The Fruit Flies Made Me

I bought 25 pounds of Honey Crisp apples for $30...three days ago with the intention of canning up some homemade applesauce.  (http://www.mackintoshfruitfarm.com/index.html) But life and laziness got the best of me and I hadn't gotten around to it immediately.  Then the fruit flies appeared.  Not only did they pester me, the kids and my hubby but they were getting in to my sourdough starter and driving the cats crazy!  So finally, today, they forced me to start canning. 

So I weighted out 12 lbs of apples

Peeled, cored and cut em up

Boiled them until soft

Processed them in a food mill until relatively smooth (i love juicy bits of apple in my applesauce)

Heated them with a splash of lemon and a cup of sugar, not too much as Honey Crisps are so sour sweet already, it so not necessary to add much. 

Heated up the jars and lids and transferred the applesauce in several messy globs to them.  Lidded and banded em and put em in the water bath canner to seal. 

And this is the result:  Four f'ing quarts.  That won't even last us a month!  I do have another 12 lbs to send through the process tomorrow (one more night with those damn fruit flies!) but still it'll only be 8 quarts which won't last us 2 months!  I wouldn't be complaining because I love to can, but its the fruit flies that made me do it!  My consolation is that LOTS of fruit flies were harmed during this process, lots.

Now off to do the dishes and rest up to do it all over again tomorrow.  Canning is hard work.