Applesauce

I may have mentioned that Ted is now working for a small local company, writing, directing, and editing a show called, “Fresh From the Farmers’ Market”. The show spotlights the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market, and plays on a local station on Sundays at 4:30. They did a Hanukkah show, and one of the things they talk about is applesauce. From listening to the show over and over again (Ted edits the show at his desk, which is right next to my work desk, all in our bedroom. Bad feng shui, I know, having your office in your bedroom. Worse feng shui would be being homeless because I don’t have a job.), I learned that the proper apple ratio for making applesauce is 2-1-1. That is, 2 tart apples, and 2 different sweet apples. I know I’ve mentioned this before. Sorry. Anyway, Saturday was the first night of Hanukkah, so we decided to celebrate with a feast…Roast Chicken, latkes, applesauce, sour cream, green beans. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to just use the apples and cook them down, though of course I know that’s healthiest. I wanted a bit more for my applesauce, so I went looking online. I found an Ina Garten recipe, but it called for butter, which seemed really strange in applesauce. Butter? I pink puffy heart butter, but in its own time and place. Not sure that applesauce is the right place. So I found another recipe that looked pretty good. It didn’t say anything about a 2-1-1 ratio, but otherwise it had what I was looking for. So I went for it. Ready? Here’s the recipe.

Applesauce

Ingredients

• 3 to 4 lbs of peeled, cored, and quartered apples. (Make sure you use a good cooking apple like Golden Delicious, Jonagold, Granny Smith, Fuji, Jonathan, Mcintosh, or Gravenstein.) (J’s note…go for the mixture of tart and sweet.  It rocks.)
• 4 strips of lemon peel – use a vegetable peeler to strip 4 lengths
• Juice of one lemon, about 3-4 Tbsp
• 3 inches of cinnamon stick
• 1/4 cup of dark brown sugar
• up to 1/4 cup of white sugar (J’s note – I didn’t use any white sugar.  The 1/4 cup of brown was plenty, along with the sweetness of the apples.)
• 1 cup of water
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt

Method

1. Put all ingredients into a large pot. Cover. Bring to boil. Lower heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes.
2. Remove from heat. Remove cinnamon sticks and lemon peels. Mash with potato masher.  (J’s note – I put the apples in the food processor.  There was a bit more liquid than I wanted, so I used a spoon to scoop the apples out and put them into the bowl of the processor.  There wasn’t a LOT too much liquid, but a bit.)

Serve, cold, warm, or room temperature.

The result? Really, really good applesauce. We don’t eat a lot of applesauce around here, but I kind of think if we always had this around, we might. Delicious.