Applesauce

Mmmmm, homemade applesauce. Azure Standard had 20# of organic end of season Gala apples for $9.60! That's a lot of yummy goodness for less that 10 bucks. Since they were end of season, they weren't really good for fresh eating. I knew this when I bought them, so made plans to just sauce them.
I decided I just had to have a jar of apple butter too. I mean, who wouldn't, right?


I like simple. So I don't do the whole peel, core, quarter business. I hack them in half with a big knife and dump them in a big pan.
See? Lots of apples in a big pan. I don't yet have a giant stainless stockpot, just an enamel one. I didn't feel like cleaning apple goo out of my big canner, so I did a few batches in my awesome All-Clad pan. It worked fine, just took longer.

Once the apples are soft, I put them in the hopper of one of my bestest Goodwill finds ever. A complete and practically new Victorio Strainer. I think I paid around $7 for it and it was worth every penny. It is one of the best kitchen tools ever. Whole cooked foods go in, perfectly strained foods come out. Fast. And the kids love turning the handle. See all that sauce? And another great thing is that because I cooked the cores and peels too, the sauce has a rich color and is really high in pectin. The applesauce is creamy, not watery or chunky. I like chunky too, but that creamy feeling is really different from store-bought applesauce. Well, let's face it. It's homemade, so there are so many things better about it!
For the apple butter, I took a few ladle-fulls out of the bowl and put them in a smaller pan. I sprinkled on some cinnamon, cloves and ginger and boiled it until it was super thick and spicy brown. yummmmm.

Are you hungry yet?