There's a little produce stand here in Ogden called Carlos' Produce. It's owned by the same people who own the Sacco's stands, and it's open year-round. I've meant to go in since moving to Ogden four years ago, but didn't make the time until I was driving by a couple of weeks ago and saw the sign;
"Local apples, 49 cents/pound"
I stopped immediately, and came out a few minutes later with a bushel of Gala apples, and another ten pounds or so of red delicious and Fuji apples. I then bought a peeler and a corer/chopper, and went to work.
Kezie was my good helper; she peeled dozens of apples for me and make everything go much faster. After a night of work, we had about eight quarts of applesauce, and twenty of apple slices, all canned and lined up in the pantry.
A week later, I went back for more apples. By then, I had bought a Foley food mill with some Amazon gift cards, and hoped that would make the applesaucing process go faster. It did not. That was $30 I wish I had spent on something else. I prefer peeling and coring the apples before cooking them, rather than removing the seeds and pulp in the mill later. It's faster and it tastes better.
Kezie and I settled in for another night of apple processing, and I was hoping for another dozen quarts of applesauce, hoping it would turn out as well as the first batch. It did not. It had the weirdest texture; it tasted like apple-flavored pudding with lumps in it. Trust me, no one wanted to have to eat it. It was the same method I used before, so I have no idea what went wrong. I was not throwing out all fifteen quarts, though, so I came up with the solution; apple butter. I've wanted to make apple butter for years, ever since becoming addicted to it, served on a piece of fresh bread from the campus bread bakery, my freshman year.
Crock put apple butter recipe
In a nutshell; put applesauce in crock pot with sugar and cinnamon. Cook for a really long long time, stirring occasionally. When it's cooked down to about half the former volume, add more sauce and sugar and cook some more. Remove from slow cooker. Eat, refrigerate, or can immediately.
The result: the kids love it. The weird texture applesauce worked perfectly for apple butter. Now I have thirteen pints of applebutter in my pantry. Total cost: $22 for apples, sugar, and cinnamon. This does not count the waste of $30 for the food mill, or the $35 for the peeler and the corer/chopper, which was money well spent.
