Applesauce

The perfect fall activity is taking a trip to the apple orchard. But what are you going to do with all those apples?? Unless you really do "eat an apple a day to keep your doctor away" you're going to have some leftovers that are going to start going bad. Applesauce is one of the easiest things to make from scratch.

Ingredients

Apples

Brown Sugar

Cinnamon

Ground Gloves

Ground Ginger

Orange Juice

Water

* peel and chop your apples - it doesn't matter how many (more just makes a bigger batch) or what kind. Pick your favorite or mix and match to get your own unique flavor.  

* Place apples in a pot on the stove on low heat. 

* add a splash of orange juice and a little water - this adds a tiny flavor and gets the process moving. Don't like/have oj? skip it. 

* Stir occasionally, let the apples cook down.  You can stop whenever your applesauce is your desired chunkiness. The longer you cook it the less chunks you'll have.

* Remove from heat and add brown sugar to your desired sweetness. (a little brown sugar goes further than you think. you can always add more, so start with a smaller amount than you think you need)

* Add in spices (ground ginger, ground cloves, ground cinnamon)

* Taste, Taste, Taste. and then taste some more cuz you'll love it and want to eat the whole batch at once. 

Kids LOVES homemade applesauce and you know exactly what is in this batch. The past few days that's all I can seem to get my son to eat! It's the perfect baby food too, saves money, you can make a big batch at once, and you can add however much sugar you want to it (hint hint Nate ;) ) Don't be afraid of spices either, try new ones and even kids have a better palate than we think they do. If you expose them to lots of different things early they'll shy away from that dreaded picky-eater syndrome. 

Serve it hot or cold, either way it's delicious!