Awesomesauce!

Applesauce, dudes. That's the word of the day. I love applesauce, but it's so hard to find the good stuff in the stores. It's usually so sweet I feel like it should say Hershey's on the label. Or the "strawberry applesauce", which -- upon a closer look at the ingredients -- is actually just applesauce with Red #40 in it. Mmm . . . Red #40! Just like mom used to make! And don't even get my started on the ingredient list! Even the supposedly unsweetened natural applesauces have an ingredient list so foreign that I might as well be reading my shampoo bottle. All science aside, it really burns my ass when the first ingredient in something this simple is water. Um, helloooo! APPLEsauce. Not WATERsauce with apple flavoring. Jerks.

Anyway, I was pissed about this a while back so I decided I was just going to make my own. I mean, how hard could it be? It's apples and sauce, right? Well it turns out I was dead wrong. It's not made up of apples and sauce. It's actually just apples, and it's actually way easier than I ever imagined. It's simple, fast, and so wholesome you can feel good about eating it all the time. And best of all, YOU are the captain of the SS Applesauce when you decide how much of what to add to enhance your delicious, rustic applesauce. Shall we begin?

Take ordinary apples and peel them with an ordinary vegetable peeler.


I'd like to draw your attention to something here: you don't have to be perfect when you peel the apples.

Leaving a little skin (just a little) on the apples makes for a more interesting look and texture in the finished product. Just don't go crazy. You're looking for "rustic", not "nasty".

Next, give your apples the potato treatment and cut them into fairly equally-sized chunks. Make sure you cut the core out. If you have one of those things that looks like a wagon wheel that cores and slices your apples at the same time, now would be a good time to get it out. I'm a caveman and don't have one, so I just used a knife. Anyway, just cut up the dang apples, and throw the cores in the trash.

Just like potatoes, throw those evenly-sized chunks into a pot large enough to hold them.


Unlike potatoes, do not add any water! Take them to the stove and cook them over very low heat.


Make sure you take your NCAA bracket off the stove before you start cooking. Safety first. Don't be like me. Anyway, the only real tricky thing here is resisting the temptation to add water. Apples are approximately 99.999% water, so they don't need any extra. If you start them cooking on low heat, you'll start to draw enough water out of them that it won't scorch the apples on the bottom of the pot. If you're a fraidy cat, go ahead and add a tiny amount of water (just enough to cover the bottom of the pot) before you put the apples on the stove.

As more water gets drawn out of the apples, you can turn the heat up to a medium-low setting. Just toss them around occasionally until they soften up some. How soft, you ask? Soft enough to use this:


It took me just about 10-15 minutes of slow cooking to get the apples soft enough to mash. I like to mash with the heat still on for the first minute or so. The reason for this is because mashing squishes out even more water, and the heat will cook it off. We don't want to lose all the moisture, obviously, so take the apples off the heat after about a minute and keep mashing.


It's a good way to let go of some aggression. Mash away until the applesauce is the consistency you want it to be. If you like you applesauce a little on the chunky side, stop sooner. If you like it more on the puree side of town, keep going 'til the neighbors complain. That's the beauty of this: it's completely up to you.

Ta-da! Applesauce!

Ingredients: Apples

Spoon some into a cup and enjoy it plain, like this:


Believe me when I tell you, friendo, that there are few things better than warm, fresh applesauce. OR you can try it like this:


Ingredients: apples, cinnamon, nutmeg

Mmm, that's the good stuff. Play around with additions. My personal favorite thing to do is add a dash of ground cloves. I like to pretend it's a little more sophisticated. Now, if you feel bound and determined to add sugar, I would recommend adding it during the cooking process so you don't end up with a gritty (nasty) finished product, but do yourself a favor and try it in its pure form first. You'll thank me later.

Best of all, from start to finish, it took me less than a half hour to eat applesauce. I made this when I should have been getting ready to go to work. It's such a low maintenance recipe that I actually made it while I was making and eating breakfast and then making my lunch for the day (which you can bet your boots included homemade applesauce). Top dry cereal with it, add it as a snack to your sack lunch, whip it out when you're having pork chops for dinner. People will be very impressed, just so long as you never, ever tell them how easy it is.

I won't tell if you won't.

Awesomesauce
Ingredients:
Apples (yield approx. 1/2 cup of sauce for every apple)
Cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, etc. to taste

Peel, core, and slice apples.
Cook over low heat for 2-5 minutes, increase heat to medium-low. Cook, stirring occasionally until apples are tender, 5-10 minutes.
Mash approx. 1 minute.
Turn off the heat and continue mashing until apples reach desired consistency.
Optional: mix in desired spices in desired amounts to taste.
Devour. Feel good about life.