Fall in...

It's dreary.  It's like fall decided to skip my favorite parts - crisp sunny days with totally saturated colors everywhere you look.  I feel like the transition seasons seem to get shorter and shorter while summer and winter feel unbearably long.  But the temperature is increasingly appropriate for apple orchards and pumpkin farms.  My something new in the near future will be a new pumpkin farm to try.  We have been to a couple and they were good but I haven't fallen in love with one that I could turn into a tradition yet.

I have one friend that facebooked (Yep.  It's so pop-culture iconic that it's become a verb.) that she went to an apple farm and was making applesauce.  I have another friend that facebooked that she was making apple butter.  They weren't offering me any so today's new thing is:

Homemade slow-cooker applesauce
My grocery store had Michigan apples for .49lb.  I bought 3 different kinds - some for the kids to eat and some to make applesauce.  I know that some apples are for cookin' and some are for eatin'.  That's the extent of what I know about the situation.  And there was no handy apple guide on the signage so I was on my own.  Probably I could have been the crazy lady at the store who talks to strangers and asked someone if they knew which kind I should get.  But I was in my solitary head space so I didn't invite any conversation today.  We pretty much eat the apples that are red and greenish/goldenish - Fuji, Jonagold, Gala and the like.  I enjoy Granny Smith's but they weren't on sale.  I'm using Golden Delicious.  They were golden.  Whether or not they are delicious remains to be seen.  And they are already in the crock-pot so any feedback is superfluous at this point...

I personalized the recipe from what I refer to as my magic crock-pot book.  This lady (Stephanie O'Dea) made a resolution to use her crock-pot EVERY DAY for a YEAR.  She started a blog about it called - wait for it- A Year of Slow Cooking (www.crockpot365.blogspot.com).  What came out of it was a book called Make It Fast, Cook It Slow.  I got the book as a Christmas gift but my friend was kind enough to give it to me when it came out in September or October of last year.  Every recipe that I used out of the book was really good.   I'm totally stoked that she is doing a sequel.  Anywho, I took her recipe and jazzed it up a tad.  Here's what I did so that I don't do any sort of copyright infringement or plagiarism nonsense.

12 Golden Delicious apples - peeled, cored and quartered
juice of 3 limes
3/4 cup water
5 tablespoons of brown sugar
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon LorAnn Gourmet cinnamon oil
slow go for 6 hours and then smooshed up

I am a FIRM believer in the Reynold's crock-pot liners.  It makes me very happy to pull the bag out of the crock-pot and have my slow cooker ready for the next bit of yumminess.  8 out of 10 Jenny's jewels - they don't fit my oval cooker as great as they could but they still make me happy.

I was going for a candied apple type of taste which is why I used the cinnamon oil rather than ground cinnamon.  The original encouragement was that my 4 year old son kept asking if it was time for applesauce.  Now?  Applesauce now?  Awww!  It was endearing and annoying at the same time.  Which seems to be the way it often goes with 4 year olds.  And 5 year olds.  And 9 year olds.  Moving on...

With about 2 hours left, my kitchen was filled with the aroma of red hots.  It was amazing.  And my 9 year old was all like, it smells like cinnamon in here and I was all like yes!  And he got kind of a sourpuss face and I was all like W dude - more for me!  You follow?  Anywho, I was kind of bummed to start the taco soup because I just wanted the cinnamoness to be all that was penetrating the furniture and stuff.  Like a Glade candle - only natural and stronger and in flavors I actually want.  The smell made me inexplicably start humming "Little Drummer Boy".  Specifically the version sung by David Bowie and Bing Crosby.  Which makes a total difference when you are humming.  The cinnamon was more reminiscent of winter than fall but I'm still looking forward to it.

I'm writing periodic updates as the applesauce cooks.  That way you are experiencing all of this as I am!  Isn't that fun?  It's like we're hanging out together and stuff!  As of right now, I'm convinced that I'm going to spoon some of it out before I smoosh it.  I'm gonna eat the warm unsmooshed apples over some vanilla bean ice cream.  Mmmmm.

Okay.  I tried it.  I liked it alot.  My kids tried it.  They didn't like it much at all - including the skunk of a 4 year old (skunk is a term of affection around here - really!) who was all begging me for it.  I was a bit heavy handed with the cinnamon oil.  Probably I could have used half that amount.  Also, I did put the hot goodness over some vanilla bean ice cream.  I didn't get to use unsmooshed because those apples were totally sauced by the time I cracked the lid. The ice cream mellowed out the cinnamon really nicely.  And you know what?  I hated that I couldn't say that it was a slam dunk. But that is the perfectionist in me and and it's just as valuable to be honest and to be cool with not always having great successes.  The bottom line is that today yielded me trying something new.  That's the point!  So.  My experience making my own homemade applesauce gets 7 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  Less is more here and tweaking that strong flavor will make this a solid 9 or 10.  Next time I might experiment with adding ginger.  I figure that since I'm likely the only person who will eat this stuff, I get to make it any dang flavor I want.  I'm crazeeeee like that.