UPDATE: Homemade Applesauce

At the end of last month I wrote about homemade applesauce.  Today I made some.  I bought some apples from the store's discount rack, they were spotted and not perfect, so I got a good price and the bonus was most were organic.  If you've read any of my blogs about cooking you know I don't do precise measuring much, but it usually works well, but I generally followed the recipe.

I quartered the apples, cut out the seeds and the core, and pealed them and then cut them in half again when I put them in the crockpot.  I added about 3 small fingerfuls (as opposed to handfuls) of brown sugar and about 3 table spoons of lemon juice I had squeezed a few months before for use in cleaning liquids.

I cooked this on low for about 6 hours, using a potato masher to mash the apples about every 2 hours.  Let me tell you how good this smelled while it cooked.

I didn't add any cinnamon because I wasn't really sure I wanted any and I figured I could add it later if I wanted it when I ate some.

This was so easy it was unbelievable.  I kept thinking there really should be something more to it.  After the cooking I ran it though my food mill a few spoonfuls at a time with the largest mill grate.  It was still hot when I tasted it, but it's so GOOD.

If you haven't yet, you really need to give this a try.  The article I reference in my September blog says you can cook the apples on your stove on medium to medium-low and it will be done in about 3 hours.  I was afraid of cooking it too fast this way, and ruining all those "on sale" apples.  But next time I'll probably go ahead and do it on the stove, now that I know what they are supposed to look like.

If you were worried about making this because you thought it was too hard, go ahead and try it, it's easy.

Let me know what you think after you have a chance to give it a try.

By the way, the food mill I used at the end of this venture in the Simply Me Shopping Place.  It's an OXO and it works great.