Now that the season of the zucchini is winding down, I’m slowly turning my attention to using those 120+ bags of apples I picked in September. (OK, so I gave most of them away; we only have about 20 bags left, not counting the 20 or so that are still on the trees. But I digress.) While hunting around the internets for an apple-heavy recipe this afternoon, I stumbled upon a super-yummy strawberry applesauce recipe from www.recipezaar.com:

Applesauce With Strawberries

Ingredients

3 lbs macintosh apples or apples (about 9 apples)
10 large frozen strawberries
1/3 cup sugar
1 lemon, juice of
1/4 cup water
1/8 teaspoon allspice

Directions

Peel, core and slice apples 1/4-inch thick. Place apple slices in a large saucepan. Add remaining ingredients and simmer until a sauce consistency, about 45 minutes. Use a potato masher, if necessary, to break up any lumps, but leave slightly chunky.

I more or less stuck to the recipe (I have a difficult time following directions - canyatell?); it’s both easy and insanely delicious. The sauce comes out on the sweet side, so if you prefer your applesauce tasting more like apples and less like candy, you may want to go a little easy on the sugar. If you love strawberries like moi, throw in a few extra berries. Don’t worry, I won’t tell.

This snack is best served warm, but I’m sure it’s quite good cold or at room temp, too.

I actually made two batches this afternoon; the first one went into my brand-spanking new Nesco Gardenmaster food dehydrator. The machine came with four trays and one fruit leather insert tray; this is my first time trying the fruit leather option out, and if I likey, I’ll probably buy a few extra fruit leather insert trays so I can make several strips at once. Anywho, the recipe above filled one tray - with a little bowl of applesauce left over, to fill my rumbling belly.

It’ll be done in six to eight hours, so I’ll post an update when it’s done drying. I don’t see how it could possibly be anything less than concentrated sticky sweet yumminess, though.

(Crossposted to.)

————————

Tagged: veganmofo vegan veganism vegetarian vegetarianism blog swarm october food carnival recipe applesauce strawberry apple sugar allspice lemon juice dehydrator nesco gardenmaster fruit fruit leather fruit rollup flickr photos