The Great Applesauce Making of 2018

This past Friday marked the end of our canning season for 2018.  Before and after Catherine was born I canned peaches, and honestly had forgotten about applesauce.  Somewhere in my mind I knew we were pretty much out of applesauce but I wasn't sure if I wanted to or could manage applesauce this year.  And then my friend sent me a text asking me if I wanted her to get apples for me while she was getting her own.  Of course without a moment of hesitation I automatically responded with "yes!"

Sylvia chopping apples.

When the 5 bushels of apples arrived on Friday reality set in: I needed to juggle homeschool, nursing Catherine, meals, laundry, and making and canning applesauce.  I decided I would just do it as best I could and not stress over anything that didn't get done.  On days when we didn't go anywhere, at all, the day looked sort-of like this: breakfast and feed Catherine, get the girls started on school, do kitchen clean up, maybe start laundry, get the pots and cutting boards set up in the kitchen, get out the apples, and just get started.  Of course this was all peppered with all the normal mom-things of meeting needs and helping little people, so it took a lot longer than it reads!  But I wasn't in this to do it sprint style, I was doing it eat-an-elephant style: one bite at a time.

The reality would be that it was almost always early afternoon that I actually began working on peeling and chopping the apples.  Silas loves fruit so he frequently stopped by for samples.  The girls really wanted to help as well, and I wanted them to help (so they could participate and learn by doing), so often one of the 3 older girls would stand on a stool and chop the prepared apples into chunks and dump them into the large cooking pot.  {Somehow I don't have any pictures of Charity helping me. :(  She helped me for a little while one of the first days.}

It would inevitably be near dinner-time by the time we had a batch of apples peeled, cored and chopped. The apples would cook through the evening and I would stir them every so often to keep them from burning and to get them to the "chunky applesauce" texture that we like.  If things went really well, I was ladleing the applesauce into jars and getting them into the canner about the same time the kids went to bed.  If I go the jars into the canner close to bed-time, I could go to bed myself at a decent (aka, before midnight) hour.

We repeated that general scenario for many days.  There were some days that applesauce just didn't happen at all.  One day it was all I could do to get the apples in the pot to cook, so I put them on low heat overnight and they were perfectly cooked and ready to can the next morning.  One day I thought I had more flat canning lids but I didn't.  I canned what I had lids for and ordered lids from Amazon. (I love Amazon in this season of life!)

Sylvia and I thought this apple didn't want to be turned into applesauce. :)

I had one day "off" while we waited on lids and that day was consumed by cooking and taking food to a fundraiser in which our family was participating.  That was a Saturday and the lids arrived Sunday.  Daniel helped me Sunday afternoon and we got a big pot of apples cooking in a shorter amount of time.  It was really nice to have his help and we got to spend that time together talking.

At one point, Susannah was beside me chopping apples and ALL the other kids wanted to be in the kitchen. It felt a wee bit crowded sometimes!!

Once I had plenty of lids, I was ready to have it finished.  I needed to have the canning done so I could get back to all the day-to-day things that were majorly sliding... like my own laundry, and cooking dinners.  We were eating "fast" food most days for dinner, which is handy, but gets old quickly.  I kept powering through working as quickly as I could and we used paper dishes to cut down on dirty dishes and to save kitchen clean-up time.

On Thursday I decided I was just going to go into power-mode and my #1 focus (aside from keeping the kids alive and fed) was going to be applesauce.  I peeled and chopped and chopped and peeled, cooked and stirred, and stirred and cooked.   I think I did a double batch that Thursday, and Sylvia helped me intermittently with chopping the apples.

On Friday the light was at the end of the tunnel and I thought that if I pushed really hard I could finish.  Susannah wanted to be my main helper, so she quickly finished her school for the day and joined me at the kitchen counter.  I would peel and core the apples and she would chop.  If she behind I would help her chop and then she would work at peeling an apple while I chopped for a bit.

Susannah taking a turn peeling apples.

At one point we had finished the bowl full of apples and I stopped to feed Catherine.  All on her own, Susannah got another load of apples and began peeling them.  I was completely exhausted and ended up dozing while Catherine nursed and burped.  When I mustered up my reserve to get back to the kitchen, Susannah had peeled a whole bunch of apples!  I was really grateful for her willingness to work ahead, and for all of her help that day!  It definitely made a difference in how quickly we finished.  When the last apple was chopped up and put into the cooking pot, I gave a big cheer.  Susannah thought I was a little really silly, but it was worth it!

She took her work seriously.

 I think I pulled the last jars from the canner sometime between dinner and bedtime, and as soon as the kids were in bed I crashed into my own bed. The next day it was an amazing feeling to know I didn't need to work on apples.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy making and canning applesauce and love homemade applesauce, it was just a LOT of work and meant that a LOT of other things were put on hold.  When all the jars were put onto the pantry shelves, I counted up that we had canned 63 quarts.  It's nice to have our very favorite applesauce stored up to enjoy this winter. :)

Farewell, Canning Season, we'll see you next year... probably.

These are the canning lids I purchased:

Regular mouth



Wide mouth  (I don't have as many wide-mouth jars as I have regular mouth, but wide-mouth is a lot easier to wash and get clean in the dishwasher!)



This is NOT the same pot that I have, but if you are looking to purchase a quality pot that you can use for both canning and cooking, I believe this one would be a good one.  It has a thicker bottom and is made from a higher-quality of Stainless Steel.  {Note that you would also need a canning rack to keep the jars from sitting directly on the bottom of the pot.  You can use a layer of extra canning rings in a pinch, but I find that over time the rings can leave rust stains on the pot.  I have linked to a canning rack below.}




I do not have this specific canning rack but my mom has one like this and it works very well. :)

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I was not paid to write this post.

I Survived Canning Season 2011

Ahhh.

{big sigh}

There is a slim chance that there may be some tomatoes out on the tomato twigs that are still good that I may can, but that will be small potatoes compared to the past 2 weeks.

4 bushels of apples.
4 bushels of peaches.
2 bushels of nectarines.

In 2 weeks.

The entire house is about to fall down around my ears (or pile up around them, one or the other!), but I made it.

I'm so relieved to have it done. I can't wait to get my house back into some semblance of routine and order. I know Daniel and Susannah will be happy to have "me" back, too :)

I'm also eager to get back to blogging a little more regularly. I also need to find my camera cord that is somewhere in this house... I've been able to keep up with reading blogs for the most part, but my brain power just hasn't been enough to lend some to blogging, too :)

I am so excited to wake up tomorrow, er, later this morning and know that I don't have do CANNING tomorrow! Yippee!!!! And I won't have to stay up late waiting for canner timers to go off so I can crawl in bed.

Quick Post

I know I've been sparse here lately... I had a comment waiting for me this evening wondering where I'm at :) Not blogging very much, that's for sure! It hasn't been for lack of blogging fodder, I just haven't had time or energy.

The garden is about ka-put for the season. Except for the corn, it looks like a bunch of twigs. Oh, the peppers are still hanging on, and I need to go pick them again - maybe tomorrow. I think I'll pick the tomatoes one more time (tomorrow) and that will be it. They are pretty much toast. I haven't gotten nearly as many tomatoes canned as I wanted, but some is better than none.

The 1st planting of corn had a nice 1st picking, but the 2nd set of ears were not worth it. I'm hoping the 2nd planting will produce nicely - I only have 4 qt. in the freezer so far! I'm debating buying corn to freeze, but I have a full plate already and cannot handle corn at the moment.

Remember the post about Daniel's work having slowed down? That was for one week. Since then, until this week, he has been leaving the house between 7 and 7:30 in the mornings and not getting home until usually around or after 9, sometimes as "early" as 8 or 8:30. This week the weather is a smidge cooler and he's been home before dark both days so far! He's also on call this week, so there's no guarantee that once he's home he won't have to go back out, but so far so good :)

My days have been full of parenting and canning/freezing what produce we do get. On a typical day I spend the morning doing housework (dishes, laundry) and the afternoon working on getting tomatoes or apples ready to can, and then run the canner in the evening. Last week I did tomatoes and salsa. On Friday I went and picked up 4 bushel of apples that I had ordered from an orchard, and every day but Sunday I've loaded both crockpots and a stock pot full in the mornings, and then Daniel and I run them through the Squeezo in the evenings.

I did buy a steam canner this summer, and since I've figured out how to make it work on my glass top stove, it IS faster than waiting for the whole waterbath pot to heat up. I'm sure I'll especially like in in another week or so when I'll be getting 4 bushel of peaches to can!! I imagine I'll have the steam canner AND waterbath canner going if I can keep the jars filled and ready.

If you haven't seen it already, over on my side bar to the right I have been listing, just for fun, what I've been canning and freezing this year. All of the fruit I bought, but all the vegetables are from our garden.

So I am still alive and kicking :) Once the applesauce and peaches are over, I really do hope to get back to blogging more frequently. And maybe once in a while, like tonight, I'll just sit down and peck out something while I wait for the canner to finish.

From Garden to Freezer

I am really excited to be putting so much produce into our freezers for this fall, winter and next spring. In years past, yes I have gardened with the intent of canning and freezing, but this year I am really trying. I didn't realize until this year how ho-hum I have been in the past. I am hoping that this year is the beginning of our relying on the grocery store much, much less. Not only is this saving money, but the food is so much better for us since we are growing it ourselves and know exactly what is on it (which, so far has been next to nothing).

Right now the squash and zucchini are producing more than we can eat fresh. We have been eating it pretty much every night with dinner. Fried Zucchini, Zucchini Patties, Cooked Zucchini, Cooked Squash (I haven't tried fried squash?), with Roasted Vegetables... but it is still piling up in our frige.

Canning the squash and zucchini are not an option for us. Neither of us like canned squash very well, and I'm not sure you can can plain zucchini (I think it would be mushy gross-ness). We don't eat alot of relish, so zucchini relish wouldn't be a good idea unless I just wanted to fill my shelf space (which I don't). So I began thinking of the freezer options. What would I do with shredded zucchini? I'm not a huge fan of chocolate zucchini cake or zucchini breads (they are fine, just not my favorite way to consume vast amounts of calories!). Can I freeze sliced squash? I can BUY frozen sliced squash...

I decided to go ahead and freeze shredded zucchini. This morning I pulled out my food processor with it's shredding blade and went to town. I ended up with a big bowl full that I let drain through a colander for a bit before I packaged it up (since it gets so watery when frozen). So far I have 19.5 cups of shredded zucchini frozen.


Then I called one of my sisters who I thought had frozen squash before. After picking her brain and finding out that yes, you can freeze it and it's still edible, I sliced up all the squash that was waiting for something to happen to it. I got 3.5 quart Ziplocs to freeze.

Some ideas that I have for using these (but haven't tried) would be:
Create a casserole
Add to lasagna or spaghetti
Zucchini Patties

Do you have any experience with frozen zucchini or squash, or recipes that you use them in? Share in the comments section!

I Figured It Out

I figured out how other people (moms) have so much time. Time to do all the things that I think "dude, hoooow do you do all that and still have a clean house, clean clothes, clean car, clean kids... and stay sane?"

They buy all or almost all of their food ready to use (canned or frozen).
They buy all of their bread.
They buy all of their sandwich meat already cooked and sliced.
They use the dryer.
They probably even have a clothes folder and just haven't told me about it...
Since they buy all of their food (including bread) they probably don't make the enormous messes in their kitchens like I do.
They probably put eeeeeeverything in their dishwasher. I'm picky.

Since they buy all of their food they can just come home from the store, put all the cans, boxes and bags in the cupboards, frige and freezer and VIOLA! A million hours already saved! No need to spend several hours in the garden planting, weeding or picking. No hours upon hours spent peeling, shelling, blanching, canning or freezing.

I bet if I logged every minute that I spend doing something that I could just "go buy" the finished product instead, I'd have more available time, too!

Please know that this isn't a rant or a rave or a "I'm better than you" or a "woe is me" or any such thing. I'm just thinkin' out loud. This is also very much my perspective from the outside :)

**I know this could generate alot of comments on how I am wrong - I'm open to friendly discussion, but please let's keep it fun and friendly! I'm not looking to start a war!**

P.S. After reading this, Amy wrote an amazing post over on her blog. You gotta go check it out.

What To Do With 4 Bushels of Peaches

Wonder if I had lost my mind, that's what!! Susannah and I made the trip on a Friday, driving 2 hours each way, to pick up peaches for myself and a friend. Thankfully my sister lives probably all of 5 minutes from the orchard so we had lunch with her, and then when everything took much longer than I anticipated, we were able to stop by her house again so I could feed Susannah before we headed back home. The bed of Daniel's truck was full of boxes of peaches!

I wish I had taken a picture of my kitchen floor crammed full with the boxes of peaches. Instead I have a picture of this beauty:
The peaches were enormous this year. I guess the weather must've been just perfect, because quite a few of them were as large as the one I'm holding in my hand. No puny, shipped across the nation, grocery store peaches here!

So what did I do with all those peaches besides wondering if I'd lost my mind? I canned peaches and canned peaches and canned peaches. That's what. Here is the finished product, all 72 quarts (maybe it's 73?).
I only had 1 jar crack (I'm pretty sure it had a hairline crack to start with), and every single jar sealed! I was so happy about that!

I also canned 2 canners (14 jars) of peach pie (or cobbler or crisp :) ) filling.
And made pies to put in the freezer to pull out later and bake - they taste like a fresh peach pie that way! Here is the big batch of pie dough (w/out the water) for 7 pies. (I like my big bowl!)And here's the peaches for said pies.And here's the pies freezing! (I ended up rolling the dough thick, so I had 6 pies + leftover dough, and I baked one of the pies to enjoy right away.)Once they were frozen solid, we took them out of the pie plates, wrapped each one in 2 layers of plastic wrap, then into a plastic bag marked with which pie plate it came out of (so I can put it back in that same one to bake for the right fit), and then stacked them up in the freezer. It is very important to remember to line the pie plates before you make the pie! Last time I forgot, and all my pie plates were in the freezer until I started baking the pies :P

And made "Peach Caskets" - basically peach tarts. I used my Pampered Chef Press'n'Seal, leftover pie dough, and pie filling with small-diced peaches and I made it a little thicker so it wouldn't run as much.
After the Peach Caskets were frozen (unbaked), I put each one in a sandwich baggie, then all of them into a larger plastic bag. This winter when we want a little dessert, I can pull a few out and bake them without having to eat a whole pie :)

And last but not least, I couldn't have accomplished all this in a timely fashion without my lifesaver, Katie.
She had a few days off work, and wondered if she could come visit. I told her to come on and we could work on peaches!! It was great. I could tend to Susannah's needs and not have to worry about making sure the canner was boiling or not boiling too hard, or did I need to set the timer, or was the timer getting ready to go off and the jars needed pulled out of the canner... And Katie could keep working on peaches while I fed Susannah, so there weren't big chunks of time where peaches weren't getting done.