Resolutions in Action: Applesauce!

I was making this applesauce while writing yesterday's post about doughless pizza.  If I had finished the applesauce before the post, I would NEVER have wasted my Swagu joke on the pizza because this sauce has me swearing never to storebuy applesauce again--but, alas, you could only use a bad joke once.  

In the spirit of some serious multi-tasking, I was also mid-way through the BEST pep talk from my mom, who always seems to know when I need some tough love and when I just need my mom to tell me that I'm great.  So, it's only fitting that today you get a recipe PLUS a kefi story about MamaKef, making today's post a... kefcipe?

Every year, my mom would strap the KefSiblings, our friends, their siblings, and whoever else happened to be around into our cranberry Toyota Camry and schlepped us past the 8 apple farms within 10 miles of our house to THE BEST apple farm in our neck of the woods: Wright's Apple Orchard. We would wander the orchard for a few hours, compete over who found the "most perfect" apple, and inevitably recreate the rotten apple fight scene from The Wizard of Oz.  At this point, my mother would remind us of the sign we passed upon entering the orchard, which promises (and I quote) that those who steal fruit will be "shot on sight."  Not wanting to die at the hands of an overzealous apple farmer, we'd mosey back to the farm stand, eat some homemade apple-cider donuts that were made for us while we watched, get some homemade pumpkin ice cream to bring home, and then hit the road, the Camry all the heavier for the 10 pounds of apples and the 7 really-full kids we were now towing.


And then the kefi would REALLY get going.  My mom would get right to cooking up some apple crisp, and soon the house would smell like apples and cinnamon.  I don't think apple crisp was really ever anyone's favorite--the real fun was trying to steal a cinnamon-coated apple while MamaKef's back was turned (the butter and sugar topping didn't hurt, either).  To this day, the smell of baking apples ALWAYS makes me think of those afternoon cooking sessions post-orchard (and, frequently, post-being-sent-to-my-room-for-being-bad-at-the-orchard). 

Now that I've gotten all Little House on the Orchard on you, this one goes out to MamaKef, the original Apple Whisperer.  


Apple Sauce So Good You'll Smack Your Mama*

Ingredients:

• 8 apples ( I used 4 Granny Smith and 4 Fuiji- but would have substituted the latter Macintosh if I could have found them this time of year) 
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1 TBS honey (feel free to use more or less. Sweeter your apples, less honey you need)
• 1/4c water 

Assembly

1.  Preheat the oven to 425. Peel and core the apples. This is easier than it sounds-- I used a potato peeler and a knife and it took about 8 minutes. They do not need to be pretty.

2. Mix the lemon juice in with the apples, then mix the spices, then the honey, and then pour the water in. Mix everything around again. 


3. Pour apples into 9 X 13 glass baking pan.  Bake for 40 minutes, stirring apples at halfway point to avoid burnt tops.  Apples will be mushy and more liquid will have formed in pan.


4. Remove from oven, let cool for ten minutes.  Either manually mash apples for a chunkier sauce, or throw everything into the food processor and puree to the consistency you like. (Beware though-- I was LITERALLY licking my food processor because this was so good and those blades are sharp!)


(*unless your mama is like my mama... then maybe you just want to high-five her)