Homemade Applesauce!

I am a little bit of a canning convert, discovering the joys of having quality food on my shelves all winter with local, trusted, and delicious sources!  The primary push was last summer for tomatoes.  There are not many items in my house that are typically purchased canned.  Living in California we are afforded fresh, and often local, produce pretty much year round, of an outstanding quality.  I never realized how truly blessed we were until I lived in Boston for a year and was flabbergasted at how horrible even the supermarkets offerings were (and this was before my interest and belief in local sourcing).  Anyhow, canned tomatoes are a regular part of my winter repertoire since we love a good italian meal- anything from roasts to bolognese to soups to a simple pasta pomodoro.  As many of you know, canned tomatoes as they sit in grocery stores are simply not ideal.  The actual metal cans react with the acid of the tomatoes, leaching yuckiness into our food.  Very technical description I know. =)

Anyhow I had determined last summer that I wanted to buy the fresh local amazing tomatoes we are advantaged to have at our local farmers markets, and can them for myself for the winter.  Benefits?  Aside from the tomatoes being local (yay!) and delicious (double yay!) "canning" at home uses glass jars, not metal (minus the lid which is coated anyhow), and so eliminates the whole metal leaching issue.  I got together with my mother in law, her mom and her sister and together we canned something like 240 pounds of tomatoes between us (I forget exactly what the final poundage was).  This was my first foray into canning.  The results were fantastic and despite having 16 quart jars, I ran out before the year was over!

This year we decided to can some more tomatoes.  We did that a couple of weeks ago, though may catch the tail end of our tomato season if we can to grab a few more jars.  I can't wait to indulge in the many recipes I get to enjoy with them.  But I also decided that I wanted to can some other things this year.

Last week I took my daughter and mom out to a local apple farm to pick our own apples.  It was a lovely day and we had quite a bounty to bring home.  I knew we wouldn't eat all the apples, and had the brilliant idea to can my own applesauce with these delicious, local apples.

I followed the instructions found here.  Mostly.  I didn't add anything to the sauce at all since I personally like my applesauce plain and sugar free.  Plus, you can always add spices like cinnamon later, but you can't take it out!  The result was delicious!  I meant to take pictures along the way (whole apples, chunks, sauce, and cans) but as usual I forgot until a little farther along...  So here's the sauce in the pot:

And here's the fruit of our labor!  (ha ha ha)

I did primarily half pint jars for a couple of reasons.  The first is simply because I had them.  The second is because I don't know about you, but when I buy the good applesauce at the store, I find that the sauce goes bad long before I can eat it all because the jars are simply too big for my family.  So I love the idea of having petite servings that will be just enough for a few servings as a side, or along with some delicious meal.   Mmm I can't wait until I'm no longer pregnant and can enjoy this delicious sauce!  (Double bonus?  When this baby is old enough, I can give him this applesauce knowing exactly where the apples came from, and that there is NOTHING else in it!)