Applesauce and Food Mills

 
Yesterday, I canned some applesauce from the last of the apples from Oak Glen...homemade applesauce is so easy to make and so good, amazing really....some I seasoned with cinnamon and others I left plain.....I think I have about 6 qts and 8 pints..enough for us until next fall, not!... applesauce is  popular around here!...I don't think I need to write out a recipe..but if you haven't made it before, its so easy...I use a food mill, so just half the apples, cutting out any buggy spots (I only found two or three in these apples), you don't need to peel or core these...cook them down in a big pot with a little apple cider to keep it from burning, cook until soft and then run the apples through the food mill which removes all the peels, cores, seeds, etc. and leaves you with nice applesauce. Then I just cook it down a little, stirring occasionally..you can add sweetener if you like, cinnamon, some people like to add those little cinnamon candies if you're not on a sugar free diet..they not only give the sauce a nice cinnamon taste but a pretty color.....then I can it in hot jars, and process for about 10 minutes or so....

A food mill is an essential...and very useful in several ways...its also good when making mashed potatoes, getting the seeds and skin out of tomato puree..we don't like alot of kitchen gadgets but this is so useful, we used it for our fig and plum preserves too....makes jam making so much easier.....we found ours at Bed Bath and Beyond. its one of those things that you buy once and use forever.....sadly we lost ours in the fire....so its been fun replacing things...our old one didn't have but one disc....improvement!

they run the gamete on prices..so check around...I've seen them as low as $35 and as high as $80 +....they are stainless steel, dishwasher safe, and usually come with two or three different sized discs..easy to use and comes all apart for cleaning.....Every kitchen should have one....

On Facebook, I found a awesome page and then a website that anyone with young daughters or granddaughters might enjoy....Its called Raising Homemakers....many schools do not have home economics any more...and so many mothers have to work now, girls  don't have the skills that young women used to have.....mothers too!

Thanks for all the giveaway sign ups....I have a few more surprises to add to the box so whoever wins will be getting a treasure trove of goodies.....