Canning Part 1

After picking all the apples, it was time to do something with them!  I remembered having apple butter at my grandparent's house and really enjoying it. Scott was a little reluctant, but hey, we had over 30 pounds of apples so if it didn't taste good we had plenty left over to make other stuff with.  So he chopped and measured and then put the apples on the stove to boil.  (It was during that time of boiling he installed the kid seat to my bike.) It came to mash them up and then add all the yummy deliciousness that makes the apple butter so savory. Of course, we sampled - so good! Then it had to boil on the stove for 2 hours! Craziness!

 So while that was boiling, we peeled and cored 8 more pounds of butter to make apple sauce.  Last year Scott got a cool apple peeler/corer from Bed Bath and Beyond.

Our apples are note exactly round so they corer isn't too effective, but it does an excellent job at peeling.  We had quite the system going. 

Ashlynn would hand Scott the apple, he would put it on the machine and peel it, I would take it off and core it, then I would put the finished product in a big bowl of water and lemon juice so it wouldn't brown. We did that for about 45 minutes until all of the apples were ready.

Then the apples were drained and put into pots to boil.  We had to stir them at first until the juices started to come out, then they simmered in their own juice.
 
That's about the time I had to go to work, so Scott had the joy of canning everything by himself. He didn't have all the right tools so it made it a little challenging, but h managed. When I got home in the morning there were about 10 cans on the counter of apple stuff.  I am a HUGE fan of the apple butter. It is soooo good! I've been giving it to Ashlynn on toast at night for dessert. Yummy!