Applesauce

Ok, so I feel like I'm kind of cheating by posting this as a recipe, but it's good. And it requires a little prep work, and, honestly, it's the only thing I had made recently that I knew actual amounts of anything that was in it and could get a picture of the finished product. I got the "recipe" from a few friends. It's so easy the cat could make it (well, if he would pry his butt off the couch and quit whining that someone looked at him funny). The awesome thing about this, I've found, is that it's REALLY hard to mess it up. For proof, read past the recipe.

Ingredients:

10 apples (I've been using organic Gala apples)

1. Core apples and cut into eighths (not sure how necessary that is, but my corer cuts them for me, so it's one easy step and I figure they'll cook faster, so I'm all for it).

2. Place in stock pot.

3. Cook over low heat for 4-6 hours (or more) until apples get mushy when you stir them. Stir every 30 minutes or so in the beginning, until they begin to release some of their juice, so they don't stick to the bottom and burn.

4. Put contents of pot into blender or food processor and puree.

5. Eat some before the kids devour it all. It makes approximately 24 ounces. According to the little measurement line on my tupperware bowl.

The first time I did this, I used apples that we had had for weeks. Seriously, they were almost going bad. And it was SOOOOOOOOO good. It was really sweet and tasted like it had cinnamon in it and everything. Ask mom, she had some. The second time, I did not stir the apples for almost an hour and a half because I forgot they were cooking. So when I did, all the apples on the bottom were burned. Great, just wasted all those apples, right? Nope! The sauce came out really dark and had a very different flavor. I thought it kind of tasted like sweet potatoes. Ricky thought it tasted like guava candy from Guatemala. Emily had some of that batch. The third batch had no problems and was not nearly as good as the first two, but it's still good and the kids love it.