Simple Unsweetened Preserves: A gift from Katherine and Corey!
Vanja and I met Corey and Katherine last year at the Dairy Farm Fieldtrip and this year, they bought the most beautiful house on the most beautiful city lot! We were thrilled for them, and thrilled to see their lovely home – and came home laden with crab apples and Nanking cherries to preserve. I decided to make a very simple sugarless apple sauce to use in baking during the Winter in place of oil.
It was a simple as it looks. Simpler, actually. I washed and quartered all apples, then did not even cover them with water, but simmered them in some until the apples made their own juices and became mushy by cooking at a low simmering boil.
I cooled the mass, then put it through the meat grinder. Yes, the meat grinder! It is amazing how well that worked to grind the seeds and stems and cores. Really. There is a bit of a texture to the sauce, but it is soft.
I sterlized the jars and boiled the tin rubber lined lids; filled the jars, ensure the rims were clean and placed a tin lid on each and then twisted on the ring part of the lid until just tight.
In the water bath for 15 minutes for each 1/2 pint, five minutes to set in the water, and then out to cool And, yes, I shared with Corey and Katherine, though I am sure they are wondering what in the word to do with unsweetened crab applesauce! Hopefully, I will post something yummy on a frosty cold day in the brittle middle of January!
We had a crab apple tree on our propery which the city made us cut down due to the coddling moth.Jelly is the only thing I have ever made from this delicacy.
A lovely gift and even better treat!! I love crab apples, but have a hard time finding them here.
have a great week!
Oh how I love the fall! If only we could have a harvest like this all year!
Brilliant idea to put them through the meatgrinder and cook them with everything on it. SO much quicker and sounds like a great solution too!
I make big batches of apple sauce every year too. I have a tree that produces loads of apples, but because i don’t really understand canning, I freeze it in plastic containers. That works too.
*kisses* HH
I just started making fruit sauce (pear, apple, grape.) last year and I’m hooked because it really is so simple.
What a wonderful gift!! I love crab apples so much. We used to have a tree of them to pillage when I was a little girl in Canada. How I miss them. 🙂
We had crab apple trees in the back yard when I was a kid, and Mom ALWAYS! made crab-apple-jelly from them. I will always remember seeing the crab apples, cooked down & wrapped in cheesecloth, and left to hang from an upper kitchen cupboard handle to drain into a huge bowl. the jelly was always tinted red (mm left the skins on the apples), and perfectly clear when finished!!
Not very many people have any background nor respect for the humble crab apple anymore; thanks for bringing their memory back to me 🙂
Really? In Alberta, most country folk still revere the crab apple, and you can always find the jelly at any farmer’s market. Maybe because we grow so few fruits on the prairies, we cannot afford to shun any of them!
I also use the small bright red ones to make a liqueur for Christmas called Pomette. So delicious!
Mom used to also can them – core and all – in syrup and serve them with pork. Deee-licious!
🙂
I don’t do that now, as no one will eat it here these days and I don’t make much roast pork, either.
Hugs,
Valerie