easy homemade apple juice

today’s haiku:

delicate pale pink

apple blossom fragrant sips

peals of delight, nice

~ ~ ~

Please visit and enjoy this post about making apple juice.

Last night I made apple sauce.

I scrubbed 15 apples

cut them in half [*I found the peeling and chunking went much faster this way]

peeled them (some of them I peeled ‘liberally’ leaving a bit of apple flesh, others I peeled to intentionally not take much of the inner apple flesh)

In one large pot I put quickly cut, sloppily cut chunks of apple flesh (chunks were probably 3/4 inch to 1 inch in size)

Into a large saucepan I put the peels and cores, seeds and all

Once all of the apples were done, I poured approx. one and a half cups of water over the apple chunks (large pot), added some cinnamon and brown sugar (maybe a 1/8 cup, not much! apples are sweet enough!), and a few pinches of lemon zest. This large pot I then brought to a boil and simmered for 25 minutes, then mashed with a potato masher. I like my applesauce not too chunky, so I also used my Cuisinart SmartStick (love that thing!) to smooth the sauce out some more.  Done!  Let them cool, taste tested a bit, then put the rest in the refrigerator to save for Thanksgiving dinner.

In a separate pan I boiled 4+ cups of water, and dissolved a heaping tablespoon of brown sugar, and another pinch of lemon zest into it and poured this mixture of boiling water over the peels and cores in the saucepan.  Then I mashed the mess up a bit, covered the pan and let this sit overnight. This morning, I mashed the stuff up a bit more, then pressed the mush against a fine colander/strainer and into a pitcher.  The pitcher went into the frig. The leftover ‘mush’ went into the compost bin.

After working outdoors several hours, raking and mulching wave upon wave of leaves (see photos below), as I sit here typing this post, I’m enjoying sips of my easy-to-make delicious, not-too-sweet apple juice!

Next, because it’s too nice a day not to take advantage of, I’m going to make myself wash a few windows (not a chore I manage often enough).

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