Santa Cruz is one of the few places where Newtown is still an important commercial apple. When I was a kid growing up in Southern CA, Alpha Beta supermarket advertised it as "the ugly apple that tastes good". It was my favorite apple for its tart-sweet crunch. Still love those dense fleshed apples. Martinelli's is probably the main reason it continues to be grown there. It's nice that a company would be so dedicated to the quality of their product instead of seeking the lowest production cost possible. That concentrated Chinese juice taste like it's mostly Red Delicious- yuk. Good for trapping yellow jackets though.

Cider is pressed from cold or room temperature apples. It can then be filtered for sediment (if desired) and pasturized (by heat or by UV filter) if desired. Juice is made pressing hot fruit. Both methods taste quite different. Cider is usually a raw product while juice is a cooked product. The teminology is a bit shady these days since so many now pasteurize the cider by heat but not at the high temps that processing juice usually occurs. I hate pasteurized cider when done by heat and prefer if done with UV filter for that old time cider taste. Better yet I hunt for non-pasterized cider which must be labeled as such at orchards that sell it in my state. Big warning on it that may be harmful to children or elderly as non-pasteurized. Recent studies show IF cider pressed with warm apples (yields more juice) and left to sit warm for a while and then frozen, this works as good as heat pasterization. The acidity and good bacteria will work to kill the bad bacteria with this method using warm apples. The final kicker is the freezing action. We made a lot of cider when I was a boy on a large cider press I built in woodshop while in high school. Years later I used to help make 250 gallons each week on a commercial press at an apple orchard I was employed at.

Katrina, I'm including a link from the National Center for Home Food Preparation which addresses this matter. You should be just fine. As for recipes, please check out Your Greatest Hit Recipes for Leesa - The Condensed Version. Many of the best recipes that we share and make over and over again are listed there. I'm certain you'll find something. Good luck, Kathy Here is a link that might be useful: NCHFP - Canning for Special diets

These days we only juice citrus. We had a Jack Lalane juicer for apples and carrots, but we gave it away because we do not produce enough apples or carrots to juice. After tasting garden carrots we no longer want to buy commercial carrots. I found the Lalane really wasteful, lots of good roughage gone to the compost rather than our bodies. Also, a real pain in the $%^& to clean. It does make very good carrot, apple, carrot apple, melon, kale, celery juices. We switched to a vitamix, still experimenting with it, but we are interested in getting the whole food in a juice/smoothie, rather than just the juice and throw a lot away. I juice gallons and gallons of citrus. It was 10 gallons last year. That was the excess, not what we drank as we went along! We probably drank another 10 gallons. I have an citrus juicer attachment to our kitchenaid mixer. It is crap, don't buy it. The manual ones are OK, I have several different types. The Mexican clam-shell types that close on the halved citrus are not bad for small quantities. Since most of what we juice are minneolas, I now use a food mill. Same exact tool i use to mill my tomatoes. This is because minneolas have a very delicate, easy to remove peel when they are ripe, so it is best to peel first, then juice. In the rare occasion I juice grapefruit I'll use the crappy Kitchen aide attachment, or a regular manual juicer. In any case, the food mill is easier on the body than the electric Kitchen aide attachment, more comfortable to use and less effort, believe it or not. Also, the quality of the juice is exceptional, it does not separate when it sits, and it freezes nicely. I should also say I only juice quarts at a time, not gallons at a time. I get approximately 1-2 quarts per large basket of citrus, I only pick at most 3 baskets (so about 3-6 quarts at a time)