Applesauce

I like to buy a few bushels of Jonathan apples—they are my favorite. Here is a step-by-step guide of how I like to make applesauce:

Setup   Wash the quart jars and leave them on the counter covered while you prepare the fruit. In a small pan, cover jar lids with water and simmer on low. Set up the apple grinder (hand crank or electric). It forces the softened apples through a sieve and removes all the seeds, skin, and core into one pan and the sauce into another pan.

Prepare the apples   Fill a large pot with water and set it on the stove to boil. While it is heating, wash the apples and quarter them into large bowls. Pull off the stems as you cut them. Carefully pour enough quartered apples into the boiling water so the water just covers the apples. Let them boil about 5 minutes–until barely soft when you pinch one. Use a sieve or slotted spoon to quickly remove the apples to a bowl and into the sink filled with cold water, to stop the cooking process. Continue to boil and remove batches of apples to cold water until all apples are softened.

Cook the apples   As the apples are being softened, drain the softened apple quarters and feed them into the grinder. It will discard the pits and peels into one pan, and the sauce will go into another pan. As the applesauce pan fills up, measure it out into a very large (about 8 quart) bowl. When you have 6 quarts of sauce, add 2-1/4 cup sugar. That’s 3/4 cup of sugar for each two quarts of sauce. Mix it well (I use a wire whip), and using a jar funnel, scoop it into the jars. Fill to about 1/2 inch from the top. Wipe the top of each jar with a wet finger to be sure there are no chips or dried on food; use the magnetic lid lifter to set the hot lids on the jars, then screw the jar ring on tight. Set the jars on the wire rack that is on top of the water bath pot. When the rack is full of jars, slowly lower the rack down into the heating water. Be sure the jars are covered with at least an inch of water. Put the lid on the pot and bath on high heat for 30 minutes from when it begins to boil–this is 20 minutes plus 10 extra minutes for 4,500 feet about sea level. NOTE: I like to start the water boiling as I begin to set the jars in the rack before they go into the water. This keeps the water from being too much hotter than the jars when you lower them into the water, so they don’t crack.

Sealing the jars   When finished, turn off the heat, lift the wire rack to the edge of the pan for a minute, and then remove the hot jars to a towel on the counter to finish cooling. Do not press down on the lids. The cooling process will create a vacuum in the jars that will pull the lids down and you will hear them pop. This will seal the jar. Wait a couple of hours and then look at the lids to see if they have all popped down. If any haven’t, you can either refrigerate them and eat them first, or check the jar tops again, put on new softened lids and re-bath them. When the sealed jars are cooled, wash the jars and you can remove the rings, but it’s not necessary. Date the jars and store for later use.