no recipe necessary

Red apple, originally uploaded by venkane.

As I was making broccoli soup (CatGirl's fav) for dinner tonite, I noticed a few tired apples in the produce basket. I decided I should whip up something to use them up, but what to do?...

I ended up peeling and slicing/dicing them and put them in a saucepan to simmer, just to see what would happen. Would they soften? They were mostly fuji and gala apples--not exactly typical cooking apples. I added a dollop of unsalted butter, thinking that that might help them not to burn to my fav little flame-colored le creuset saucepan...

Then I added a shake of cinnamon so they would smell good as they cooked even if they didn't turn into anything edible. Oh, and just a small squirt (like a tsp) of agave nectar for sweetening. And put the lid on.

As I cooked the soup I stirred it occasionally and noticed some softening of apples.

By the time the soup was done, the applestuff was a bit mushy. A quick zip with the immersion blender finished the job. Voila--the easiest-ever homemade applesauce! I served it in petite bowls with chopped locally-grown walnuts (hand-shelled by my brilliant bambinos) sprinkled on top. So sweet and tasty!

Next time I might add just a few drops of lemon juice to prevent browning. But this batch was eaten so quickly that it didn't even have time to turn, so maybe that's not even necessary....
:)