This morning, I tried a second time to make protein powder pancakes. This time, they were neither oozy nor gooey, and not so hard that you could sit on one without squishing it. But they were still very tough and hard to swallow.

Irritated and upset, I needed to cook something that would taste good. There was a bag of bruised and overripe apples on the table, and with a cheerier disposition (apparently, rotten fruit makes my day), I started making applesauce.

You’ll need:

  • 6-7 big apples, all of the same or mix & matched (a little overripe/bruised is ok, maybe even better!)
  • 2 cups water
  • honey or brown sugar (let’s say 1/3 – 1 cup)
  • cinnamon (1 stick, or 1 tbsp ground)
  • nutmeg (1/4 tsp freshly ground, or 2 tsp ground)
  • cloves (6-10 whole, or 1 tsp ground)
  • optionally: rum or brandy
  • optionally: raisins

Peel and chop apples into little pieces. Cooking tip of the day #1: An easy way to remove the core is to quarter your apples, then cut the quarters in half. The little triangle of core is easy to cut out.

 

 

Place the apple bits in a medium-large

saucepan with about 2 cups of water, and

cook on high heat, stirring frequently.

When the mixture starts bubbling, bring

down to a simmer. The

water will thicken, and the apples will get mushy.

Eventually, your apples will look like this:

When they do, turn off the heat and let them cool for 5 minutes before transferring to a blender. Blend only for 10-15 seconds. If you like your applesauce on the chunky side, only blend half of the apples.

 

Return blended apples to the saucepan, add about 2 tbsp rum or brandy, the spices, and honey or sugar (start with just a little, and taste as you go). The rum/brandy is optional, but it improves the taste, and all the alcohol gets cooked away anyway. Any kind of mulling spice goes nicely in applesauce.


Simmer for 5-10 minutes, and eat hot or cold! It smelled so good, that Sebastian, Fabian and I decided to have a hot applesauce degustation. The boys were very engrossed in some stupid video game they were playing, but I did get a positive review from Fabian without having to fish for it (as opposed to certain boyfriends, who just keep shooting imaginary foes instead of joining the real world).

 

Tasty variant: add raisins to the applesauce after you cook it (raisins get bitter when boiled in the sauce). Though this sauce tastes great on its own, it also goes very well with yogurt, pork chops, latkes and ice-cream.

That’s it for now! Happy daylight savings day! Enjoy the extra hour.

Love,

– Viola –