Raw Crabapple Juice

Ingredients:
25 cups crabapples, quartered
13 cups water

Directions:
Bring crabapples and water to a boil. Cook 30 minutes, or until apples are soft, occasionally crushing crabapples with a spatula or potato masher. Moisten a jelly bag, then hang jelly bag with cooked fruit inside over a bowl until all the juice has drained from a bag. This should take about 12 hours. You may squeeze the remaining juice from the bag, but this will make the juice cloudy. Save the remaining pulp in the jelly bag for making Crabapplesauce.

Refrigerate juice in labeled jars for 2 to 3 days, or freeze in plastic containers. Use crabapple juice in recipes like Crabapple Drink.


Crabapple Sauce
Try this delicious variation of applesauce for breakfast or in your kids' school lunches, or even in your own lunch at work. After you have made Raw Crabapple Juice, save the pulp, skins, cores and seeds, and make crabapple pulp.

Crabapple Pulp:
Measure crabapple pulp, skins, cores and seeds into a large blender. Add 1/3 cup water for every 2 cups of pulp, skins, cores and seeds. Use a grain mill to separate pulp from the seeds, skins, and cores. Blend in blender until water is mixed with crabapple pulp. Place mixture into a large preserving pot and boil for 3 to 5 minutes, stirring often to prevent burning. If you are not planning to make applesauce immediately, you can refrigerate the pulp in a jar for 2 to 3 days or freeze it for several months. Otherwise, pulp should be used immediately.

Applesauce
Ingredients:
12 cups crabapple pulp
2 1/2 cups sugar

Directions:
Combine pulp and sugar in large stainless steel saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Fill sterilized pint or quart jars, seal and boil in a boiling water bath, 15 minutes for pint jars, 10 minutes for quart jars. Refrigerate or freeze. Serve cold.

You can substitute naturally sweet pineapple juice or carob powder for the sugar in this recipe.
For applesauce with punch, grind 3-4 slices ginger root into the boiling pulp and sugar.

This article was originally published at Suite 101.
Jennifer Wickes is the editor at "Cookbook Reviews" and "Cooking With
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