Homemade Applesauce

Thanks for all the well-wishes on my new employment endeavor y’all! If you missed the news, check out my Letters from LC post. (It’s also where we all dreamed of wonderful vacation spots we’d go to right now if we could, including some of my favorites – Italy, Greece, France, and some mountainous/ woody location, like Bronwood, GA!)

Can I just say that after months of staying home alone each day, after having moved to a new city, searching and searching for jobs that it is just plain weird to think I’m working? Especially when it’s so fun! Working on this fundraiser is almost like planning a big corporate wedding. You have the fun things, the detailed nitty gritty things, but to me it’s all fun! And random, but I think by being out and about working today, interacting with people, and going on a fun date to a pizza parlor with the hubs tonight, I think I started to like our city a tiny bit more.

Now for my homemade applesauce post. (I’m sorry I didn’t post this recipe this AM! Please bear with me as I try to get myself into a routine schedule of work hours, working out, blogging, and life.)

Homemade Applesauce

I saw I had four rather mushy looking apples in my fruit bowl, and decided to make some homemade applesauce. I first peeled, cored and cut the fruit into bite size pieces and put them all in a medium sauce pan.

I then added 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract (inspiration from the applesauce I saw Lindsay make around Christmas time!), 2 Tablespoons water, and a grating of fresh nutmeg. (You can use pre-ground nutmeg, but whole nutmegs are a recent obsession of mine, and are so wonderful in terms of flavor!) The below picture gives you an idea of how much nutmeg I grated.

In case you’ve never used a whole nutmeg, here’s what the inside of one looks like (I think it’s so pretty!)

I also added 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon. Then all you have to do is put the pan over low heat and let it simmer away until the apples are tender. You’ll be able to walk away for bits at a time, watch something on tv, read a blog, and just enjoy the wonderful baked cinnamon apple aroma as it fills your home.

Once the apples are tender, I let mine cool a few moments. If you want a chunkier applesauce you can use a potato masher, or if you want a smoother applesauce (like what I made) you can use an immersion blender or blend all the soft apples in a blender.

Once the apples have cooked down and you have blended them, it won’t make very much applesauce. I probably had about a cup, maybe a little over. However to me, this was the perfect recipe. Sweet but not artificial (only sweetness is from the apples themselves!), and pure comfort food level with the vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg. And I’m sure this can be made with any kind of apples you have lying around and you can scale the ingredients (apples, vanilla, water, nutmeg, cinnamon) to the number of apples you use.

Here’s the final product on top a gingersnap (great combo!)

So much better than store bought applesauce! Why buy it when you can do it yourself?

Well I’m off to go watch our weekend redbox movie rental! The Swing Vote is on the agenda for tonight, I hope it’s good!

What do y’all have planned for the weekend? For moi – a little shopping, nutriton studying, cleaning, running, churching, relaxing, yada yada yada. Maybe a free comedy show in the area Sunday night. And funny/ semi-downer – we were planning on a long weekend since hubs doesn’t teach on MLK day Monday, but now I have to work! I work!! God is so good.

Much love y’all!