Our perfect climbing tree/apple tree has been crazy this year in how many apples we've had. The kids go out to clean them all up from the lawn and earn a few dollars each (at 2 cents an apple, that's hundreds of apples!) and it's not long before it's time to clean them all up again and again and again! The last few days I've gathered the best and picked a bunch too (even many without worms, hooray!) and made a few giant pots full of applesauce to put in the freezer (round 2 and 3). Owen is my helper to drop all the pieces into the pot, and he is a great helper! We've made a few batches of yummy apple oatmeal muffins. And worked through our smoothie apple stash. And this afternoon Owen and Porter and I worked together and put in trays full of apple slices for some more apple chips (round 3). I certainly could have done a better job at using all these apples, but I'm happy to be doing something with at least a few (hundred) of them!
**Did you know that applesauce is so easy to make? I just chopped the sides off around the core (and tossed any bad parts), and dropped them into our biggest pot with a little bit of water. Then stir every once in a while for maybe 40 minutes or so? I'd pull out some of the peels as I stirred, but most stayed on and I used the immersion blender to smooth it all out when they were mostly all heated to mushy-ness. Easy peasy! (Except, my arms were sore from stirring so many all at once!)
