Adventures in Applesauce

So, today was really like any other Saturday... except for the fact that I have approximately 100 lbs. of apples breathing down the back of my neck.  Oh, and did I mention my 17 yr old was writhing in pain with symptoms curiously similar to "Swine Flu"?....Or that my family was supposed to be watching General Conference for 4 hours today.  Yeah, more on all that later.  But, back to the apples.

I'm so grateful to have obtained these beauties from my parents farm who live 2 hrs north of us.   Yellow Delicious and Jonathan apples.  Perfect for apple sauce, which is what I managed to make today.  But in the spirit of frugality that's not all I made!!  No siree.  After slaving for several hours this evening just to get my 1st 7 quarts of applesauce (minus one that broke in the water bath...poo!) I was determined to make use of those beautiful, organic apple peels too!  I found a recipe on this group recipe site.  It was literally only one of two recipes that I could even find using apple peels (at least to my satisfaction).  The other one is for GF muffins but I haven't tried those yet.

Anyway, I used the recipe above to make some pretty decent apple butter.  If the truth be known, Amanda did it for me while I was rushing around trying to take care of the sickies in my house and get a few little ones off to bed.   Here is the way our version of the recipe would look:

Apple Peel Butter

orange, peeled and separated
4 C Cooked apple peels
3 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 C water
2 dashes Cardamon

1. Throw everything in Vita Mix (or other great blender) and let it go for a couple minutes

2. Cook on the stove until hot or enough liquid is evaporated.

Of course the recipe is very flexible but you get the jist of it.   Here's what it looks like.  Not the prettiest thing in the world but it's good!

Now I actually learned one more exciting thing about canning today.  I read it online several days ago and could hardly believe my eyes!  I decided to test it out just to be sure but it worked!  I reused my OLD LIDS from LAST YEAR and everything (besides the broken bottle, of course) actually SEALED!    The only catch is you have to boil the old lids for about 10 minutes first which rebounds the rubber under each lid a bit.   I boiled about 20 or 30 of them the other day and tried to pick out the best looking ones for this trial run.    I tell ya'....canning will never be the same