I enjoy applesauce, but never buy it because I am trying to eliminate high fructose corn syrup in our diet. The “Au natural” applesauce {read: bland and sour} is no good. As I was perusing Pinterest, I found a pin for homemade Crock Pot Applesauce. {Is it crock pot or crockpot? My spell correct thinks it should be crackpot!}

Since I haven’t attempted applesauce in a loooooong time, I figured I’d try this one and see how it worked out. I found bags of Gala Apples on sale at Sam’s for cheap and thus began my attempt at homemade applesauce. Here is the original recipe from Mommy Makes it Better blog.

Ingredients:

• 8 medium apples {I used Gala, but use the apples your family enjoys}
• 1 strip of lemon peel
• 1 tsp fresh lemon juice
• 3 inch cinnamon stick {I didn’t have this, I just used the spice}
• 5 tsp light brown sugar (unpacked) or agave {Dang! I had this, but opted for the brown sugar.}

  Directions:

• Peel, core and dice apples.
• Add sugar, lemon peel, lemon juice and cinnamon stick.
• Set crock pot to LOW for 6 hours.
• Stir occasionally
• Remove cinnamon stick
• Blend with immersion blender or keep chunky if you like it like that!

First, I used my mama’s crock pot. Her’s is waaaaay bigger than mine and has a fancy schmacy timer. {And I have yet to return it from when I made marinara sauce…shhh…don’t tell her.}

I peeled and diced the apples.

I really wish I had one of these:

It’s an apple peeler, corer, slicer! I saw someone use it once and it was awesome!! This may be going on my Christmas list!!

I juiced a lemon and poured it in the pot before I added the apples because I wanted to coat the apples so they wouldn’t turn brown while I hand peeled and diced the apples. I am also pretty sure I used about a Tablespoon of juice. I also didn’t add the peal because I forgot it last time and my daughter insisted that I repeat the same procedure as my first attempt.

After all that peeling and dicing, I added the brown sugar and about 1/2 Tablespoon of cinnamon and mixed it together.

I set the timer to 6 hours, but then realized the fancy shmancy crock pot was cooking on high. To get it on low, I had to set it to 7 hours and watched the clock. {Should’ve just used my old fashion 6qt non-timed crock pot!}

Once it was all mushy and smelling delicious-like, I got out my favorite kitchen gadget and blended till it was smooth! {I realized I should have used my smaller Crock Pot since I made a small batch. I had to keep scooping the apples together to blend them.}

Once it cooled, I put it all in a jar and stuck it in the fridge.

It’s supposed to last up to 3 weeks, but it never lasts more than two days at my house. Yes! It’s that good!

Two thumbs up for this Pinterest find!!

Side Note:

While I was making this, hubby was frying up some shrimp and it was making the house smell too shrimpish.

So I piled some apple peels into a pot with water and cinnamon and heated it up. Very quickly the shrimpy smell dissipated and it smelled like fall…my favorite season EVER!!