Apple Processing at Home

In honor of apple season, I thought it was a good time to reminisce about apple processing from years ago. All of our children were still young and living at home, and we enjoyed working together in the kitchen. Seeing their young faces here brings a smile to mine. I remember always having homemade applesauce on the table at supper. I haven’t made any in a long while. Perhaps it’s time to make a batch and share the recipe with all of you!

A Repost from October 29, 2013

Apples, Apples and MORE Apples!

There’s nothing better than a fresh crispy apple. We love apples and eat a lot of them in our family. Recently we ordered apples along with others in the church we attend. We purchased 160 pounds! We made 120 pounds into applesauce. The other 40 pounds were split with my parents.

My mom and sister came over one evening. We sorted the 40 pound box we shared separating the bruised and smaller apples. These were made into apple butter. These we peeled and cored by hand and cut into quarters. The larger apples were peeled, cored and sliced for apple pie filling. Thank the Lord for my apple peeling/coring/slicing gadget! Quite a few of these were eaten fresh before we even got started. We ended up with 8 quarts of apple pie filling and 9 pints of apple butter. The apple butter is absolutely wonderful smeared on warm buttery biscuits!

Applesauce making

The families at church got together for applesauce making. This was a fun experience. The apples were going to be quartered the evening before applesauce making day. We live about 2 hours away from where we attend church. The church families offered to prepare our apples for us so we wouldn’t have to do them all ourselves or make the trip 2 days in a row. This was a blessing. Everyone working together made quick work of the apple quartering. 

The next morning, we arrived at the designated home where there were boxes upon boxes of prepared apples. All the church ladies arrived, and we started washing, cooking, milling and canning apples. We had 4 stoves going, numerous pressure cookers and 2 food mills. This was an all-day job and a lot of work, but many hands made light work and the day was very enjoyable. By the end of the day, I’m guessing we will probably put up between 600–700 pounds of apples. When I left that evening, they were processing the last few batches. Our 120 pounds of apples made almost 60 quarts of delicious applesauce.

We are so enjoying eating our fresh applesauce. It makes a nutritious snack or side dish at meal time. And apple pie is only a jar away.  Now, I want to plant an apple orchard!

I have given you every plant with seeds on the face of the earth and every tree that has fruit with seeds. This will be your food.

Genesis 1:29

You can view my original post here.