Apples and Pears

Gina called me one day and said she was headed out to the orchard to get pears and apples and asked if I wanted her to pick anything up for me. I'm glad she called, because I probably wouldn't have done anything otherwise so I said yes please! 

We ended up with about double the amount of pears that I was planning on. Instead of 20-25 quarts, we did around 45, and still had pears left over. Marc suggested we do jam, so he found a "spiced pear jam" recipe online and helped me make it. It turned out pretty good! Not necessarily a peanut butter and jelly kind of jam, but one that is great on toast and such. Isabel couldn't get enough of the pears. 

Gina helped me with the applesauce. I've never made sauce before so I wasn't sure what to expect. We had a tasty combination of Golden Delicious, Gala, and Jonathan apples (I think?). We washed the apples, sliced them with an apple slicer and threw them in a large pot with a little bit of water to steam them nice and soft. After that, we put the soft apples in Gina's nifty little Kitchen Aid strainer and walla, apple sauce! I didn't need to add much sugar to it. We ladled the sauce in our jars and prepped them for the water bath to process. I noticed the apples didn't go nearly as far as other fruit when canning. I think we processed about 75 lbs of apples and ended up with 25 quarts. I did save a few apples to much on, as you can see, my kids have been chomping down on them. Nothing better than fresh fruit from the orchard!!