Lemonade????

I know when life gives you lemons your suppose to make lemonade. But what about when life gives you apples? Well, if you live at our house you make applesauce.

We have two huge apple trees in our back yard. Monday night's storm split one of the trees. So a rather large branch off the tree fell to the ground. It was covered with apples. They weren't quite ripe enough to eat or to use to make apple jelly. So what do you do with 600 unripe apples?

I decided to make applesauce. That way even though they were still too sour to eat I could add sugar and Cinnamon to sweeten them. 200 peeled apples, 6 cups of sugar, a fourth of a cup Cinnamon, and 3 hours later we had 16 cups of applesauce. It was a HUGE undertaking. Lots of work and a huge mess. I have made apple butter before but not applesauce. It turned out pretty good. It tastes great. Final analysis:

200 apples = free

bag of sugar = $2

Cinnamon = $2

Freezer containers = $5

10 cups of applesauce that I could have bought at the store for $3 = Not worth it!

Time in the Kitchen with my kids = priceless