Yesterday, while my little man was napping, Olga and I got a bunch done in the kitchen. She’s getting to be a great helper, and always wants to be involved in whatever Mama and Daddy are doing. When we’re in the kitchen, she sits up on one of the barstools to reach the counter. We’re making pumpkin pies from scratch for Thanksgiving, so I had Olga scoop out the pumpkin seeds for me while I checked over my ingredients and shopping list.

Then I steamed the pumpkins for ten minutes, let them cool to touch, and scooped out the flesh. I’ll make the pies on Wednesday, so I put the pulp in the fridge (it only lasts a few days in the fridge, so freeze it if you’re steaming your pumpkins farther in advance).

Next we turned about ten pounds of apples into applesauce. I have an apple peeler similar to this model at Lehman’s Hardware (mine is green). In my opinion, it’s absolutely worth the investment. Besides, it’s fun to play with. Olga was begging to use it, so I let her peel and slice the apples. We really love the French Applesauce recipe from Joy of Cooking.

Here it is; double, triple, or quadruple as needed:

3 pounds apples, cored, peeled, sliced (use a variety of apples for the best sauce)
.5 to .75 cup apple juice or cider
1 to 1.5 tablespoons lemon juice (if desired)
1 cinnamon stick
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Cover and simmer until tender and applesauce-like (we like ours chunky), then add:

6 tablespoons honey
.5 to 1 teaspoon ground ginger (optional)
.5 teaspoon ground mace (optional)

Cook another minute or so until the honey has blended in well, then remove from heat and add:

.75 to 1 teaspoon vanilla

[Added 26 November: In order to keep this safely for storage, you’ll need to water bath can the apple sauce. Check your Ball Blue Book for the correct time for your altitude. Also another note, above is the original recipe, written for about 3 pounds of apples. When I made my batch, I started with about 10 pounds of apples, so I tripled the recipe.]

Chunky applesauce like this is great to eat on toast, with pork, on ice cream, with oatmeal, with a little cream… or really, just about anytime. I got eight pints out of this batch. (A safety note: If you’re going to make applesauce to feed to your little babies, make sure you do not use honey–it can contain traces of botulism which babies under one year of age will not tolerate well. Generally, by one year old babies will have enough various “good” digestion helpers in their gut to safely consume honey.)