What do you do with all those apples? Maybe one day I’ll have a cider press; but for now, what we don’t make pies or apple crisp of, or give away, or just eat, is probably going to be applesauce. We started last night.
I’m not normally that big a fan of applesauce. If I’ve put in all that work pruning the trees and spraying them, though (and when I wear long sleeves and safety goggles and a mask over my mouth and nose on hot summer days, it’s some work) I’m going to make myself enjoy the apples! So I’m committed to liking the applesauce.
Fortunately, this batch, just two pints to sort of test the idea, was very good. We started with a two-quart pot full of cored, sliced (but not peeled) apples, half a cup each of water and (purchased! that’s an anomaly) apple juice, and four one-inch cinnamon sticks. Note to self: one four-inch one would be easier to fish out when it’s done boiling. We cooked that until it was pretty soft, then added 1/2 cup sugar, maybe 1/4 tsp grated nutmeg, grated rind of half a lemon, and juice of — now, I think it was half a lemon, but maybe it was the whole one. We cooked that all a little, mostly just until the sugar dissolved, ran it through the Foley mill, and packed it into hot pint jars. Our intention is just to keep it in the refrigerator, not to treat it as canned stuff, but we pretty much tried to sterilize the jars and lids. There was just enough left over after filling two pint jars for us each to get one small serving. And it was worth the effort!
Oh, that was mostly the Heritage apples, maybe a Baldwin or two and a Mac or two.