When Life Gives You Apples..

It has been downright cool the last few days.  Enough so that a light sweater outside is perfect.  The last couple of years our apple picking has slipped passed us and we have headed out late in the season, when the best, in my opinion, were over.  This year with the onset of crisp air, I jumped on it and we spent some time Monday exploring a new, to us, orchard about 45 minutes from here.  It wasn't the pick your own that we are used to.  They pick and then we get to sample and load up on all we want.  Very reasonably priced too.

I was especially impressed with the reduced price "seconds".  These are the fruit that have some minor blemish on them, and they were selling for $1 a pound.  Fantastic!  These morsels rarely had a bruise, mostly an abnormality in the skin that for whatever reason tainted their appeal (pun intended ;).  Well not for me!  What do you do when life gives you apples??  Make applesauce, of course.  Yesterday after work, I opened all of the windows to let in the fall-like breeze and began slicing and dicing.


Of the many applesauce recipes that I have made over the years, I find that the easiest is always the best.  I don't like it too sweet so for a large pile o' apples (20) I used 1/2 C sugar, 2 1/4 C water and 2 tsp. cinnamon.  I let it simmer for about 45 minutes and then gently took an immersion blender to smooth it out, but only a little bit, some chunks are just fine!  The batch made six pints of applesauce which I processed in a hot water bath for 20 minutes.

I'm thrilled that we so eagerly began the season, Charles wonders why we bothered canning them, they won't last a week!  Well, I have good incentive to make more batches of my four ingredient applesauce, so we can taste the first glimpse of fall the rest of the year! 

Monday evening we finished watching the Walton's with the kids.  All nine seasons plus the movie specials, all in order over about 18 months.  Tonight I am including the applesauce in an old fashioned applesauce cake for B's birthday.  A favorite made by Livy Walton, and a little taste of the simplicity that we strive for.  A happiest of birthdays to my 'old fool'!