Monday, December 14, 2009

Make Something Monday ... Homemade Applesauce

Make Something Monday

Since working from home I'm trying my best to do cost cutting things. Now I gave up daycare cost but I now have lunch cost at home for Caden. To keep this budget in control I've been doing good and healthy lunches but then I noticed the cost of the applesauce. That boy can go threw a jar in a week. Time to try making some! Who knew it could be that easy ... ok my mom who has told me time and time again it's easy but well you know who listens to their parents. Certainly not my kids ... LOL. So here it goes!

Applesauce Recipe

Preparation time: 45 minutes. The sugar amounts are just guidelines, depending your taste, and on the sweetness of your apples, use less or more. If you use less sugar, you'll likely want to use less lemon juice. The lemon juice brightens the flavor of the apples and balances the sweetness.

Ingredients

  • 3 to 4 lbs of peeled, cored, and quartered apples. (Make sure you use a good cooking apple like Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, Fuji, Jonathan, Mcintosh, or Gravenstein.)
  • 4 strips of lemon peel - use a vegetable peeler to strip 4 lengths
  • Juice of one lemon, about 3-4 Tbsp
  • 3 inches of cinnamon stick
  • 1/4 cup of dark brown sugar
  • up to 1/4 cup of white sugar
  • 1 cup of water
  • 1/2 teaspoon of salt

Method

1 Put all ingredients into a large pot. Cover. Bring to boil. Lower heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes.

2 Remove from heat. Remove cinnamon sticks and lemon peels. Mash with potato masher.

Ready to serve, either hot or refrigerated. Delicious with vanilla ice cream or vanilla yogurt.

Freezes easily, lasts up to one year in a cold freezer.

One of my favorite sites gave me this: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/applesauce/

Now this one I loved it had a great lemon flavor, I don't think it was Caden's favorite, I think I'll try a less fancy one for him. P.S. I have no clue why there is butter in the picture, just go with it! Plus I used the jar that I bought at Wal-Mart to reuse for this project. Plus I won this bag of Ideal from my girl at Firefly awhile back and I've been trying to cut back on sugar so it's the best to cook with!

15 comments:

  1. Yum girl, if you kept cooking it with some butter you would have made apple butter! I have a small amount left, and am making apple pie with it today...

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  2. This I actually know how to make and love!

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  3. Making applesauce with my mom growing up is one of my fondest memories. Fun times! My favorite was adding red hots to make it cinnimon flavored applesauce. Homemade is the best!

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  4. You did awesome to make applesauce! I have a couple big grocery bags of apples that my MIL gave me that I need to use up-I think I'll be doing some applesauce too! Either that or lots of pies-that would make Rich happy! LOL! :-)

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  5. This sounds like a fun project to do with the kiddos.

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  6. Okay, I put a star on this one.
    You really have time for this! I barely have time to shower!!!

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  7. Heh! I have twelve cases of quarts in my basement. I did so much applesauce this year I have food mill elbow!

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  8. Oh this looks delish! (and I'm sure my kids would eat it) Thanks for posting:)

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  9. oooh this sounds wonderful!!!

    homemade too, huh!

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  10. Yum. I enjoy reading about these recipes more than actually trying them, but hats off to you.

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  11. Oh it looks so good and yummy :) thanks for the shout :) love your Ideal hahahha

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  12. I love homemade applesauce but my kids (jerks) won't eat it. They are weird.

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  13. This actually sounds really good. I don't like regular store bought applesauce because it is too sweet and mushy, but with this, you can control that. I think I could actually try this and pick my own flavor of apples.
    Thanks for the recipe - you're the best!! :-)

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Commments welcome, helps me know the people in the wall really do exsist!