My kids are sick. Jenna is coming ‘round the bend and should be ready for school tomorrow but Ian and Kara are toast. Kara’s got strep and Ian has a stomach bug…

When I went all the way to Spokane to go grocery shopping there was a man selling apples on the side of the road in the snow. I bought organic pink ladies for $.61 a pound.YUM! I ended up buying 13 pounds. That’s a lot of apples. With my sick kids I decided to make scratch applesauce.

I googled and googled and came up with this recipe from globalgourmet.com for applesauce: With the peels on! Not Cored! How easy!  Alas, it did not work out so well.

Apple Sauce

Yield 2 qts
Preparation Time :1:00

 Ingredients

• 2 cups water
• 6 lb apples quartered
• 1/2 each lemon
• 1 dash cinnamon—to taste
• 3/4 cup sugar—to taste

Preparation

1. In a large heavy pot that has a cover, put the water. Add the quartered apples, unpeeled and uncored. Add the lemon juice if the apples are bland.
2. On a high flame, cook covered until the apples are soft. Remove cover and let some water cook away,
3. Using a Foley food mill, or a colander, press the cooked apples through to separate the purée from the skins and seeds.
4. Heat the purée, and season with cinnamon and sugar as needed.

If you like chunky applesauce, cook the peels and cores and purée them, and add to the cooked chunks. Never throw away the peels and cores as they supply pectin to give the cold sauce a good consistency.

Check out what happened on my blog mtjam.com.