Homemade Crockpot Applesauce

A co-worker of my husband's owns what used to be an orchard.  He hasn't kept it up since it wasn't profitable, but there are still a number of trees that are producing.  This week this is what he gave my husband on Thursday.

Free fruit?  The answer is always yes.



These apples are on the smaller side, but they pack a punch in flavor.  I knew it was time to get out the crockpot and make some applesauce.  After searching Pinterest for a recipe, I noticed they all had pretty much the same ingredients.  So I just peeled and cut up 20 apples, dumped in some white and brown sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, and a bit of water.  I tasted one of two of the apple bits to see if it was sweet enough.  Tasted good to me, so I popped on the top of the crockpot and let it cook on low for about six hours.

I actually could have just eaten this with a spoon.  I always use a crockpot liner.  These things are one of the greatest inventions ever!

 

We had a football game to go to but when we got home the house smelled amazing.  I mashed up the apples with a potato masher and then ran them through my food processor.  Ta-da!  Homemade applesauce.

 

We'll leave one out to eat and freeze the rest.  We have a food saver that vacuums all the air out of bags and seals them.  This has been a great investment.  We use it for when I make a big old pot of soup or lasagna.  Half of it goes into the freezer for a quick meal at a later date.  My husband had the brilliant idea to freeze more liquid-y things in containers first, then pop them out and vacu-seal them.  This is great because you don't have to worry about the liquid getting sucked up into the machine.  So I put the applesauce into these two little containers.  Once they're frozen, they'll go into a food saver bag to be vacu-sealed.

 

 

These containers were what my deli lunch meat comes in at Aldi.  I've been washing them out and saving them.  They are perfect for freezing things that are made in big batches into reasonable portions.  I used them for the salsa we made and then froze a couple of weeks ago. I also use them when I make a huge batch of refried beans in the crockpot.

Now I only have to do this about ten or fifteen more times to use up all these apples.  Hmmm.  Maybe I better get back to Pinterest to find some other recipes.



Kim