Applesauce

Yesterday, I shared about all the windfall apples DH and I had gathered. Since that day, I have been blessed with several more buckets full and they are still falling! The ones that are ripe enough to just pick off the tree are too high for me to reach but I am getting way more than I will be able to use off the ground. But after I get all those apples inside the house, I have to come up with ways to use them. That's what I'm going to share with you this week, beginning with the easiest project- APPLESAUCE!

This wasn't my first time to make applesauce but it was my first experience with this many apples. So I did some googling for easier ways to get the job done and came up with my own version of the slow cooker method.

Remember I am working with tiny apples, I can easily hold 3 of them in the palm of my hand. I decided the fastest way to get the job done was to cook the apples with the peel on. I put about an inch of water in the slow cooker to prevent scorching then I quartered and cored the apples and dropped them in until it was full. I gave the top of the apples a liberal sprinkling of cinnamon, put the lid on, and cooked the whole deal on low heat overnight (about 8 hours.) I don't think the apples needed that long to cook, I just didn't want to get up in the middle of the night to make applesauce. However cooking them that long didn't seem to affect the quality of the applesauce. The next morning, after everything was cool, I ran small batches of it through the food processor and then froze it up for later. Applesauce! I could have strained out the peels to make a sauce that could be canned but I don't own a strainer so I would have been adding a lot of time to run all that pulp through the sieve. Besides, I like having the beneficial fiber that the peels add and I have plenty of freezer space this year.

After repeating this process a couple more times I also have plenty of applesauce!