Applesauce

Applesauce in a house with a 3 year old is like a staple food. If you don't have applesauce on hand you might as well be prepped for a melt down. Because when a strong willed preschooler is asking for applesauce that means he wants applesauce and he wants it NOW.
Of course this happened to me the other day. For some reason when I went to the grocery store I walked right by the applesauce. Even though Zack saw it and was asking for it I was convinced we had some at home. So like any good mother would say to calm a tantrum "Zack mama has applesauce at home, I promise you will get some as soon as we get back." This calmed Zack and he then focused his energy on his brothers giraffe while Eli slept in my Boba. Anyway we get home I put all the groceries away, change Elis diaper, make Zack go pee pee, feed Eli, and finally put him down for a nap. I remember I made a promise to Zack to give him applesauce for snack time so since it was almost 3pm I figured I would get it for him. Well I open the cabinet it's not there, of course! Steven must have put it in the fridge like he usually does....nope not there either. Oh geez....I quickly squat down hoping he hasn't seen me rummaging through the kitchen. I can still hear his leap pad playing in the living room. Slowly I creep to gate hoping to sneak out and pretend I never made such a promise and just have Steven pick it up on his way home. I slowly lift my head to check around the corner and look who is standing right there in front of me with a very confused look on his face. I swear he was thinking "she has really gone crazy this time. I have finally made her go crazy." I smile awkwardly into that face and say "Hi Zack...peekaboo!" He gets a big smile on his face and I swear he knows just by the menacing look in his eye he says

"Mama, I want applesauce. You promise."

Okay now to start thinking in stealth mode here. I remember for a moment that we have apples. "Hey Zack you want an apple?"

"No Mama I want applesauce. You promise"

There has to be something...anything "Hey Zack you want yogurt?" (It's worth a shot right)

"No mama! I WANT APPLESAUCE! PROMISE!"

Think think think Lina.....Think! LIGHT BULB! I bought a bag of apples today. I will make him some homemade applesauce.

And I did. Here is the recipe below it came out super good and made a lot! I think we are going to just make big batches from now on.

Ingredients:

• 3 to 4 lbs of peeled, cored, and quartered apples. (Make sure you use a good cooking apple like Golden Delicious, Jonagold, Granny Smith, Fuji, Jonathan, Mcintosh, or Gravenstein.)
• 4 strips of lemon peel - use a vegetable peeler to strip 4 lengths
• Juice of one lemon, about 3-4 Tbsp
• 3 inches of cinnamon stick
• 1/4 cup of dark brown sugar
• up to 1/4 cup of white sugar
• 1 cup of water
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt

 Directions:

1 Put all ingredients into a large pot. Cover. Bring to boil. Lower heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes.

2 Remove from heat. Remove cinnamon sticks and lemon peels. Mash with potato masher.

You can serve it either hot or cold. It tastes awesome over ice cream! Almost like an apple pie. Not to mention your house will smell great all day. 

You can also freeze it for up to a year. Sounds perfect to me!

The original recipe was found at...
http://simplyrecipes.com
I made the applesauce word for word from the site.