Frugal Find Friday--Apple Corer

A fun find to share with you this Friday! I've been wanting an apple corer/peeler/slicer since last fall. We picked apples off a tree that was headed for trimming and did we ever bring home a ton! It was great as they were free, had not been sprayed and were Golden Delicious apples. When you make applesauce it is recommended to combine multiple types of apples for the best flavor. However, if you can only do one type Golden Delicious is the one to go with. It is a sunny, yummy apple flavor and all those apples turned into lots of applesauce! And a crisp or two as well.

Mike prefers smooth applesauce with no peels or such blended in. I also knew we'd be feeding this sauce to the little one when he started solids in the middle of the winter. So, I peeled apples. I peeled and cored and cut up apples. I had a 5 week old baby and I peeled and peeled and peeled apples. It took me a long time, but we ended up with a lot of applesauce in our freezer. (This was before I had my canning stuff.)

This year I have had some issues with my wrists when I do something too much in too short of a time. (Maybe from peeling all those apples? I sure hope not.) So, I knew I could do smooth applesauce with my canning colander if I found one, which I have. We grew up doing only tomato juice with it, so I am excited to give mass applesauce production a try! I also really hoped to find an apple corer/peeler/slicer though. We like apple crisp and other apple desserts that are made with sliced apples. If I had a corer/peeler/slicer I could make lots of those types of apples for the freezer and not have to do all the work myself.

As you may remember, I keep a list of things I'm looking for and last weekend I was apple to cross apple corer/peeler/slicer off my list! I found a new looking Pampered Chef one at a massive rummage sale. The owner had never used it and wanted the space in her cupboard back. She didn't have the directions, but thought it should work fine as they'd never done anything to it except store it.

Here are some pictures of its first trial run.

Peeling

Slicing

Coring

Seems to do what it says! The only thing I've read on-line about it is that it works best with Granny Smith apples. Some have real issues with it when trying to do red apples or soft apples. This could cause a dilemma as I hope to be using home grown apples, which can be a bit soft. I think we'll be okay though as some of my apples were awfully soft. It did tear them up a bit, but I saved the slices I could and put the rest of the parts into a pot to make applesauce. I figure if I'm doing sliced apples I'll also be doing applesauce so it will work out. It may not be the most perfect with home grown softer apples, but it will save my wrists a ton of work and that will be totally worth it. So far, I am a very happy camper!

So you want to know what I paid for it?

So I spent $4.00. New they are selling for $31.50. Oh, and mine came with the stand. That is extra, of course. The stand sells for $14.50. So my little $4, never been used stand cost the nice rummage sale lady about $46 and she even put it together for me before selling it to me for $4. One more thing to cross of my list! The directions are even on-line so I was able to figure out how to use it very quickly. And I found out it can make spiral fries out of potatoes...how fun!

Any Frugal Finds in your life this week? I love hearing other people's deals, so feel free to leave me a comment with your finds!

Heather