While in Iowa, my mom helped me make some homemade applesauce. I can remember her making it when I was younger; how the house was filled with the delicious aroma of apples, how the cooked apples smooshed out of the strainer, the melting drops of red hots and the warm, scrumptious taste. She would make enough to freeze with her Seal-O-Meal so we could enjoy it all through the winter months.
My mom still has the Seal-0-Meal, circa 1975, in all its olive green glory. And it worked perfectly.
But don’t worry your silly little head if you don’t own a fantastic olive green Seal-O-Meal. Ziploc has a Vacuum Freezer System that just requires a start up kit including vacuum bags and hand-pump to remove the excess air. After the start-up kit, the bags come in either quart or gallon size. They will work just as well. They just won’t be olive green.
I purchase three totes of apples for our applesauce. The kind doesn’t matter much. From three totes, we were able to package like 18 cups of applesauce.
To prepare them, we cut them into wedges, removing any badly bruised areas and the seeds. Because the apples were going to be put through a strainer, something like the Chinois Strainer, we didn’t need to worry about the skins or core or any flying seeds. They would all be caught by the strainer. This made getting through all three totes a lot less time consuming.
When the big pot was filled up to the top with apples, I added just a bit of water to the bottom, just in case the apples weren’t juicy enough.
In the covered pot, over medium heat, the apples cooked and cooked until they were all smooshy.
Then I dumped the hot mess into the strainer and grabbing the wooden pestle, pressed the apples through the strainer.
I kept grinding away until only skins and other non-applesauce parts were left inside the strainer.
Then, with the sauce still warm, I added red hots to taste, mixing as I went. The warmth of the applesauce melts the red hots. (This is one of my favorite times to eat the applesauce. Warm with little bits of melting red hots. Try it!)
After eating our fill, the rest got packaged up and frozen.
For deep in the winter when I want to taste some sunshine.
Or maybe I’ll need it later this week.
-amy c
