An ode to applesauce
Like eating pie filling ... without the shame
Let me just say, I’m probably the last person in the world who should be writing an ode to applesauce. I’m naturally suspicious of cooking any fruit or vegetable beyond steaming (maybe braising/baking) because I hate to lose the nutrients, and I only keep bland, store-bought applesauce (which really has almost no nutritional value whatsoever) on hand for baking (it’s a fabulous substitute for vegetable oil).
But, somehow I found myself in the kitchen the other day with several extraneous Braeburn and Pink Lady apples, trying to figure out what to do with them. I couldn’t find an apple bread recipe (because my new default for extra food has become “Can I make it into a bread?” after this delicious experiment) that struck my fancy and I certainly did not want to start making a pie at 10:30 p.m. So, what to do, what to do…
I have made my own applesauce before, so I poked online again to find a suitable recipe, coming across this one that would also let me use up a lemon in my refrigerator that was getting to the “use it or lose it” phase. The recipe notes that the “lemon juice brightens the flavor of the apples and balances the sweetness,” which I thought was just a comment to make regular ol’ applesauce seem fancier/more pretentious than it really was.
But, seriously, those recipe writers were not messing around: This applesauce was like the best thing ever. Super-great apple flavor, not too sweet (seriously, keep tasting it before you add more sugar — I think you’ll be surprised by how little you need), a rich cinnamon-nutmeg flavor (I added quite a bit of each to taste). And, if you’ll notice, there wasn’t one bit of added fat to the recipe, which made it a relatively sinless side dish (Or, *cough* main course, if you have no shame like someone writing this blog).
I’m hesitant to ever deviate from this recipe again considering how magical it was, but another one that caught my eye in my researching process was this one from Alton Brown. Brandy, butter and honey? It’s just a Wisconsinite’s dream, is all.
From Simply Recipes
Ingredients
- 3 to 4 lbs of peeled, cored, and quartered apples. (Make sure you use a good cooking apple like Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, Fuji, Jonathan, Mcintosh, or Gravenstein.) (KC note: Basically, the only apple I’ve been told is a bad cooking apple is Red Delicious, so you can use pretty much whatever you have on hand. Also, I cut them a bit smaller than this because I wasn’t feeling like busting out a potato masher or blender at the end).
- 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 (KC: I used powdered cinnamon and nutmeg to taste, even though I had stick cinnamon. I’m not sure why)
- 1/4 cup of dark brown sugar
- up to 1/4 cup of white sugar (KC: I don’t think I even used this)
- 1 cup of water (KC: You may want to start with a bit less and add it as you need some, if you prefer a chunky sauce like me)
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt (KC: Yep, totally forgot about this. I should probably print recipes out before I start cooking…)
Method
Put all ingredients into a large pot. Cover. Bring to boil. Lower heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes. (KC: Yeah, this is pretty much it. Awesome, eh?)
Remove from heat. Remove cinnamon sticks and lemon peels. Mash with potato masher (KC: or not).
Ready to serve, either hot or refrigerated. Delicious with vanilla ice cream or vanilla yogurt. (KC: True that).
Freezes easily, lasts up to one year in a cold freezer. (KC: LOL. Like I had any to freeze).
