Homemade Applesauce!
Nothing quite as delicious as homemade spicy applesauce!

As you can see, we have a mature
(25 year old) and VERY productive
apple tree in our front yard. When I
bought the little wrought iron garden
 seat 20 years ago, everybody laughed about how funny it looked around our little twig of a tree! It's a genuine See Canyon apple
tree (See Canyon is just across the
 road from us here in San Luis Obispo).
These are classic, tart, firm baking apples.

As much as Mr. F and I love the kitchen,
I confess that my domestic inclinations
took a back seat to raising three children
while working full time. Most years, I
 sadly watched as the apples thunked
to the ground. When we owned our
quarter horse, Caleb Jones, Kristin and
I would gather the apples and take them
 to the stables. But rarely did we try
 to make anything out of them.

Beautiful See's Canyon Apples are the
best for baking!

This summer, the planets aligned in such
 a way that using these apples made a
lot of sense. First, on Jenny Craig, I get
a fruit snack in the evening. I had been
 in the habit of eating single servings of commercial applesauce, which I actually enjoyed. Second, with the cost of food
 going up so much and so many people
 being hungry, it just seemed unnecessarily wasteful to let these lovely fruits rot
in my green waste bin. Finally, Mr. F,
at the suggestion of my lovely
mother-in-law Charlotte, purchased
 this apple corer-slicer-peeler that
makes using the apples a breeze!

The next step was to find a recipe I
liked! I needed something that was
Jenny-compliant but tasty!

Our 25 year old Apple Tree produces
 enough for three families!

As you can see from this label, this
recipe is nutritious and not a calorie nightmare. The 175 g serving
(about 3/4 cup) is quite generous
(I usually eat about 1/2 cup instead).
 

After doing some looking around, I found a recipe I could adapt on Simply Recipes.

Here is my version:
3-4 lbs of peeled, cored apples
1/2 tsp McCormick California Lemon Peel
3 inches cinnamon stick
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp lemon or lime juice
1 cup water
1/2 tsp salt

Directions:
Put all ingredients in large pot. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

Remove from heat and take out cinnamon stick. Mash with potato masher. Can be eaten warm or cold. Freezes well.

Here's what really makes the process
 easy! Before Mr. F bought me this
 gadget (at our local Linens 'n Things
 for $19.99), it took me about an hour
to prepare one batch of apples. This gadget peels, cores, and slices just by turning
 the handle. I prepared about 20 apples
 in 10 minutes.

Here are the apples ready to go on
the stove (this was about a triple batch).
With the corer gadget, you can make
apple rings for dehydrating, too, or
you can just use the peel feature
alone for pie apples. I made a bunch of
these, so here is our apple
pie recipe!
 

Roger's Apple Pie Recipe!