They're typically called "animal apples" or "deer apples": the ones that fall on the ground or have bruises or blemishes making them unfit to be classified as either firsts or seconds by the local orchards. They're not supposed to be sold for Human consumption...but there's a few ways they can be used for Human food anyway.

The big concern with apples that have fallen to the ground is that they might've picked up harmful bacteria like e. coli or salmonella. These apples are still used in cider, but some states like ours now require the cider to be pasteurized for safety. Too bad it kills off some of the flavor...but I guess those rampant cases of cider food poisoning are now under control.

Deer apples are also perfect for making applesauce. Since the apples get well boiled, the temperature gets way above the 160 degrees needed for pasteurization. Sorting through the bags and quartering the apples for cooking means you automatically discard any that might've gotten moldy or cut any suspicious bad spots where a worm might've gotten in.

And did I mention they're cheap?

The going rate around here for a half bushel of seconds can run close to $10. You can get deer apples for sometimes less than $5 per half bushel depending on how plentiful the crop was this year. You can't select the TYPE of apples, but if you're strategic about when you buy them you can usually pick up the ones you want. This year we mostly ended up with McIntosh and Jonagold, by the looks of things. I personally like pretty much everything except Red Delicious and Fuji - those guys just refuse to cook down enough to mill properly!

Making applesauce can be done a couple of ways: you can peel, core and cut the apples by hand and add sugar and spices for something that comes out a lot like an apple pie filling. Or you can simply quarter the apples, cook them until soft and run them through a food mill to remove the skins and seeds. Most people are used to this type - it's the kind you buy from Mott's in a plastic quart jar at the grocery store. I use it currently because it's less labor-intensive than chopping and mixing that goes into the chunky variety.

I usually start by taking inventory of jars, lids and rings. I probably have way more jars here than I need, but at nine months pregnant the basement stairs are starting to be more of a chore and I brought everything up so I wouldn't have to take a break in the middle of canning to fetch more jars. This type of applesauce can be put up in either small- or large-mouth jars, so I got whatever was handy.

I get the canning pot filled with water and on the stove since I have it do double duty by sterilizing the jars before filling.

The apples get quartered and any egregious bad spots removed. This batch was really good and I only had to cut off a few spots. I also removed the stems since they sometimes get stuck in my food mill screen.

My helpers were waiting for the chance to use the food mill - I'm not sure they remember last year, but they were excited to give the mill a workout this year.

Our food mill is called a Roma food mill by Westin. I didn't do extensive research to get it because a friend was selling it for $35 and I thought it was a great opportunity.

I usually pour a little water into the apples to get them started so they don't burn before they start releasing their own juice. Then I just turn up the heat and stir periodically with my giant applesauce oar...er, spoon.

Soft apples like these typically take about a half-hour to cook down. The more they're cooked the thicker the end result, so if you like really thick applesauce you want to make sure to cook this part until you don't see a lot of liquid.

Once the apples cook down and are very soft, they get transferred to the food mill bowl.

This part can easily be done by one person, but it's even better if you have one person cranking the handle and someone else pushing the soft apples down into the milling screw. Besides, it gives small people a good chance to help.

As the apples are forced against the screen, applesauce comes down the chute.

The peels and seeds are pushed out the other end of the mill.

There's usually a lot of applesauce left in the apples after the first milling, so we typically run them through once more. You can do twice more, but the third time really only gets you a few spoons of applesauce and isn't worth the time and effort.

The applesauce gets a lot thicker with the second milling.

One pan processed!

Of course, some taste-testing was required to make sure this was worth saving.

Apparently it was.

After this the applesauce can either be canned or spices can be added and it can be cooked down a little more before canning. I was pushing to get these done this year, so I opted to leave the spices out and go straight to canning.

As you can see, I have empty jars staying hot in the canner while replacing the full jars. If I were tackling all 20 quarts at once, I would line them up on the counter as filled and keep putting new jars into the hot water to sterilize. But on this particular day, I was aiming to only fill the canner once since I got a late start.

Applesauce is typically supposed to be processed in a water bath for twenty minutes. It comes out looking like this.

After cooling, I test the seals, label the jars and put them back in boxes for storage. Out of four half-bushel bags of deer apples, we got about 25 quarts of applesauce - approximately six (and a bit) quarts per bag.