Applesauce

It's amazing how Betty Homemaker I've been in the kitchen with as frustrated as I've been in my SAHM roll this week. Don't get me wrong I LOVE my job. I can not think of one job I feel would be a better match for me... But I found myself missing the days of old when I had a job this week. Not because I wanted to go to work, but because I used to have vacation days. And on those vacation days, I could still drop the little one of at daycare and have a ME day. I miss ME days. It's hard being on call 24/7. Even with the amazing support system that J & G are for me. I'm spoiled. I know this. But I can't help but dream of a day away. I think I'm going to start putting some pennies away for this. I think a little solo stay~cation will do this mama good. And maybe a friend or two will want to join me and we can make it a ladies night/weekend.

Anyway, back to Betty Homemaker. New steamer/ricecooker and now applesauce. We have two AWESOME apple trees in our yard. They put off TONS of apples. Last year we ate some, gave some away to friends and ended up tossing quite a few. This year I have a better goal. I'm making applesauce. One of my friends loaned me her canning kit so I could try before buying (t's PERFECT for what I'll be doing), and another friend came over to help walk me through my first attempt.

Less than 3 hours later and I have 3 jars of applesauce cooling (Plus a few cups for eating right away. some for my fridge and some for hers), and a 32oz container of apple juice. The apple juice was L's brilliant idea. I was going to toss it and she suggested I strain it. It tastes more like cider than juice, but we're used to apple juice from concentrate. The boys LOVE it!

I'm excited for getting more organized for future canning!! How can you beat one ingredient applesauce? I figure we'll invest about $150 in canning supplies this fall. It might take 2 or 3 years for it to 'save' us money, but I love the idea of using the food we already have, and lowering the amount of chemicals we'll be buying.

We have a bankers box full of apples that we've picked already. They are from the two branches we had to trim down because they were broken or breaking. Based on this morning, I figure this box will make at least 15 pints of applesauce, and there are 5-10 more boxes worth of apples from this tree. Plus next year we'll start canning on the tree that has ripe fruit in July!

Yay!