As Tim is preforming magic in the kitchen, whipping up blueberry pancake deliciousness, here is my first – and potentially last – recipe post.  I say last because, just in case you don’t remember, if you’re ever selected to be in some kind of cooking competition (or bowling for that matter), do not pick me.

This is why:

The baking experience (aka: cake disaster)

Puppy chow.  Or: something not to write down as a “snack” idea

cornish hens…are not my speciality

And about a million other reasons.  Like the time I managed to create chocolate milk instead of instant  pudding.

*however*

Part of my 2011 goal is to become a better Little Miss Suzie Homemaker in the kitchen (Why? I don’t know why.  Something inside just says to me: DO. IT. ….NOW. And I don’t typically make it a habit to argue with those kinds of faceless voices)

Anyhow, during my first trek to the new grocery store in our new quaint, old town, I see this big bushel of apples and I’m all, “Applesauce!”  So I came home, looked up about a million “homemade applesauce” recipes and then, because I never follow directions, made up my own version by combining three different recipes.

And instead of a disaster?

MOUTH. GASM.

So, here it is kids.  My first masterpiece.

Plus directions.

And pictures.

What I used or did are in parenthesis…just so you can see how it *actually* happened versus the directives.  I see directives as something to be followed loosely and with much reinterpretation.

INGREDIENTS & “APPROXIMATE” AMOUNTS

8 medium apples (supposed to be tart – I used fuji)

1/2 cup apple juice (supposed to be water…)

slightly less than 1/2 cup brown sugar (some recipes called for sugar…some didn’t)

dashish vanilla (I think the actual recipe was like a teaspoon?)

multiple sprinkles cinnamon (again, a teaspoon or a teaspoon in a half…no idea, really, just kept sprinkling until I liked the flavor…)

dashish apple pie spice (maybe a teaspoon?)

(Obviously, in addition to not following directions, I tend not to measure. This is why baking usually turns into a chemistry experiment and is also probably the reason I will never be able to make this applesauce successfully – ever again)

And you’ll throw all of the above into a crock pot for hours(and hours and hours…turned off the crockpot overnight and then back on again in the morning for about an hour or so), as noted below.

THE CREATION PROCESS

Step 1: Peel all of the apples.  Curse every time part of the peel gets stuck in the peeler because this means you have to stop to clean out the peeler, which further delays the dreadful peeling process.

Step 2: Core the apples and try not to slice off your finger in the process.

Step 2.5: Slice coreless apples into sections (so they look like orange segments…only…they’re apple pieces) and then chop all of the apple sections on a big cutting board until they’re cube-like.  *note* not all of the apples need to look this way.  Just enough so it looks like they’re all cubed and happy.

Step 2.8: Make sure no stray seeds or crunchy seed pocket pieces are in your apple sections.  Toss those along with the cores.  Neither make for a very enjoyable applesauce experience.

Step 3: Dump all ingredients into a crockpot (order doesn’t matter…but I did apples, the juice and then the cinnamon.  About 30 minutes later, the apple pie speice.  Then, probably two hours after that I was all, “I forgot the vanilla!”)

Step 3.2: Put the crockpot on the “six hour” option (even though, really, everything sat in that pot for more like 18 hours after all said and done)

Step 4: Allow ingredients to simmer in crockpot, then open lid, taste apples

Step 5: Simmer in crockpot, open lid, taste apples, mash randomally with old potato masher to see if the apple pieces get any mushier (they didn’t)

Step 6, 7, 8, 9, 10: Simmer in crockpot, open lid, taste apples

Step 11: Let the entire hodgepodge sit overnight in the crockpot

Step 11.5: Unplug the crockpot so as not to accidentally start some kind of fire

Step 12: Reheat hodgepodge in the morning for a few hours in the crockpot

(basically, you’re going for softish apples but not mushy apples)

Step 13: Blend apples in a blender

Step 14: Pour into a bowl, eat and enjoy

I fear I’ll be making this applesauce for the rest of my life, it is just THAT. DELICIOUS.

If you don’t like applesauce, you’ll like mine.  Bonus: I’ll even come and make it for you, since I don’t think it would travel well.

You just have to do step 1.