Homemade Applesauce

We tried a new variety of apples last week that went over like a lead Frisbee.  What to do with a bowl of beautiful, crispy but bland apples?  Add lemon juice and make applesauce!  I figure if the lemon doesn't add enough tang to liven up the taste, I can at least use it in my baking as a substitute for oil!

The applesauce turned out quite tasty.  It's so easy to make, I regret not getting a bushel or two of apples last fall. It seems by October and November I am burnt out from all the previous canning.

To make the applesauce, I just peeled and cored the apples I had on hand and put them in a thick bottomed stock pot to simmer with about a half cup of water (just to prevent scorching).  I also added the juice from one lemon.  Then I just let it simmer for a couple of hours.  Since our family loves chunky applesauce, I only mashed about half of the soft apples down to sauce consistency.  You can stop there, but sometimes I add apple pie spice or cinnamon candy red hots.  This time I added a few packets of Stevia as I prefer not to add sugar and called it good.  And it is!

Old Fashioned Comfort Food and New Fashioned Reactions

I have a friend in the hospital after undergoing major back surgery and I have a Pastor who gives of himself more than there seem to be hours in the day.  I also have a daughter in a pre-calculus class that celebrates Pi day on March 14, of course!  Well, it was a good day to make some home grown comfort food; chicken noodle soup and two deep dish apple pies.

I love to hear about and see the reactions of the recipients.  Sometimes I wonder if anyone cooks from scratch anymore?  Shelby was sharing the fascination one boy in her class had with the tiny apple cutouts all over the pie. Apparently, he peeled the mini apples off the top to savor later.  I asked her if anyone else made a pie.  She said nope, the rest came from the grocery store.

Lynette's reaction to the soup was even funnier.  I got to her room just as her lunch arrived.  Dick, her husband, asked the nurse to bring an empty bowl.  Before the nurse had time to even leave the room, Lynette had the cap and ring off the canning jar and was spooning mouthfuls straight out of the jar!

My Pastor, after discovering the other pie in his office, called me to ask if he should cut a slice or wait until his wife came home from work, and even if he didn't wait he wasn't sure he could cut something so pretty... People sure are amusing!

If you are interested in the recipes, I usually get them from allrecipes.com.  In the case of the chicken noodle soup, the only change I made was adding whole wheat egg noodles instead of white.  We just don't bring anything into our home that isn't whole grain.  The apple pie is here.

All Hallow's Sweets

Today, I rushed home after church to make cupcakes for our neighborhood children.  I always end up delivering them because our church has a really cool Halloween outreach that I usually photograph.  Hint: Stay tuned!

In advance, I must apologize for the photo quality.  Shelby needed to borrow my camera to take photos of the children's activities for her Interact Group (Youth Rotary) at the same Halloween event.  Without thinking, I gave her permission which left me with my camera phone to document the cute cupcakes....yup.  Not cool.

However, the cupcakes were very cool and amazingly tasty.  Homemade chocolate buttercream frosting can not be beat!  Tuck in a few forgotten autumn chipboard pieces from my scrapbook supplies and Voila! Custom cupcake cuties for the neighborhood kiddies.