Hi Folks!
As promised, last week, here is a delightfully simple dessert that you can just fix and forget with your slow cooker. I like to use Granny Smith apples in this recipe. You may find that a different baking apple is more to your speed. If you wish to use one of the sweeter apples, you can skip adding a bit of brown sugar to the mix.
Core, peel, and chop six cups worth of apples. Toss them into your slow cooker with a cup of apple juice. For a lower sugar version, use straight up water. Add to your apple bits a half cup of dried cranberries. Toss them together with a quarter cup of brown sugar and the juice of half of a lemon. (I usually skip the lemon juice but if you want your apples not to brown much, the lemon juice is a good step.)
Cook the whole mess (a technical term that means a lot of stuff, I get it from my southern relatives!) on low heat in your slow cooker four to six hours. You then have a choice to make. If you want some what chunky apple sauce, take out your potato masher and go to town on that puppy. Stop when it is close to how squished up (yet more technical terms, these from my boys!) you want your applesauce to be. If you want it to be really smooth, transfer your cooked apples to your blender or food processor. Whip that through a few times until it is the consistency you desire. Work in small batches this way you can control the consistency and reduce the risk of accidentally burning yourself in the process.
The nice thing about homemade apple sauce is that the whole house can smell like apple pie when you get home from work. If you want your apple sauce to taste like apple pie just put a teaspoon of apple pie seasoning in with it all when you're mixing the brown sugar in. This is a recipe that freezes well. (Make sure to label your containers when you are freezing it this way you don't do like I did last week and mix it up with your soup stock and grab the wrong thing in the morning.)
![]()
As promised, last week, here is a delightfully simple dessert that you can just fix and forget with your slow cooker. I like to use Granny Smith apples in this recipe. You may find that a different baking apple is more to your speed. If you wish to use one of the sweeter apples, you can skip adding a bit of brown sugar to the mix.
Core, peel, and chop six cups worth of apples. Toss them into your slow cooker with a cup of apple juice. For a lower sugar version, use straight up water. Add to your apple bits a half cup of dried cranberries. Toss them together with a quarter cup of brown sugar and the juice of half of a lemon. (I usually skip the lemon juice but if you want your apples not to brown much, the lemon juice is a good step.)
Cook the whole mess (a technical term that means a lot of stuff, I get it from my southern relatives!) on low heat in your slow cooker four to six hours. You then have a choice to make. If you want some what chunky apple sauce, take out your potato masher and go to town on that puppy. Stop when it is close to how squished up (yet more technical terms, these from my boys!) you want your applesauce to be. If you want it to be really smooth, transfer your cooked apples to your blender or food processor. Whip that through a few times until it is the consistency you desire. Work in small batches this way you can control the consistency and reduce the risk of accidentally burning yourself in the process.
The nice thing about homemade apple sauce is that the whole house can smell like apple pie when you get home from work. If you want your apple sauce to taste like apple pie just put a teaspoon of apple pie seasoning in with it all when you're mixing the brown sugar in. This is a recipe that freezes well. (Make sure to label your containers when you are freezing it this way you don't do like I did last week and mix it up with your soup stock and grab the wrong thing in the morning.)