Applesauce Bonanza

Applesauce apples ripen around the 4th of July every year.

Many people think of harvesting apples in the fall. This is true of most varieties of apples, but not Lodi or Yellow Transparent. These sour types create the best texture and flavor for home-made applesauce. My wife grew up helping her grandmother and mother can and freeze orchard and garden produce.

 After I picked apples for three evenings, my wife washed and cut out cores, removing as little as possible in order to increase the output. I helped by ladling cooked apples into a colander. 

We poured the strained, cooked apples into our "victorian strainer" and filled our cake pans with raw applesauce. My main job is cranking the strainer and ladling the sauce into freezer boxes. Once it cools, add sugar to taste. No recipe-- just apples and sugar. We leave it rather sour and add cinnamon-sugar when we put it on our plate, or at the time of serving.

We put up 77 quarts into our freezer. I know-- this sounds like a ton! However, appletrees have "on and off years." Some growing seasons produce oodles of apples, but you never know what next year will be like. We had a late frost this year and it might have destroyed our crop. It turned out to be an apple bonanza! I prayed for these trees when I planted them in 2002 as a birthday gift for my wife. Prayers answered: they grew and produce well. The message in her card said, "There will be two beautiful bouquets of apple blossoms every spring that say: I love Shari." (and her applesauce) 

Our children grew up eating my wife's AMAZING applesauce and now my grandchildren are enjoying the same. In the photo below, you can see our Yellow Transparent appletrees just to the right of my balding head. My granddaughter is riding on Karma, our Amish raised horse.

Our whole family LOVES Shari's home-made applesauce with her home-made pizza!

There is an applesauce apple picking story in Under the Heavens

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Mennonite Wife

My wife and I,
at Oak Alley Plantation

My wife's home frozen applesauce

Shari's home canned peaches

If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, get a Mennonite girl for a wife.

I didn't grow up Mennonite but my wife did. I don't have pictures to show you everything my wife cooks and bakes, but my five children and five grandchildren can vouch for me, she's the best!  Her homemade pies and cinnamon rolls are ridiculously amazing.  These canned peaches have ruined store bought peaches for me. I will never be able to eat store bought again.

Shari also makes homemade applesauce.  She only will use Yellow Transparent apples for her applesauce, which are hard to find. I've tried applesauce made from other varieties and she is right, they don't compare.  Homemade Bread, crescent rolls, kolaches, homemade caramels and chocolates at Christmastime, "perfect" chocolate cake for birthdays, and numerous other delightful goodies.

Home canned pizza sauce is a family favorite, on her made-from-scratch pizza dough.

You younger fellas should take note, Amish and Mennonite girls know how to bake and cook!

These cinnamon rolls, pictured below, melt in your mouth. They are best eaten right after they come out of the oven.  Just pour a glass of milk or a cup of hot coffee to go with them and you are in paradise!

Pumpkin pies for our family's Thanksgiving dessert
(note the tiny clothesline my daughter painted on our pantry wall)

My wife Shari, preparing cheesy potatoes, yum!

 Grandma cut balogna and cheese with a cookie cutter, in the shape of horses.

How clever is that? (Specially made, for our horse loving granddaughter.)

Our grandchildren often have tea parties and also get to play with this homemade play-dough.

So from my personal point of view... get a Mennonite girl to marry you!

Bountiful Harvest {Making applesauce at the Home Place}

Greetings from Robyn about the "Home Place" this warm July morning.

Growing up in the countryside by Kalona there is one sure event to take place each year; the harvesting of fresh fruits and vegetables. Last week my mom and dad (Tom the author and Shari his wife) had my boys overnight for a special treat for both me and my boys. When I went to pick them up Grandma Shari was in the process of "working up" some apples into delicious homemade applesauce. My boys had helped pick apples that morning and then Grandma got right to work. Noticing that she had hours of work on her hands I got right to work helping her.

Along with "working up" apples we worked up some memories too. As I carefully pressed the apples through the Victorio Strainer I began to reminisce of all the years I sat watching my mom and Grandma Ruby crank the apples through. When I was very little (ages 3-5) I sat opposite "helping" pull the waste from the end and guide it into the bowl thinking those mashed up seed and peels were so neat to touch and squish. As I grew older my job switched over to using a spatula to gently guide the hot applesauce to the opposite end of the pan as it poured down the spout. And then as I was a teenager my job became the cranker and masher which involves pushing scalding hot apples through the top dish while cranking to grind the seeds and peels through one end and creating smooth streams of hot applesauce out the main spout.

The best part of "working up" apples is the opportunity for women of all ages to sit and have conversation with each other which usually involves stories of the women in past generations doing the same. For instance, I think that every time since I was a little girl the story of my Great Grandma Kinsinger having a Victorio Strainer tip and pour scalding hot apples on her arm and burning her badly was topic of discussion when asking us to stand back while the apples were transported to the strainer.

And then, there are the memories of that big bowl (or two or three) of warm applesauce with heaping spoonful's of sugar on top, sometimes resulting in a tummy ache from over-indulgence. The hum of box fans ring clear in my memory too as the kitchen heats up quickly from the apples on the stove top in mid-July. As well as the sweet aroma of fresh warm applesauce that lingers through the entire farm house, always keeping your tummy hungry for more.

Take a peek at the process.

Starting with the beautiful blooms in the trees earlier this spring. We knew that there would be a bountiful harvest.

 

 

 

 

One of the 6 bags full of apples that the boys picked with Grandma Shari.

Apples soaking in the sink, waiting to be cut and stemmed then boiled.

Scalding hot and straining the extra liquid out just before being put into the Victorio Strainer.

And the process begins. . .

Even the "waste" is pretty to look at with the shades of green and brown and red. This also makes great compost for the garden!

And the bowls and bowls of applesauce waiting to cool then be mixed with sugar and poured into freezer bags for yummy applesauce all year round.

Why add sugar? Well, just ask my oldest son Alex! After offering him a bowl of freshly made sauce he turned it down saying it was too green and he wanted the jar of the unsweetened sauce from the grocery store. I asked him why? When this is so yummy? A couple of days later I told him he needed to try it one more time because I think that he is missing out! After adding in a "touch" more sugar he licked the bowl clean! He said "Mom, those apples must have just been a little too green and after sitting in the fridge for a couple of days the applesauce must have "ripened" up!" Haha! Pretty cute logic coming from an almost 6 year-old. The texture is what makes homemade sooooo good and the sugar helps balance the sour from the green apples.

I hope you enjoyed seeing the process we use to make homemade applesauce. Although I am sure Amish would not freeze their applesauce but can it instead. Which involves even more work and another process in addition to "working up" the apples.
Mom ended having up with 60 quarts of applesauce that remains stocked in the deep freeze for all of use to enjoy!

all photos in this post are:  ©RubyEllenPhotography 2013