This past weekend it appeared that a lot of my friends were hitting up the local apple orchards, as a lot of Facebook status updates mentioned apple butter, applesauce, and apple cider. Though there aren't any apple orchards near to Laramie, I didn't let this fact thwart me. Instead, I headed to the local Safeway and bought a bag of organic gala apples. Once home I set to work making applesauce -- I decided to use my slow cooker as I didn't have any desire to babysit a big pot of sauce simmering away on the stovetop. I set the slow cooker to "low" around 5 p.m. and let it cook overnight -- wow, the house smelled great in the morning! A quick whirl of the immersion blender, and the applesauce was ready to eat. It tasted just like a mouthful of Autumn.
Homemade Applesauce (printer-friendly version)
makes about 5 cups
3 lbs organic apples (about 10 small apples)
1/2 cup hot water
juice from organic lemon
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon anise seeds
2 cinnamon sticks
1. Wash the apples. Core and quarter each apple. (You can also peel the apples if desired.) Place the diced apples in a 4 qt slow cooker bowl.
2. Pour in the water and lemon juice.
3. Add in the brown sugar, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, anise seeds, and cinnamon sticks. (Or season to your preference.)
4. Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook on low for 8-10 hours.
5. Remove the cinnamon sticks. Use a food ricer or immersion blender to puree the applesauce to a smooth texture, or leave chunky.
No comments:
Post a Comment