An apple a day...
...or four bushels in eight hours! On Saturday I did something I've never done before. Jeff and I bottled 30 quarts of applesauce. As a kid I helped my mom bottle and preserve fruit and other things, but until now I've never really had the space or even the desire to do it on my own. But this house we moved into has two apples trees in the backyard, one of which produced a bumper crop of Golden Delicious this year. And it has a mostly empty food storage room in the basement. Three weeks ago we spent three hours picking apples on a Saturday morning when a storm was blowing in and we thought they might freeze if we didn't get them off the tree. Then they sat in boxes in our storage room, waiting for the next free weekend when we could do something about them. I have to admit that when the time came, I wasn't super excited about the project, but I really didn't want the apples to go to waste either.
We started after breakfast, about 9 a.m., with a little over-the-phone coaching and some equipment borrowed from Jeff's parents. And then we just kept going and going. I knew it would take some time, but I didn't realize it would take all day, nor did I realize how all-consuming it would be. The kids watched A LOT more TV than they are usually allowed. And they escaped all their Saturday chores (except helping turn the handle of the Squeezo strainer machine). I didn't want to stop for anything, because I just wanted to get DONE. About 3 p.m. the kids asked, "Can we have some chips?" Potato chips for lunch? "Sure, that's fine." Then my recently toilet-trained three-year-old came and asked for help going to the potty. "Okay, let's go." Then I can go too! We finished about 5 p.m., only because I had arranged for a babysitter so we could go on a date at 6 p.m. and I still needed a shower, not because the apples were all gone. We still have a bushel or so left to eat or dry--I'm done with applesauce!
By the time we finished, I was tired. I told Jeff that I wasn't sure it was worth the effort or the money. I spent $60.00 on a steam canner, canning tools, and jar lids. That means the applesauce cost about $2 per quart, not to mention the man hours it took to pick the apples and make the applesauce. Jeff's man hours are worth at least $25 per hour, and mine--well, it's hard to put a dollar value on what a mom does, but I figure mine are priceless! So basically, we have 30 quarts of really expensive applesauce. It would be so much more cost effective to buy it on a good sale at the store. We don't even eat applesauce very often. Jeff's response was, "Doesn't it make you feel like a good Mormon housewife though, canning your own food?" In one way, I suppose it does. It's what I grew up with. Somehow it seems like something I'm supposed to do. I always figured when I had a decent-sized kitchen and a place to store it all, I would learn how to can.
A little more than eight years ago Jeff had just finished his Master's degree at BYU, and Adam was nine months old. As I remember it, we had our U-Haul packed and ready to drive across the country to Cincinnati where Jeff would get his Ph.D. My parents came up from Cedar to say goodbye and give us a hand-me-down twin bed that Adam could grow into while we lived there. My mom also brought me an antique rocking chair from my grandma's house, and a box full of home-canned fruit. I thanked her--I love home-canned pears and peaches, and she was nice to share them with us, as both sets of our parents have over the years. But I didn't think much of it until we got to Cincinnati. The first time I opened one of those jars of fruit, my chest tightened up and the tears rolled down my face. We were tight on money, and I was very homesick. That box of fruit was a box of love from my mom--food that I didn't have to pay for, and a comforting piece of the home and family that I was missing so much. I hoarded that fruit, and fought back tears again when it was gone.
So what value do I put on my 30 quarts of homemade applesauce? Is it just a waste of time and money? Or am I passing on a heritage of self-reliance and my own jars of love? Guess we'll see next year when our apples are ripe again!
And now I'm off to scrub the stove and kitchen floor...
(The pink jars are cinnamon applesauce, a Packer family tradition.)
posted by Harmony @ 9:46 AM
9 Comments
9 Comments:
I did applesauce last year and hated the time it took, I had to do it at night while the kids were a sleep and Joseph was traveling for med school interviews. It took me around a week to finish it all. But I found that my kids and husband eat it more then then store bought kind. We add cinnamon also, that is how Joseph's Mom does it and the only way he eats it. But the expense will go down now that you have all the equipment and you can reuse the jars. But the time well I guess that never goes away!!! I hope you enjoy it!!
way to go harmony! don't know that i would have had the patience for that.
Congratulations - you and Jeff passed that test of "endurance." Every time I start thinking of the "cost", my mom points out that once you have the equipment and knowledge, it gets cheaper, and a little bit faster as you find systems that work for you.
Most impressive. Zow!
You know, if you want to get rid
of apples, we'll take them off your hands. We love'm. As for applesauce...well, only Britt will eat it.
Way to go, Harmony. I have only made homemade applesauce once, and that was enough for me. I know that if I ever HAVE to make it, I can do it, but I would rather spend my time making strawberry jam. (Maybe it is because I really just don't like applesauce . . . )I say you should make a few apple pies or cobblers with the rest. Now that is my idea of a good use of apples (and also why I am NOT struggling to find a pair of pants that fit . . .)
the pink color makes em taste better. used to be it was from the red hots that gave them the cinnamon flavor. now we just add food coloring and cinnamon oil-works better.
Hey Harmony, your mom made plenty of cinnamon flavored/colored applesauce, just not every quart every year. I should find Granny Belle's recipe for chocolate chip applesauce cookies or Aunt Madeline's apple cake. Now if you can find some Banana apples, I'll come up and get them and make sauce here too. Love, MOM
Good for you! Dehydrated apples work well for food storage also. My kids love to eat them as a snack. They don't last as long as canned of course though.
The pink applesauce reminds me of Grandma Packers pantry in the basement as a kid. I LOVED the pink applesauce. Cinnamon applesauce is still a favorite. My mom didn't can alot as a kid, it is harder to get the fruit at a good price and no basement to store it in. But I loved helping Grandma the few times I got to. Of course I don't think it would be all that much fun now. I do freezer jam soemtimes though!
I am jealous of the food storage room in the basement. We have a small, I mean small, cloest under the stairs for that and lots of shelves in the laundry room. (not that that is a lot of room the laundry room is big enough for the machines and that is about it.
When I was pregnant with Erica, I craved home canned peaches so bad it hurt. My mom sent me some (she lived 6 hours away) and I almost cried eating them, they were so good. Remmeber those costs are start-up costs and you will use the steamer and jars over and over through out the years. All you can really figure in is the cost of the jar lids, pectin and sugar. The rest is investment and sweat equity. Plus, you know you couldn't let all those apples go to waste.
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