Homemade Applesauce!

I bought a big bag of apples for a hackathon and nobody ate them (hackers prefer red bull and burritos). By the time I brought them home they were a little bruised, plus I could never have eaten all of those apples. What to do? I channeled my inner Laura Ingalls Wilder and made some homemade applesauce! I can’t remember where I found the recipe but this one from Hell Yeah It’s Vegan!, another awesome food blog, looks about right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ingredients

• several pounds of apples
• lemon juice
• ½ c water; more as needed
• sugar, cinnamon, and cloves as desired

Instructions

1. Roughly chop apples.
2. Lightly sprinkle apples with lemon juice (for color and tartness).
3. Place chopped apples and water in a large, thick-bottomed pot.
4. Cover pot and bring to a boil. Quickly, liquid should start to cook out of the apple chunks, which will help cook them down further.
5. Simmer apples over low heat until they’re very soft and can be easily mashed with a large spoon or potato masher. Stir apples occasionally, and if necessary, add a small amount of water and/or reduce heat to ensure nothing sticks to the bottom of the pot.
6. Place food mill over a large bowl and add as much of the apple mixture as will reasonably fit.
7. To avoid making your applesauce too thin, let the mixture sit in your food mill for half an hour so any excess apple juice can drain out. (You can discard the syrupy liquid or keep it in your refrigerator for flavoring drinks — try stirring some in with your seltzer!).
8. Turn the handle of your food mill clockwise, pressing the apples through the sieve.
9. Every several turns, rotate the handle counter-clockwise half a turn; it’ll scrape up any skins and seeds blocking the mesh.
10. Continue rotating handle clockwise until only dry, tough skins and seeds remain in your food mill.
11. Transfer applesauce to containers and refrigerate or freeze until using. If you want flavored applesauce, you can stir in sugar and spices at this point. If you’ll be freezing your applesauce, be sure to leave room at the top of your chosen containers for expansion.