"Applesauce......."

I used my new pressure canner to can pints of applesauce last week.  I have the water bath canner that I could use, too, but the pressure canner holds more pint jars, plus the process is much faster.

Pint jars washed and waiting to be filled......

Pressure canner heating up the 3" of water needed for the canning process.......

I had prepped enough Paula Red apples to fill 2 large pots, boiled them down into applesauce, filled 11 pints, put on the pressure canners lid, locked it down, set the stoves flame, exhausted the pressure canner for 7 minutes, added the 5# weight on the exhaust vent, and processed for 8 minutes. Whew....talk about a run-on sentence!

Turning off the burner and after I allowed the pressure canner to exhaust completely (bringing the pressure back to zero), I opened the canner.

Using my "jar lifter", I set them on the cloth covered countertop to cool overnight before labeling and putting them downstairs on the storage shelf.  I use unsweetened applesauce in my bread dough, instead of oil.  I figure that with these 11 pints, I have enough for baking bread 22 times, getting approximately 66 loaves of bread, depending on how I divide the bread dough.

I have since made another 16 pints of applesauce to add to my stock, plus bought another bushel of apples, this time Macintosh.  Using the Macintoshes, I dried another 10 trays of apple slices, plus experimented with 6 trays of "apple leather".  Apple leather is nothing more than dried applesauce, so I figured why not give it a try, eh?  That comes out of the dehydrator this morning.  I will update you on how that turned out later.