to can or not to can

Well, it's that time. Time for our bazillion apples to fall on the ground and rot, followed by a massive fruit fly infestation. Ok, that was the first year we lived here. The second year we picked them up off the ground and threw them away. The third year my visiting teaching partner (aka Polygamist hair) asked if she could pick some and make applesauce out of them. "Sure!" I said. "We probably won't even use them." Then her husband came and picked both of our trees clean. EVERY SINGLE APPLE. And they didn't even give us one token jar of applesauce. Why was I bugged by that? They surely would have just ended up rotting on the ground. But still....rude.

I've always had a fear of our homegrown apples and refuse to eat them or feed them to my kids. Maybe it's because we never fertilized or sprayed them, and most of them had worm holes. Yeah.....that's it. But this year we did. WE DID! We fertilized and sprayed them several times, in fact. And now we have huge, non-gross apples bursting from our trees. We also have lots of delicious tomatoes from our garden. And what would a Dorothy Hamill haircut mom from the late 70's do?? She would CAN THAT CRAP! I'm thinking back to my childhood friend's mom - she was a canning maniac, and we would help her shell huge bowls of peas and make fruit leather, she dried their clothes on a clothesline, they always drank gross powdered milk, and my friend only wore homemade hand-me-downs. I always thought she was weird, but now I am in awe of her. YOU GO DOREEN!

I have never canned anything, so I decided to read through some canning websites before I bought all the equipment. There was all this stuff about high-acid, low-acid foods - don't upset the delicate balance or they'll spoil, buy a food mill to make applesauce, don't make Granny Smith apples into applesauce because you'll have to use tons of sugar (our apples are Granny Smith), pressure canners are better for tomatoes since there will be less chance of spoilage, get your pressure canner checked at the county extension office so it doesn't blow up and kill you......head hurting, spinning........ Then I checked Amazon to buy the equipment - pressure canner, canning tool kit, canning book, and food mill would total about $150.

So I asked Paul, "Should I spend $150 on canning stuff?"

"Yes," he said without hesitation.

I went back to the canning website and looked at pictures of peeled, whole tomatoes floating in glass jars. "Hey, Paul. Would you eat canned tomatoes?"

"No."

"How about canned applesauce?"

"No."

"Hmmm." (Pause.) "Me neither."

Canning dilemma solved.

Now what to do with all of our apples? I think I'll make caramel apples and the kids can have an apple stand. Our neighbors down the street sell cotton candy. Let's get someone on popcorn duty! It's gonna be a carnival up in here.