What does applesauce mean in slang?u003cbr/u003e

Well, here's something fun that I came across in doing a little bit of research for this post. In the 1920s, u0022applesauceu0022 or u0022apple sauceu0022 meant nonsense, balderdash, bunk, or piffle.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe more you know.u003cbr/u003e

Easy Homemade Applesauce Recipe

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Our family has been making this easy homemade applesauce recipe for two generations. It’s delicately flavored and deeply colored, and it’s just so much better than applesauce from a jar. It’s a great addition to the holiday table and also freezes beautifully to serve anytime.

Why we love this recipe
What you’ll need
How to make applesauce from scratch
Expert tips and FAQs
How to serve it
The original text of this post
Easy Homemade Applesauce Recipe Recipe

Why we love this recipe

This very recipe was among my first solid foods and among the first foods I fed my own children. If that’s not a ringing endorsement, I don’t know what is.

These days, there’s often a batch in the freezer, and we reach for it frequently: For holidays, when we’re not feeling well, when braces get tightened, and a few times a year just because someone can’t live without it. We still call it Grandma’s applesauce.

Our homemade applesauce:

Couldn’t be easier to make.
Is super-versatile. It makes a great breakfast // snack // holiday or everyday side dish // or dessert.
Comes together with just four inexpensive, readily available ingredients.
Makes a big batch that freezes like a charm.
Can easily be adjusted to suit your tastes and nutritional preferences (though we think it’s perfect just the way it is).

What you’ll need

Here’s a glance at the ingredients you’ll need to make applesauce.

McIntosh apples are widely available, usually inexpensive, and well-behaved. Their flesh easily cooks down for sauce, and the skins, when strained out, leave behind a gorgeous ruby color.
I like to include the sugar and cinnamon as written, but if you like, you can: Reduce the amount of sugar, use another sweetener of choice, or leave it out entirely. When making baby food, we don’t include these ingredients.

How to make applesauce from scratch

Here’s what you’ll do make this easy applesauce recipe. You can see all the steps in action in the video that accompanies this post, and get the details in the recipe card below.

cutting apples, reducing the sauce, milling, and stirring

Wash the apples well. Quarter them and slice out the cores. (I was slightly preoccupied when making the video and forgot to core the apples. Things turned out fine that way too, but I do prefer to core them.)
Place quartered apples in a large pot — you’ll need one that can hold at least eight quarts — and add the water and a pinch of salt. Bring the water to a boil, then reduce the heat, cover, and simmer. Stir every once in a while, and keep cooking until the apples yield their shapes easily when stirred. This usually takes about 20 minutes.
Set a food mill over a very large bowl. If your mill has multiple discs, the middle one (with small but not absurdly tiny holes) is a good choice. Ladle the apples into the top of the mill a little at a time and churn until all the puree is in the bowl and only the skins remain in the mill.
While the applesauce is still warm, stir in the sugar and cinnamon and mix very well. That’s it!

Expert tips and FAQs

What kind of apples are best for homemade applesauce?

You’ll want to use a variety that cooks down easily. We’ve always used McIntosh, which work beautifully, are inexpensive and easily available, and have skins that lend a gorgeous color to the sauce.

McIntosh have many cousins, including fameuse, cortland, liberty, lobo, spartan, and sunrise.

How long does homemade applesauce last?

This recipe will keep for a week or more when tightly sealed in a cold fridge. But the real genius lies freezing it. We ladle it into lidded pint containers (usually the ones leftover from takeout) and keep it frozen for up to a year. Defrost in the fridge or on the counter.

What does applesauce mean in slang?

Well, here’s something fun that I came across in doing a little bit of research for this post. In the 1920s, “applesauce” or “apple sauce” meant nonsense, balderdash, bunk, or piffle.

The more you know.

How to serve it

Applesauce is absurdly versatile, so really the sky’s the limit. It’s baby food. It’s a snack. It’s a side dish. It’s dessert. Here are a few of our favorite ways to serve it:

As part of Thanksgiving
With pork chops
With latkes
As the secret ingredient in BBQ pulled chicken (shhh)
With yogurt and muesli for breakfast
If you’re feeling next-level, try my friend Aimee’s dessert suggestion and serve it warm with meringue on top.

The original text of this post

Homemade applesauce for a happy, mildly chaotic home

This applesauce has a lot to do with why I’m here. I mean that literally. And I mean it on as many levels as a person could possibly articulate while greedily spooning bite after bite of applesauce into her mouth, all the while fending off cries for More Applesauce from two small children. It’s a good thing this isn’t a video, I’ll tell you that much.

Although come to think of it, a live feed of my usually happy, always mildly chaotic home would be a fitting testament to this food. It’s the stuff that homes are built on. I mean that literally, too.

“You can taste the love in it”

As a kid I never gave much thought to what makes a happy home—I just knew I had one and threw all my energies toward taking it for granted. That’s the business of the luckiest kids, isn’t it? But even I couldn’t have missed the central role of earnest, thoughtfully prepared food in our grand scheme. We’re real “you can taste the love in it” people. (Also people of normal weight, I might add.)

Mom’s applesauce was our introduction to a life of being fed—and now feeding ourselves and our children—to nourish. To turn little hands into big, giving hands, and little minds into big, generous minds. It isn’t that those little hands never stole a piece of gum from a perfectly innocent store (though you didn’t hear it from me), or that those minds never butt against each other with a certain ferocity. They do. It’s the understanding that a good home—a good family—simmers slowly, tastes often, and corrects the seasoning when necessary.

Grandma’s homemade applesauce for 40 years

Today we are celebrating my parents’ fortieth wedding anniversary. Forty years! That’s a whole lot of simmering.

Every day I learn a little more about how much work goes into that kind of an undertaking, and more importantly, just what kind of work it takes. The work—and the joy—is in the tiniest gestures. Letting the engineer load the dishwasher and the unsung hero have the final word on Christmas tree decoration, even if your 60-year-old paper chain consistently ends up in the back. Building an appreciation for vegetables floret by lovingly sautéed floret, and computer literacy photo by meticulously scanned photo. Occasionally counting to three before you speak.

And when, once in a while, all hell inevitably breaks loose, changing these most-ingrained patterns with unwavering grace and strength. Knowing that in a good home, like a good house, patterns are just the decoration. If you have to tear them out, the foundation will still be there.

Gifts best paid forward

Dad, I’ve learned an awful lot from the way you load the dishwasher. We all have. I’m still working on it, and sometimes I still rely on you to do it for me. Mom, that’s one heck of a good applesauce. It’s Grandma’s Applesauce when I make it, too—and no one would stand for it any other way. Those aren’t the kinds of gifts a person could hope to pay back, especially when that person is a bit over-endowed in the forward momentum department. They’re gifts that are best paid forward—in time spent, attention given, and mouths fed with pints of frozen applesauce.

Thanks, Mom and Dad. Happy anniversary. To you two, and to all of us.

easy homemade applesauce recipe in a white bowl

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