Applesauce

The last week and a half has been a little nuts. First I was out of town and then caught a nasty cold that knocked me out for most of this week. Anyway, let's get down to business. We are now officially in Fall and being a New England girl Fall means apple picking and making fun things with apples. While I didn't go apple picking, I saw a recipe for home made applesauce on Simply Recipes and had to try it out. It was so unbelievably easy and tasty that I doubt I will ever buy canned applesauce again!

Applesauce
From simplyrecipes.com
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.

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.) (I used all Granny Smith)
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 1/2 cup of white sugar
1 cup of water
1/2 teaspoon of salt

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.

I halved the recipe, except for the amount of cinnamon stick, since I love cinnamon and it came out perfectly. I had some co-workers taste test it and they all agreed. Enjoy!