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Homestyle Cranberry Applesauce

I hope every­one had a won­der­ful New Year, filled with sugar, alco­holic bev­er­ages of your choice (prefer­ably Cup­cake Mas­cato), and some more sugar, fol­lowed up by some ridicu­lously good tast­ing carbs with lots of but­ter. Espe­cially if this was the last night of “bad” eat­ing deci­sions for a few days [Insert winky face here].

Now that the hol­i­days are done with, I came across a box of apples that I wasn’t quite sure what to do with. I bought them back at the end of Novem­ber and com­pletely for­got about them. Oops!

Lucky for me there was only about 3 of them that went bad. That still left me with about 20! Apple pie sea­son is over, so I did what any self respect­ing, good new years res­o­lu­tion fol­low­ing per­son would do. I made some apple­sauce sans the sugar.

So far one of my favorite things about becom­ing a blog­ger is that I get to eat apple­sauce out of a mar­tini glass. I’ve never felt so fancy. In fact, while eat­ing this scrump­tious treat, I couldn’t help but to sing “You fancy huh”. Then I had to look this song up because I find myself singing it more and more and I have no idea where it came from.

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For every­one that made a new years res­o­lu­tion to eat bet­ter, I have decided to share a healthy and deli­cious recipe for apple­sauce. Apple­sauce is one of the eas­i­est things to make. The hard­est part about it is the peel­ing and dic­ing the apples. I had 10 pounds of apples to peel and chop. For­tu­nately, I had a handy dandy hus­band lying around. I rec­om­mend every­one get one!

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At the end of all that chop­ping, I had a lit­tle more than 6 pounds of apples! Sure, I could have made a pie. My hus­band (and his cowork­ers) would prob­a­bly  have pre­ferred it. This is my attempt at mak­ing some healthy eat­ing choices now that the hol­i­days are over. Sorry guys!20130105-020355.jpg

Now for the con­fus­ing part. For the recipe I used 3 pounds of apples. I added the water, lemon juice, sugar, and spices at the begin­ning. Some rec­om­mend adding the sugar and spices at the end, because sugar is eas­ily burned. I had no prob­lem doing it at the begin­ning, but I’ll leave that choice up to you. Because I did add it at the begin­ning, I did an awful lot of stir­ring and stay­ing close to the pot. If you have chil­dren or other things going on while you are mak­ing this, for your san­ity I’d save adding the sugar until the apples are fully cooked down.

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For the sweet­ener, I used 2 cups of Pure Via, but you can use any type of sugar sub­sti­tute. I would start off with adding only 1 cup of your sugar/sweetener until you get the sweet­ness that you pre­fer. I found that Pure Via wasn’t quite as sweet, there­fore I used more. If you are using reg­u­lar sugar I’d only use a half cup and then add more from there.  It’s all up to pref­er­ence. I did make a batch with reg­u­lar sugar. I only used ¾ cup of sugar for 3lbs of apples.

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I decided to make both cran­berry apple­sauce and a reg­u­lar cin­na­mon apple­sauce. Instead of adding the cran­ber­ries to the apples at the begin­ning, I cooked them down sep­a­rately and then added them to the plain later. If you were want­ing to make only a cran­berry apple­sauce feel free to add those in with the apples in the sec­ond step, instead of cook­ing them separately.

20130105-020149.jpg Cran­berry Applesauce

Yields: 3 — 16oz mason jars

Ingre­di­ents

Vol­ume
apples, cored and chopped 3 lbs
water 2 cups
lemon juice 3 tbsp
Pure Via or other sugar substitute 1–2 cups
cin­na­mon 1 tbsp
cran­ber­ries, optional 1 cup

Instruc­tions

  1. Peel and dice the apples into ½” pieces and place in a pot.
  2. Pour water and lemon juice into pot with the apples.
  3. In a sep­a­rate pan cook down the cran­ber­ries, add a 2 tbsp of water in with it.
  4. In the larger pot stir in your sugar and cinnamon.
  5. Once the apples and cran­ber­ries are cooked down, you may mix them together.
  6. Cool and serve.

 

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Comments (10)

  1. That looks good and it’s so pretty canned that way! I’ll have to remem­ber that the next time I make applesauce.

    - Jamie at Prepared to Eat

  2. YUMMY!

    - Diana Rambles

  3. I have a baby food maker that makes apple­sauce mak­ing real easy on a small scale — I’ll have to try it with cranberries!

    - Saph@frugalwifeblog

  4. Lovely recipe. I always loved home­made canned goods:)

    Hop­ping by and fol­low­ing your lovely blog’s FB and Pin­ter­est. I blog @ Get­ting Healthy with Essen­tial Oils

    I am also invit­ing you to join Tid­dle Did­dle Hand­made Shoppe’s first give­away event.

    - The Quiet Mom

  5. Sounds great! I would love if you would share on Inspired Weekends!

    http://redcrowgreencrow.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/inspired-weekends-2/

    Katie @ Hor­rific Knits

    - Katie

  6. Hi Danielle, I’m so glad the apples were still good because we all would have missed out on this deli­cious recipe. Peel­ing all the apples is not as much fun as pick­ing them and then mak­ing the cran­berry applesauce :).

    Thanks so much for shar­ing this on Foodie Friends Friday

    Joanne/Winelady Cooks

    - Winelady Cooks

  7. I am sure book­mark­ing this awe­some Cran­berry Apple­sauce recipe,it will be added to my can­ning list in 2013! Thank you so much for cel­e­brat­ing TWO YEARS with FULL PLATE THURSDAY, I appre­ci­ate your visit!
    Come Back Soon
    Miz Helen

    - Miz Helen

  8. Trackback: http://www.foodiefriendsfriday.com/2013/01/foodie-friends-friday-january-10th.html « CJ'S Loving Food Tour

  9. I never have thought of putting cran­ber­ries in my apple­sauce… I am also lazy when I make mine and don’t peel the apples… If there seems to be too much peels then I just through every­thing in the blender and blend it up.. Much eas­ier that way. Thanks for shar­ing on Foodie Friends friday

    - Marlys @Thisand That

  10. You are so funny. This looks great– and so much bet­ter for you when you know what’s going in it! Thanks for shar­ing at Pin It Thurs­day, I fea­tured you here http://www.sweetbellaroos.com/2013/01/17/pin-it-thursday-18/

    - Emily @ Sweet Bella Roos

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