If the availability of health and life insurance coverage were not only based on one's family medical history, age, and smoking status but also on one's personal hobbies and the ability to walk and chew gum, then I would be uninsurable.I'm not a person who enjoys the thrill of hobbies such as base-jumping, hiking Mt. Everest, or even deep-sea fishing (I've seen Jaws and read Moby Dick)...so when I chose crochet, knitting, and home preserving-or canning-I thought I would be fairly safe from harm. Oh, man, was I wrong! In my most recent foray into canning, I chose what I thought was an easy, staple canning recipe: applesauce. Perhaps it is due to my uncanny ability to create accidents in a perfectly safe environment or the misalignment of the stars that preside over crafters and hobby-enthusiasts, but making and canning applesauce is an evil, evil process.
Needing 12 pounds of apples, I chose a variety of in-season apples to give the sauce a little flair. After sorting and washing Empire, Golden Delicious, and Granny Smith apples, I set to the tasks of coring, peeling, and quartering (at which point the reality of what 12 pounds of apples actually looks like set in...think in terms of what $1,000,000,000 would look like).
*Let me just put in a small side note to the inventor of the apple corer: I deeply appreciate your ingenuity with inventing the simplistic design and functionality of the apple corer; it's ease of use in coring 12 pounds of apples is certainly worth the space it takes up in my utensils drawer. Now had I only investing the extra $4.00 to buy the mechanical apple peeler/corer...oh well, lesson learned.
I breezed through coring, peeling, and quartering the Empire and Golden Delicious varieties...yet, the Granny Smith apples proved to be too much. Sure, they're great apples to use as pie filling, baked apples, and candied apples; but, the actual process of coring and then peeling a Granny Smith is a true test of grace under fire. Granny Smiths are revered for their firm textures, tartness, and the ability to not brown as quickly when exposed to air--basically a darned great apple for applesauce, yet troublesome when you've spent 25 minutes coring and peeling less firm apples and lack any level of upper body strength. Towards the end, I pretty much jammed the corer into the apple and smacked the apple against the cutting board until it went all the way through. Yes, probably not the best way to core a Granny Smith, but it worked and the dog wasn't too freaked out by the noise!
Having spent a combined 49 minutes washing, coring, peeling, and quartering 12 pounds of apples, the next steps involving simmering the quarters in a pot until they softened and then pureeing them in a food processor. Not only do Granny Smith apples prove to be challenging in the first steps of applesauce making, but they take an incredibly longer time to softened in step #3.
*Side note to my friend in the neighborhood: Thank you from the depths of my being for letting my borrow your food processor. I, unfortunately, discovered the hard way that a Magic Bullet and full sized blender are not quite suited for this task.
**Side, side note to my Mom: thanks for the food processor for Christmas--this will bound to inspire future postings.
Once I pureed the apples, mixed in the sugar, and let it bubble and boil, I thought the tough parts were behind me. I've already successfully canned peaches, spaghetti sauce, green beans, and apple butter. How could canning applesauce prove to be any different from previous cannings? Oh, was I in the canoe, going up creek, with the paddle floating in the opposite direction then! I overestimated the amount of water in the water bath canner needed to cover the jars, managed to mis-use the jar lifter device, realized that a wet potholder no longer protects against heat, and that this day's canning project not only stressed me out but the dog as well.
To make a long, long story short, here's a list of the reasons why I would be unisurable based on this hobby:
1) tennis elbow and possibly torn rotator cuff from coring apples
2) cut thumb from the peeler
3) 1st degree burns from the water bath canner
4) 1st degree burns from a wet potholder
5) pinched pinky from the jar lifter
6) bruised kneecap from doing the "this is freaking hot" dance in the middle of the kitchen
Of course, this all might have been avoided had I not just donated a pint of my finest O+ blood to the local chapter of the American Red Cross. Although, having successful made and canned applesauce while being a pint low has to speak volumes to my incredible canning abilities, right?!?
(or my sheer lack of common sense.)
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