Saturday, February 20, 2010

Winter Applesauce

So I went to this fruit market I heard about recently that sometimes carries produce seconds.  I was hoping to stock up on something good and do some preserving/canning/freezing, whatever may be.  Today they had apples, 3 pounds for 99¢.  Macoun, Fuji, and Gala, so of course I bought all that I could carry over in those clear plastic produce bags.  I would have preferred a bushel basket, but I guess they don't have those available.  :)

After much peeling and coring it was time to make sauce, and to my horror I do (did) not have a large enough pot to cook down my apples.  So, off to the store I run, and of coarse they don't have an inexpensive commercial sized stock pot.  Nope.  BUT, what they did have was a very expensive 8.5 quart dutch oven,  which when combined with my usual stock-pot will provide enough volume to cook down all those apples.  The new problem is that I can't boil water in the lobster pot (my canner) to sterilize and seal my jars with the other two darned things on the stove top.  Sigh.  What I need is to borrow one of those fancy, high-end, commercial grade appliance, six-burner gas ranges.  Yup, that is what I need.

But that is not happening, so I am trying to come up with plan B which is looking like boiling the sauced (thus reduced) apples in the new big 'ol pan once the canning set-up is up to a boil.  My husband doesn't understand why I wanted all these apples to make sauce when I can just buy some at the store......I am starting to not understand why either, lol!

4 comments:

Erin said...

LOL, I am picturing you trying to strategically get all those pots on the stove!

Thomas said...

Haha. My stove seems so small that the canner literally takes up the space of two burners. I would LOVE to have one of those 6 burner commercial stoves...and a commercial kitchen to go with it!

Ruth Trowbridge said...

I hear ya - and thought this only happens to me. Once you have done it once, having both tools and technique each year gets easier, faster and more worth it. Peace

Kate and Crew said...

I've always wanted to make my own applesauce but the best price I've ever seen on apples is $1 a pound, so it never seems worth it. I'm jealous of your cheap apple prices! I love that you had pot issues - LOL. That soooo sounds like something that would happen to me.