Preserving the Harvest

The last half bushel of apples were taken care of this weekend. We decided to give canning a try as a strategy for preserving the rest of the apples until a later date. The canning kit came Friday, so we got down to work making applesauce and apple butter. (Recipes below the photos).

I discovered that I really like canning. It's rewarding to know that we've managed to put away a bunch of the apples we picked at the beginning of fall into little jars of spicy apple delicacies that we can pull out in the dead of winter. I'm sure that we'll enjoy the apples much more then than we would if we'd eaten them all right now. It'll be fun to pull out on of these jars on a frosty day in February and remember the fun we had picking apples in the sun as the leaves had just started to turn.

I'm also pleased knowing that these treats are free of fake preservatives and extra sugars. The more I think about it, the more additives in food bug me. Please, just let my food taste natural! I'm thrilled with canning as a way of preserving foods. I'm looking forward to eventually getting a pressure canner so that we will be able to can less acidic things, too. It'll be nice to have a shelf full of home-canned pasta sauces and soups to reach for as convenience foods instead of the store-bought varieties. That'll have to wait for a bigger kitchen, though!

All in all, the proceedure is very gratifying. I find myself sitting and looking at all of the jars with a miser's satisfaction. I know logically that these few jars of apple products aren't going to keep us alive all winter, and that we could easily stop by the store and grab any of these year round - but somehow looking at the jars does make me feel a little bit more ready for the coming cold. It must be some sort of primal instinct. I can't help but think that if I had been a pioneer, I would have stood in my root cellar at the end of harvest, looking around at all the stored and preserved foods feeling secure and knowing that my family would be prepared for one more season.

Our apple sauce recipe was pretty standard (basically a combination of a bunch of recipes I read):

1. Fill large pot with cored and sliced apples
2. Add about 1/2 cup water, heat on high until water is boiling
3. Reduce heat to medium, and cook covered until apples are mushy (about 30 minutes)
4. Fish out all peels (or push through strainer)
5. add cinnamon to taste
6. Blend with hand blender until desired consistency
   

I decided to try cooking the apple butter in the crock pot. This meant it had to cook longer, but due to the low temperature we didn't need to sit over it stirring the whole time. I based it on this recipe, but decided as I went along that I didn't like their proportions, so I changed it up. I used less sugar (6 cups seemed excessive, so I only used 3), and it was still too sweet for my liking. Next time I'll use much less sugar. I also used more spices because this recipe wasn't spicy enough. In the end, we had:

• 3 quarts unsweetened applesauce
• 2 cups white sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup apple cider
  
• 1 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg1
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice1
• 1 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 tablespoon cinnamon

1. Add applesauce, sugars, and cider together in crock pot.
2. Cover and cook on low for 3 hours.
3. Add spices and cook on low, covered, for 3.5 more hours.
4. Uncover and continue cooking on low for 4 hours or until sufficiently thickened. May take longer, depends on how thick you like it and your crock pot.
5. Ladle hot apple butter into 1/4 pint or 1/2 pint size canning jars and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Makes about 5 pints.