Applesauce!

What does one do when the U-Pick apples that you got back in October are about to be past their prime, and you also have some apple cider that expires tomorrow?  Why, I’ll tell you – you grab your handy dandy new stand mixer, a pot, a peeler, and make applesauce!

I just kind of made this up on the fly, but it turned out well.

First, I peeled all the apples.  We had 12 left of various sizes and varieties (I know we had picked Cortland, Golden Delicious, Macoun, Empire, Cameo, and possibly a couple others that I cannot remember).  I only roughly peeled them -- not worrying about bits of skin left on the apples -- I wanted the final product to be somewhat rustic.

Then, I poured what was left of the apple cider into the pot.  I am guessing there was about a cup and a half worth at the most.  I added some water (this turned out to be unnecessary – more on that later), and put it on the stove to cook.

I brought it to a boil and let it simmer (covered) for about 20 minutes.  After 20 minutes it looked like this:

Next, it was time to whizz it up using the stick blender.

At this point, I decided that it was too thin and runny, but luckily I had cheesecloth on had.  So, I lined a colander with the cheesecloth and poured the applesauce in to drain out some of the liquid.

After draining (at least a half hour later), it looked like this:

The last thing I did was add a pinch of sugar and a pinch of cinnamon, which changed the color slightly, as seen in the very first picture above.

Yummy!  The applesauce was very smooth, definitely much smoother than you'd be used to with store-bought stuff.  If you want that store-bought texture, perhaps a simple potato masher would be better suited than a blender of any type.  :)