Applesauce

We have another new addition. Our little girl was born at the end of July! We are so happy to have her with us. She's 6 weeks old now and starting to play games. She smiles at us, and we just can't get enough of her.

Last weekend the three of us went to a local food exchange. Think farmer's market but without money.  Everyone brings homemade or home grown foods or household items and we have a silent auction of sorts. Each item has a slip of paper and you write down what you're willing to trade for it. We went with 5 small, hot peppers, 14 cloves of garlic, and 18 eggs.  We came home with a gallon bag of apples, 12 ounces of honey, a large, white acorn squash, a large pie pumpkin, 4 small onions, and two containers of tomatoes, including a special variety of cherry tomatoes that are specially for drying. Since I have a little one this "fall" I'm not doing any canning, but I have been dehydrating the few tomatoes our garden has gifted us with this year. 

The apples were a tart variety, more for baking with than eating fresh, but I had a hankering for applesauce this week. I started out by putting my babe in the ring sling.  Yep, I'm one of those moms.  I'm also one of these and one of these moms.

I chopped the apples into about 1 inch chunks, and removed the cores. I could have peeled them first, but, "Ain't nobody got time for that!"

Forgive these pictures. My camera must have turned on inside the diaper bag because the battery was dead and I had to take some of them with my phone. 

When they were all chopped up, I threw them in a pot with a knobby end of a stick of butter (about 1 tablespoon) and a cinnamon stick. You could also use 1 tablespoon of ground cinnamon if you don't have a stick. 

I let them simmer on medium heat until they released their juices were all nice and mushy. About 20 minutes. 

Tangent: If you throw in some sugar in the beginning and only cook them for about 10 minutes, you've got a shortcut to the filling for an apple pie that won't have to bake as long in the oven. 

Then I shut off the heat and let the cinnamon stick steep in the apple juices for about another hour.

At this point my house smelled like apple cinnamon.  Just like a house should smell in September.  Except it was 101 degrees F yesterday! We're making up for our May blizzard by having July in September. 

Then I got out my immersion blender and let 'er rip. This is why I was able to leave the skins on.  That, and I wanted the vitamins that are in the pigments. 

When the apples were mostly blended, I added about a quarter of a cup of local honey.  I'm becoming a bit of a honey snob these days. I like my honey local, nice and strong. And I despise clover honey! 

I used the stick blender to finish breaking down the apples until I had a nice and smooth apple sauce. 

I'm pleased that even though my garden has been subpar this summer, I still have produce to put away for this fall and winter. After all, in a few months I'll have another little mouth to feed, and I want to make sure that I'm able to fill it with the most natural, nutritious foods available! 

Ready for the deep freeze.