Danny, Seidi, Charlie, Mina: Applesauce

So a couple weeks ago, my mom gave me two boxes of apples from our neighbors tree in Gunnison. These were some of the tastiest apples we've had all year. They were green/yellow, which I'm not the biggest fan of, but they were so crunchy and had the best apple flavor! Yummy. Anyway, she gave us those two boxes so I could learn how to make applesauce from Jolene, my mother-in-law. So, one Saturday afternoon, Danny and I headed up to his parents house to do some good 'ol homemaking. It's really quite simple to make applesauce if you have the stuff. All we did was cut up the apples, cored them, cooked them till they were soft, and then put them through Jolene's Victoria Strainer. I totally need one of those. It's the same thing we use to make ketchup and it's AMAZING. It separates a smooth pulp from all the peels and the cores. It makes everything so easy! Danny says I can't get one until we have a house to put it in. We already have way too much stuff. Anyway, after we accumulated our sauce, we put it back on the stove. The blasted stove was on too high and we started having applesauce volcanic explosions, hence, the picture of the applesauce remains on Jolene's ceiling. The apples were so sweet that we didn't have to add any sugar at all, but we added less than a 1/2 cup of sugar just for preserving sake. Anyway, it was pretty fun and we ended up with about 20 bottles of applesauce. Just another addition to our food storage, which Danny is completely obsessed about by the way. I guess it's a good thing.

Jolene and I with our apples. :)

This is the Victoria Strainer after being taken apart. It's missing the big funnel that you put the apples in and then push them through while you crank that handle on the left. The orange/metal thing sitting in the tupperware of peels is the strainer itself. We forgot to take a picture while Danny was cranking the thing. Sorry.

Jolene with the sauce. Can you believe two boxes of apples only makes that much applesauce? Don't worry though, most of our apples were wormy. We didn't waste a single one.