As I mentioned last night, yesterday Shane and I spent the day outside, disassembling a fairly large planter. No complaints here, though; it was a gorgeous day, and I’d much rather spend a sunny day doing manual labor outside than be cooped up in the house, plugging away on office work or somesuch.

And can I just say that Midwestern autumns are effin’ gorgeous?

Even though it’s starting to get a bit colder at night, the garden’s holding up fairly well. Yesterday’s haul, while significantly smaller than those in September, was still decent: a watermelon, a few zucchinis, a small bowl of tomatoes and five peppers. Not bad, eh? There’s still a motherload of gourds out there, too, I just haven’t picked ‘em yet since we have no clue what to do with ‘em all. *shrug*

After spending the day outside with us, the dogs were delightfully exhausted, too:

Oh, how I love a sleepy doggeh!

Anyway, on to today’s recipe, for Pumpkin Applesauce. I made this one up myself, and it’s quite yummy, if I do say so myself. (And I do!) If it seems like a ridiculously large serving size, that’s because it is - and it all went into my food dehydrator last night to make fruit leather. Which was also delish, I might add. But if you’re making this to eat, I’d recommend cutting it by a third or more. You can also make the full recipe and can it, or use it for baking, for example, in bread recipes. Hopefully sometime this weekend I’ll get around to using the Pumpkin Applesauce to make these Pumpkin-Applesauce Squares.

Pumpkin Applesauce

Ingredients

4-6 cups of water
30 apples, peeled, cored and sliced
3 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice

Directions

1. Peel, core and slice your apples and toss them in a large pot.

2. Add enough water to fill the bottom of your pot and coat the bottom layer of apples. Add lemon juice and bring to a boil.

3. Set to simmer and stir in the sugar and spice to taste. If you’re going to dehydrate the finished batch of applesauce into fruit leather, err on the side of blandness when seasoning: once the applesauce is dried, the spices become concentrated.

Note: If you don’t have any pumpkin pie spice on hand, make your own by combining cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and allspice.

4. Simmer until the apples are adequately mushy and the water, dissolved. If necessary, use a masher to achieve maximum mushiness. If you’re going to make this batch into fruit leather, let it thicken up a bit before using.

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