applesauce, an experiment

Avalon (our house) smells like fall tonight; it even seems like a fall day outside right now: 62 degrees Farenheit, windy and rainy. Why, you ask, does it smell like fall in our house? Well, with the breeze and the rain it felt perfect for a fire, then add to that the smell of boiling apples and voila! you have the scent of fall.

Why, you ask, am I boiling apples? Well, the apple trees (pictured right) outside our back door (which produce a MacIntosh-ish looking apple) and another tree at the edge of the road (which produce a yellow apple) are what Bob, the Farm's nature/woods/weather expert, calls early apples. Apple that are considered early apples are, as the term suggests, earlier to bloom than most other varieties, whose fruit comes into season meaning they come in to season in thef fall. The apples on said early fruiting trees has just been dropping into our yard for a little over a week and while I love running over the apples with the lawn mower--opening up the fruit as an offering to the bees and wasps--and throwing them when I am frustrated, I realized that I didn't want all that fruit to go to waste. "This is the day that I make my first batch of applesauce!" I told myself earlier today.

Anything worth having is worth working for so it just felt right to go out in the rain this afternoon and pick the apples off the ground; pick the ripe apples straight from the tree; pick everything except for the rotten ones.  This is how I made the applesauce:

• Cut apples into chunks (toss in everthing, saves time) and toss into pots (leave room in pots so you are able to stir)
• Add a little apple juice or water so bottom of pots don't scorch
• Keep pots over medium/high heat, covered
• Stir frequently
• When apple chunks are soft, put in a food mill and grind until the cows come home...or until all you have left in your food mill is the junk (this includes seeds, cores, stems)
• Season with a little cinnamon if you like that particular taste, sugar if the apples weren't sweet enough for your sensibilities (I made about a gallon of applesauce and added a few tablespoons of cinnamon and about a quarter cup of sugar to it since my apples were a little tart--just to give you an idea)

I had first thought that I would can my applesauce to enjoy at a later date, but I think I am going to donate my applesauce to the Farm kitchen to see if people like it. Ah, that's right, guinea-pigging the community to test my recipes. Wish me luck!