Making Applesauce

​One thing I have noticed about myself is that the “older” I get the more I have learned to appreciate and LOVE, and I mean absolutely LOVE the Fall season. Know I know it is still August and we are quickly ascending into 100 degree weather but I’m sorry I cant help it… September is right around the corner, school is getting ready to start, football practice has begun and I am ready to jump into FALL Face First!!
So… today after coming home from the grocery store. I noticed I had way too many apples crowding my fruit drawer in the fridge. These apples have occupied this space for much too long and it was now necessary for me to relocate these apples and find their higher purpose in life (aka I had to remove them to make space for the new fruit I brought home). I am sure I had the best intentions when I first bought these apples but clearly, they were the last choice to be eaten so it was time to get into the kitchen and turn these apples into something magical! (my recent baking challenges have me thinking I’m Betty Crocker 😊)
First stop was my Go-To place for recipes, crafts, ideas, decorating and just about anything really, Pinterest. If you would like to follow my Pinterest Page you can find me HERE. I love Pinterest and I strive to make organized boards for everything I find, but it’s mostly a hodgepodge of items and ideas. It’s a great way to get a look inside my head…but exercise caution its messy in there!
I found tons of ideas that involved sweetening up my apples and baking them into a sticky gooey goodness of happiness, but I really wanted to try something different. The first thought I had was applesauce. This immediately conjures up memories of the movie “Baby Boom” with Diane Keaton. After perusing through apple butters, apple breads, apple spreads, apple pie fillings ect, I began looking for homemade applesauce recipes. My husband loves applesauce and if made correctly this bad boy is still a 0 point weight watchers snack 😊 oh yeah! I don’t think I have ever made apple sauce before, so this was certainly worth trying.
Most of the recipes were stupid simple! And I mean that. After reading a few and saving a few to my It’s Fall Y’all – Fall Foods board. I told you I liked Fall! I like it so much it has its own Pinterest board with sub boards. I took to the kitchen and began my applesauce journey.
Step #1 .  Peel 6 big red apples. I have no idea what kind of apples they were. They were large, most likely Pink Lady apples but honestly, I have no idea. They were still mostly firm. Only a couple of brown spots but I used those too because they are sweeter than the rest of the apple.

​Step #2. Cut and core peeled apples. I cut my apples into chunks and make sure they were seeded and cored

​Step #3. I put the apples in my crock pot and sprinkled then ever so generously with Cinnamon. No sugar here. I like unsweetened apple sauce. You can add ½ cup of granulated sugar or ¼ cup of granulated sugar and ½ cup of brown sugar at this point if you are so inclined. 

​Step #4. I added about 1/2cup to ¾ cup of water, turned the Crock Pot to High and walked away. Like the Diva I am! Ha!  This is the good part…. I set the Crock Pot to High and set the kitchen timer for an hour. The recipes called for 4 hours total to cook but I wanted to check in on my little pot of happiness to ensure I had done everything Correctly.
Apples at 1 Hour of Cooking – getting soft and mushy. Looking very similar to apple pie filling but the liquid was not as thick.
 

​Apples after 4 Hours of Cooking – Honestly they looked the same as they did at the one hour mark, but after I grabbed my trusty potato masher they started to look like apple sauce… see!

​The Final step! I grabbed by Emersion blender out of the cupboard. Washed it off because it was nice and dusty (from all of that frequent usage) and I blended up my apple sauce to smooth perfection! It only took about two minutes to get it nice and smooth. If you like it chunky skip the blender all together and just go to town with your potato masher.
In the end I got a pretty tasty little sauce. Not too sweet. Remember I didn’t add ant sugar to the mix but I did not shy away from the cinnamon, which accounts for the color or my apple sauce 😊!

​All six apples yielded about 32 FLoz of apple sauce. I know this because I stored it in an old pickle jar. Overall this was a tasty and quite easy journey. Something I would do again. Now I think I will just sit here and wait for Fall to arrive…..