed hot fresh apple cider and some fun on the tire swing.

If you’ve never been apple picking, I HIGHLY recommend it as a family activity. Nothing says fall like trampling through an orchard with a worn woven basket in your hand and collecting the magnificent fruit of fall. Here’s how we found this orchard: http://www.orangepippin.com/orchards/united-states/north-carolina

Pierce starts preschool!

I can't believe Pierce is old enough to go to preschool! He's been to St. Michael three times now and is getting adjusted. He still cries when I drop him off, but his teachers say he is fine after a few minutes. I'm hoping that within the next two weeks he'll be all smiles when I drop him off. He has two sweet teachers and lots of fun activities to keep him busy two mornings a week. He's proud of his school bag and likes to tell us about the things he does at school: play trucks, play playground, snack time, wash hands, music time. Life is good when you are two! :)