Apples, Apples, and MORE APPLES!

We are drowning in apples right now! I have made apple sauce and apple butter so far (both clean-recipes below AJ's pictures). My little boy LOVES the apple butter!

Clean Applesauce:

Apple sauce is clean so long as you don't add sugar. You can make it and jar it, but here is my applesauce for a meal recipe:

Ingredients:

• Apples (SWEET ONLY like Gala, Yellow and Red Delicious. A mix is best)
• Cinnamon

Directions:

• Wash, Peel, Core, and Chop all of your apples. I peel them and use a corer from Williams and Sonoma that makes it easy.
• Cook the apples using 1 inch of water. I boiled them for 5 minutes, simmered for another 10.
• Drain the water to your consistency of choice. I like my applesauce just a little watery, so I drained only a little. SAVE THE JUICE--IT'S HOMEMADE APPLE JUICE!
• Mush using just a spoon--there is equipment, but I found I could mush it nicely with just a spoon.
• Enjoy!

Outcome: It was a HIT!

Clean Apple Butter:

I will say that John is a HUGE apple butter fan. Given that it is really high in sugar, it's important to eat this type of food as clean as possible. I gave it a try and John said it was BETTER then he has ever had!

Ingredients:

• 12 apples (again a mix)
• 2 cups of apple juice (I used the apple juice I made from apple sauce--then it's really clean!)
• 30g molasses
• 90g agave
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon of allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon of cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt

Directions:

• Cut and Core your apples. No need to peel. Place in your crock pot.
• Add your juice.
• Add molasses and agave.
• Add spices.
• Mix up everything nicely. Turn crock pot on to HIGH. Stir occasionally (don't have to, but I did).
• After a few hours, the water will be boiling (mine boiled in two). When it's boiling, turn to low.
• Cook for 12-14 hours or so. I put everything together at like 6pm while I was making dinner. Then before bed I put it to low and by 10 the next day it was ready to go.
• Mix it up a lot. Jar and store the butter.

Outcome: John and AJ both loved it (see AJ's face above!). Next time, though, I will peel it. We all weren't too fond of the peels in it--even if it broke up a bit. I don't know if that will hurt the consistency, so if you do it...test it out first!