My Homemade Applesauce & Canning

When I was growing up my mother canned.A Lot.
We spent all summer and early fall preserving all sorts of fruits and vegetables.

I never tasted applesauce from the store until I was an adult-and I could tell why my mom chose to can her own!

This year our family took a trip out to Shultz Fruitridge Farms for some apple picking.
The boy's had a blast running through the orchard,ducking under the apple trees,and sampling different varieties of fresh,crisp,juicy apples.

This was followed by a run through the "pumpkin patch" and fresh pumpkin spice donuts with apple cider.

I think the most fun part of canning applesauce (other than tasting it!) is going out with the kids to pick the apples.

A few years ago my mother discovered a apple mix that made beautiful,sweet applesauce.

The mixture contains:
1/2 Cortlands
1/4 Jonathon's
1/4 mix of Red and Yellow Delicious

You can use whatever apples you want,but the end result in taste and color will depend on the apples used.

Rinse the apples off

Core and slice-cook the sliced apples on Med/High for about an hour +/- until soft and mushy

Run the cooked apples through a strainer -I have a Victorio Strainer

You can add sugar/cinnamon to taste-although,I made the mistake of not tasting the sauce prior to adding sugar to my first batch.It turns out the sauce was sweet enough on it's own,so I didn't add sugar to subsequent batches

Clean the jars

Fill the jars and put them in a "waterbath" using a canner for 20 minutes,then remove and tighten/check lids

Ta-da!