Apple Sauce

12-15 apples

3/4 cup water

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 1/2 tea cinnamon

1/2 tea ginger

1/4 tea nutmeg

1/4 tea cloves

2-3 "swirls" of lemon juice

Peel, core and roughly cut up apples. Place apples and remaining ingredients in your pressure cooker and high pressure cook for 5 minutes with a quick release. Mash applesauce to desired consistency. 

So I know apples and applesauce generally conjure up nostalgic memories of fall. But here in our house, it graces the table almost daily. This recipe, minus most of the brown sugar, was one of the first solid foods we gave to my daughter and she still eats it religiously. I usually just buy the flat of apples that is on sale at Costco and use up the whole thing. And 5 minutes guys. Five. (Plus a little time for the pot to come to pressure.) I once timed the process from start to finish and it took less than 30 minutes. That's it! So worth it. I used to use the immersion blender to make this completely smooth when my daughter first started eating, but I prefer the apple sauce chunky so now I just use a potato masher. This recipe makes two of the pint sized canning jars plus a little extra to put in a storage container. I usually throw one of the jars in the freezer and it freezes just fine. If you are really ambitious, you could double the recipe, throw these in the hot water canning bath and store them on the shelf for up to a year. (I used to do this, but found I was going through them so fast that it wasn't worth the time it took to can them.) Feel free to change up the ingredients a bit too. Add a couple of pears. More or less spices. Too thick? Add more water. I do use the full 1/2 cup brown sugar now, but as I mentioned above you can use less. (Or more!) And there you have it! No need to buy the jars of applesauce any more. And the squeeze pouches for your kiddos? Nope. Just buy the reusable ones and fill it with the homemade stuff!